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. It’s a whole lot of free-to-play stuff this time around, with a few Apple Arcade games and one paid game to round things out. That’s just how some weeks are, I suppose. I’ll do my best to make it exciting. I’ll probably fail, but this too is part of the journey. Of course, you can keep an eye out for updates yourself 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!
Simon's Cat - Story Time, Phew, yeah. This isn’t going to be an easy one today. Simon’s Cat – Story Time is a fun enough game, but this update is fairly meat and potatoes as this kind of thing goes. There are some new trophies you can earn by completing goals in The Cat Den. That’s the most interesting bit. Beyond that, it’s some new levels, some bug fixes, and a few other tweaks. Very important stuff for maximizing your enjoyment, but hard to make sound flashy in a write-up. Well, that was a swing and miss. Let’s see what’s next.
Tetris® Beat, In this latest version of Tetris Beat, fans of multiplayer will find some things to like. There’s a new multiplayer background that has four different phases, with some reactive elements that depend on how you’re doing. Some improvements have been made to the spatial audio, which is a nice thing in a game as focused on sound as this one is. Apart from that, you’ve got a number of UI improvements and tweaks, some gussied-up visual effects, and of course the requisite bug fixes. Hm, no good jokes here either. Perhaps the next one?
Solitaire Stories, It’s been a good minute since the last Solitaire Stories update. Well, maybe a little longer than that, but this game gets a surprising amount of new content given that it is, in fact, a solitaire game. This update brings in a new story to play through along with a new limited-time event, the latter of which is summer-themed. As for the story, you’re heading back to the office in The Cubicle Pt. 2. Even if there are no big celebrities attached, having more content to play is indeed a good thing.
Star Trek Fleet Command, Free It kind of feels like most people enjoy Strange New Worlds, which is an unusual place for a new Star Trek show to be. They’ve been pretty divisive for the last… century or so. Anyway, new show means new content for old game, and here we are. There are some new officers here, naturally led by the Strange New Worlds version of Captain Pike. There are also some new Galaxy Tree research nodes, including some new prime nodes. A new storyline? Yes indeedy. There’s also a new feature in the form of the Holodeck, allowing you to enjoy past storylines again. All in all a fairly solid update for the game.
World of Tanks Blitz - Mobile, Free It seems like another odd update for World of Tanks Blitz. Let’s see. The Tankotron and Bonus Level events, Operation Arcade Arena, and the Blasteroid heavy. Not sure what’s up with them, but there they are. A new Japanese branch has been added with six heavies, the Castilla map has gotten some graphical improvements and improved foliage physics, and the game is really pushing its different modes including Big Boss, Gravity Force, and Uprising. I don’t know. Fire the game up if you want to sort that spaghetti out.
Farmscapes, Free For our obligatory free-to-play matching puzzle update this time around, I’ll go with Farmscapes. Yeah, there are lots of ‘Scapes games. I picked this one because of its shocking new revelations. Gloria moves into a new Green Hills estate and meets a new character named Alfred. His job? Butler. So there are two things going on here. First, there’s a high chance that Batman is now part of the Austinverse. Second, a new rival for Austin? This could get spicy if these two meet. ‘Scapes Endgame when? Otherwise this is a pretty normal Playrix update in all respects.
MARVEL Strike Force: Squad RPG, Free A whole lot of X-Men stuff in this one. The main part of this new version is the Famine Scourge event focusing on Apocalypse’s Second Horseman, Famine Rogue. You’ll have to power-up your A-Force, Young Avengers, and Inhumans characters to earn shards for her. Sounds very complicated, to be honest. There’s also a new Raid event where you can get shards for Gambit, if you want to complete the set. Your four new playable characters in this update are Rogue (of course), Sunfire, Mighty Thor, and Valkyrie. There are new costumes, as well. Captain America (Sam) – All-New, Thor – Love and Thunder, and Nico Minoru – Runaways. There are a few other things here, but I’ll let you poke around yourself if you’re interested.
Black Desert Mobile, Free Black Desert Mobile‘s update notes are about as terse as they could be while still giving some kind of information beyond the most generic of details. Here’s what it tells me: Kamasylvia update. Griffon update. New events. Class balance adjustments. I’m sure that will mean something to people who already play the game, so that’s the most important crowd taken care of. But for poor Shaun, trying to fill out a paragraph? Like a few drops of water in the middle of the desert. I am parched, so no coveted award for you, Black Desert Mobile.
AFK Arena, Free A very typical AFK Arena update, which sounds like there isn’t much here, but if you know what the average AFK Arena update looks like you know there’s plenty of corn on the cob. There’s a new Mauler hero, Anasta – The Sacrifice, with a Bountiful Trials event in tow. Treasure Scramble is here and it’s apparently going to be sticking around, so that’s cool. There’s a whole bunch of new content to play spread across the many different modes and events, so make sure to give it a look if you enjoy this one.
Star Traders: Frontiers, $6.99 It’s been a long while since we featured Star Traders Frontiers, but don’t take that to mean it hasn’t been getting updated. The latest of the lot sees a new ship added to the game in the form of the Caliga Vindex. Salvage Cards that can create Contacts are now able to create Hunna Contacts, and some spawn rates and such have been adjusted. There isn’t much else jumping out at me so I suppose I will give the coveted UMMSotW award for this week, for old time’s sake.
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!
