My top free games this week Dashy Crashy Drifting penguins(may not be so good on older devices) Crossy maze Into the dim(zelda/rogue like) Spooky traps Worth checking out: rustbucket, drift zen racer, heist(nostalgia), wurd torn (original word game), warpers(horrible graphics but unique puzzler),impossible journey(ketchapp), Agent Elf(if you don't mind an oversized file)
Five good: Pocket Mortys- very entertaining game/lite rpg by Adultswim Rocket Ski-competent decent ice racer The Pit- decent for ketchapp, liked the frog movement Lift car- nice playable original, but its caught me, is it my skill lacking, or does the game make it hard. Voxel Fly(normal version)-it's fifth element! Five not-so-good: Racing Rush- it's got amazing look but bump,bump,bump,bump. Gnomium- Crashes Magnets(Appsolute)- good concept, frustrating execution. Mealtime Sabotage- a hard to read, and unappealling card game. Mobs+Potions- first game I downloaded. Disappointed.
Venture Kid. Fantastic megaman-ish platformer that we all need. Take note, it's highly skill-based, just like its cyborg inspiration... So no crying please. I only bought that, but with the update to Five Card Quest and Wayward Souls, dont think i need to pickup anything yet.
My top games this week: Jhulo Puzzlewood Adventures Little Broken Robots Swapperoo I think they are all wonderful!
21/01 releases: (Bolded the best ones I found) BioBeasts- original gameplay idea executed well. Mutant in the middle, attacking troops from all 4 diagonals of the screen. Useful upgrades. Decent but gameplay may get tedious. 3/5 BouncyBlocks- Very similar to a ketchapp type of game. In this go from one block to the next trying to avoid the birds- presenting some gameplay quirks on the way. Decent. 3/5 Doodle Rabbit 2/5 I am Barbarian- Game I most want to like, sort of an endless platform but made to be different each time you go. But does have a bit of an irritating jump system. Many Fine Deals- Diner Dash-type game? except with adventurers getting their attibutes boosted, its relatively decent if its your type of game. Panzer Ace- so-so multiplayer tank game. Not so keen you got to press a button to target. Why? Pirate Power- Amazing polish to the game. I don't think really gripped me, but got to single out. Playnets: Survival Smash Up- tap enemies coming to attack your sun in the middle. It's pretty playable, with some small original gameplay quirks. 3/5 1944 Burning Bridges- this drew me completely different to what I hoped, deleted after about 10 seconds. Rollin Sky- Lovely looking game, navigating a ball to avoid various obstacles, and also utilise various interesting mechanisms for the ball to keep rolling as far as you can. Good system, you got all levels open to you and you just watch an ad for more balls. Of the gameplay variant, ocd-repeat till you perfect, but a good quality game. 3.5/5 Potent- Crashed x2 (Ipad Mini) Sky chasers- This has some interesting level design, has some interesting enemies, but they screw up by how cumbersome the box is. Really cumbersome. Needs a simple update or something, tweak that right. Smart Pick- Nim type game. You/Opponent take 1-4 cards each turn, who has the last card is the loser. It's ok. Paddle Panda- My favourite underdog of the week. Control a dingy down a river. Unique control system- you tap the screen behind the dingy, good physics, lovely looking waters. A quality game. Only thing can fault, it could have had more environments, more variation. 4/5 + Get to Da Choppa- This kind of game draws me right in, immediately reminds me of stuff metal slug, or broforce but obviously not as good. But lovely playable one that I want to play more of.
