Home » Articles and Reviews by 'Christian Valentin'
Four Last Things blends Renaissance art and absurdist humor on iOS and Android this week
Kickstarted back in 2016, Four Last Things promises Monty Python-esque humor and a point-n-click romp through the landscapes of classic Renaissance paintings, when it arrives on the App Store and Google Play this Thursday. A loophole sets your bumbling outsider on a quest to fulfill the seven deadly sins in order to gain absolution, leading you through the works of artists like Bosch and Bruegel to chat and interact in true adventure game fashion. Zany sight gags and dialogue, along with animated figures bring these paintings to life, as you collect items, talk with characters, and solve silly yet logical puzzles to assist (or meddle with) poets and blacksmiths, from quaint towns to…
AndroidInfinite West tests your turn-based gunslinging skills on iOS
Clint Eastwood and others made being a gunslinger look easy in dozens of westerns, but surviving the ever-increasing onslaughts of Infinite West is anything but. Available now om iOS, this high-score chasing strategy game transforms Wild West gun battles into Hoplite-inspired chess, with a board game touch. Each level, your blade and gun wielding hero figurine must face a growing army of bandits, dodging their knives and bullets while getting into position to eliminate them all. Limited health and ammo means every move counts, and much like the mobile roguelike Hoplite, you can see the attack range of every enemy, so surival becomes a careful game of placement and weaving between dangerou…
Dieselpunk mechs and alt-history WW1 collide in digital board game Scythe, headed to iOS this year
Based on the popular artwork and world of Jakub Rozalski, Scythe is a digital board game adaptation, revolving around the clash of towering iron machines and nations in an alternate 1920s, and it’s coming to iPad some time in 2018. Set in a Europe where damaged nations and fallen leaders adapt to this incredible new technology, you wage asymmetrical war against other countries, conquering terrorities, gathering recruits and supplies, and activating powering mechs to turn the tide of battles. Each faction brings their own unique abilities, starting stats, and objectives to the board, while narrative choices let you mold your nation and leader through how you treat your c…
The Room: Old Sins brings a new collection of eldritch puzzle boxes to iOS on January 25th
The Room series has grown with each entry for the single table of the first game to the multiple rooms and endings of the third. The next game looks to evolve the series again, when The Room: Old Sins launches on iPad and iPhone next Thursday. The core concept is still unlocking mysterious strucures and boxes through tactile puzzles, but Old Sins takes a new, and technically smaller, approach. Set within the halls and rooms of a dollhouse, you interact with the various areas and creations throughout, solving puzzles that can affect other rooms beyond the one you’re currently in. All manner of hidden compartments, disguised switches, and reality-bending eldritch designs await within…
Leap fast and fancy when acrobatic platformer Super Fancy Pants Adventure releases on iOS next Thursday
If you were playing browser games in the early 2000s, you might already be familiar with the spiky hair and orange pants of Fancy Pants’ agile hero. He’s been on iOS before, but on the 25th, Fancy Pants is returning to mobile with the expanded and improved Super Fancy Pants Adventure. This new adventure may be super but the formula remains familiar: you’re unleashed across large levels filled with scribbles to collect, secret levels to find, and a snail shell to trickily bounce around the stage to a waiting golf hole, all the while sliding down slopes to gain momentum for soaring leaps. Fancy Pants is all about fluid and stylish movement, lettung you chain together…
Hidden Gem of the Week: Blackbar / Greyout
Sometimes it can be easy to forgot the power of words can play in games. Often words are merely relegated to mere UI indications or the names of cool new loot. Dialogue, flavor text, and logs of lore remind us of their importance, while the text adventures and 80 Days of gaming show us how effective well-crafted prose can be But outside of text adventures and word games, fewer still focus on blending the words themselves with the gameplay. Perhaps the most recent examples I can think of are Device 6's use of text to mirror the described environment and Type Rider's platforming journey through the history of typography. Blackbar and Grayout are two word games that use their text to tell thei…
Oddman is an oddly charming brawler from Set Snail, coming to iOS
Set Snail’s repertoire is one of charmingly odd games - from the abstract Snake Towers to the clumsy Daddy Long Legs - and their next game follows suit, as Oddman tackles the physics-based local mulitplayer fighter. In Oddman, your weirdly-shaped brawlers bash and leap upon tiny islands, and the surrounding waters teem with ravenous sealife. Only the strongest and fastest can survive, pitting you against both AI and friends in a physics-driven bout of tackles and slams. Each fighter and enemy brings their own unique perks to battle, be it varying size and speed or other abilities. Of course, given the humorous physics, both of you might end up as fish food before quickly reload…
Unleash cyberpunk chaos when dual stick shooter Jydge releases on iOS this week
