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. Apple Arcade is swinging hard this week, with plenty of interesting updates to several games. I’ve grabbed my favorites along with a few non-Apple Arcade games to round things out for your Monday reading pleasure. 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!
Hello Kitty Island Adventure, Sometimes I make you wait until the very end to find out the winner of the coveted UMMSotW award for the week, but this time I’m going to get it out of the way immediately. Hello Kitty Island Adventure is one of the surprises of the year as far as I’m concerned, so adding more characters, a new area to explore, and more stuff to do can only be a full-on win. The Little Twin Stars have arrived to the islands with their own cloud-based location to visit. New items, new quests, and new friends are waiting there. Cool.
Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp, Free One can almost imagine the alternate reality where I’m talking about an update to Animal Crossing‘s mobile version that is similar to Hello Kitty‘s, but that isn’t our reality. Here, we’ve got a general autumn update that sows the seeds for the seasonal events to come. You know, things like the turning leaves, Halloween, and probably even Thanksgiving. The only way it’s really manifesting at the moment is in the form of an icon change, but at least it’s a nice icon change?
Disney Heroes: Battle Mode, Free I don’t know if we’re hitting a new low or a new high with this update, friends. The latest addition to the character roster is from Meet the Robinsons, so we’re already in the relatively obscure end of the pool. But we’re not even getting a primary protagonist or antagonist this time. No, we’re getting the sub-villain, generally known as Bowler Hat Guy. Well, okay. This update also brings in some new chapters to play, plus a new Emerald Rarity rank. Throw in the usual bug fixes and other improvements, and that’s pretty much it.
Subway Surfers, Free The Subway Surfers kids appear to be back in my neck of the woods again. They’re back in Tokyo, but not the Tokyo of right now because there are cherry blossoms about. If you wanted to make it accurate to right now, the kids would have to pass out from heat exhaustion and fall into a pile of dead cicadas. New surfer Yuto and his Sweet Chili Board are defying the heat, and Cathy gets a cool new Visual Kei outfit along with a Punk Board. Lots of things as usual for an update to this game, but how many of them can you get your hands on? Always a tricky one, that problem.
World of Tanks Blitz - Mobile, Free World of Tanks Blitz is still rolling along, which is pretty impressive when you think about it. The Retrotopia season is coming to an end with the Unprogrammed Future event which provides plenty of rewards and XP. You can even get the Bretagne Panther! This update also sets up future events including Luxury Lounge, Pretzelmania, and Chasing the Moon. I want to see the tanks eat pretzels. Also in this version is some new camo for the AT-15, which I’m sure owners of that particular vehicle will be thrilled about.
Toon Blast, Free Before we head into the absolute nonsense that is the next few games, let’s clock in with our obligatory free-to-play matching puzzle game update for the week. I’ve picked Toon Blast, both because it’s easy and also because it’s some kind of birthday event. I wouldn’t want to not wish someone a happy birthday on their birthday, so happy birthday, Toon Blast. And happy birthday to all readers whose birthday is today. I do not have a present for you but maybe you can enjoy the fifty new levels in this game and pretend they are a gift. Or you could not play them, which also might be seen as a gift depending on one’s view.
Jetpack Joyride+, Alright, helmet on. Let’s do this. Halfbrick is doing some kind of cross-game event with its Apple Arcade games, and we’ll start by looking at Jetpack Joyride’s portion of it. The Fruit Punch event sees you slicing through fruit like some kind of… I don’t know, samurai? Grab the Arcade Banana power-ups and see how far you can push it. There’s a new Fruit Flinger gadget in play, too. Also in this update is an event called Brains Attack where Professor Brains is after you and you need to stay one step ahead. Finally, there’s a Betty Beefpies costume. That’s a nice thing to add.
Jetpack Joyride 2, See, it’s like that one time on TGIF where Salem the Cat from Sabrina was crossing over into everyone’s show and causing trouble. Alright, for Jetpack Joyride 2‘s part, it has events that cross over into Jetpack Joyride+ and Fruit Ninja Classic+. The whole shebang, people. You can also earn new Arcade Medals, enjoy the Fat Cat power-up, go for a Classic Joyride in Arcade Mode, and do some fruit cutting in Fruitkilla mode. Almost like you’re some kind of fruit… fruit… kendo master? Alright, let’s move on to the last part of this collab.
Fruit Ninja Classic+, Oh, I see. Ninja. Yes, that makes sense. Wait, no it doesn’t! Ninjas almost never used swords! Oh well. We’ve got a pair of events here, with the first one currently ongoing. Jetpack Joyride 2 is up first, with a new Jetpack Blade and the Moon Tomb Dojo up for grabs. From September 8th, it’s the Jetpack Joyride+ event, offering up the Profit Bird Blade and Laboratory Dojo. There’s also a new Blade Power that comes in with all of this, so do look forward to that. If you can get all the goodies, anyway. Well, these are the Apple Arcade versions so they should be doable.
TIME LOCKER+, Let’s finish up with something different, though. Remember Time Locker? This is a fun, unique game. I like it a lot. I didn’t even know there was a version on Apple Arcade, which shows what a clod I am. But it is here, and it has content that isn’t in the normal version. This latest update adds nine new regular characters, and if that isn’t enough, three special characters exclusive to this Apple Arcade version. If you haven’t played this game before, allow this to be the excuse to give it a try.
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!
