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Organization: Artifex Mundi

  • Deadlings Review
    Reviews
    • Android
    • iOS
    Deadlings Review

    By

    "Pay-to-win": it's hardly a death knell for most mobile games, as it's quite easy to find people with more money than time and a poor sense of where to spend either one.Deadlings certainly isn't the most egregious such game, but it hardly gets a pass.Death (as in the Grim Reaper) is unsurprisingly lonely. After seeing potential friendship in the equally unwanted zombies of the world, he tries to win their companionship by running them through a gantlet of deadly traps, platforms and obstacles at his new business, Deadlings, Inc.The elevator pitch is something like Jetpack Joyride meets Lemmings. You play as Death, guiding different classes of endlessly running zombies through test chambers, collecting brains and making for the exit.
  • Deadlings Preview
    Upcoming
    • Android
    • iOS
    Deadlings Preview

    By

    In the upcoming Deadlings from Artifex Mundi, the Grim Reaper has decided to make nice with the living world once and for all. After all, he's always getting such a bad rep from humans, but it's not his fault that people sometimes die! So to make it up to them, the Reaper drafts a genius plan to raise the dead and get them on their way. The result, of course, is hoards and hoards of brain-loving zombies.I recently had some time to go hands-on with an early build of the game, and believe it or not, Deadlings actually plays out like an awesome cross between tough-as-nails platformer Super Meat Boy, and a more strategic zombie affair like Plants vs. Zombies. At the start of each level, you'll be presented with a digital overview of the level layout, where you can scope out the location of each brain collectable and plan your most efficient path. Once you have your bearings all set, you tap on the starting point and choose which type of zombie you'd like to unleash, and which direction you'd like them to start running in."At this point the game switches over to its Super Meat Boy inspiration, with your selected zombie automatically running forward in the direction you've chosen, and your new task being to make them jump over spikes and other obstacles by quickly tapping on the screen. If you mess up the timing, your zombie will splatter against the environment and remain a bloody mess there until you either finish the level or use a special power-up to resurrect him. But not to worry though! Each level will give you a fixed number of the undead to go through, so you have a little breathing room on your endless quest for brains.
  • Enigmatis: The Mists of Ravenwood Review
    Reviews
    • iOS
    • PC
    Enigmatis: The Mists of Ravenwood Review

    By

    A direct sequel to Enigmatis: The Ghosts of Maple Creek, Enigmatis: The Mists of Ravenwood lets us put on the detective badge once again in a wonderful tale of intrigue and hidden object adventuring. On her continued search for the demonic preacher who eluded her at the end of the last game, our fearless detective comes across a frightened young girl named Becky at the edge of a campground. The detective's search for the little girl's parents ultimately leads her into the happy and idyllic campgrounds of Ravenwood, although everything is certainly not as it seems before long: from the oh-so-cheery camp workers, to the way the world seems to shift into darkness at regular turns, and of course, let's not forget the barrels of dead bodies and giant shadowy raven that tends to stop by from time to time.The game's presentation is particularly top-notch, with wonderfully painted visuals and smooth animations, not to mention impressive 3D character models that work like magic in the many engrossing cutscenes. What's great about this game is that The Mists of Ravenwood completely owns up to its rustic campground setting, and everything beyond it makes logical sense within the overall constraints of its own uniquely crafted world. Areas like the logging cabins, a giant tree that you can walk inside of, and even a short detour to the rocky beach below all feel realistic and connected, and you'll never veer off into that oversaturated futuristic temple that seems to make an appearance at the end of almost every hidden object adventure game these days."The Mists of Ravenwood does a lot of things that go the extra mile towards making the overall experience feel like so much more than your typical hidden object adventure. The most welcome of these features are in the deductions that your character can make by strategically placing found pieces of evidence on an investigative bulletin board of sorts (you are a detective after all!). While it's really just a matter of dragging the different evidence items over one of the various plot point circles until you find a match, it's still an extremely nice way of advancing the plot and giving players a nice refresher course at regular intervals as to what the underlying mysteries are.
  • Left in the Dark: No One on Board Review
    Reviews
    • iOS
    • PC
    Left in the Dark: No One on Board Review

    By

    While on a recent trip to Belarus, I was struck by the need for a McDonald's cheeseburger. Days of strange foods made me crave something predictable and familiar. It occurred to me then that games are like food; sometimes we look for something new on the menu, and sometimes we want the assurance of the tried-and-true. Moonrise Interactive's Left in the Dark: No One on Board fits into the latter category—not remarkable by any stretch, but as an interactive experience, solid and familiar.