Original Post - Part 1
Original Post - Part 2
Original Post - Part 3
Original Post - Part 4
#30: Zoombinis: 18.8 hours
I never played Zoombinis as a kid, but if I had I wouldve loved it. I picked it up because a bunch of my friends did play it as kids and they encouraged me to pick it up so they could discuss it with me.
So Zoombinis is an educational game for children from the 90s, and that mental image of all those Humongous games flying past your head may sell it a little short. Its focused on guiding groups of 16 Zoombinis from their old homeland to a new one via logic and sorting puzzles. There are 12 puzzles separated into 4 legs of 3 puzzles each, and the Zoombinis will have to pass through 9 of them to reach the end. In some puzzles Zoombinis will be slowly lost, and in some you can screw yourself so you have to cut your losses and leave the stragglers behind. Those Zoombinis will then go back to the start of the leg to try again later.
So the obvious thing about that is that if you play the game perfectly (which you wont) youll see the first 3 and last 3 puzzles 25 times and the game will get super repetitive. Well sort of. When you complete each leg without losing a Zoombini 3 times it gets harder, and there are 4 difficulty levels for each leg. For instance, in one puzzles you have to organise your Zoombinis in a line so that they each share one feature (hair, eyes, nose colour, feet) in common. On the second difficulty the line becomes a 2x8 rectangle so each Zoombini is adjacent to 2 or 3 others. On the third difficulty it becomes a 4x4 square and some Zoombinis have many neighbours. This isnt always a good thing though. Theres one puzzle in the last leg that takes
forever and the time required just keeps increasing with difficulty.
Zoombinis dont talk, but they do make cute vocalisations. The game is narrated though and the narrator is very eccentric and enthusiastic, I had a lot of fun listening to him yell ZOOMBINIS all the time. Some of the other characters you encounter (especially the pizza trolls) are also very charming.
So yeah. Zoombinis is fun, check it out if you havent. I didnt quite manage to finish it 100%, about 60 Zoombinis will likely have to live at the second campsite forever.
#31: Paint it Back: 13.5 hours (free) + 23.7 hours (paid)
Oh yes get more Picross in me. Paint It Back is the first Picross game Ive played not on a DS/3DS, and I cant say Im overly thrilled with moving platform. I can do puzzles a lot faster and more smoothly with a stylus than I can with my doofy fingers. Also the game doesnt grey out numbers unless theyre connected to an edge which is an annoying change in behaviour. But Paint It Back has other advantages that help outweigh those niggles (like being a Picross game I havent finished yet).
The game is themed pretty strongly, a ghost has erased all of the art in a museum and its your job to (shock) paint them back. This means that a lot of the pictures that form the puzzles are more weird and out there than in Nintendos Picross offerings. Also this game isnt afraid to go big, getting all the way up to 40x40 puzzles eventually, with a ton of 30x30 and many more esoteric sizes like 24x32. The music (mostly the puzzle completion music) is also pretty good for a Picross game for some reason.
The game is half free to play on iOS with a small fee ($4.50 in Australia) unlocking the latter half, and the first half was better than every Picross e game so its well worth looking into. In light of that Im breaking formula a little for this one. Im writing this after finishing the free levels but before getting too far into the paid ones. Ill edit in the total playtime later, but I dont expect my opinion on the game to change.
#32: Deus Ex: Mankind Divided: 35.1 hours
I loved Human Revolution, my last computer upgrade was so I can play it. Funnily enough I just got a new graphics card in part so I can play this so history repeats.
Mankind Divided is more Human Revolution with a number of design and quality of life improvements for better or worse. Some, like being able to move from cover to cover more easily are immediately apparent while others are more subtle. For instance if you do a takedown from behind cover/through a doorway the game realises that you probably don't want to leave the body exposed and plays an animation that drops it in a favourable position.
The level design is also more intricate a lot of the time, with even more approach options for objectives. There was a number of times where I found two or three ways through a level via the ventilation or maintenance spaces alone. There's also more augmentation options available but I didn't use most of them, only unlocking remote hacking and the PEPS. Remote hacking is amazing but the PEPS gun generated too much noise to be useful.
There's quite a few really interesting and meaty sidequests too. And the game has conversation battles out the wazoo. Just talking to people is often my favourite part of Deus Ex so I'm happy this game has a lot of it.
