This week's releases

16/03

I'll post a few, going to see if can find one I like.

Zombie snake- triniti stars are awesome, but this just seems like a poor quality reverse doodle jump

Jump legends- This was terrible-deleted

Lineup puzzle- A clever variation on Tetris. Align Tetris pieces (which you can't rotate) onto a grid. And if a vertical, or horizontal line(s) is filled its cleared. Not more than that.

Doofus Drop- A bean riding a bike crashes into a log and goes flying down a hillside, how far will he go after his launch. Fairly entertaining.

Fatal- Funky uplifting music, tap left to go left, tap right to go right, guide a white square right and left avoiding huge silhouette shapes (and apparently wifi symbols) along the white 'rails'. Later avoiding swarms as the square develops a shooter. It's not bad.

Frantic architect- Bulkypix release of the week bit like Ketchapp's stack game. Cube obscilliating from place to place,tap to stop and place and see how high a structure you can go.

Tesla Tubes- Another Flow Free rehash. Connect the pipes each to their destinations without crossing etc

Doodle Tanks- No tank action! Just like Doodle god but combining elements(/technologies) that make up a tank.

Miss the Moose- Racing on a mini circular track which has a problem of mooses crossing it. You have to speed up, or slow down to avoid them and get as high a score as can. It's ok.

Super Boost Monkey- A bit like a 3d jetpack joyride. Monkey escapes a lab in his monkey coptersuit. Hover up and down avoiding obstacles,collecting gold coins and looking at the labworkers down below. Gets old after 5 minutes but did seem to unlock an area.

Basketball Stars (By Miniclip). This is a good one. You play random people in a shooting race, or in a attacker-defender mode. This has interesting swipe controls; for shooting, for dummy shots, dummy side-steps. Leads to some good intense multiplayer. Nice looking environments as well.

Jumping Balls Boombit release of week. Kind of like these 2d obstacles courses games but in 3d. Move left and right to go through the centre (rim=fail) of each of the circles avoiding all the spikes and holes. Not as compulsive as other Boombit releases but it's alright.

Spiky fall Basic game, spikes coming down from ceiling, getting coins stops them coming down.

Drive ahead- Original game based on around 10 second duels. You vs opponent in your vehicle, them in theirs and you have to drive so you get onto the head of the other vehicle.(or get the opponent to land on his head, or go into a giant saw) Physics simulated type. Maybe quite fun with another person.

Heros vs Zombies Basic game, zombies come 4 directions and you're in the middle armed with a rocket launcher. Swipe in direction of zombies coming and get as high score as you.

Shooty Space Adventure- sort of an early attempt of a shoot em up, could be worked into something good, or next game maybe ok.

Smashy city- play a King Kong, tearing down buildings, vehicles etc. and later tanks, helicopters come along. Survive as long as can, your vulnerability- being attacked from the back. It's okay, guess they had to come up with a ruling how a King Kong dies.


(Kleptocats,Krosmaster, Chrome Death,Paper Wizard crashes on iPad mini.
Cursed Loot requires Ios 9.0, )

 

23/03 releases

3 ninjas- Very basic game, 3 ninjas in a line, touch to shift them left and right to avoid falling shruikens. 2/5

DestructSun- Clever idea here you control the sun, you sort of switch the sun on/off, and when you do the comets come towards it. The idea is you want only the comets the same colour of the sun, so you have to balance switching it on/off so the right colour comes towards it. 3/5

Ookujira- Quirky but decently done dead whale jumping game. Just from roof to roof, and dive down on enemies. 3/5

Invadyworlds - Nice ideas of rotating cube, and pacman-like ability where you get a powerup and devour all the aliens. Alas game gets old after 5 minutes. 2/5

Cute Munchies- Game type done many times before- where you have to sort of roll in sequential order to each of the stoppers. This game is maybe a bit different in that it starts with quite well-worked challenging levels, and its a rabbit with disappearing turf underneath him as he collects his carrots. 3/5

Monkey Swingers- Monkey swings around, swing him so that he goes up and up. Nothing much more to game than that. 2/5

Zombie-evil - Repeat of game last week called Shooting zombie ..except Shooting zombie was a little bit better. This one just seems to have somehow used that game and gave it different guns that you can grind for. 1/5

