"If there is an app for that"

Boxville review

January 30, 2023 by RSS Feed

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 very closely, but it makes up for some of its mechanical familiarity by moving at a swift pace through a charming world.

Adventure in a can

Boxville takes place in a world made of recyclables. People are made of various cans and other cylindrical, metal containers and the buildings are made of--you guessed it--boxes. You play as a blue soda can who has lost their dog (made of a tuna can), which takes you on a winding path through this city of cardboard where you often need to solve other can's problems to find a way forward.

This entire adventure is a wordless affair, though bits of backstory or explanations are provided through comic panels scrawled on pieces of cardboard. Most of these explanations function to give you some direction when it comes to poking around these recyclable environments, collecting items, and using them to solve age-old adventure game problems like how to get a MacGuffin for an NPC or reach a place you can't simply walk to directly.

No hints needed

As adventure games go, Boxville is thankfully pretty straightforward. That is to say, there are no moments I had when playing where the next step I needed to take was particularly unclear. Each part of the game is divided up into a specific part of the city, and all of the puzzles in each area only revolve around a handful of items. This makes it so that even if you find yourself having to resort to trial-and-error, you aren't juggling a large number of solutions to plug and chug through.

There are also virtually no puzzle archetypes that repeat in Boxville, so the challenges you enjoy stay fresh and enjoyable while the ones you don't just fade in the rear view as you continue moving forward. Something I found somewhat remarkable about Boxville's puzzle design is just how intuitive it all is. I never felt myself wondering why a solution was the way it was or how I was supposed to figure something out.

Short, simple, cute

As a result of having intuitive, non-repeating puzzles, Boxville doesn't take a ton of time to get through. The quest to find your dog is similarly straightforward and doesn't really give way to some larger or more intriguing plot.

This might result in some players hoping for a bit more by the time they reached the end, but I was honestly relieved that Boxville ended when it did. The scope of the game is small and to see it just focus on designing bespoke challenges in its unique world for as long as that seemed fun is more satisfying to me than padding the thing out or trying to shoehorn in other things into the game to create some artificial sense of additional value.

The bottom line

Sometimes the thing that makes a game enjoyable is how it gives you everything you expect while making it look easy. Boxville doesn't feel super ambitious and it isn't all that surprising, but it is a good point-and-click adventure that ensures you'll basically never get stuck or sick of it for as long as it lasts.

Source link:https://www.148apps.com/reviews/boxville-review/

Omega 13 review

January 25, 2023 by RSS Feed

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 discover some hidden truths. Like many Game Stew games, it's pretty odd. For the most part, it's strangeness adds a lot to its appeal, with the only drawback really being how long and sloggy it can be to make progress.

Clumsy clashing

For the most part, Omega 13 is all about launching your mech into an arena to fight any number of enemy mechs. These fights take place on a grid based map you have an overhead view of on your cockpit display, and you have to maneuver the pedals and buttons on your dashboard to position yourself so you can hit enemies with your weapons or otherwise move out of the way of theirs.

This all takes place in a turn-based manner, where you have a limited amount of "action points" to turn, move, and attack before your enemies do the same. Between this model for combat and some of the audio visual design, Omega 13's mechs have a really weighty feel to them as opposed to some mecha fiction representations of mechs as nimble combat suits.

Colorful customizing

When you are between battles, Omega 13 returns you to its main menu but there you can go to the in-game bar to chat up contacts or the garage to customize your mech in the way that you see fit. In both locations are an interesting cast of characters that occasionally will reveal new things about the game world to you or otherwise spew canned dialog at you, but in both cases it's clear there was some inspiration and flair in creating these characters and world, even if some phrasing is strange.

As for mech customization, you can re-tool just about every piece of your combat robot. Weapons, chassis, armor, and all the expected bits and pieces can be swapped around to change the way your mech moves and operates. Omega 13 also goes so far as to give customization options for your cockpit controls and decorations, both of which also alter the overall performance of your suit in battle. It's a fabulously detailed system, though I will say that it can take a lot of battling to unlock a decent variety of customization options and I'm not sure there's a much of a need to engage with it once you've settled into a configuration that works.

Launch, kill, repeat

Omega 13's primary appeal is its style. Everything in the game looks and feels really cool or presents interesting concepts. Underneath that exterior though is a pretty simple game that can be fun enough to engage with, but ultimately isn't particularly challenging. This is to say that once I got a handle on the mech controls and a loadout I liked, I'd clear every combat encounter completely unscathed and without feeling like I was in any position of potential failure.