28/01 releases Circle Path- Decent timing based one. Match out your rotating circle to the laid out circle in front of you. 3/5 JetPack Soccer- Ragdoll physics, odd decision of controls on left hand side. Not very good, but probably useful for titillation purposes. I managed to score 2 goals. Drop Block- whats up with Bulkypix this isn't their standard. Very minimalist, and gameplay is a bit like floors by Ketchapp 2/5 Simply Knights- Bushido blade/ Niddhogg- like game. Not everyones cup of tea. It's well intended to be easy to learn, but quite a slow paced game. 3/5 Rhino Splash- You're a chick dodge the rhino foot. Kind of ruined by the stickiness imposed on the chick. 2/5 Lego Ninjago:Skybound- As you'd expect nice touches but ruined by it's dubious leaping projectile. Hectic Space 2- Big fan of it after TouchArcade mentioned it- as really quite unique schmup. I can't see much difference than this to hectic space 1 though. Maybe more for the hardcore fan whose got through the first looking for more content. Zombie Intern- Really nice looking, quite comical. Control a zombie around an office kind of thing. (in the same manner of Mr Right perhaps) Blocky Hockey- Overambitious ice hockey blocky game. Jack of all trades, master of none. 2/5 Adventure Cube- Not as good as last week's Ketchapps other entry The Pit, but decent high scoring game perhaps. 3/5 Blocky Football- My favourite of the week. Being from the UK, I've never seen the appeal of American football...until this! 4/5 Riochet Theory 2- Quality puzzle-like game reminded me a bit of Okay?. Not my cup of tea but could be popular on app store. Lane Racer- Release TA forgot to mention. Boombit release so it has some quality to it. Dodge obstacles on a racing track in the theme of some athletics track. Decent one.
04/02 releases Cute vs Evil - Match 3 with unique extra useful mechanic where you sort of leap onto another match-3 cluster. If I liked match 3, think that would be quite a good one. Stickman Dreamer- Djinnworks are legends, but this is like a really minimalised game like a ketchapp game and not very good 2/5 Hop shot- nice original mechanism.(aiming from behind) Like how you're given time to make each move. Suffers from lack of variety but 3.5/5 + Ridge Runner- Funked up and maybe harder version of Vault. You got a pole and you use that to go over obstacles, go inbetween obstacles(didn't have this on vault). The pole extends quite fast on this, so its not as finely controlled like Vault perhaps. Decent though 3/5 Perfect square- Boombit game, original- time how long you hold to blow up a cube to fit into a hole. It's ok but bit boring 2.5/5 Splash Cars- Visually pleasing, and aesthetically pleasing... game? It's really nice driving around colouring the map in as the car goes. Think there's a loose gameplay objective of colouring a % of the map as you can. 3/5 Little Rainbow submarine- Change colour, avoid rayshots, get right tube. It's well done, but limited. 2.5/5 Flick Rugby- Being the audience of this game, someone who actually knows rugby(briefly) it should appeal. But I don't think it really compares to the flick maestro game flick kick football. Has original mode of kick to touch. 3/5 Afterloop- It visually looks the most appealling, but I just found it confusing and a bit bizarre. Think it boils down to a simple puzzle game. 1 Meter- Quality game, bit like hardlines but with curves. (you are trying to fit as long a spaghetti as you can on your plate) Not too exciting after couple of goes though. 2.5/5 Wordfail- Sort of a word grammar game. You get passed from tutor to tutor, and each testing you on uses of -for instance their, there, and they're, and another tutor will test you on something else. It's (is that correct?) surprisingly quite good. Gjarrhorn: A Viking arcade- Too one dimensional gameplay but like the concept, and the ability to reverse direction. A bit similar to Slayin. 2.5/5 Geki Yaba- Game from Chillingo, you're a gnome collecting his socks? Also using a cardigan to float at areas. Pretty decent quality game as you'd expect from Chillingo. 3.5/5 + Ultimate Briefcase(Nitrome)- Nitrome I think they're proper game makers. In this you're a guy dodging bombs, and adds lots of little touches, throw down a perk, throw a novelty, throw down a difficulty, change the bomb distribution and on a special occasion the guy will USE his briefcase to guard himself against the bombs! 