09-20-23 -

The Isle Tide Hotel review
Wales Interactive has fully entered journeyman status in the world of FMV game development, putting out the vast majority of these kinds of games I've encountered on the App Store. I have said before (and will say again) that I find their...

09-14-23 -

Motorsport Manager 4 review
The Motorsport Manager games are far and away the management titles I've put the most time into on mobile. They are sharply designed and do a good job of teaching you about some of the nuances and excitement of racing that exist outside o...

08-30-23 -

Dawncaster review
Dawncaster is a deck-building roguelite that released for mobile devices back in March of 2021. Why am I writing about it now, then? Well, for starters, I somehow only recently became aware of it. Secondly, the game recently updated to add over 16...

08-23-23 -

Six Ages 2: Lights Going Out review
If you've heard of A Sharp's games (King of Dragon Pass, Six Ages: Ride Like the Wind), then a shortcut assessment of Six Ages 2 is that it is the most fully realized version of these uniquely narrative-focused strategy games. Th...

07-31-23 -

Geo Gods review
It's not common for a mobile game to rely first and foremost on delayed gratification. Although individual matches of Geo Gods may only take a few minutes, you have to play several rounds of it for you to even begin posting high scores or...

07-27-23 -

Return to Monkey Island review
Return to Monkey Island answers the question of what you should do with an aging franchise that defined a genre: Give it a proper send-off. This adventure game welcomes the return of its original creators, features some super smart innovations on ...

07-25-23 -

Luck be a Landlord review
As someone who plays and reviews a lot of mobile games, I have (unfortunately) become very accustomed to engaging with gambling-like mechanics. It's gotten to the point where I am almost entirely immune to their charms and their mere pres...

07-24-23 -

Bugsnax review
Bugsnax is a game all about creatures that embody features of two completely different forms of life. This dichotomy extends beyond the game's subject matter, though, and bleeds into almost every other aspect of the game as well. The resu...

07-20-23 -

Temporal War review
If you know anything about Game Stew as a developer, it's probably pretty surprising to see screenshots of Temporal War, their latest release. Outside of being released on iOS, it's a game that bears very little resemblance to th...

07-18-23 -

Roto Force review
Action games are notoriously hard to nail down on mobile, but you can get a long way with a distinct and stylish presentation and design. Roto Force has got to be one of the coolest-looking games I've played this year, but I never quite g...

06-29-23 -

Fireball Wizard review
Fireball Wizard is about as straightforward in concept as it is in its title. It's a game where you play as a wizard, and (surprise!) they can shoot fireballs. With this basic, primary tool, you weave your way through brief platforming le...

06-22-23 -

Bumballon review
Over the years, the App Store has seen some ingenious design go into the humble one-touch platformer. I'd even go as far to say that some of these past titles are some of the best platforming you can find just about anywhere. Due to this ...

06-21-23 -

Coffee Golf review
There have been quite a few attempts to develop games that double as a sort of daily ritual in the wake of Wordle, but I'm not sure many have had all the requisite components to compete at this level. After spending a few weeks with Coffe...

06-09-23 -

Hoop Land review
[youtubenIdiP7wBBcU 600] I am a big fan of sports games, but often avoid titles that lean into simulating real life sports. This is for a whole number of reasons, but the main two are that typically no simulation of real sports ever actually feels...

06-01-23 -

Legend of Keepers review
Dungeon-crawlers that have you play as the bad guys trying to beat the adventurers isn't exactly all that novel these days, but it is the tack taken by Legend of Keepers. This game has you playing as a big bad monster who needs to manage ...

05-24-23 -

Lost Words: Beyond the Page review
Media about writers and writing usually rub me the wrong way unless actual writing is prominently featured and said writing is good. Either that, or have the words being featured be those of a child who aspires to be a professional writer. This is...

05-18-23 -

Torecower review
It's hard to follow up on something great, and Torecower is trying to do just that. The second release from the publisher that brought the fantastic SNKRX to iOS brings a title that tries to apply a similar formula of the breakout hit to ...