Dual stick shooters often put you in the shoes of a one-man army, able to take on overwhelming waves of aliens or geometric shapes or soldiers. Jydge is no different, except this aptly named shooter takes its inspiration from Judge Dredd; so your battlegrounds are the crime-infested streets and buildings of megacity Edenbyrg and you wield a sci-fi arsenal when the game releases on iOS this Thursday. A spin-off of 10tons’ other cyberpunk shooter Neon Chrome, Jydge drops you in stages among civilians and futuristic criminal alike. The destruction and furious action of Neo Chrome remains, but now with a more customizable array of abilities and perks to develop your playstyle. Want to r…
Decode pop culture quotes in cipher word puzzler Quote Codes, releasing next week on iOS
Word games often have you matching or unscrambling letters to reveal words within, but Quote Codes is a bit different; in this game coming to iOS next Thursday, your goal isn't to create words but to decode them. Drawing quotes and iconic lines from all spectrums of pop culture and media, you must use a given cipher to piece together the full phrase, using deduction to match vowels and other letters with their abstract symbols. As you decode quotes from Stranger Things or Game of Thrones, you'll be able to track progress, mistakes made, even use of special power-ups once you unlock them. Word game fans will be able to find Quote Codes on App Store, where it'll be available on the 1…
High scores and secrets await in challenging tactical match-3 Six Match, for iOS and Android
Considering it’s one of the more prominent genres on mobile, you might think you know all about the match-3. But for every common approach to the genre, there might be an interesting twist, from the RPG hybrids like Puzzle Quest to the directional strategy of Swapperoo. Six Match is an equally interesting tale on the genre, hiding myriad mechanics beneath its simple and colorful veneer. Six Match is the new game from Aaron Steed, developer of the puzzle roguelike Ending (iOS, Android), and like that game, Six Match is all about economy of movement. That title is both name and mechanic: you have six turns to make successful matches, six turns to maneuver your white tile into position a…
Meteorfall is a quirky roguelike card battler headed to iOS and Android on January 25th
Meteorfall isn’t the first game to combine the card game with RPG elements and character building, but it might be the most charming. With its colorful art style and stylized Adventure Time-esque designs, Meteorfall promised a humorous approach to the subgenre when it launches later this month. Choosing from four heroes ranging from the floppy-hatted rogue to the broadsword-wielding warrior, battles in Meteorfall are ones of decks and loot, as you draw actions, perks, and gear from your deck; each draw opens the door for new tactics and strategies against the charmingly grotesque enemies you’ll face. Powerful magic, special weapons, and more expand your deck as you progr…
Hidden Gem of the Week: RYB
This is the first in a weekly series of features dedicated to highlighting interesting, lesser known hidden gems across iOS and Android. With the sheer volume and rate of new releases, it can be easy for a game to unnoticed, unseen; some here may be newer or older, but all are engaging in their own unique way. Picross, Paint It Back, Minesweeper, Hexcells. There’s something uniquely satisfying about a logic puzzler, perhaps how one can solve their challenges without guessing or mistakes, through pure deduction. RYB falls squarely in this category, a Picross-style puzzle game that eschews numbers and grids for colors and geometric shapes. Squares, triangle, hexagons, and other sha…
Solve visual programming puzzles when While True: Learn() comes to iOS and Android in 2018
Mobile is no stranger to programming-based puzzlers, from Zachtronics’ early SpaceChem to the charming Human Resource Machine. But outside of TIS-100, most are abstractions of the concept; While True: Learn() promises an interesting approach, focused on placing you in the chair of a machine learning specialist, when the game launches on mobile this year. Acting with intent as a puzzle game and an educational tool, While True: Learn() presents you with problems themed around managing data and code for various tasks, and then gives you a toolbox of components to solve these logistical puzzles. It seems simple in execution - no actual coding, just dragging and connecting deci…
Wayout is a clever minimalist puzzler heading to iOS and Android on January 25th
A minimalist puzzler offers a unique kind of satisfication - not too complex as to be overwhelming, while being simple and distilled without being too easy - and Wayout looks like it'll be a promising addition to that category when it releases on the 25th. Befitting its subgenre, Wayout's premise is a simple one: every stage presents you with a grid of white and different colored tiles, your job is to make the entire grid devoid of color. Tapping a tile affects the color of surrounding tiles in various ways depending on color and marking; some change colors in specific patterns, or only activiate specific tiles, or change certain colors. It's through blending togethers this array of mecha…
Survive relentless waves of aliens in sci-fi shooter Let Them Come on iOS
The hero of Let Them Come has the right idea for when you’re trapped in a shadow facility ovverun by hordes of ravenous alien horrors. No hiding, no sneaking about, just get a big gun and hold them all off for as long as you and go down fighting. That tile is a statement of intent, challenging you to face pixel-art waves of enemies and bosses in this new shooter out now on iOS. Let Them Come is almost as simple as that title implies; from behind your stationary heavy weapon, you attempt to survive increasingly tough pixel-art foes, complementing your main gun with special ammo, secondary items like grenades, and perks and upgrades to modify your loadout. Lacking the movement…
