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. Updates always take a little while to get going after the yearly holiday freeze, and while I thought we’d be okay after taking a week off, it’s still pretty sparse. I’ve found a handful of updates to highlight, but it definitely took some doing. 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 dig in!
Toon Blast, Free Yeah, this is where we’re starting. You can guess how this is all going to go, I’m sure. Harrrgh, anyway. It’s a free-to-play puzzle game where you disappear blocks by matching colors. It has 50 new levels in this update, bringing the total up to seventy-zillion or something. There is a theme, at least. It’s a wood-cutter update? With lumberjacks? Chopping down trees? I don’t know. I give them credit for at least making a theme. King gave up on that 26,000 levels ago.
Rise of Kingdoms, Free Then there are updates like this one, where the game is at least a little interesting, but the update is… well, not so exciting. Apparently the new stuff here involves increased First Completion Rewards in Expedition Mode, and reduced restocking fees in the Alliance Shop. The former means you can get more items in the Medal Store, the latter means that Alliance leaders can keep their shop inventory topped up at a lower cost. Yay.
Rules of Survival, Free Alright, this is probably as good as it’s going to get this week, so I’ll probably cash out the award here. Rules of Survival has a new wall-climbing ability. Press the jump button while facing a wall and boom, stick-’em powers activated. The rest of the update involves adjustments, balance tweaks, UI fixes, and added graphical options. Anyway, it’s hard to get more on-brand than climbing walls, so the coveted UMMSotW award goes to Rules of Survival this time around.
Onmyoji Arena, Free I don’t know this game at all, but it seems like it’s pretty popular and its update is at least moderately interesting, so hey, welcome to the article, Onmyoji Arena. Apparently at some time in the past, this app had a crossover with Inuyasha. Yes, that Inuyasha! And now it is doing another crossover event with Inuyasha, bringing a number of characters from that classic manga into the game. Most of the involved characters are simply returning from the last event, but new to this one is Kikyo. Yep, that’s cool.
Cookie Jam: Match 3 Games, Free Jam City may be flying dangerously close to the sun these days, but back in the day its staple was just simple free-to-play matching puzzle games. Like Cookie Jam! So while Avengers Academy is shutting down, Cookie Jam continues to soar, getting 20 new levels and remaining as high in the top-grossing charts as ever. So yeah, 20 new levels. Savor them, they’ll have to last you for around a month. Just do one a day on each weekday. Don’t do two, or you’ll be in a pickle. Take the weekends off. You don’t want to be without Cookie Jam, do you? Right.
Neko Atsume: Kitty Collector, Free I love Neko Atsume, but I’ll be honest with you all: I fell off this game a really long time ago. You eventually hit a point where you’ve consumed most of the content and then what’s left? Not a lot that a few Neko Atsume figures sitting on your desk won’t do just as well, that’s what. But the app is still rolling along, and this new update brings a bit of new content to chew on. There’s one new cat, and some new goodies to collect to lure out said cat. Good luck!
Stickman Hook, Free Wait, this one is pretty on-brand, too. Oh well, award is already gone. Too bad, so sad. Anyway, this incredibly-popular swinging game has a new update and it’s even got a shiny new mode. You can now race against ghost opponents, giving you another goal to aim for as you practice your faux-webslinging. There are also nine new characters to play as, though I’m not sure how much variety one can expect from a bunch of stick-characters. Oh, and the game now supports Game Center. Remember that?
Mafia City: War of Underworld, Free Somehow, this game became a meme during the holiday break. I don’t know if it will still be a meme by next week. It may not even be a meme by the time you read this. But here and now? It is a meme. And it has a big update, though it is confusingly a Christmas update that hit well after Christmas. There are some non-holiday elements to the update, including some adjustments to the balance and tweaks to the UI, but really, it’s Christmas Elves and New Year’s Celebration loud speakers. But how about those ads, eh?
Subway Surfers, Free It’s been a while since we last looked in on Subway Surfers, but worry not! It’s still updating quite regularly, sending the kids around to all sorts of places in their quest to… collect random objects? Get new costumes? What exactly are they up to, anyway? Oh well, I’m not going to worry too much about it. This time around, the kids are celebrating the new year in Rio de Janeiro, collecting parrots and trying to earn themselves a spiffy new Rocket Board.
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!
