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Homo Machina is an artful industrial puzzler in development for iOS and Android

News By Christian Valentin, 5 years, 11 months ago
Homo Machina is an artful industrial puzzler in development for iOS and Android

Inspired by the art of Fritz Kahn, Homo Machina is an upcoming puzzle game that takes players on a journey through the body; not an organic Fantasy Voyage vision of the body but an mechanical automata, where mouth, nose, ears, heart, and other senses and parts of the anatomy are represented as industrial machinery. In the recently released trailer (Vimeo), Homo Machina presents its version of the body as a factory, where workers control machines that act as the pumping heart, as nasal ducts, as incisor blades and molar grinders. Each chapter revolves a different section and function of the body, with simple mechanics bringing each bodily function to life along with charming animations.…

A Steel Media round-up for the week of March 19th

Feature By Christian Valentin, 5 years, 12 months ago
A Steel Media round-up for the week of March 19th

Here’s another weekly round-up of news, previews, and features from Pocket Gamer, 148Apps, and the rest of our sister sites. On our Youtube page, James Gilmour goes hands-on with the recently released Construction Simulator 2, showing off the involved machinery handling and construction-based challenges. from digging foundations with an excavator to loading flatbeds with mechanical arms. Over on Pocket Gamer, Harry Slater provides several tips and tricks for card-based battler Lost In The Dungeon, that can help you master the game's challenging encounters and survive longer by prioritizing, knowing when to retreat, and more Tre Lawrence on Android Rundown reviews th…

Drive with style in minimalist arcade racer Absolute Drift, coming to iOS and Android this year

News By Christian Valentin, 5 years, 12 months ago
Drive with style in minimalist arcade racer Absolute Drift, coming to iOS and Android this year

In the vein of games like Jet Car Stunts, Absolute Drift doesn't pit you against other racers but rather your own skills and challenging tracks. As the name suggests, it's all about drifting: duration, smoothness, chaining them together, and pulling off stunts in a minimalist playground of routes and jumps. Absolute Drift starts out simply, easing you into drift-based gameplay. Simply shaving seconds off time trails isn't enough; for the best scores, you'll need to pull off fluid elegant drifts, painting the white roads and environments with the curving streaks of your tires. Modulating the speed and angle of your car is paramount to mastering drifting, especially when you shift from race…

Artistic platformer Ovivo leaps onto the App Store on March 28th

News By Christian Valentin, 5 years, 12 months ago
Artistic platformer Ovivo leaps onto the App Store on March 28th

Slated for release next week, Ovivo blends art game and challenging platformer as you gracefully leap through mysterious monochromatic environments. As an agile orb, your goal is to slide and leap through black-and-white levels, each one a winding gauntlet that zooms out to reveal your path was part of a larger tapestry. In this way, Ovivo is part mystery and part precision platformer, as you uncover more of the artwork with each jump and movement. With a tap of the screen, you pass through the ground, swapping colors and conserving momentum; this mechanic lets gracefully swoop and dive across its stages. As levels grow more complex, introducing moving platforming, copious spikes, swining…

Colorful puzzler Nano Golf is Nitrome's newest release on iOS and Android

Feature By Christian Valentin, 5 years, 12 months ago
Colorful puzzler Nano Golf is Nitrome's newest release on iOS and Android

Nitrome's bread and butter has always been its quirky interesting puzzlers and arcade games, and their newly published game Nano Golf looks to continue that trend. With each course being a tight mini-puzzle and with only a limited number of strokes, this golf puzzler brings varied physics-based golf challenges to iOS and Android. Nano Golf's vivid pixel art courses start off relatively simply, not much different than commom mini golf stages with hills and windmills. But then speed boosting areas get introduced, with myriad other mechanics to follow, from golf carts chasing behind your ball to portals and switches and ghost copies of your ball and spikes and much more. While you might be a…

Hidden Gem of the Week: Perfect Paths

Feature By Christian Valentin, 5 years, 12 months ago
Hidden Gem of the Week: Perfect Paths

If you've played the (sadly no longer available) port of SpaceChem or the rail-drawing puzzler Trainyard, Perfect Paths may feel familiar despite its potential confusing UI and mechanics. Much like those, this is a methodical logic-based puzzle game, challenging you to splice together nodes amid limited space. At its most basic level, your goal is actually quite simple. All you have to do is move the colored blocks onto the similar-colored tiles on the grid. This is a game of step-by-step planning, of counting turns and meticulously setting up your commands and paths. It's the kind of game where, once you know how all the elements work together, you could succeed on your first try if you…

Hyperforma is a cyberpunk arcade game headed to iOS next week

News By Christian Valentin, 6 years ago
Hyperforma is a cyberpunk arcade game headed to iOS next week

Hyperforma puts you in the headspace of a curious explorer traveling through the mysterious cyber-landscape of ancient civilization's network, presented as fast-paced and visually-stylish arcade action coming to the App Store on March 26th. Gameplay-wise, Hyperforma is essentially a brick-breaker, representing hacking as your digital avatar chipping away at the barriers protecting mainframes and other data. But instead of the classic design of your paddle below a block structure, your avatar bounces off the walls and floor while you rotate the central block structure in 3D space, You'll need to hit nodes and avoid richocheting through gaps in the firewalls that make up the side of the scr…

Playerunknown's Battleground Mobile is now available on the US App Store and Google Play

News By Christian Valentin, 6 years ago
Playerunknown's Battleground Mobile is now available on the US App Store and Google Play