It's not all sunshine and roses of course. The animation is still as janky as ever despite the otherwise vast graphical improvements and the AI is still dumb as bricks. Takedowns are still overpowered as shit too, as is the non-lethal weaponry in general because it quickly and silently knocks people out and its almost impossible for guards to be woken up. I think Dishonored handles the non-lethal vs lethal stuff a bit better with how long it takes to knock someone unconscious as well as how much easier it is to dispose of a dead body. The hub also becomes a giant pain in the arse in the last part of the game. Also as a kick in the teeth the preorder/digital version DLC mission is very obviously ripped from the main questline and the story is worse for it. It sucks.
#33: Expand: 2.0 hours
My foray into the wonderful world of the Australian indie game scene continues with Expand, a game you should definitely play (and already own if you bought the most recent Humble Bundle). It's a game that takes place in a shifting circular maze. You have to navigate a square around the outside of the circle (think Super Hexagon) in order to get from one end of a room to the other. But as you progress the maze often shifts such that there's more maze ahead. In a lot of parts moving out radially will distort and stretch the space bringing more into view, it's very interesting to look at.
It's mostly an obstacle course with some bullet hell style bits, and the end of every section has an advancing wall of doom. But while all of those things should be incredibly stressful it has this great monochrome (with red hazards) art style and mellow piano soundtrack so rather than being stressful it encourages you to just sit back, relax, and take it in.
Oh also when you die the entire level rotates, which changes up the required motions on the next attempt. It's an interesting idea to keep a game feeling fresh and a great use of the fact that the game takes place in a polar coordinate space.
I think that comparing it to other games does it a little bit of a disservice but to get a feel for what I'm talking about, think the gameplay of Super Hexagon with Thomas Was Alone's style and sensibilities. Seriously it's only $6 and two hours long go check it out.
#34: Transmission: 5.3 hours
I was turned onto Transmission by my best friends partner and by now there are about five people hooked on it because of him. So you can already tell that it's engaging.
Transmission is a completely free puzzle game developed as a companion app for an Information Age exhibit for the Science Museum. The primary mechanic is connecting nodes in order to transmit information. Each node must receive information (represented by coloured cubes) a certain number of times. Some destroy the information they receive and others can pass it on.
There are 70 levels across 7 worlds, and each world introducing new mechanics based on a different kind of network. From broadcasters that send duplicates of information they receive to all nodes in range, to converters that change information type (colour) and base stations that enable other base stations to access a pool of information.
Some of the puzzles near the end get very hard, and they get even harder when you try to complete the bonus objectives. Most levels will have one or two bonus objectives which include finishing the level without crossing connections, finishing the level with cubes in particular positions and using a certain number of connections.
I didn't get all 146 objective stars in five hours, but I got close. I could have spent the time getting the last few stars but I'm about ready to move onto something else. Still, if you have a few hours to spare play this game.
#35: Merged: 1.1 hours
I feel like I'm cheating a little only playing a game for an hour but I really can't be bothered sinking more time into it. It's an alright matching puzzle game but it feels really random and I could be playing anything else.
It's match-3 mobile game more or less. The twist is that you are placing what are essentially dominoes onto a grid. When 3 or more faces with the same number of pips are connected they all suck up into the one you just placed and turn into the next number up. Merging 3 or more 6s makes an M block and merging 3 M blocks destroys all the blocks in a 3x3 grid.
I think the game's main flaw is a culmination of things. There are 7 different types of block, they're given to you (mostly) in pairs randomly, and the last block placed is so important to clearing blocks. It means that you can end up at the mercy of the RNG very quickly and in that sort of situation I'd rather be playing something more simple like Threes.
#36: Aquaria: 20.8 hours
I'm not sure what I was expecting from this game but a 21 hour Metroidvania with a ridiculously long final boss was not it. I'm really not going to complain about that though it was very enjoyable (especially the soundtrack).
It's also pretty unique for a Metroidvania in that almost the entire game takes place underwater and your main method of interaction with the world is through playing songs Zelda-style. There are 8 different transformations that give you a nice variety of abilities from shooting energy blasts to becoming a defenseless fish that can swim really, really fast. Realistically you'll spend most of the game in either shoot mode or swim against currents mode though. There's a surprisingly detailed crafting system as well, making consumable items that heal you and provide all manner of buffs.
