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Organization: Crescent Moon Games

  • Shadow Blade Review
    Reviews
    • Android
    • iOS
    Shadow Blade Review

    By

    The movement of a ninja needs to be tight, swift, and precise with each delivery. There's no use in sticking to the shadows and sneaking up on your enemies if they're going to be able to disarm you and discard you without a second thought. That's why any ninja-based game on a mobile touchscreen device is a gamble - it's tricky enough as it is to make a platforming game feel right on a touchscreen, so to recreate the feel of stalking your prey as a ninja is really rather difficult.Remarkably, new ninja-based platformer Shadow Blade manages it with grace. While the controls feel a little unorthodox to begin with, they quickly prove ambitious and well considered, with flicks and gestures becoming your window into a world of great set-pieces, wall-jumping, blood-spewing, and rushes to the finish.You play as a ninja student who is attempting to return to his master with important information. Unfortunately there are numerous obstacles and enemies standing between points A and B, and he's going to need to hack and slash his way through the lot of them. Of course, that can only be good news for us - I mean, we need some baddies to make this fun, right?Shadow Blade wants you to feel slick. To this end, the game comes with a control scheme that's a little bit different - you can opt for the regular d-pad style controls, but you'll want to go with the gesture and swiping control set, because it feels really damn good once you properly get into it.
  • Reviews
    • Android
    • iOS
    Clash of Puppets Review

    By

    Charlie loves B-movies, and who can blame him? There's a level of camp and cheese that catapults poorly made cinema into the world of endearingly awful. So when our good ol' Charlie happens upon a drive-in boasting a classic B-movie marathon, he pulls in right away to partake in the terrible goodness. But all that flick-watchin' is serious business, and Charlie soon succumbs to sleep, whereupon he is whisked away into the very films he loves in the role of the hero. Armed with a trusty baseball bat, proximity traps, and any number of firearms, Charlie must make it through the benchmarks of less-than-mainstream film, lest he be Nightmare on Elm Street-ed (killed in his sleep) by the very cinematic villains and monsters he has come to love. Tragic.There's a cartoony style to Clash of Puppets that blends with a mostly linear take on classic 3D platformers. Putting elements like mechanics and gameplay aside for the moment, it's important to note that this is a good-looking game, especially for its light-hearted, kid-friendly style. No, it isn't the most beautifully developed experience in the history of mobile gaming, but there are enough subtle touches, clever lighting, and immersive additions (why is fog so spooky, anyway?) that you'll probably take note.  Charlie is pretty damned cute, and as far as heroes go, he's likable."Really, he falls under the strong and silent type that developers seem to like so much, but there is a lot to be said for the star of the show being an everyman. Even if it isn't a major plot point and even if we are talking about a game where cute puppets beat up other cute puppets, there's something about an ordinary person thrust into extraordinary circumstances and rising to a challenge. On some level, no matter how small, we tend to see ourselves like this - to view the world of the character through our own eyes. Or maybe I'm just reading waaaay too much into it and it's little more than a silly distraction. Either way, the means to think this way is apparently something that can happen.
  • Space Chicks Review
    Reviews
    • iOS
    Space Chicks Review

    By

    Let's get this out of the way right up front: Space Chicks is the next Jetpack Joyride. It's the next 'endless play, buy new upgrades, can't put it down' addiction that fits snuggly in your pocket. You're going to play it, love it, and curse this review for ever letting you know about it in the first place. It's a game that accomplishes exactly what it sets out to do - make you want to keep playing round after round.Space Chicks is an endless runner with a gravity-based twist. Like Canabalt, Jetpack Joyride, and the like, your little astronaut will run automatically, with jumps performed by a simple tap anywhere on the screen. What makes Space Chicks unique, though, is where your hero jumps to.In a move that seems to draw inspiration from physics-based games like Angry Birds Space, your astronaut will jump from planetoid to planetoid with each jump's trajectory affected by the pull of gravity. The object of the game is to successfully time your jumps to get from one planet to the next in a quest to rescue the titular chicks in space. 
  • Reviews
    • iOS
    Strike Wing: Raptor Rising Review

    By

    Strike Wing: Raptor Rising is the odd case of a pretty good game which just doesn't quite have all it needs to sink its hooks into you. It does have quite a bit going for it, as you are greeted with a choice of control style, ranging between touchscreen joystick and gyroscopic tilt steering; and what's more surprising than it should be in this business, the touchscreen controls are actually quite good. Accompanying the slick controls, which also include buttons for firing, boosting, and slowing down, are some very nice graphics and suitable (if not particularly catchy) music and sound effects for your space dogfight.And a dogfight is just what it is, as you engage the enemy in a full 360-degree field of battle, shooting at the enemy fighters with the help of your wingmen. There is also the boast of adaptable enemy AI, changing as you play, but it can be a bit difficult to notice, at least earlier on. Fortunately, locking on to enemies is pretty simple, as you don't need a precise lock on your targets to score hits: just getting them inside the wider targeting reticule is often enough to engage a small degree of auto-targeting from your guns, alleviating what could have been a rather frustrating experience."The game is broken up into missions, and this is where things begin to falter. Each mission contains a different scenario or end objective, but there isn't really anything to tie them together. It's essentially a high-score game, and while that's not bad—we're certainly not ones to say games must have a story—something about it just feels kind of lacking without one. 
  • Mimpi Review
    Reviews
    • Android
    • iOS
    Mimpi Review