3.5/5 + 99 moons- rotating planet, dodge the objects using the finest of skill. I wanted to like this but combination not liking the jumping on it and being bad at such ocd-repeat games and it probably factors. 2.5/5 Dofus Pogo- maybe my favourite of the week, despite a movie sequence not properly working, and had the odd crash. I do like this. Defending a dofus with these bouncing chicks. Good solid, and varied gameplay. City Taxi Duty- I oddly like the polygonated town, but it's quite a slow game, with a multitude of confusing symbols on a map. 2.5/5 Greedy Cave($0.99/79p)- Got to love the style(don't starve kind of style), and some of adhoc animations added. (mouse yawning). Not my cup of tea- combat just too simple and irritations such as the standard response to everything as 'I know'. But I did like enchanted cave 2, and it looks more of the same 3/5 (Hyperride- I wanted to play but needs latest ios update (9.0) which have not got yet.Bubble Jungle- 2.35gb game! Small Ipad regretfully.) (Bolded ones favourites)
11/02 releases (Weak week for free releases, but great for kid's games) Chubby Roll (kids)- Cutesy game, basic rehashed game concept of rolling to the stones in sequential order, and not to fall off. Has included mini games. 3/5 The Electric Company Prankster planet (kids)- great one for kids. Simple platformer but with lots of customability and minigames. 3/5 Dynabomb (kids)- good solid kids platformer, using a jetpack and portals to acquire diamonds and stuff. Target Acquired- Endless platformer targeted at girls. It's quite decent. Got it's key abilities working well, and with new tricks added as levels progress. Would rate higher as it is good, but I would imagine this to get very repetitive. Adhoc level followed by boss,rinse, repeat. 3/5 (warning this game starts downloading when get to level 7 or so) Country Tale- don't do building games, but this is a decent one as building games go, quality animations and stuff. Map Mania-Quiz based map game. Not a high quality release, and would probably better finding a webpage and doing this. Quite long loading times. (but this was on Ipad mini) But if you want a game answering questions by pressing different areas in the world it does provide that. 2.5/5 Insane Eagles- Fly an eagle along a street with tilt or touch. It's not really a memorable game. It's a little tricky to get precise control as it wants you to have. And its a bit confusing to be honest. 2.5/5 Vector Fury- didn't really run on an ipad mini, just lagged. Uncarta - First thoughts- lovely unique concept, blocking parts of a word and then you had to find out the word by moving the sliding block. I think its ruined though as you'd not left with one word when you move this sliding block along, you are essentially putting all the permutations to get the 'secret' word. Might have some appeal, just seemed pointless permutation crunching to me. 2.5/5 Cubecoplets- Very simple game, but for what simplicity it was, it made it very difficult to judge whether your copter could pass the obstacles. 2/5 Ollie & Flip- soft release only, was not on uk or usa store. Hexadash - very simple game, was probably someones first game. Trixio king - draw a platform to keep the guy going. Very simple and didn't always work 100%. 2/5 1000m Zombie Escape- Eccentric game of the week. Playing a woman spinning around with comical wide legs trying to escape zombies. And every obstacle she hits forward and backward are reversed which leads to a tricky task in avoiding obstacles. (such as a car on fire). It's worth playing just to play the experience seemingly of a drunk woman escaping zombies. Tomb of the mask- as TA has already reviewed. Keep swiping up the maze and avoid the escalating waters with all sorts of tricks and hazards along the way. Nice quick accessible gameplay one. 3.5/5 Triangle Dash- Not mentioned on Out Now list. Boombit release. Bouncing a swirling triangle from side to side avoiding obstacles. Sounds bad, but it's of great quality as you try the physics, and the feel. The criticism is how big the file is 200mb! 3.5/5