Xherodefence Low quality UI, combat. And potions on the right gave me flashbacks of custom games on warcraft 3 where you were occasionally given ridiculous amounts of potions in a game as a compromise for gameplay. 2/5

Cat sim kitty Play a kitten in a virtual environment with some objectives. Had potential but it's very rough around the edges. 2/5

Plantsattack- Same maker as Plants War 1/2 which were relatively decent dota-like games.(read Vainglory if don't know PC games). But this game is basically a clicker game of which genre I'm not a fan of. 2/5

Supreme Snowball Roller Mayhem 3000 -You play a snowball and you try keep it on the narrow course but you run into many gifts at the same time which gives you some perk/twist or other. Doesn't really work very well as a game, needs to ration out its perks or something, or at least provide custom graphics for each perk. 2/5

Super Arc Light($0.99) - By the makers of a TV channel in the UK... It's a pretty good, original shooter game. Tap to reverse direction, hold to keep shooting. One of the better ones this week. 3.5/5

Space Traffic Controller - Much redone traffic controls game but I like this in that it varies each level- you might have two traffic lights to control, or two different directions. Also got a good sound to it of police sirens continually going off. 3/5

Panagram Go round simple platform levels to get 10 coins. This game has an appealling platform environment but the game is just annoying. You're not always sure why you die, the controls can be oversensitive at times, or something like the jump won't function at the right time. 2/5

Trapdoor (Appsolute games) Finely control a bouncing square to the end of the level navigating geometric features. It's a game you will retry and retry a level, and it gets to a point where you query with its simple graphics, and it's annoying hazards if it's worth it. I decided no. 2/5

Ball Maze- Boombit release of the week. Usual Boombit trick of compelling movement mechanics. This one the default movement is turning in a circle, pressing left and right causing a movement accompanied by this circling mechanism. The aim is collecting all the coins in the level - which is particularly challenging. Not as addictive as other Boombit releases, but certainly a challenging one. Looks wise, could use improvement.

(Vortex Omega requires 9.2+, Rush fast requires 9.0+)

 

thanks! I enjoy the list, and playing through them.

 

Welcome, thanks for reading it.

 

Er I've been hooked by Clash Royale. Did play some other games.

31/03 releases:

Release 7 -Sort of a multiplayer unblock me. Robot will get to the exit when everything is unlocked. Quite fiendishly difficult at first. Worth a look if you are a unblock me fan.

Crazy maze - Swipe Taxi around a basic maze of roads bizarrely collecting fruit. Not good one.

Kolor challenge A spinning shape with parallel coloured lines along some sides. You have to launch a ball when the shape is at the essentially perfect orientation to go through both the relevant coloured lines of each side. Challenging can say that. But not one you would want to play very long.

Ballyhoop basketball- Another in line of projectile basketball games. I double checked if this was the same developer as Ball king because the graphics style were so alike. This is not as good as Ball King but it does vary things around with settable options like a moving basket, or wind in various directions.

Clock Sim- Crazy game where you have to act as the seconds hand of a clock and try and repeatedly time a second. Then how well you do, if you can repeatedly tap precise seconds, you can for instance, summon 5 spirits.

Haru's world- 2d platformer where you play a guy with a boomerang and have to collect 3 stars in every level. It has tight controls, does all the platform elements and enemies pretty well. It just lacks an appeal. It doesn't really have originality and it's theme is quite basic.

Infiltrate- Very basic game. Hack by leaping from circuit to circuit avoiding the enemies, and with 2 basic gameplay upgrades. (shield, and a double jump of a circuit)

Swing kitty - Slight variation of the jump from totem to totem game in that you time the length of rope the kitty needs to swing to reach it.

Blocky 6 I played this game originally and had absolutely no idea what was going on: You put tetris shapes formed of dice with numbers on it onto a grid and when you do so the dice number changes. Originally I had wondered if it was a threes game(?) but after a second play I realised it was a countdown till a piece turns to rock. Similar game to Lineup puzzle last week where you have to get horizontal/vertical lines in this. It's decent one just it could have given an explanation what was going on.

Monster Beans-Rehashed game where you have to go up a sequence of alternate (in this case) beans and select left or right in the corresponding order. Unlike the other versions I've seen, this version is done with a little bit of added quality. A pity for them it has seemingly made it endless and stopped the display of quality there.