    By

    Mimpi is a gorgeous and whimsical platform-adventure with touchscreen controls about a little white dog who discovers one morning that his master has gone missing. So like any good dog, he decides to venture out past his peaceful home and scour the dangerous lands of the earth to find out just where his master went off to.The story and presentation are some of the biggest strengths here in Mimpi, as everything gets told completely without dialogue, and actually gives you a deeper sense of engagement in both the characters and the narrative than most text-heavy games do these days. The graphics are wonderfully bright, with an almost paper-like quality to them at times, and Mimpi's animations are especially fluid and adorable as he hops and platforms along hills, logs, sleepy fish heads, and everything else you can think of in between!But the big twist here is that a lot of objects in the game environment can actually be moved and manipulated by the touch of your finger: something you'll be needing to do a lot of if you want to traverse most of the game's trickier platforming sections and puzzle scenes (not to mention the odd and rather out-of-place hidden object scenes you'll be asked to complete at the end of each larger level).The visuals and world design are the true shining stars here in Mimpi, as everything feels like one enormous and interconnected sidescrolling stage, that takes you through all sorts of different environments from hillsides and forests, to beaches and underwater caves (Mimpi gets to ride around in a giant air bubble during these sections). It's true that you'll never see the same location twice in the game, and the optional bone collectables provide an extra splash of challenge, which unlock cute comic strip stories in the gallery; in addition to the rarer light bulb collectables, which give you an extra hint when you need some help on how to proceed.
  • Nakama Review
    Reviews
    • Android
    • iOS
    Nakama Review

    By

    Whether you're into the "float like a butterfly, sting like a bee" fighting approach, or you're perhaps more of a "crouching tiger, hidden dragon," it's safe to say that when it comes to being a ninja, your fighting style needs to be swift, controlled, and tight. You're not going to be around for very long if you can't dodge a simple shuriken to the face.Mobile ninja-em-up Nakama fails miserably to provide the sort of control that is required of a Shinobi warrior, while also piling on a rather confused difficulty curve, and action that is more a rambling bar fight than a well-implemented meeting of blades. There's style here for sure, but the gameplay itself needs a massive overhaul before it will approach anything that can be deemed entertaining."You are the last Shinobi of your village, and nasty enemy ninjas are looking to make sure you don't survive much longer. As you run to the right, each level consists of a couple of screens of generic ninjas to take out, before a slightly more tricky boss battle.Nakama's controls should be relatively simple. You're provided with A and B buttons - A slices, while B jumps. Hold A and you'll get a mega slice, while double-tapping B makes you rush through the air. You can also use a combination of A and B to slice through the air too. Sounds great so far - but in practice, it leaves a lot to be desired.
  • Fading Fairytales Review
    Reviews
    • iOS
    Fading Fairytales Review

    By

    It's already common knowledge that most of Disney's feature films - Sleeping Beauty, The Little Mermaid, et al - are highly sanitized versions of fairytales penned by the likes of Hans Christian Andersen and the appropriately-named Brothers Grimm. Fading Fairytales is a turn-based strategy RPG that recalls the darker days of our favorite stories. The title's setting and character designs are a lot of fun, but the gameplay tells a slow, familiar story.   Trouble has come to the land of fairytales. Darkness has settled over the storybook worlds, and old-time heroes like Robin Hood and Pinocchio have turned bad as a result. Three heroes pledge to save their home: Amon the anteater, Middle the bear, and Natadak the platypus ("not a duck" - get it?). Luckily, Gepetto has cobbled together a machine that frees the heroes from the darkness, but in order to get the heroes to take their medicine, you need to take down their henchmen first."And oh, there are henchmen. Tons and tons of henchmen. Battle after battle is thrown at you, and each one is as lively as Snow White was after she went on her poisoned apple binge.  If you've played a mobile turn-based RPG, then you already have a good idea of what to expect from Fading Fairytales. You and your opponents take turns moving across a battlefield. When you get close to one another, an exchange of blows ensues. There are also characters capable of delivering long-range attacks, and others that can heal allies or mess up the enemies' stats. The battle ends when one side has been annihilated.
  • Greedy Dwarf Review
    Reviews
    • iOS
    Greedy Dwarf Review

    By

    Your Wario-esque approach to finance has landed you in hot lava, literally. The lizard from The Magic School Bus has taken a hit of Ninja Turtle mutagen, and is prepared to pursue you relentlessly on his tricycle, determined to recover the aurum you pilfered. Fortunately, everyone knows that lumberjacks dwarves are expert mine cart operators, especially carts of the anti-gravity type. Ride on Greedy Dwarf, ride on.