05-08-23 -

The Centennial Case: A Shijima Story review
I knew I was in for a pretty big experience when I downloaded all of the files for The Centennial Case and they totalled almost 15 GB. What I was not prepared for was just how wild of a ride I would be on. This FMV mystery game definitely puts its...

05-05-23 -

Omega Strikers review
Competitive multiplayer free-to-play games are almost always designed to be played over a long stretch of time. That's why I didn't rush this Omega Strikers review out the door. I wanted to wait until I had sunk a sizeable number...

05-04-23 -

Mia and the Dragon Princess review
There's a secret sauce to making an FMV game engaging and fun that Wales Interactive always seems to be dancing along the border of. I find their output at its most entertaining when the scope is small and the stakes are low. Their latest...

04-27-23 -

Scenic Route's Generations review
Games being ported to iOS is nothing new, but games being ported over from the Playdate--a tiny handheld featuring a crank on the side of it--is not something I necessarily expected. Generations from Scenic Route Software is exactly that, and the ...

04-25-23 -

Roundguard review
Apple Arcade has proven to be a pretty underwhelming service despite the fact that some standout titles debuted there. One such title is Roundguard, which has re-released on the regular App Store and is a creative mix of dungeon-crawling and arcad...

04-18-23 -

TriviaLinked review
I've been playing Trivia Linked for the past week or two and enjoying its short daily quizzes. It almost feels akin to Wordle in how it is a short-form routine challenge, but I appreciate that it less of a guessing game. It's cer...

04-14-23 -

Orange review
After making games about green, red, yellow, black, blue, and pink, Bart Bonte has released yet another set of 50 puzzles inspired by yet another color: Orange. While I'm not sure this game quite reaches the levels of creativity found in ...

04-12-23 -

Voice of Cards: The Forsaken Maiden review
The Voice of Cards series is kind of odd in that it is based around a dedication to gimmicks that don't meaningfully change the core of the games all that much. These titles all want to emulate a grand fantasy adventure using nothing but ...

04-05-23 -

Water 2050 review
I like a good management game to dink around on, particularly on iOS. Water 2050 is extra appealing to me because it also has a noble cause. As a game developed in partnership with the Water Environment Federation to alert players to issues surrou...

04-03-23 -

Brotato review
Brotato is only difficult to write about because of how easy it is to get sucked into. More than once already when trying to start this review I've opted to just try another run of this arena-based roguelite instead. It's a very ...

03-30-23 -

PARANORMASIGHT: The Seven Mysteries of Honjo review
All through playing PARANORMASIGHT: The Seven Mysteries of Honjo, I was holding multiple, conflicting thoughts in my head. This horror mystery game is novel and inventive, but also spends a lot of time being pretty flat with its characters and sto...

03-22-23 -

Vlobs review
I'm always on the lookout for a puzzle matching game that isn't just a recycled version of the same match-three mechanics that I've seen so many times before. Vlobs is exactly that. I'm not sure that the finer p...

03-20-23 -

How We Know We're Alive review
One of the things that can doom a game story is its pacing. There's always a balance that needs to be struck between saying what needs to be said narratively and the degree to which developers want you to engage with a progression of mech...

03-15-23 -

Domingo review
There probably won't be a word game that ever catches fire the way that Wordle did in late 2021 and early 2022, but that doesn't stop attempts to innovate within the genre. For the past few weeks, I've been playing Domin...

03-14-23 -

Beecarbonize review
Look, as much as I want to evaluate games on their merits alone, sometimes the price point for a game really tips the scales one way or another as to whether its worth engaging with. It sounds dumb, but so is the whole system that kind of forces u...

03-10-23 -

EISEN review
If you're familiar with Hideki Hanida games, it should come as no surprise for me to say that EISEN is a fascinating-but-barebones experience. As I noted in my review of his last game, his output can sometimes feel more like a proof-of-co...

03-09-23 -

Cursed Labyrinth -Hack & Slash review
Everything about Cursed Labyrinth -Hack & Slash doesn't sound all that great, perhaps aside from the price. It's a kind of janky roguelite deck-builder with a progression system that is fairly linear. The saving grace of ...