Spike Dash- Appsolute games one. Circle around the inside of a tube/circle jumping over spikes. It's okay.

Flail Rider. Bulkypix one. Drive around with a flail attached to the back of the car. Drive left and right using the flail to knock down buildings. This should be fun but puzzlingly it's not as fun as all that.

Dino Hop- Big bold Dino (occupies about 20% of the screen!) on a hopper, tilt to move forward/back, and touch to power him forward. It's quite a skilled mechanic, and one maybe good for kids if they don't get frustrated at it at around level 3. You avoid the spikes on the floor and the ceiling, and the additional hazards as levels go on. 3/5
(Note quite a big file- 275mb)

Block Hop!-Quite a clever one, similar to Ketchapp's 'Stack' except you're a red block and blocks are coming in to stack onto the existing white ones and you have to hop at the right time to land on top of the block and fix it into position. A game that's got that one-more-time type playability. 3/5

Hammer bomb- Go around a colourful 3D maze opening treasure chests, killing enemies, and trying to find the exit. Beware can be 30 sec ads between levels but fairly good game.

Prison Run and Gun($1.99)- Bit of a leap in quality of game compared to this week's ones. Prisoner on the escape in a sort of 2d platform type game with tight and effective controls. A sort of run 'n' gun puzzler which sounds an odd format. But basically for instance you are more acrobatic without a gun, so to get past parts of a level you have to drop the gun so you can leap further. Then other times you have obstacles in the way and its working out how to get to the gun. 3.5/5

Lord of trap($0.99)- Tower defence thats a bit like Castle doombad (uses traps) but inferior in terms of quality. One thing I like from this game is a pixel rapidly going back and forth showing the tower defence path of the minions.

Dash Masters- Game where you play a boy in a jumpsuit or something, and it has some really original systems. Tap to jump from side to side, dash upwards, and a homing missile that slowly rearms itself. The side to side movement and the dashing is tactically quite clever, as you can use the systems to avoid, or dash into the enemies. Great original jumping system but is more or less an endless game with a lack of variation as you continue on. But 3/5 certainly.

 

06/04 releases

Assault Commando 2- Admittedly not fan of shooters on the mobile. This is graphically nice but it's quite haphazard. (Best word I could think of!) Randomly making things destructible, not quite convincing aiming.

Flippy Cup - Nice original idea of flipping cups upside down. But it's no Slide the Shakes. Just not much to game. Hey you got new cups, new areas, but no sort of crafted challenges. 2.5/5

Flipside -Game like Ketchapp or appsolute games would do, simultaneously guiding two squares on two sides of the screen to avoid hazards, or getting trapped. Slightly higher quality than the two game-a-week developers would do having a good overall theme, and music.

Rooster Rumble- The Appsolute game of the week. You control Rooster on the left, AI controls the one on the right. Tap to go up and down and kill it before it kills you. Simple game, not much more to it than that. 2.5/5

No Excuses- Simple game, controlling a guy like a Duke Nukem kind of guy. A wall of flame coming up behind you and you got to put down mines to blow up the doors(?) in front you to proceed. So the game boils down to putting the mines down in time, standing back but being aware how far the wall of flame is behind. Game needs lot of polish, doesn't look great, crashes, freezes, and the game isn't all that appealling. 1/5

Galaxy Run 2- This has platforms like Run(on the android), and Boson X(iphone), but in this no reflex swiping. It's just tap in time and it'll automatically jump to nearest platform. It's alright, fairly challenging, decent quality but no Run/Boson X.

Disney- Cross Road- It initially was disappointing with the Mickey mouse character as it seemed the same old Crossy road just a bit more cell-shaded. Having got some other characters it all changed: Banzai(Lion King?) all the cars turn into animals, and a bugs bunny where all the environment turns snow-based could see the difference. All the cars as jungle animals was a really nice touch, admittedly wasn't so keen on the bugs bunny one.

