Dragon Mania is Gameloft's answer to Clash of Clans, joining the crowded combat genre a bit late in the game, but making up for it with some very exciting gameplay. It drops some of the simulation elements in favor of active battle sequences, allowing you to take your elemental dragons into combat to see who's the best screen-tapper in the kingdom!Dragon Mania is all about raising, feeding, and growing dragons, and then carrying them into battle against the evil Vikings. You do this by curating your village to hold habitats, then purchasing dragon eggs to hatch and care for. Collect rent from these buildings and use the money to upgrade them to hold more troops; but be mindful of food stores, as baby dragons need lots of chow to grow up to be big and strong."Quests appear on the left side of the screen, giving you direction early in the game. They range from simple tasks like "build this structure," to more complicated missions that will take days to complete. Naturally, you can skip artificial wait times by spending gems, one of Dragon Mania's two in-game currencies. In addition to the basic hatching and nursery facilities, Dragon Mania also has a handful of other buildings to help support your army. Breeding dens, for example, allow you to make new dragons in the old fashioned way, while things like banners and wishing wells are purely for show. Most of your time will be spent focusing on feeding your army, of course. With 50 different dragons to raise, you'll have your hands full without worrying about planting fruit trees.
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.
Warlords RTS is, as the title suggests, a real-time strategy game set in Aldfarne, a fantasy kingdom overrun by orcs, ogres, goblins, and other such Tolkien-esque riff-raff. Its simplified control scheme makes a tricky thing of complex maneuvers, but RTS fans are nonetheless likely to find it a pleasant way to scratch the strategy itch when they're away from home.Warlords RTS is more than a little reminiscent of the classic Blizzard game Warcraft, back when it was known first and foremost as a real-time strategic conflict between orcs and humans. Unlike that game, however, and most others of its kind, in this one you'll personally lead your troops into battle with a "Warlord" avatar: a Ranger, a Wizard, a Warrior King, or a Huntress, each with unique skills, an RPG-style inventory of rings, amulets, armor and weapons, and the ability to wield powerful magic. As "you," the Warlords are the most powerful tool in your arsenal, but they're still far from invulnerable; fortunately, death is little more than a brief and temporary delay of four or five seconds until you're back on the field, and a ding against your final score."The game looks and sounds great, and while the story driving it is a very thin, conventional high-fantasy tale of a good kingdom overrun by the forces of darkness, the two or three lines of narrative between levels is flowery enough to be legit without tipping into the overwrought. It's all very well-polished, and new units, spells, and control options are introduced slowly, giving players plenty of time to experiment with and grasp their use.Your army will be made up of fantasy archetypes ranging from lowly swordsmen and archers to powerful mages and healers, represented by elves, dwarves, humans, and possibly even a hobbit. The number of units you can maintain at any one time is tightly restricted and can only be grown by conquering villages on the map, but even a "big" army isn't likely to number much more than 20 or so. Warlords RTS is a relatively small-scale game, a concession to the limits of touch interfaces on small screens; but the upside to that is that it's also fairly fast-paced, so you won't need to invest half your day to start and finish a battle.
For gamebook fans of a certain age, Gary Chalk is a name to conjure with. He got co-author credits for the illustrations in the early Lone Wolf books, probably the best loved of the many gamebook franchises that thronged bookshelves in the mid-eighties. Times have changed, and digital publishing is all the rage, but Gary's art has not diminished and he's here with a brand new outing, Gun Dogs.This is the latest title in Tin Man Game's Gamebook Adventure series and it shares a lot of mechanical similarities with its predecessors. You'll read through a paragraph of text, often be presented with some choices at the end, and occasionally have to check one of your stats against a dice roll, or fight a monster."Battles are decided by throwing a number of offensive and defensive dice and comparing the highest of each to see if a blow is landed. If so, the difference between the totals is the damage inflicted. I've never liked this system: it's functional but leads to a lot of indecisive rolls followed by colossal sums of damage. But as the Gamebook Adventure series has gone on, Tin Man has found a number of ways to improve the basic mechanics. Here, as the title suggests, you have a gun.But this is a fantasy adventure, so it's a slow hand-loaded pistol. That's used to set up a number of tense and interesting choices in the book where you might - or might not - have had the chance to load your weapon before venturing into danger. Whether you actually hit with your gunpowder weapon or not is, like many other things in the story, decided by a dice-based stat test.
