Hello everyone, and welcome to the week! It’s time once again for our look back at the noteworthy updates of the last seven days. So much free to play this week, friends. That’s how it goes some weeks, and especially this week as I haven’t had as much time as usual to dig for more obscure picks. I don’t think you’ll be unhappy with the selections, but if you are there’s not a whole lot that can be done about it. Dishonor on me, dishonor on my cow. Of course, you can keep an eye out for updates yourself using AppShopper or by participating in the TouchArcade forums. This weekly summary is just here to fill you in on the things you might have missed. Let’s go for it!
Auro: Monster Bumping, $1.99 Okay, I’ll admit that this update is from just a little over a week ago. What can I say? I wasn’t ever expecting Auro on iOS to get an update. And for more than five years, that expectation was correct. But here we are now in the tail-end of 2020 and things are finally starting to look up. Auro getting updated and promising more additions in the future is a very tiny part of that upturn, but a welcome part nonetheless. The game has basically been rewritten from scratch based on the PC re-design that hit in 2016, so there’s plenty of new things to enjoy. The biggest thing is just knowing that this fantastic little strategy game will live to see another day.
Jetpack Joyride, Free The updates for this game are flying fast and frequently recently. Here’s another returning event, the Bling It On event. If you don’t remember that one, it’s the one where you collect Gold Bars to unlock fancy luxury items. Painting a target on yourself for when the revolution comes, no doubt. Hoard those Gold Bars and you might be able to get yourself the height of the upper crust, the Golden Tophat. But what good are the threads if you don’t have the ride? Try to get yourself the Golden S.A.M. while you’re at it, but work quickly as this is a limited event.
PicoPico - 8bit Retro Games, Free I know what some of you are thinking: what the heck is PicoPico? It’s an officially licensed app that you can subscribe to and play a catalogue of 8-bit NES/Famicom games. Five bucks a month. Not the finest of hits, but hey, the thought is appreciated. And the catalog will certainly grow over time, as we can see with this latest update. It adds Athena/SETA’s Castle of Dragon/Dragon Unit and Family Quiz, Data East’s Dark Lord, Masaya’s Double Moon Densetsu, and Bandai Namco’s Tower of Druaga. There are other adjustments and bug fixes in this update, but the new game drop is clearly the biggest thing here. Watch out NES Switch Online, you’ve got some competition.
Subway Surfers, Free Halloween is over, and things are getting back to normal in the world of Subway Surfers after a few really unusual events. The kids are heading to Seattle this time, where they can meet a new friend: Andy. He seems like a bit of a tech hipster, even carrying his open laptop with him. Run through the streets and forests, grabbing robots to unlock cool prizes. The new board this time around is the Pixel Heart board, and yeah, it looks nifty. Not sure what’s so Seattle about it, as I feel like a lot of the big game companies have moved away from the city, but whatever. It’s neat.
Disney Heroes: Battle Mode, Free Okay look, I’m going to get ahead of this right away. There are two Disney games in the feature this week, and I try to avoid doing that where I can. But I couldn’t choose between these two, as both updates are interesting in their own ways. Anyway, I guess I’d best get to it. If you don’t catch the following reference, I apologize for being old. Ahem. To introduce the new heroes, that’s what I’m here to do, so it really makes me happy to introduce to you: Dr. Bunsen Honeydew and Beaker from the Muppet Show! Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay! *flaps arms in the air*
Toy Blast, Free Been a bit since I included one of the Blast games, I think. Well, we need our obligatory free-to-play matching puzzle game update for the week, so this will serve the job. There are 50 new levels as usual, with the narrative explanation for it being that Mister and Rhino are making some graffiti art down at the old tracks. Well, sure. I kind of wish this stuff did show up in the game, but I suppose it’s at least a bit of fun for the person writing the update notes for the app.
Hearthstone, Free Here’s the big one. Tomorrow sees the release of Madness at the Darkmoon Faire, the latest expansion for Hearthstone. There are 135 new cards to collect and make use of, along with the addition of the Corrupt keyword. There’s a whole lot more to discover, and I’m sure many of you will enjoy digging into it all. Many of the progression systems have been updated, improving the interface and making things a lot smoother. Also kicking off tomorrow is the first season of Duels, giving you new cards, powers, and treasures to earn. Here’s hoping this new content can give the game a good shot in the arm, because it’s starting to feel a bit long in the tooth of late.
Disney Magic Kingdoms, Free Just in case you forgot that Disney owns Lucasfilm, this update will give you a strong reminder. The latest version brings content from The Mandalorian to the Magic Kingdom, and that means a whole lot of familiar faces will be out and about. The Mandalorian, The Child, Cara Dune, Greef Karga, Kuiil, and Gingko Biloba are all here, and only one of those names is fake! This is just weird enough of a mash-up for me to throw the suspiciously familiar but not quite right UMMSWotW award at it in hopes that its brilliant light does not render me numb. This is… the way? Did I make the cool reference properly?
Exit the Gungeon, Let’s take a little peek into the Apple Arcade hallways for this next one, friends. Exit the Gungeon is a curious little spin-off of Enter the Gungeon, and while I would prefer to have the latter on my iPhone I certainly don’t mind the former. This big update adds a couple of major things to the game. Arsenal Mode is a new mode that makes weapons available as loot or as purchases in shops. These weapons are added to your inventory alongside the Blessed Gun, adding a little touch of the original game’s weapon management to the proceedings. There are also new Shop Hubs, giving you more options to stock up when you need it. Besides those two things, there’s also a new boss, a new NPC and mini-game, and some new guns and items. Oh, and you can apparently pet the dog now. This is without question the winner of the coveted, completely genuine UMMSotW award for this week.
Brawlhalla, Free We’ll check in on Brawlhalla to cap things off this week, as it had a fantastic anniversary update that has kicked off a new event. There’s a new skin for Bodvar, a new podium, new colors, and even more goodies that I’ll let you look at on your own. A new feature arrives in the form of Title Rewards, giving you adjustable titles for accomplishing certain tasks. There’s plenty to see here, so do pop in and see all the celebrations going on.
That about wraps it up for last week’s significant updates. I’m sure I’ve missed some, though, so please feel free to comment below and let everyone know if you think something should be mentioned. As usual, major updates will likely get their own news stories throughout this week, and I’ll be back next Monday to summarize and fill in the blanks. Have a great week!