This still can be fun in a way. Mastery of a cool mech feels cool, after all. My only problem then became just how long the game is stretched out. Omega 13 has you fight up through ranks starting down at 1,000 and up to the number one spot. You move up the ranks in multiples but even then it takes a lot of slow fights to ascend with just a few breadcrumbs of story and the promise of new gear you probably don't need being the only things to drive you forward through it.

The bottom line

You can always bank on a Game Stew game being unique and stylish. Omega 13 is no exception, and I quite enjoy the concepts behind its mech combat. Its only real problem is in how it balances its pace and difficulty, as the game is too slow for how long it is and too easy for how deep its customization options go.

Source link:https://www.148apps.com/reviews/omega-13-review/

UFO99 review

January 24, 2023 by RSS Feed

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 enough additional substance to make it a repeatable score-chaser. The game certainly has its charms, but ultimately UFO99 wears thin due to how limited an experience it is.

Hammer and hover

The concept behind UFO99 is quite simple: You are a defenseless ship that needs to avoid all projectiles and enemies for as long as possible. With each run starting with a 30 second timer, that sounds manageable, right? Well, presumably it is if avoidance is all you want to do, but UFO99 makes things a little more complicated for anyone wanting to rack up a high score.

As you fly around an arena filling with enemies, UFO99 also spawns a few different items that float by for you to pick up. Hammers destroy individual enemies and make coins fly out of them, clocks add 5 seconds to your round timer, bombs kill everything on screen, and a boss key interrupts your run for an untimed boss fight. Dashing around to collect all of these items is key to making UFO99 runs satisfying as an arcade experience.

Charm and chaos

To help you pick up items quickly and survive a bit better, UFO99 has a dash button that conveniently makes your craft temporarily invulnerable in addition to gaining speed. Judicious use of this dash gets important on deep runs of UFO99 as the screen can get filled with enemies that feel practically impossible to avoid without this move at your disposal.

There isn't a ton more to the game than that, but UFO99's overall aesthetic is a charming and delightful mishmash of bright, colorful, and cute animals, objects, and symbols which is just fun to look at as you play. After each round, your point total is scored by how many coins you've collected, and every 2,000 coins you gather lets you use an in-game gachapon machine to unlock new kinds of UFOs to pilot.

Free flyin'

UFO99 is a free-to-play game supported by ads that you can pay to remove for a one-time purchase of $3.99. In addition to removing ads, this purchase also grants a ton of benefits, like unlimited use of items you otherwise would have to watch ads to use and a guarantee of no duplicates in the gachapon when you use it. Paying honestly feels like the only possibly enjoyable way to play UFO99, though I guess it's technically nice to be able to try the game out in its free state before you decide to throw money at it.

There's a lot to like about UFO99 in terms of its concept and style, but I just wish there was more of it and that some of what is there was handled a little better. The game has online multiplayer, for example, but it only works over a local wifi connection so you have to find and be near people you want to play with. Similarly, some of the most interesting moments in UFO99 are its boss fights, but they don't present themselves consistently and their random nature can also mean you fight the same one multiple times in a row. Even with these things being tweaked to let you play online with random players and experience a sequence of bosses, I think UFO99 is still a little light on challenge and complexity, but it would give me more reasons to keep coming back to it than it currently does.

The bottom line

UFO99 is a fun little game, but it feels like it's merely on the cusp of being a standout arcade title as opposed to actually being one. The aesthetics are nice and the fundamentals of the game are sound, but there's just not really enough of it to justify any kind of strong recommendation to play it.

Source link:https://www.148apps.com/reviews/ufo99-review/

Pine Tar Poker review

January 19, 2023 by RSS Feed

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 rug out from under you. It's an interesting idea that gets some help through some unique challenges and upgrades, though it does feel like Pine Tar Poker saunters along a bit slower than it needs to.

Come on down and play a hand or two

At its core, Pine Tar Poker is a modified version of poker where players try to make certain hands out of five face-up cards through the simple process of flipping cards off the top of the deck. Before each flip, you can choose any number of cards to hold onto, and after a preset number of flips you have to try and score. If no scoring options are available when you run out of actions, your point total is scored and you get a payout.

After the first hand or two, you sort of get it. There's a lot of luck involved and you just have to play a bunch if you want things to fall in your favor for a high score. Just as you start thinking that, though, your jovial barkeeper offers some items you can buy with your earnings. These things start to give you ways to control your luck to a certain degree, and also indicate that maybe there's more to Pine Tar Poker than meets the eye.

