GameClub continues to fire on all cylinders and to cap off the week they’ve released not one but TWO great classic mobile games that were previously lost to time. First up though is a new practice from the company that sees them releasing a bonus game on Fridays. Previously they were releasing a new game every week into their Early Access program, typically on Mondays by way of their email newsletter, but often you could get exclusive EARLY Early Access to certain games the Friday before, by way of their new beta signup landing page or the GameClub Discord server. They have such a huge number of games in the pipeline though that now they’ll be saving the Monday release for higher profile games and releasing some of the smaller games as a bonus on Fridays (last week’s was Baby Lava Bounce). And that Discord exclusive early access will remain for the higher profile games which means that on some Fridays you’ll be able to download TWO games at the same time. That is exactly what is happening this week, as GameClub has released Pixeljam’s awesome spin on Galaga-style vertical shooters Glorkian Warrior as the latest bonus release.
Now, don’t dismiss Glorkian Warrior just because it’s the “bonus" game this week, as this is one of my all-time favorite mobile games. First off I just absolutely love the art from James Kochalka that’s used in the game, but also it’s just a very fun spin on an arcade shooter with tons of cool weapons and enemies. We enjoyed it a lot in our original review from back in 2014 and chose it as our Game of the Week when it released. And as you could probably imagine it was also on my own personal Best Games of 2014 list that year. I’m unbelievably stoked to be playing Glorkian Warrior again with full screen iPhone X support.
Their second game this week, which will go out the traditional way via email on Monday but is actually available to their newsletter subscribers and in GameClub’s Discord channel right now, probably doesn’t need any introduction. It’s Super Crate Box from Vlambeer, the game that put the small studio on the map way back in 2010. In case you don’t know, it’s an arena-style platform shooter that has you collecting randomly appearing crates while killing and/or avoiding an onslaught of increasingly difficult enemies that all want to take you out. Probably the coolest part about Super Crate Box is that every time you collect a crate you’re given a random new weapon, whether you want it or not. It forces you to think on your toes and make due with what you’ve got in any given situation, and is sort of like the original Mario Bros. arcade game on acid. It’s great, and worked surprisingly well on the touchscreen when it was ported to iOS back in 2012.
So here’s the deal with Super Crate Box. Yes, it is available today as part of that Discord exclusive EARLY early access that I keep mentioning. If you head over there now you’ll find a link to the Testflight version of the game as well as a dedicated chat room for Super Crate Box so you can lay out all your feedback or any bugs that you happen to find, and the GameClub developers themselves will see it. Or if Discord isn’t your thing, or you just want a more streamlined way to get Early Access links to GameClub games, then you can drop your email in this landing page here and get all the important stuff you’ll ever need. BUT THERE IS A CATCH: GameClub is limiting access to the Early Access version of Super Crate Box to just 3,000 people. Yes that’s quite a bit of people but still that number can come up quickly, so if you’re interested in getting in on Super Crate Box Early Access then you should probably sign up at their beta landing page right now.
Super Crate Box is another of my all-time favorite games on mobile, but sadly it has broken my heart time and time again. After never delivering promised content updates the year it released, just basic things like support for the newer screen sizes of iOS devices were also promised but never delivered. Vlambeer promised this at the end of 2013. Then promised again at the beginning of 2015. And then promised again in August of 2016. It got to be a running joke around our office, though not one I actually laughed at. I loved Super Crate Box and all I wanted was to be able to play it, but eventually I just gave up and deleted it off my device. My heart had been broken too many times. Then this past May GameClub swooped in like angels and announced that they’d be updating Super Crate Box and adding it to their lineup of resurrected games. Could my heart handle getting my hopes up and then shattered once again? I dared to trust GameClub, and here we are a couple of months later and I’m playing Super Crate Box on my iPhone again, and it’s glorious. Praise ye, GameClub!