After its release in China, the battle royale genre gets another contender with the arrival of Playerunknown's Battlegrounds Mobile on the US (and Canada) stores for iOS and Android. PUBG Mobile retains the same popular design of its console and PC versions: 100 players parachuting onto a large map, scavenge weapons and armor and gear, and engage in tense combat to be the last remaining player. The limits of the battlefield shrinks as the conflict rages on, bringing remaining players closer and closer, shifting tactics from evasion and hiding to more aggressive close-up combat.  Powered by Unreal Engine 4, the mobile game boasts multiple graphical settings for different devices and…

King of Dragon Pass spiritual successor Six Ages receives its first teaser trailer

News By Christian Valentin, 6 years ago
King of Dragon Pass spiritual successor Six Ages receives its first teaser trailer

King of Dragon Pass remains one of the most unique games on mobile, with its blend of 4X elements, text adventure, and complex branching choices. But it's also a port of a nearly twenty year old game. Now developer A Sharp has revealed their long-in-development successor Six Ages, slated to release on iOS later this year. At its core, Six Ages retains the same elements that made Dragon Pass so compelling. Set in the same rustic fantasy world of Glorantha, you'll manage and expand your tribe, confering with your advisors on matters of faith and law and harvest, deciding whether to stick to old traditions or create new ones as you grow your tribe and conquer lands. "Hostile gods, evil spiri…

A Steel Media round-up for the week of March 12th

Feature By Christian Valentin, 6 years ago
A Steel Media round-up for the week of March 12th

Here’s another weekly round-up of news, previews, and features from Pocket Gamer, 148Apps, and the rest of our sister sites. On our Youtube page, James Gilmour reviews the cute yet challenging platformer Reed, covering the iOS port after its Android release last year and praising the title for its familiar but well-crafted gameplay. Over on Pocket Gamer, Jon Mundy covers the recently released puzzler Projekt, a collection of minimalist spatial challenges where you construct spaces in 3D space so their shadows match designs when viewed from specific angles. Jon describes it as a calm, cleverly-designed puzzle game hampered by some imprecise controls. Tre Lawrence on…

Team-up with your personalised pet in new Fantasy RPG AIIA, available now on Android

Preferred By AppSpy Staff, 6 years ago
Team-up with your personalised pet in new Fantasy RPG AIIA, available now on Android

Fans of all things fantasy and fluffy will find their tastes successfully met in AIIA, the latest dungeon-based MMORPG from mobile developer CLGamez. Now available exclusively for Android, only here will you be able to fight alongside a personalised pet, as well as online friends, in a bid to fulfil the legend of the Exelion Knights. Tasking players to work their way through successive monster-filled dungeons, AIIA offers Android users a console-quality MMO experience, having been developed in Unreal Engine 4. The result is an RPG filled with stylish action and impressive hit effects, regardless of whether you choose to live out AIIA’s adventure as Dria, Khan, or Leona. Outside of…

Oddmar is another challenging charming platformer from the creators of Leo's Fortune

News By Christian Valentin, 6 years ago
Oddmar is another challenging charming platformer from the creators of Leo's Fortune

2014's Leo's Fortune was a mobile milestone, both in terms of its graphics and how the controls and platforming of its goofy mustachioed blob was well received. Now the developers of that game has revealed their next project, the Viking platformer Oddmar slated to release this spring. This Nordic adventure follows the titular warrior across vibrant gauntlets, bringing to mind the hectic stages of the Rayman games. The trailer showcases a varied array of level designs and challenges, from reflex-testing dodges through spikes and crushers to spear and axe wielding combat mixed with the fast-paced platforming. Copius saws and enemies to evade bear all the signs of tricky precision platformer…

Tin Man Games brings a wealth of gamebooks to iOS with Fighting Fantasy Classics

News By Christian Valentin, 6 years ago
Tin Man Games brings a wealth of gamebooks to iOS with Fighting Fantasy Classics

Interactive fiction has been a near constant on mobile, from the larger projects like 80 Days to the message-driven stories such as Lifeline. But before they were digital, gamebooks were the physical embodiment of the genre, combining text with stats and dice rools. We've seen expanded adaptations such as the isometric Warlock of Firetop Mountain, but the newly released Fighting Fantasy Classics offers mobile gamers to experience those original stories in text adventure fashion on iOS. Ranging from fan-favorites such as The Forest of Doom and the aforementioned Firetop Mountain to Bloodbones, Fighting Fantasy Classics lets you enjoy the dice rolls, page-turning decisions, and tons of text…

Hidden Gem of the Week: SPL-T

Feature By Christian Valentin, 6 years ago
Hidden Gem of the Week: SPL-T

Simogo's games - from Year Walk to text-twisting Device 6 - are defined by how they use the touch interface to deliver unique narrative experiences. At a glance, the high score-chasing nature of SPL-T doesn't appear to be a Simogo title, but as you learn its rules, the game reveals itself to be as unique as any of their other games. Your first attempt at SPL-T is likely to be confusing; its gameplay seems as simple as its minimal appearance. The core concept to understand as that you earn points by splitting the screen into halved blocks. These halves alternate between horizontal and vertical splits, and by dividing an area into four or more equally-sized blocks, they become marked with a…

Lost In The Dungeon is the newest card game-dungeon crawler hybrid to arrive on iOS and Android

News By Christian Valentin, 6 years ago
Lost In The Dungeon is the newest card game-dungeon crawler hybrid to arrive on iOS and Android

The card game hybrid has been a burgeoning subgenre on mobile, from 2014's Card Dungeon to this year's Meteorfall. Lost In The Dungeon is the latest notable entry, brining deeper RPG elements to the genre with its release on iOS and Android. Choosing between several classes, each with skill trees to customize for your particular build, you progress from battle to battle, gathering loot and new cards for your deck. With each playthrough, new equipment is added to the overall pool, allowing for more varied and powerful loadouts over time. Battles in Lost In The Dungeon are turn-by-turn affairs, pitting your deck and skills against groups of monsters and deadly bosses, all presented through…