There have been a few attempts at creating Doctor Who games that didn't feel like glorified cash grabs, but mobile games have never been at the top of the list. Doctor Who: Legacy is a free-to-play effort that, while mired in the trappings of a match-3 gem puzzler, does a decent job of incorporating the lore and attitude of the popular sci-fi series.Rather than simply matching gems to earn a certain score, the game plays out in a "versus" manner, where you, the Doctor, and several companions face off against enemies that range from Weeping Angels to Cybermen; two popular villains from the show itself.Various types of gem matches are your only defense against the oncoming threats, and the Doctor (as well as each companion) has a special ability they can unleash against enemies. Some heal, some deal devastating damage, and others have other support techniques that are helpful in battle. Part of the fun lies in assembling a team that can play off of each other well, so as you progress and collect new team members, it's interesting to test out abilities as well.
For younger gamers, sometimes it's okay if the line between a game and a learning app gets a little blurry. That "best of both worlds" quality definitely applies to Fun Town, the latest release from British studio Touch & Learn. Combining a colorful, engaging place to explore with some solid early life lessons turns out to be a winning formula, one that parents will appreciate no matter how they decide to classify it.The first thing people of any age will notice about Fun Town is that it has no instructions. That seems to be very much by design, as the whole idea behind the titular town is that kids should figure it out by jumping right in and interacting with it. That's done by touching out on the main street to see what happens, and all of the town's citizens and vehicles will respond with sounds and motion when tapped."There also aren't any letters in town, so reading isn't a prerequisite to play. The town's businesses can be identified by their signage - the candy shop has lollipops, the banks have big pictures of money, and so on. Tapping on a store gets you inside to play a mini-game, but there are others in places you might not first expect (like the phone booth and stoplight). Kids can and will figure out that nothing should be ignored.
Soccer, or football as they call it everywhere but here in America, is a funny game. Sometimes you lose sight of how humorous it can be until a game reminds you, which is what Flick Kick Football Legends does so well. The gameplay isn't too shabby either, but a veritable barrage of ads kills the mood a bit. Actually, the onslaught kills it more than a bit, which is rather unfortunate.You won't find a more pleasantly surprising set-up for a game than this one, which places you at the helm of a football squad seeking to reclaim some of its lost glory. The thing is, the rebuilding is only necessary because one of the star player's power-up shots went awry, killing the old manager in a fiery explosion. It's a clever bit of poking fun at video game conventions that's presented in comic book style, and as an added bonus, the tutorial is woven into it too.As you'll soon discover, the ghost of the old skipper is still around to help mentor you. With his help, you set off to advance back up through the league system in what appears to be a fictional 1970s England, building up your team with better players and winning promotions to ever tougher leagues. In between matches, you're offered some choose-your-own-adventure style decisions which could lead to added funds or bonus experience points for your players if you pick right, and cost you coins or debuff your stars if you don't.
The death of arcades threw up a cloud of fallout that subsequently killed almost everything even associated with the neon-lit caves of old. Arcade cabinets weren't the only machines that dissolved into irrelevance: classics like Whack-a-Mole and skee-ball faded away with them. There are still a few ways to get your skee ball fix, however. You can hang around a Chuck E Cheese and push ahead of the kids lined up in front of you (not recommended), or you can download Skee-Ball Arcade by Scopely.Other skee ball apps have come and gone from the App Store, but Skee-Ball Arcade is the first officially licensed game. It honors its license, too; this is the most authentic skee ball experience you're going to find outside of some bowling alley's decrepit video game corner.Playing skee-ball is a bit like playing on a small, elevated bowling course (if you're Canadian, picture five-pin bowling conducted on a miniaturized lane full of speed bumps and holes). You're allotted a certain number of small balls, which you roll up and over a series of rubber barriers. Behind each barrier is a hole that corresponds to a score. If your ball goes into a hole, you're rewarded with the marked number of points. Generally, the smaller and further away a barrier / hole combo is, the more points it's worth. When your game is over, you receive a string of tickets you can exchange at a counter for a comb or mustache wax.