18/02 releases Smacky Bear - Really nice art scene- bear on a rock. Basic gameplay hitting the fish coming towards the bear. Decent enough game but one flaw is that the fish come unfeasibly fast at times. Faster than you can respond to. Needs tuning. What's jumping - Bulkypix one. Good concept, conveyor belt and obstacles coming down 2 ways. Needs very fine jumping as you can quite easily end up on spike. It's very playable, maybe could be a bit more exciting than boxes and spikes. Many ads in the game. 3/5 B.O.X Minimalist game that unfortunately needs bug fixes. (no sound, square gets stuck ,borders etc) Pixel Warrior A not so good Castle Doombad. Bad English, appears to use goblin sword music. 2/5 Five Finger Fury Was reluctant to download, but its actually quite a good one from appsolute games. Sets its scene and good gameplay. Bit of slowdown/ crashes on my device(Ipad mini) but on something better it would be completely fine. 3.5/5 Snowboarding the fourth phase Snowboarding not my game, but very good quality game, like how you can't crash on it- crash into a tree and the guy steadies himself and carries on- no needless gaming interrupts. Square path Developers with less resources at their disposal struggle competing. But this one just puts a complex shape(which is all the paths the square may go) and then just pressing at the right time as the blue piece goes over the red, and it works well. 3/5 Battle digits Kind of a kids/basic family game where you have simple objectives like press 1-10 in order. It's okay as you get compared to online scores in how fast you do that. This should really be seen as a lite version of the game as 13/15 modes are locked and you need to pay 79p(to unlock 5) or watch 2mins 30 secs of ads to unlock 1. Gods of Egypt Top quality game bit like a God of war on the ipad. Need to play more of. Colour Juggle Kind of a Gyro thats on android. Doesn't explain controls, but the controls are one touch to shift the top row of colours. Unfortunately for this- gameplay gets infeasibly stupid with multiple balls. Really only for real whizzes(if even if they could do it) and if they were prepared to play a lower quality game. 2/5 Cube Escape Don't do point/click games but seems pretty good, the sort of 1940s setting? Thumb Drift My favourite game of the week. I don't do racers on the tablet, but I'm playing this one! Great swipe controls. Quality game but warning very fragile racing. 4/5 Tennis Champ Returns I only played a bit of this last night but easily one of the best tennis games(along with flick tennis) on the device. Learn 2 Fly Popular Flash game it says, and can see why. It's annoying it's got a penguin there, but all the penguin does it push the sack to see how well it flies. Then you attach the sack to different devices like a kite and see how far it goes. No doubt a quality game. 3.5/5 Artillerists Basically a battleships. It's a shame the basic game of battleships is essentially crunching down permutations to where the the hidden army is placed. So in this you go from one grid to the next each time repeatedly picking another square to bomb. Where the game slightly improves is given upgrades such as 'radar' and 'artillery'.It's a decent enough game that a battleships fan might like it. 3/5 Mystery Factory- I like the mood of the game, the sounds, the name, and the music. Aim is use the accelerometer and guide the ball past all kinds of factory type mechanisms, or materials, processes you may associate with a factory. It's kind of OCD-repetitive but it's okay. 3/5 Fantasy Mage (£2.29) - I maybe should have listened to forum thread before buying this. It's like a kind of an ugly PC game from the 90s (UI, graphics,spells) with music from a 70s sci-fi or something and the character, sort of a Harry Potter, awkwardly moves along. Strife is fairly ok, and you get some upgrades. It's about playable. 2.5/5 Slingshot Rush - Boombit release of the week. Swing around 'pegged' corners. Pretty challenging decent one. Hard to master. Hi Score 11. Grand Gin Rummy - As a gin rummy fan that plays a lot on facebook this had a lot to live up to. And have to credit it, it's pretty good as it goes. Actual multiplayer with people. 4/5 Darblez This is featured as one of Apple's best new games. Basically a multiplayer game like Pool where you're hitting balls off but instead of a cue, using your character as a sort of ball. (which can also be shot off) It crashed a couple of times on my poor Ipad mini, but it is decent. 3.5/5 Islash Heroes Rehashed game where you're cutting pieces off a board without hitting the objects moving around. Not my type of game but has some gameplay variations such as uncuttable edges, and power-ups. 3.5/5 (Did not try Tiny Ladybird(need IOS 9.0), The White Lie(need IOS 9.2))