Looty Dungeon- Crossy-type dungeon crawl game. Not a fan of these, there was Skeletomb, and Crossy heroes and this isn't much different from them. The control system at least is maybe more intuitive. Tap to go forward, hold to attack, and then you got rooms with traps in, and you got to perhaps kill an enemy to proceed. It's okay but why have a decent dungeon game done in restraint of Crossy style when you can have a decent dungeon style game designed from the ground up. 3/5

Crazy Truck- Boombit release of the week. Controlling a car which you hold the button down to drive, and release to bounce in the air and then you avoid spikes. This game is boring as hell, and the mechanism isn't as compulsive as some of Boombit's other ones. 2/5

Pktball- Game which seems to be a mix of arcade hockey, and tennis. Very fast, great upbeat theme, and fun to play 3.5/5

(Gravity Island requires ios 9.0)

(I think I maybe doing this less frequently now, backlogs of games and I did this in hunt for the game that would be great to play over and over, (like a Fifa on the console(maybe a basketball or American football for Americans) and Clash Royale meets that.)

 

I should call this first impressions or something. But played some of the list today:

Super Karts- Sort of someone's first go at a game- so it's quite basic at this stage. Just a basic road, avoid opponent karts on both sides of the road and collect coins. 2/5

Wild Roads - This forgot the 'game' element I think. You drive a vehicle along 2D wild terrain roads but it randomly finishes as if you are simply doing a test-drive. You then get a new vehicle/character given to you and do the same.

Dungeoneer Academy a dungeon crawler game a genre which I'm not a big player of but didn't seem all that impressive. You can have a choice of ranger,fighter, wizard but it's combat is very simple and it's movement either seemed a bit stuttery(ipad mini) or clumsy. Fight rats and spiders.

Cube Exit- This game appears to have originally been called Cube Escape but because a release coincided with the same name it looks like a last effort to change it, and the icon still has the name Cube Escape on it. That aside the game plays out like a dungeon crawler; go from room to room, open doors, find keys, open chests. But in fact, the game is all about escaping a cube. So you have a limited amount of abilities/time to look at a map, then you got to find your way to the red exit crystal. It's okay, without being great.

Sides- Switch from side to side avoiding coloured lines and shapes. It's very responsive, colourful and playable, but you want more to a game than different variations of shapes, lines, patterns. Also half the time you'll unavoidably run into these emerging patterns. This therefore could be more a showpiece experience.

Blackbeard Blast- Basically a popular casual game on the PC called Luxor, I was never a fan but it's essentially another of form of match 3. This one seems competent enough and has power ups.

Fail Fall- This is kind of a vertical flappy bird, you are falling and when you tap you sort of bounce up. It's highly skilled, you fall and you're trying to skillfully time, or avoid the shapes/objects on the way down. Skill being the base of this game means you have games that can last no more than a second! It's got a nice brownish theme to it. The thing that could irritate some are ads which instantly appear as you die.(eg no time to even process you've crashed, just zap- it's a picture advert). But decent one though if you like highly skilled games. 3/5

Sharks w Lasers- This plays smooth and is entertaining- You have sharks with lasers! Endless basic jumper from platform to platform or plank to plank but the sharks sometimes will fire lasers on the platform you're jumping from! This game very reminiscent of Banana Kong if you liked that and the game adds some new dynamics, variation as you play on.

Armor Riders-Flying hornets with injection needles. This game! Closest this game to compare it to is metal slug. Run, shooting, jumping, double jumping. Seems slightly crazy to begin with, but it improves a bit more later on. Really like this game so far, worth a look!

Apex- Appsolute one of the week. Navigating a ball in a crappy orange themed surreal hex world. Some slowdown on the iPad mini at times. Game has a bit of challenge, but in all it's a peculiar appeal who goes for these type of games. 2/5

Spellspire-Rpg-themed word game. Go up floor by floor, creating words causing damage to enemies of the floor, and with a little extra depth of having equipment that translates to amount of damage taken or incurred. Pretty decent one, I like the fact it gives a nice amount of time before the enemy takes his hit.
3.5/5

Jellyslide- Boombit release of the week. This one is essentially a gravity switch game. Since that's been done already and with some impressive results,(gravity runner?) this one, therefore looks particularly basic. 2/5

Flick golf extreme- Fullfat's sequel to their other golf game which I never really played. This one has an awesome concept, playing golf at kind of landmarks. Playing off a helicopter, playing from the top of a canyon, playing from one building to another.
There is a heavy emphasis on after touches on the ball after you flick/hitted it which is not too bad it's just different. Good one. 3.5/5

Mars Mountain, Square one and Astro attack- Three decent gamey-games. Astro attack inspired by space invaders. Mars mountain similar to down the mountain with a martian theme, and Square one a hazard course type game with a lot of character. Get that trio and you got a good gaming buzz there. All about 3/5, Square one might be a slightly better quality but it appears to have occasional rare crash on ipad mini.

