Latest Articles
Technolites hopes to bring cross-platformer shoot-em-up action to mobile
The bullet hell spectacle of the shoot-em-up has graced mobile many many times, from Cave‘s games to popular indie titles like Phoenix, and the customizable ship shooter Technolites looks like it might offer another action-heavy entry to that genre. You may be facing an overwhelming alien threat, but Technolites lets you even the odds by building a unique ship, choosing from hundreds of weapons and parts. Not only can you make a ship of your own design bristling with gatling guns or lightning guns or flame throwers, you can merge weapons together to create powerful hybrid weapons. Progressing through Technolites’ animated story campaign unlocks new parts to use, as well as upg…
Returner 77 concludes its sci-fi puzzle adventure with the release of the Den chapter
More than a few games have followed in the footsteps of The Room, exploring tactile hands-on puzzle solving through different themes. Games like House of Da Vinci have gone for a familiar Victorian style, but Returner 77 designed its rooms and puzzles with science fiction flair. Now the game’s final chapter, titled The Den, is available on iOS, added in a recent update. Returner 77 tasks you with exploring an attacking alien force’s crystal ship, in the hopes of finding a way to save Earth. Within its odd corridors and otherworldly rooms rest machinery and extraterrestrial contrapations to interact with, letting you progress deeper into the vessel and through the game’s…
Death Squared doubles the tricky challenges in this color-based iOS puzzler
The block-pushing Sokoban-style puzzler has seen myriad variations and permutations on mobile, but while others may be more complex or minimalist, few can claim to as clever and mischevously designed as the newly-ported-to-iOS Death Squared. At its core, you think you might know how Death Squared works: manuever blocks around tight levels filled with gaps and barriers and corners, pushing those blocks into the right spots. And you would be right; Death Squared does want you to solve its 80 main levels like that, enhanced with color-based twist where red and blue objects and traps interact with the like-colored blocks. Death Squared works like that, until you realize moving a block makes…
Hidden Gem of the Week: Five Card Quest
Developer Rocketcat is best known for their popular RPG and action roguelike releases Mage Gauntlet, Wayward Souls, and Death Road To Canada, but amid their larger titles lies a smaller and intriguing outlier of a game, the turn-based minimalist roguelike Five Card Quest. Selecting a trio of warriors from powerful Priest, the dagger-wielding Rogue, and more, you battle room-by-room through grid-based dungeons. The focus here are those battles, an interesting blend of card game and lane-based strategy; tour party is one side of the screen, enemies on the other, spread out across three lanes. From each warrior’s deck, you choose abilities and attacks, all revolving around the ta…
The dungeons and turn-based battles of Warhammer Quest 2 are headed to Android in March
Five months after its release on iOS, Perchang’s tactical fantasy game Warhammer Quest 2 is slated for an Android release next month, bringing its myriad classes, strategies, and sprawling dungeons to a new platform. In your turn-based battles against the forces of chaos, you construct a party from a pool of sorcerers, towering blood knights, hammer-wielding captains, and more, expanding your suite of abilities through leveling up and loot. You’ll need to use every cursed pistol, axe blow, and firebolt to your advantage to survive the grueling hordes of chaos spawn, undead, and bosses lurking in Quest’s torch-lit dungeons. And with each victory comes new regions an…
Manipulate gravity to master your high-scoring flow in Flo, headed to iOS and Android in 2018
If you’re looking for your next high-scoring addiction, you might want to keep an eye on Flo, an upcoming arcade game bringing a minimalist aesthetic and skillful mechanics to iOS and Android. Guiding a swooping orbs along rolling hills, you alter gravity with a tap of the screen to dive through the ground and ride along the underside of your endless path. You’ll need to time these shifts too, as mines block your path and a smoky wall of death is following close behind. Similar to Tiny Wings, sliding down hills will increase your speed; with these carefully-timed accelerations, you can literally smash through your friend’s scores, marked on the screen as walls to shatter…
Alto’s Odyssey brings desert boarding to the App Store next week
The autorunner has been one of the prolific genres on mobile, seeing all manner of 3D and side-scrolling variants. But Alto’s Adventure was perhaps one of the most unique, with its gorgeous wintry visuals and the trick-chaining flow of its gameplay. Now Alto’s Odyssey is headed to iOS on the 22nd, swapping the snowy vistas for dunes, sandstorms, and desert cliffs. At its core, Alto’s Odyssey promises the same smooth and familiar boarding action of its predecesso, challenging you to time backflips for speed boosts and grinding on cables and rails to collect elusive coins. However, this time, you’re boarding through the dunes, canyons, and temples of a my…
Everything that’s new in Creature Quest's anniversary update