24/02 releases Color Boom Should be called Color flappy boom. It's a one man developed game and he's made a lot of effort to make it accessible. Control a sort of tadpole with flappy motion, it will change colour (sorry I'm English) in various locations and you have to go through the corresponding coloured line/s. Has some interesting coloured geometrical variations of lines and shapes but it's no Minimo. Gem Boom A sort of cut the rope format game but with a bomb you have to manoevure,(then explode) to a rock (containing a gem), using various tap processes/mechanisms to get there. It's maybe a decent puzzle one. 3/5 Fat Penguin- More like a penguin balancing on an iceberg simulator. No fancy stuff in this, or gameplay variations, or upgrades. It's exactly as it is - penguin rolled up as a ball on a iceberg balancing amidst various waves coming his way and seeing how long you can last. Physics are done well and it might be an enjoyable challenge. Faily brakes- Original idea of a guy finding out his brakes don't work plunging down a hill. It's colourful, entertaining and sets it's scene of a nice bold American countryside with accompanying music. You control left and right avoiding the trees, and approaching features. It's very tricky, but it's main captivation is it's comical endings when you'll crash into something and the man goes flying. (Very surprised it didn't add savable replays via Everyplay) A good one that maybe popular on the app store. 3.5/5 Go2School- This is a pretty quality platformer with big, bold, over the top abilities. It has a 'baby' theme which is maybe offputting, but I thought it was so entertaining and reminded me a bit of flying hamster. It does the 'baby' theme quite well, a comical dad reading to this baby going to school telling him he might die on the way, but make sure he gets to school! And then theres bottles which the baby picks up for life. I think it's a great one. 3.5/5 The Weapon King- An often rehashed game press L/R in a sequence on the 'safe' symbol. It's quite basic. 2/5 Slide the shakes- I was very reluctant to download this, a diner dash game with shakes? Nope, a game with an original mechanic of sliding the shakes to various places on a counter. It varies it around a lot, and the challenge. It's a worthy download. Fat Lift- A guy in a lift pokes his head out right and left to avoid the gases of this fat woman in a lift, on the way dodging the hazards on the left on the right. Plays out like Timberman as someone says on the thread. It's fairly entertaining/comical. 3/5 Cyber-Breaker ($0.99) Your standard breakout with a sort of cybership concept art theme. Has your usual power ups, and nerfs: extend paddle, reduce paddle, fast ball, forcefield, turret, multiball. And then some novel new ideas such as a cannon one level which I liked, and static(not quite sure what it does), regeneration. Also liked when you've brick breaked about 97% of the level a sort of perk comes down that ends the level. No endless trying to finish the last few bits. It's pretty decent 3/5 Danger Dodger As a moose dodge asteroids made of plasticine coming down, which you can see via the various emerging circular shadows. It's okay without being great. 2.5/5 Epic Flail- My first thoughts as I played this 'well it got the name right' and deleted shortly after. But it's seemingly popular on the forum thread. Its basically ragdoll flailing which I thought wasn't too compelling. Cross Game This looked like some sort of rubbish Bingo game, but it's actually a sort of logic based one, deducing where a trail of lines originated, and trying to reproduce that in say, 3 moves. Fishing break I like how they done this, true arcadic fishing. The fishing rod has an attack, each fish has a defence. And you make money from fish, and upgrade all the rod credentials and stuff. I doubt it will stay on my ipad though- 500 mb file! But 3.5/5 Super Tribes - Always wanted a mini Civ. Here it is. (cinemji-requires 9.1, Chel-Z requires 9.2, Bug spot- 9.1,Tadpole rush- crashes on ipad mini)
Thanks for mentioning Faily Brakes! Faily Brakes does have ReplayKit which allows you to record and share video similiar to Everyplay.