Versus Run- Hate to say it but it's a decent ketchapp game for this week. Run away in tile-based mazes pressing left and right navigating through the gaps. It adds some Moving tiles variety the more you play it. 3/5

Unforgiving- This has a great name as you know what to expect. It's very similar to the bold neon red, green and black Simple Spy a release a few months ago. You have to jump over all the hazards, and perform precise walljumps and stuff to get to the exit. The style and effects really are impressive.

(Go Robo run iphone5s/iPad mini 2 and up,Lord of war repeated crashes at startup on iPad mini,Elemental Rush performance was too much for the iPad mini and crashes at Phoenix part in tutorial)

 

*Made alteration to cube exit review. I mistakingly thought it was a dungeon crawler. It's simply finding the exit in a cube.

 

That's awesome, was really surprised anyone read it to be honest.

 

Rescuers- Appsolute games. Simple gameplay one, people jump out of burning buildings and a single tap game to go back/forward to catch them. Like the art style of the houses in this, but the gameplay gets old quite fast. 2/5

Kerohiro Pretty decent Nimble-quest like (team of heroes moving around in snake movements) game but playing as a frog team. 3/5

LoopMania - Original gameplay one. You encircle the inside of a circle collecting yellow dots, and tapping to switch sides of the circle and bash into the other circles encircling around before they bump into you. It's Made by Umbrella who made Back to Square one, and Boom dot so it's a top notch feel to the game, and really addictive! (Minor problem on the Ipad mini that it can crash when the advert triggers, but its rare and its possible to buy no-ad version) 3.5/5

Flying Hotdog Playing a flying hotdog on a bicycle rescuing his hotdog pals before they get burnt. Press left and right to balance the bike forward and backward to avoid the rotating spikes- and later a boss on a bicycle (firing shots at you) . Plays like a vertical flappy bird. It's not bad, some challenge to it. Adverts-friendly- just a brief screen ad. 3/5

Exodus By Ketchapp. Weird bloody rocket game, tap as the rocket goes over green dots. One of ketchapp's worst for me. Where's the fun. 1/5

Line Runner 3 By Djinnworks the makers of the stickman games. Slight originality with it's right hand of the screen to jump over blocks, left hand of the screen to rotate the running platform- and run on the other side. Best bit of the game when the stickman bumps into a block!, however, it's quite bland and uninspired,also marred by frequent 30 sec ads. 2.5/5

Impossible Words- Competent enough word game, work out the anagram of 6/7 letter words. Fair on ads, ads just currency for hints. Good game if trying to improve Words With Friends skill!

Choppa- Collect passengers in a 'choppa' and taking them to the landing point. Has a few nice art effects added(reflection in the water, fire) , but instead of a arcade-way of manoeuvring its gone for tap for where you want the choppa to go, also it's agonisingly slow to play. However, maybe I'm an instant gratification man, and it's slowness could be up some people's streets. It's on everyplay so will get some coverage there. 2/5 (for me)

Mr Cube- By Trinity Stars. A sort of twin-stick slasher and with a decent eery forest setting. And like other Trinity stars games it's a good quality one, despite a bug or two. (Character seems to only face one way when slashing sometimes). It has upgrades, and items to buy. However having done 15 levels it gets quite repetitive. It doesn't make the game exciting enough to turn its quality into something great. 3/5 (playable without being great)

Trap Da Gang- Just seen on Apple's new games. Original one, first thoughts was that it reminded me of the classic lemmings. You direct criminals escaping towards bombs, and you do that by building ladders that they will blindly go down towards the vicinity of a bomb. Alternatively, you can plant dogs for the criminals to change direction. Also has other utilities. It's quite exciting to see a new variant on the old Lemmings formula.


(Did not play: Fallen London requires 9.1 or later, Save Dan blank screen on IPad mini)