4/5

You’ll love to hate TwoDots’ ridiculously addictive puzzles

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TwoDots

I know that TwoDots, the followup to last year’s megahit Dots, has been out for a little while, but I have a pretty good excuse for not having reviewed it yet: I’ve been playing it this whole time.

It’s taken me so long to get to this article, in fact, that the developer has since released an update with a bunch more levels, and now this review is timely again. So take that, Time.

Anyway, TwoDots is a lot of fun. Provided you’re incredibly lucky.

Free up your Mac’s precious USB with Thunderbolt Dock

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Elgato Thunderbolt Dock
Got a free Thunderbolt port? Elgato's dock will hook you up. Photo: Rob LeFebvre/Cult of Mac

The more I use my MacBook Pro for work and play, the more I need to plug stuff into it. It’s got only two USB 3 ports along with its two Thunderbolt ports and HDMI out. Other docks, like the Kanex dock we reviewed a while back, use up one of the two USB ports, and they don’t provide video out capabilities.

With Apple’s Thunderbolt protocol, though, you can get stuff like video and audio out that requires a lot of bandwidth. The Elgato Thunderbolt Dock is just what you need if you aren’t using either of your MacBook Pro’s Thunderbolt ports, as it gives you three more USB 3 ports, an HDMI out to connect your favorite high-def monitor, a microphone and headphone port, and a gigabit Ethernet port as well.

It’s kind of everything you need in one sleek package.

Plot Twistz fills your daily quota of movies and puns

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Plot Twistz

Here’s a quick, funny, and surprisingly challenging word game for movie buffs.

Plot Twistz by Adrenaline Punch
Category: iOS Games
Works With: iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch
Price: Free

Plot Twistz presents you with a slightly modified plot to a famous film, and your job is to figure out the name of the augmented movie. You get the answer by changing one letter of the original title, which doesn’t sound like much, but you’d be surprised.

It’s also pretty hilarious if you love puns.

Greed is good in coin-pusher RPG Dragon Coins

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dragoncoins2feat

Have you ever experienced that giddy feeling of good fortune when a slot machine starts pouring out quarters, or a winning poker hand lets you put your arms around a big pile of chips and pull them towards your side of the table? Dragon Coins, a combination arcade “coin-pusher” and casual RPG, recreates that feeling every time you play.

Dragon Coins by Sega
Category: iOS Games
Works With: iPhone and iPad
Price: Free

It’s a dangerous precedent. Dragon Coins literally piles on the treasure when you’re on a roll, emulating the psychological appeal of casinos. As long as you are able to put the game down from time to time, or grind out low-level battles to earn extra experience, you probably won’t end up mortgaging your home or draining your kid’s college fund to pay for this game.

Spirit Run: Fire vs. Ice will challenge your coordination and stress management

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Spirit Run

I’ve been playing video games for almost 30 years. I like to think that I’ve developed a certain level of hand-eye coordination and an ability to recognize patterns and learn rules reasonably quickly.

Spirit Run: Fire vs. Ice by Lunagames
Category: iOS Games
Works With: iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch
Price: Free

But Spirit Run: Fire vs. Ice, a new endless runner from developer Lunagames, made me question all of that. Suddenly, I was transforming when I wanted to jump, and jumping when I wanted to slide, and just falling the hell off of things that I normally wouldn’t.

That isn’t to say that it’s a bad game; it’s actually quite good. But be prepared to feel like a monkey trying to do algebra. You know, if that’s a thing that one might call upon monkeys to do.

Minimalist puzzler Bicolor will charm you right to sleep

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Bicolor

Here’s yet another artsy, minimalist puzzle game you’ll want to check out.

Bicolor by 1Button SARL
Category: iOS Games
Works With: iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch
Price: $0.99

Bicolor gives you some colored blocks with numbers on them, and your job is to swipe them around to make the entire screen a single color. It sounds easy — and it typically is, if I’m honest — but it has moments of beauty and elegance that make you forget that it isn’t challenging you. And it’s fun enough without the head-scratching because, like all minimalist puzzle games, it’s about calm, man.

And as long as you keep that in mind, the two of you will get along just fine.

Racing game Greedy Ladder might be the cutest thing ever

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Greedy Ladder

Every once in a while, something drops into the App Store that makes my Grinch heart grow three sizes. So after I take the pills my doctor gave me to keep me from dying when that happens, I spend some time with the game and see if it’s any good. And this one, which a 7-year-old boy designed, is actually pretty fun.

Greedy Ladder by 18th Day Limited
Category: iOS Games
Works With: iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch
Price: Free

Greedy Ladder is a new free-to-play game in which you play as one of eight boys or girls (the differences are cosmetic) climbing a ridiculously tall ladder in one of six major cities. It’s a racing game: The goal is to reach the top as quickly as possible while eating healthy foods that will speed you up and avoiding junk food and inedible objects that slow you down.

All proceeds from the game go to charity, apparently, so that’s pretty cute, too.

Equilibrium combines magic square fun with an evil timer

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Equilibrium

Magic squares have always vexed me. I understand the concept — arrange a grid of numbers so that the rows and columns add up to predefined values — but actually doing them is beyond me.

Equilibrium by Bavlos Boutros
Category: iOS Games
Works With: iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch
Price: Free

So maybe I’m not the best person to review Equilibrium, a new iOS game that is nothing but magic squares for days, but I think I can put my own incompetence aside to recommend it. It has great presentation, a good challenge and is as accessible as can be.