Since launching last year, Creature Quest, the colourful RPG-come-trading card game, has been addicting players with its blend of creature collection and map exploration. All the while its developer VC Games has kept the improvements coming with regular updates. Here's what players have to look forward to as part of its latest anniversary iteration. Two new gameplay features add a hands-off element to make grinding less taxing. Auto-pickup collects the loot on exposed quest maps for you, whilst auto-battle does what it says on the tin – your creatures take control of the fight. Of course, if you prefer the manual approach, you can use these features sparingly or not at all. Up to you.…
A Steel Media round-up for the week of February 5th
Welcome to another weekly round-up of informative articles from Pocket Gamer, 148Apps, and the rest of our sister sites. If you’re having trouble with the steep learning curve of Victorian thief guild boardgame Antihero, look no further than our YouTube page, where you can find a collection of useful tips to improve your thieving skills and master how to control the streets. Over on Pocket Gamer, Jessica Famularo covered the upcoming puzzler Dissembler, the interesting next game from the developer of Boson X. Given how fast and hectic Boson X was, Dissembler looks like quite a depature but just as colorful and vibrant in its shape-swapping, color-flipping style. Tre Lawr…
Dungeon defense receives an action movie twist in Forgive Me My Henchmen, coming to iOS and Android
Forgive Me My Henchmen takes the classic action plot - wronged hero on an one-man army rampage through countless foes - and lets you play the other side of that story, a satrica lane defense strategy game that pits you in control of the henchmen and their base’s defenses. Similar to the classic Dungeon Keeper titles, Forgive Me My Henchmen presents your base in 2D pixel art and provides an array of bad guys and obstacles to place in the path of the rampaging hero. Simple grunts as fodder, doors to slow his approach, explosives to deliver damage, posters to boost morale, even special units like Janitors...all strategically positioned to work in tandem and overcome the hero. A…
True Legacy tells a cyberpunk mystery through interactive fiction and puzzles
Since Blade Runner, cyberpunk and detective thriller have been entwined in numerous sci-fi works, even among mobile games with titles such as Gemini Rue. True Legacy adds a text adventure flair to the cyberpunk mystery, out now on iOS. As investigator Thornhill, you begin True Legacy looking into a mysterious death, an incident that leads across the game’s dystopian city and through its future of AI, machines, and genetics. Scrolling prose, complete with highlighted notes that provide more context about the world, drive the story forward as you make choices; reminiscent of Device 6, text might offshoot to the sides and other directions, revealing new information and other scene…
Top Video Games to Play in 2018
2017 was indeed one of the top years for gaming in recent memory with loads to play on PC, Xbox One, PS4, and Nintendo Switch. And now in 2018, this special year promises more of the same with a full schedule, guaranteeing a wealth of games irrespective of your platform of choice. Probably, some of your favorite games of 2017 are still piled up in your backlog. But this doesn’t necessarily mean that you can't find a way to be hyped for the following games: God of War (PS4) This game needs no introduction. However, with the upcoming new God of War version, you will find a series protagonist Kratos shed some of his rage-fuelled facades. He plays a more mature role you will find his so…
Hidden Gem of the Week: Euclidea
Math-based puzzlers tend to revolve around computation and sums, but Euclidea isn't like most games in that niche; rather than numbers, geometry is the focus, constructing figures and shapes with minimalist tools and within a minimalist aesthetic. Euclidea starts out simple, easing you into its collection of geometric brainteasers by teaching how to create line segments, select points, draw circles. And then gradually, the challenge begins to increase, as you use intersecting circles to create equilateral triangles and perfectly bisect lines. But the game isn't completely merciless. As you master the simpler tasks like deducing parallet lines, Euclidea provides tools that automatica…
Brew Town is a build-your-own-brewery simulator, heading to iOS and Android in March
Management sims have always been a thriving little niche on mobile, between entries such as Game Dev Story and Motorsport Manager. Coming next month, Brew Town promises an unique premise for the genre, letting you start and expand a brewery empire. From small beginnings, you’ll be able to unlock dozens of structures and beer flavors, using your business’ earnings to grow into a sprawling compound encompassing bars, manufacturing, and shipment. With success comes new receipes to widen your brewery‘s assortment of beers, as missions and leaderships to test your management prowess. For creative players, Brew Town even lets you create and customize your beer bottles and log…
Smash, slice, and blast your way through heavy metal hell in vertical platformer Hellbreaker
Tower Fortress fans looking for more upward-driven action may want to keep an eye on Hellbreaker, a new vertical roguelike platformer headed to iOS and Android this year. Placing you in the demon-killing shoes (and mutated arm) of the warrior Arok, Hellbreaker challenges you to escape a randomly generared hell, navigating vertically through a gauntlet of beasts, traps, and bosses. Obliterating your way through this eldritch prison may be harder, but doing so while chaining together combos and avoiding damage is the true test; as you progress upward, selected perks let you modify Arok‘s abilities as well as unlock the power of your projectile-firing demonic form, all to a back drop o…