Now some things I didn't like. Any section that takes place above water (especially with bubbles) is pretty awful. When you transition from water to air you fly into the air and if there's a bubble room you can often fly across it with little control. The final boss is also very, very long and does a ton of damage.. and there's no checkpoints.
Regardless of that though it's definitely worth playing.
#37: Shovel Knight: Plague of Shadows: 8.6 hours
Loved it loved it loved it. This is a great example of how to do post-launch content. Giving people a new way to play through the game with an interesting twist and a new story.
Plague Knight plays soooo differently to Shovel Knight. His main weapon is a highly customisable projectile instead of a melee attack and throwing out one of the projectiles kills his momentum enabling him to hover briefly. He can also rocket jump by holding down the attack button.
This gives Plague Knight a lot of mobility and power, but his inability to pogo like Shovel Knight means that a lot of jumps that were trivial before become fiendishly difficult now. Conversely combat is a breeze for Plague Knight due to his immense versatility. The arc, explosion and fuse of the bombs can be modified individually on the fly to great effect as can the effect of the bomb jump. A lot of these are inspired by Mega Man weapons, like the Danger Wrap, Shadow Blade and the spinning shields. One of the bomb jumps is even a Screw Attack! Experimenting with your powers to handle different situations is a ton of fun.
I'm definitely not going to make the same mistake I did here with Spectre Knight and wait a year to play it.
#38: Warbits 9.2 hours
Warbits is an unashamed clone of Advance Wars for iOS so it's a bit hard to talk about it by itself. Taken as a standalone game it's a good strategy game with a nice feature set, catchy soundtrack and cute/cringey dialogue. It has a ton of multiplayer maps and 20 campaign levels that start out very easy but ramp up nicely by about the halfway mark. But taken as an Advance Wars clone it is at times disappointing, so lets break it down.
The units are almost identical to Advance Wars in price and function, but there are a lot of small tweaks that keep you on your toes. Recon units can fly, there are clouds which can hide air units in fog of war like forests, there's no docks so the Lander equivalent is an aircraft and units can move when unloaded from transports if they haven't moved that turn. In addition to that APC supply and unloading is available multiple times a turn if relevant.
A lot of core unit balance is also very different. There is no deliniation between copters and planes, and most units have lower armour than in Advance Wars. This means that while a Bomber can almost 1-shot a unit (seriously they do over 100% to Anti-Air its nuts) they can be whittled down by ground units, and are unable to return fire. The damage tables also feel kind of off, with weak units being able to hold their own in a fight as long as they get the first shot off.
There is one new unit, a sniper infantry that uses indirect fire and gets +1 range on mountains, but it didn't see a whole of use in my playthrough because an Artillery with usually suffice.
The power system is probably where Warbits deviates from Advance Wars the most, and where I think it missteps the hardest. In Advance Wars your power meter is filled when dealing or taking damage in proportion to the unit's cost, which is a system that works great. But in Warbits only kills net power points, and they're only doled out to the killer. Each unit gives up 2-5 points when it dies, and some units are easier to farm for points than others. Then once per turn at your HQ you can spend these points to access a list of like 20 powers. The fact that on any given turn you could boost indirect range, air movement and damge, ground movement or damage, infantry capture speed, etc with no way to predict what you're going to do is ridiculous. One of the powers gives your ground units +75% damage when attacking from roads, and another gives a +150% boost when attacking units on structures. If you can't predict an assault like that its hard to defend against it, and I think that's a major flaw.
Despite spending 4 paragraphs bitching about why Warbits isn't Advance Wars I did enjoy it. It was a nice distraction, but I'd love to see a refined version that could actually go properly toe-to-toe with Intelligent System's greats. It's $5 and was developed by two guys though so what are you going to do?
#39: Monument Valley 1.6 hours
I didn't enjoy this as much as I thought I would but that's mostly down to incorrect expectations. I was expecting a puzzle game, I got something that's more of a point-and-click walking simulator with light puzzle elements. It's really, really good at doing that but it's not really what I wanted. If you want some gorgeous and trippy visuals with some nice sound design then play it but if you're looking for puzzles play something else.
#40: Puzzle Quest: Galactrix: 21.8 hours
Puzzle Quest 1 is still my favourite by far. Galactrix falls into the same category as Puzzle Quest 2 for me where it's too samey and grindy for me to enjoy it to the end. I didn't enjoy the game for different reasons at the start because the ships I was fighting had attack gem duplicators and I didn't. But once I got a ridiculous combo of upgrades it was more tolerable.
