The U.S. and Canada don’t always see eye to eye on everything, but we were united this past week or so by holidays. Almost everyone got to enjoy some time off, hopefully with friends and family, and enjoyed some new …
The U.S. and Canada don’t always see eye to eye on everything, but we were united this past week or so by holidays. Almost everyone got to enjoy some time off, hopefully with friends and family, and enjoyed some new mobile games.
You did spend some of your holiday time with new mobile games, right? That’s pretty much the whole point of having time away from work from our point of view.
If not, all is not lost. As sure as the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, there’s a new batch of titles that has descended upon the app stores, holidays or not. We sifted through them as soon as we changed out of our patriotic clothes and highlighted the ones that look promising. Not with an actual highlighter, as that might not come off our computer screens.
Let’s take a look.
You’re likely familiar with the developer of this game, Nitrome, who has some kind of magic formula for cute visuals. At least we think so. This time around, the studio has applied said formula to classic arcade-style platforming, with simple controls you can use with just one hand. With more than 50 floors, eight boss battles and procedurally generated levels, Drop Wizard Tower looks like it will have both fun and replay value, which is another magic formula if you stop and think about it.
E3 2017 didn’t end up as a huge event for mobile games, so we had to dig a little deeper and check out things that were mobile-adjacent. One of those things was PlayLink, a Sony initiative for games you can play on PS4 with other people using phones as the controllers. That’s You! is the first PlayLink game to arrive on the scene, so it will be interesting to see how people react to it. Note that this isn’t a standalone mobile game, but rather just the app you’ll need to interact with the PS4 title. Fortunately, no one ever went broke on quiz-style party games, so there should be a definite audience for this.
Back before Player Unknown’s Battlegrounds was all the rage, another PC game that captured a lot of buzz was the zombie survival title DayZ. The set-up wasn’t that unique, as it was simply an open world where you gathered resources and attempted to survive as long as possible, but it caught on even though it was in a seemingly never-ending development cycle. Mini DayZ is an interesting follow-up: a pixel art mobile take on the same idea, though apparently without the multiplayer element. That means it will likely stand or fall on the strength of the AI characters, but it’s certainly worth checking out.
Here’s something you don’t see every day. JiPPO! Street is a city builder of sorts where each building starts out as a die, then a crane goes down the street and drops another die on top of it. You have to rotate the die to the correct face as it drops in order to successfully complete the building. So like a builder mixed with Tetris mixed with dice, maybe? The visuals were apparently inspired by the Sega Master System (Google it, kids) and the limited colors available to that system. We’re here for this.
Has Kairosoft finally simulated every activity in the world in pixel form? Maybe so since this is actually a sequel, but starting and running your own (adorable) race team is an idea that probably never goes out of style. You’ll need to hire mechanics to build you fast rides, then recruit talented drivers to get the best out of them. A variety of tracks require slightly different characteristics to achieve success, so you’ll have plenty into which to sink your teeth while you ponder the biggest question of our time: will there ever be a Game Dev Story 2?
It’s time to get your PvP on again. SIEGE: Titan Wars is the latest in a growing craze, that being the PvP battle game that also has card game elements. This one appears to lean even more heavily to the card side, which isn’t a bad thing, but if you’ve played and enjoyed titles like Clash Royale, you’ll probably want to try this and see how it operates on an even bigger scale. Maybe you can tell us why the SIEGE needs to be in all caps.