Making deals, but with who?

From here on out in the review, it's going to be kind of hard to talk about why Pine Tar Poker is compelling. Things certainly happen and they are easy to describe, but the reason they are compelling is because you don't expect them and don't know what the next one will be. Let's just say the game takes a turn in a somewhat supernatural direction and leave it at that.

All along the way, your barkeep keeps chatting you up to explain how certain things work as they get unveiled. He doesn't act surprised, nor is ever vexed by what is going on. The resulting effect transforms the way you might view him. The man who seemed like a welcoming, friendly, and unassuming host has been clearly hiding things from you, but to what end? And why? You must play on to find out.

Creeping along

Each layer you peel back of Pine Tar Poker's innocent facade creates a more intriguing mystery while also adding some mechanical depth to the card game. My only problem with this progression is that it feels a little too slow. There's no moment where things transform in an instant or you make some sudden realization. It's a very slow burn on a game that already feels like it sort of plods along.

Part of this could have to do with the fact that Pine Tar Poker is a landscape-only title. This could just be a "me" thing but games in that orientation I work through a bit slower because I can't necessarily dip in and out of them as easily as a portrait mode game. I also don't see why Pine Tar Poker can't be a portrait-mode title, which is slightly annoying. In any case, the pace doesn't ruin the game at all, but it can create times where you feel like you're just trying to string together enough points to get to the next reveal.

The bottom line

I never thought I'd say that a poker game's worldbuilding is a key part of what makes it successful, but that is absolutely the case with Pine Tar Poker. Things aren't what they seem, and it's fun to get surprised with sinister-feeling events for playing what is otherwise a competent and fairly unsurprising card game.

Source link:https://www.148apps.com/reviews/pine-tar-poker-review/

Wavecade review

January 18, 2023 by RSS Feed

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 game. It's a very strange game and I'm not sure I understand the reasoning for some of its design choices, but I sure as heck enjoy playing it.

Shoot to survive

Wavecade is a wave-based survival game where you have to shoot your way through increasingly fast and dangerous waves of blocks that threaten to destroy your ship if they happen to touch it. To destroy these blocks, you have a few tools, including an auto-firing laser, charge attacks, "nades" that can clear the screen, and a special ability of your choosing that can be anything from a shield to a cloning device that copies your ship and its abilities.

Wave after wave your goal is to simply stay alive, though every mode of Wavecade also has a leaderboard you'll more than likely be looking to climb. For most modes, the challenge in Wavecade is less about the amount of enemies or their movement patterns and more about how you have to put yourself in dangerous positions to chain together large combos that net you a lot of points.

Lord over space and time

As you progress through waves in Wavecade, you'll get access to powerups that make you a more formidable fighter. All of these upgrades are fairly expected and conventional, from a spreadshot to a time freeze. All of these bonuses are time limited, but with some skill and speed you can chain together lots of powerups which can be very useful to keep you churning through waves and upping your score.

Each run ends when you run out of lives, and each time you lose a life any powerups you had are stripped from you. This can put you in a pretty precarious situation, especially if you are pretty deep into a run, which is where one of Wavecade's stranger mechanics can possibly help you out. For some reason, forward and backward movement in this game speeds up and slows down game speed respectively (in addition to changing the position of your ship). You can take advantage of this to cower at the bottom of your screen as enemies and bullets crawl along at a glacial pace or you can race to the top of the screen to have things whiz along into your path of destruction.

Upgrades, custom modes, multiplayer, oh my

When you complete a run of Wavecade, you earn experience that unlocks things like new ship designs, sound effects, ship trails, perks, and more. You can mix and match all of these to your liking before diving back in and taking on any of the game's variety of modes, though most of them are somewhat minor variations on the default "survive as long as you can" mode.

If none of these modes speak to you, you can make your own custom game mode or even team up with a friend to play co-op. No matter what you do, though, you can be almost guaranteed to be treated to a visual spectacle of bright neon explosions and lots of great arcade noises. The visual chaos can also become a factor in the challenge as well, but seeing all the explosions and other particle effects popping off is a big part of what makes the whole thing satisfying.

The bottom line

Wavecade is a pretty wild arcade game with some unique mechanics and a lot of variety to give you reasons to keep coming back to it. It may look like some games you have seen and played before, but nothing quite plays like this, and--in the case of Wavecade--this is a very good thing.

Source link:https://www.148apps.com/reviews/wavecade-review/