02/02 releases I've got backlog of games on my ipad so only played a few: Timeless- (Appsolute games). It uses the platforms (like you get in doodle jump) to make a decent game. Going on each level collecting gems, with new tricks added as levels go on. It's not bad. 3/5 Road to be king- Nice control system in this but seemed to get quite limited later on, and seemingly encountered a bug of not being hit by anything. Deep Terror Theme/name is quite random when basic game premise is connecting the dots. But it does have some sophistication to connecting the dots: each dots has a mini detail of how many times it connects to another, so you then have to work out the final pattern. Has some nice textual art at the start, decent puzzler perhaps. Sniper vs Zombies Simple game, kill zombies from afar with sniper rifle with really the only choice you appear to have is what weather conditions(summer or winter), aim is simply get as high a score as you can. Be a Bee- Bee's natural flying pattern in this is looping around, so you got to use this tendency while moving forward to try and dodge all the obstacles (bushes, flowers!), and collecting honeycombs. Apparently bees explode.. Basic premise + looks game, it's not very thrilling but it's an experience. Had notably a 2P mode which did not try. 2.5/5(1 P mode) Panic Peter- A contestant on some show with a very musical presenter and then you do numerous mini games in the kind of style of Bishi Bashi(PS1- if anyone remembers that) or Warioware as some on the forum thread said. If you can tolerate the musical transcripts, it's quite good of what I played. Toilet squad Bust open doors of toilets, bad guy behind them shoot( swipe right), hostage behind them-untie them. (swipe left). I like the arcadeness of this and intially liked the pacing. First level starts off easy, then the second level you'll have two guys behind each toilet door and have to speed up the swiping. Fun one. 3/5 Warpath 3000 Shoot-em up with gorgeous above-ocean graphics. I'd say the game is a hardcore shoot-em up but not in the theme of bullet hell- where you have a screen of bullets to avoid (you do have many shots to avoid however), but slow winding long levels and trying to make it to to the end. On the way facing all manner of planes, land defences, air-defences from boats, tanks. It has some unique qualities for instance, if you miss killing an enemy it will still be firing at you off screen for a bit. I think it's difficulty people will love or hate. Quite naughtily it has a way of paying to get upgrades in game I think, *I say I think- its because other than 'touch to start' in the game, there is no other guides. It's all via diagrams, and chance button presses to find out. (for instance how to upgrade) 3/5 (revised score, this game has badly tuned its difficulty levels) Push the arrow- Boombit release of the week, good challenging new mechanic of guiding a spinning arrow up through the gaps. A no-frills game, no graphic candy, no power ups, but a fun play around. Downhill* Chapter one- This game is art. From it's onscreen visual controls to its representation of the chasing darkness. (Lost tracks- Requires Ios 9.0)
#Wed list Let Pig go- decent Water me Please- good sliding puzzle Handbrake Valet- Decent, time right time to instantly parallel park Math Hopper- Decent arithmetic jumper by Bulkypix Mad robot- Decent shmup Dragon land- quality 3d platformer Bakery Story- No Boom Boom Teddy-Crash (Ipad Mini) Booooom -Crash (Ipad Mini) Can you escape- No Core Pop- Very simple looking but playable Craft Digger Moon- Deleted Dark Sword- No Daemons Dungeon- Idle Clicker Don't Pop Endless Balloon- Slowdown- (Ipad mini) Dragon Encounter- 67 updates and crash(Ipad Mini) Flight of Ohana- Deleted Hugo Troll Race- Ok subway Surfers clone Kantai Girls- No Magnis game- $1.99, doesn't appeal me Medcorps- Deleted Mighty Warriors- No Ninja Warriors- No Orbin- deleted. Pilots of the Dawn- No Minisquadron but different than normal lineup. Rope Racers- Clunky multiplayer rope Racing Springfowler- rehashed game by Appsolute/Ketchapp Stickman cubed- Vaguely like Run!,Boson X TinyHunter- Didn't get to try. Server Down. Tosster- Throw glass fruits into a bowl. Not sure why Vortek- $1.99, Don't do space games Zombidle- Idle Clicker Barista Blitz- Match 3 to make drink recipes. Fairly ok. Extra: Barrier X - too fast to be a credible game! Jump buddies- slowdown(iPad mini) but a sort of decent vertical flappy game.
My impressions so far are that there are no great stand out premium games other then fish which I am really enjoying. A lot of kinda meh f2p stuff.
Retro city rampage has come out. Fairly ok PC game, maybe good on mobile. That's $4.99. Although about 69p on the PC
Dream Machine? Basically Monument Valley with the level complexity I always wanted. It's absolutely brilliant, and not on the list for this week. The thread is pretty active, not sure how it got missed. It's a premium puzzler with no IAP.
