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. Lots of games with heavy casual appeal in this week’s batch of updates, but we’ve got a few that break the pattern just to keep things extra-interesting. 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!
Zen Pinball Party, Zen Pinball Party has a fresh update that adds, among other things, the main sort of content you’d want to see in an update for a pinball app. Namely, there’s a new table here. It’s Peanuts’ Snoopy Pinball, which presumably features Snoopy from Peanuts. I mean, if it doesn’t, that is a solid prank on me. On top of that, there is now a My Score filter on the LCD minigames leaderboards, and those playing with controllers will find flipper activation on the shoulder button inputs where it should be. Some bugs have also been fixed to make for a smoother experience.
Doodle God Universe, Another new adventure is available in Doodle God Universe, and it is naturally Halloween-themed. All of the Halloween goodies are gone, and you’ll have to recreate the holiday with whatever you can slap together. Sounds fun. There are some bug fixes in here as well, most notably the problem with Evolution+ mode not properly unlocking. If you’ve completed the game before, it should be available now. If you haven’t? Well, that’s your homework for today.
Jetpack Joyride, Free Gee, Jetpack Joyride is here every week lately. It’s rolling through events like I go through cans of Pringles. And friends, I can make short work of Pringles. Anyway, this week’s update brings in a Halloween event, and my fear is that it may be nearly finished by the time you read this. As usual, there are new jetpacks, costumes, and vehicle skins up for grabs by participating in the event and/or spending some real money. Sure, Halloween is over, but much like candy corn some parts of it hang around a lot longer than the day itself.
FROST, $4.99 As those of us in the Northern Hemisphere are starting to feel the chill of winter coming in, it is perhaps poetic that Frost has a fresh update to enjoy. It adds twenty new levels to try your hand at, and that’s always a welcome thing to see in any update. There are also some optimizations here for newer devices, and an assortment of minor bug fixes and other performance improvements. Simple, but sweet.
Angry Birds 2, Free The sub-header for this game in the App Store is “Best Popular Fun Action Game", which feels like a very dubious bowl of word salad to me. Well, some of those adjectives are correct. This latest version is Halloween-themed, because we are mopping up after the party at this point. There is a new adventure to play called Hide & Shriek, which is a pretty good name for this kind of thing. I like it. To go with it, there is a new Haunted hat set. I’m not sure why you would want to wear a haunted hat, but birds are kind of stupid. Collect all of the Tier 1 and Tier 2 Evolutions and you can apparently power up your slingshot. That feels like a meaningful upgrade in an Angry Birds game. You should go for it.
CookieRun: OvenBreak, Free I have strange feelings about sentient desserts, friends. Sure, we eat a lot of living things, but those things aren’t usually very spry by the time we finish preparing them. Living desserts, on the other hand, only seem to come to life after we prepare them. What manner of dark sorcery is this? Do we have a right to play god in such a manner? Wait, why am I writing like I need to stall? This update is beefy enough to not have to do that, and now I have no room for the important info. Oh well. There’s a new Labyrinth of Remembrance, a new costume, some new treasure, a few goodies tied up with the 5th anniversary of the game, and more. What more? No space, you’ll have to check yourself!.
Clash Royale, Free Oh, here’s a big one. It introduces a brand new card rarity known as Champions, with unique abilities that will make you want to add them to your collection as soon as possible. As a nice treat, there is now faster progression so that you can hit higher levels sooner. Oh, but don’t think that comes without any strings. There’s a new max level now, so you will need to upgrade your cards and King level to fourteen if you want to keep up with the Joneses. If you collect Star Points, you can unlock cosmetic changes for your cards. There are a few other things in here, but I reckon that is enough to give Clash Royale the coveted UMMSotW award for the week.
True Skate, $1.99 When I looked at the latest update for True Skate, I questioned myself for a second. A park from a 2019 tournament? Did I read the date of the update wrong? And then I remembered how the last couple of years have been, and of course it makes sense that we’re still pulling courses from 2019. Has the SLS had any tournaments since this whole mess started? Probably not! So here we are, with a new course based on SLS 2019 in Sao Paulo. Sure, more courses are always welcome.
MONOPOLY: The Board Game, $4.99 The update notes on this one mention its Halloween update, but that was actually pushed out a couple weeks ago. Still, heads-up on that if you didn’t notice yet. The new part in this version is the ability to choose your preferred style of Community Chest cards. Some people want the classic holiday fund era, while others may prefer the modern environmental and charity era. The choice is now up to you. It doesn’t change anything gameplay wise, but aesthetics are a big part of the Monopoly experience so it’s good to have options.
Star Traders: Frontiers, $6.99 Let’s wrap things up by checking in on the brothers Trese and their ultra-fun strategic RPG Star Traders: Frontiers. There are a couple of new weapons, one for class 7 Interdictors and one for class 7 Bombers. These are both best in class, so you should probably get your mitts on them. The base damage has been increased for all craft bomb weapons, and the radiation damage has been increased for craft bomb and craft rocket weapons. Autocannons now have an increased chance to hit, and the Shock Trooper’s Single-minded Strike talent has gotten buffed. Good stuff.
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!