So it's Puzzle Quest in space, with a lot of frustrating mini-games. Moving from place to replace requires hacking open warp gates, which you will have to do hundreds of times. You have to match gems in a set order in a set time limit and you get barely any experience for doing it so have fun with that. Putting the gems on a hex grid and making it so that you can manipulate which direction the gems fall in is an interesting idea but I'm not totally sold on it. It can make cascades seem even more random at times.
If you haven't played Puzzle Quest 1 yet I'd still suggest starting there.
#42: Ironclad Tactics: 18 hours
Did I finish Ironclad Tactics? In some respects yes, in others no. But at this point I am
finished with it. It's a game by Zachtronics (SpaceChem, Infinifactory, Shenzen I/O) but it's a completely different beast to his other games. Where most Zachtronics games are puzzle games based heavily on some real engineering concept Ironclad Tactics is a lane based strategy/card game.
You have a customisable deck of (exactly) 20 cards spread across 8 factions (though only two per deck) split into infantry (which can capture control points but are stepped on by Ironclads), Ironclads (which can score victory points by crossing the board), parts (buffs and weapons for ironclads) and tactics (healing, movement, etc). When you play a card into one of your sides of the field the unit walks forward each turn, attacking if things are in range unless it reaches the other side and disappears (potentially scoring points). Get a certain number of points and you win. It's a cool system, and I had a lot of fun exploring it but it has a number of flaws that really come to bear in the DLC missions.
So you have a hand of 5 cards, and you draw one per turn. These cards cost action points to play, which are generated at a given rate each turn (plus bonuses for control points). If you try to draw a card and you have 5 in your hand the oldest card in your hand is discarded to be redrawn later. You can move a card back to the front of your hand but it costs 1AP to do so which can seem like delaying the inevitable. Often a crucial card will fall out of my hand just as I'm able to play it, which is incredibly frustrating.
This wouldn't be as much of a problem if it wasn't for the fact that the cards
must synergise with each other for victory. Infantry can attack immediately, but will get squished if not protected by Ironclads. Ironclads can protect infantry but will get destroyed if they don't have weapons, which are separate cards. If you don't have an Ironclad in your opening hand then the AI can quickly take control of the match which can often be a death sentence. This was perfectly fine for most of the game, the matches are quick and you can always try again. But then the DLC comes along and ruins that a bit.
The last mission of the first DLC campaign takes the form of eight missions in a row. You can take two decks into this mission and switch between them between segments but it's still a pain. I got up to the last one once after hours of trying to find a combination that could take on all the parts only to get thrown for a loop by the last section and rolled. One mistake, or a bad opening hand can tank a run and it's just a pain. I never finished that level.
Halfway through the second DLC campaign there's a two-part mission, the only other multi-part mission in the game. I could finish this eventually if I wanted to but after a few tries I'm done. The opponent starts the second half with long-range area of effect coverage on most of the map. Behind their lines is a mortar, which infantry can use to grind out victory points. So you HAVE to start with a hand that lets you rush across the map under heavy fire, with a deck that can also handle the first half. Once your rush takes care of the infantry they'll spawn another fairly quickly and I just can't figure out a build that can keep the pressure up
and survive crossing the field.
So yeah the base game is a ton of fun, if frustrating at times due to bum draws. But the DLC levels that require you to keep the good luck up for longer periods tend to make the game falter a bit.
#43: Power Line: 6.5 hours
You rotate the blocks to connect all the doodads together. That's about it. There are 5 worlds of increasing grid size and 75 levels each, but you've pretty much seen all the game has to offer by the end of the first level so... yeah probably give it a pass.
#44: Blek: ~5 hours
Blek is a puzzle game unlike anything I've played before but it's amazing in its simplicity. There's 80 levels with patterns of black and coloured dots, draw a line of any length and when you let it go it repeats. If your pattern touches all the coloured dots before it hits a black dot you win the level. Later levels introduce some complications but it remains pretty simple. It also gets brutally hard and I couldn't have finished a handful of levels without a walkthrough. But definitely give it a shot.
Preview: Up to the shark tank in Resident Evil HD, playing Kingdom Rush on iOS