03-02-23 -

Ultra Blade review
The first game from Kyle Barrett I played took some time to warm up to. Immortal Rogue was one of those games that you just had to keep banging away at before its initial walls broke down to turn it into something more compelling. Given this desig...

02-24-23 -

Gomorrah review
I don't know anything about the Gomorrah tv show that this mobile game is based on. If the game is any indication, though, Gomorrah is stylish crime family drama that has some quality writing. There are some text formatting issues that ca...

02-22-23 -

Rocco's Island: Pocket Edition review
I'll be the first to admit that seeing a game with match-three or Threes!-like mechanics generally illicits a groan from me. There are simply too many of these kinds of games regurgitating these puzzle formats with little to no innovation...

02-15-23 -

Endling - Extinction is Forever review
The pitch for Endling - Extinction is Forever is certainly intriguing. Marketing material will tell you it's a game where you play as the last fox left on Earth as your scrounge for food for you and your cubs and bear witness to the destr...

02-14-23 -

Ten Dates review
Wales Interactive is back with a sequel to one of my favorite FMV titles of theirs. Following up on Five Dates, Ten Dates ups the scope of its choose-your-own dating adventure by offering more dates, more options, and even stepping out the the rea...

02-09-23 -

Punch Kick Duck review
In a lot of ways, Punch Kick Duck feels like an arcade game ported to mobile. It follows the classic idea of "easy to learn but hard to master" and applies it to a duck that is trying to fight its way through floor after floor of differe...

02-07-23 -

Madness/Endless review
It's not too common these days to see a mobile action game like Madness/Endless. This stealth/action/horror game supplies plenty of challenges using its unique control scheme and isn't shy about being downright devilish in its le...

02-02-23 -

Roller Drama review
When I picked up Roller Drama I was not prepared for exactly how dramatic it would be. This game envisions an alternate or futuristic world that is basically ruled by a megacorp, while you and your housemates are just trying to get by. Any yes, be...

02-01-23 -

Devolver Tumble Time review
Devolver Digital is a publisher that goes out of its way to be somewhat goofy and tongue-in-cheek in virtually every aspect of its business. They have a fake CEO named Fork Parker. They make satirical press conferences for trade shows. They try ve...

01-30-23 -

Boxville review
Adventure games that adhere very closely to genre convention can be difficult to feel a lot of love for. Unless they do something particularly inventive to tell their story, they run a real risk of simply feeling derivative. Boxvilletoes this line...

01-25-23 -

Omega 13 review
Game Stew is back with yet another stylized pixel game with an offbeat structure and rpg mechanics. This one, titled Omega 13, is a mech combat game where you play as some sort of gladiator trying to battle your way through the top ranks to discov...

01-24-23 -

UFO99 review
UFO99 is a quirky little arcade game where you pilot a ship that you have to weave between enemies and obstacles in an arena in order to pick up items that help you score and survive. It almost feels like a mini-game that has been given just enoug...

01-19-23 -

Pine Tar Poker review
Pine Tar Poker is a simple poker variant that injects some folksy charm by setting itself in a country tavern with a chatty barkeep. All seems fine, normal, and perhaps even a bit boring, and that's right when the game starts to pull the ...

01-18-23 -

Wavecade review
At first glance, Wavecade looks like a mobile knock-off of Geometry Wars. And--while you do indeed pilot a little geometric ship and shoot at little geometric enemies in a neon, spaceage environment--Wavecade is most definitely its own kind of gam...

01-18-23 -

Perfect Grind review
The template for making action sports like skateboarding work well as video games has been the Tony Hawk's Pro Skater series for decades now. So, when a new one comes along and it feels like those old classics it's not entirely s...

12-23-22 -

Finding Paradise review
Finding Paradise is the second episode in the To the Moon series, which probably means something to anyone who has played To the Moon. I haven't, but the app description for Finding Paradise accurately notes that this game does not requir...