I’m still awful at it, but hey.

Instantion: It’s Up To The Five Of You To Solve These Tricky Puzzles [Review]

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Instantion

Anyone — even a fat plumber — can run around and jump on things. But what if progress depends on being in two places simultaneously? Or three? Or five? Mario can’t even handle that. Unless we’re talking about the Mario vs. Donkey Kong games with all the mini-Marios.

Instantion by Finjitzu
Category: iOS Games
Works With: iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch
Price: $1.99

Which we’re not.

Anyway, the hero of Instantion can be all those places. Let’s focus on that. Because it’s a fun game.

Catena Enables Lessons Onscreen, Encouraging Ingenious Usage. Sagebrush. [Review]

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Catena

If you couldn’t tell by now, I’m a sucker for a good word game, and here’s a new multiplayer offering with an interesting idea behind it.

Catena by Fusee
Category: iOS Games
Works With: iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch
Price: Free ($0.99 upgrade)

Catena is all about you and your opponent making a chain of words. One player starts, and then the other has to come up with another word that uses one or more of the last letters of the previous entry. For example, if I played “wholesome,” my opponent could play “somewhat” or “metric” or anything else that continues the chain.

It has a few hiccups along the way, but it’s mostly a good time.

FreeDum Throws An Innocent Ladybug Into Some Aww-ful Traps [Review]

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Free Dum

Cute animals are always in trouble.

FreeDum by Pedro
Category: iOS Games
Works With: iPhone, iPad
Price: $0.99

They’re always lost or in danger, or they want to eat a crap-ton of candy but can’t without your help. They’re a burden on everyone they meet, and if it weren’t for us, they would all die cold and alone in the woods from an attack by a larger animal or scurvy or something.

But that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t help them. Like the star of FreeDum, who has fallen into the clutches of a pint-sized Jigsaw Killer of animals. I think he’s worthy of aid, and you can do so in this fun little maze game.

Shatter Alley Hates Bricks And You Equally [Review]

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Shatter Alley

Video games have always had some weird vendetta against bricks. That paddle in Breakout, Mario, Simon Belmont in Castlevania … they all busted up blocks like they caught them stealing their lunches.

Shatter Alley by Dojotron
Category: iOS Games
Works With: iPhone, iPad
Price: $2.99

To be fair, Simon Belmont often found entire hams and stuff hidden in the walls of Dracula’s castle, so maybe some food thievery had happened. I don’t know; you tell me how those hams got there.

Regardless, Shatter Alley wants to bring the blockpocalypse back, and it does so in frantic, retro fashion.

Everything About Taijitu Is Relaxing — Even The Difficulty [Review]

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Taijitu

Taijitu is a game about balance and serenity. It will level you out, calm you down, and relax you … up, I guess.

Taijitu by Particlemade
Category: iOS Games
Works With: iPhone, iPad
Price: $1.99

I’m not sure which direction relaxation goes.

Anyway, the game. It’s laid-back, and you’ll like it. It has all the colors, and the music just made me nod off for like 20 minutes. But that’s good, really. Kinda the point.

Robots Love Ice Cream Weaponizes Frozen Dairy To Save … Frozen Dairy. Wait.[Review]

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Robots Love Ice Cream

The robots are coming, you guys. And they want all of our ice cream. What are we going to do?

Robots Love Ice Cream by Dragon Army
Category: iOS Games
Works With: iPhone, iPad
Price: $0.99

We could call in the military, or we could devise some kind of electromagnetic pulse. Or, what the heck, let’s just stand out in the street and throw bricks at them. None of these ideas will work. But here’s a fun new game that knows the correct answer.

Robots Love Ice Cream knows that all free people must be prepared to sacrifice everything to protect that freedom, and the same should be true of tasty desserts. So obviously the best course of action is to convert an ice-cream truck into a rolling tank that fires single-scoop cones with enough velocity to penetrate an invading robot’s cold, unfeeling metal hull.

I mean, duh.

Millie Is A Puzzle Game As Adorable As It Is Improbable [Review]

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Millie

I find the premise of Millie highly dubious.

Millie by Forever Entertainment
Category: iOS Games
Works With: iPhone, iPad
Price: $0.99

It’s a puzzle game that uses the same basic concept as the classic Snake: You’re trying to lead a cute little millipede through a series of mazes, collecting pellets and shoes and navigating in such a way that she does not collide with herself. And the point of all of this is to get her to aviation school so that she can become a pilot.

That’s seriously what this game is about. It’s fun enough, but what?

Can You Collect 15 Coins? No, Probably Not [Review]

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15 Coins

15 Coins is hard. Alright, that was the shortest review I’ve ever written. I’ll be back Monday.

15 Coins by Engaging Games
Category: iOS Games
Works With: iPhone, iPad
Price: $0.99 (promotional price; reg. $1.99)

Apparently, my editor refuses to pay me for three sentences, so I guess I’ll elaborate.

15 Coins is an arcade avoidance game where you’re trying to collect the eponymous pick-ups before you run into a past version of yourself and explode. Probably because of a paradox or whatever happened to Ron Silver at the end of Timecop. Actually, I think the game calls your pursuers “drones,” but they look like you and follow the same path you did, so I’m just going to go ahead and call time travel on this one. The point is that it’s difficult.

Skyline Skaters Has A Great Game Underneath All Those Windows [Review]

By

Skyline Skaters

Alright, so we’ve endlessly run, flown, swam, and jetpacked. Why not add skateboarding to that list?

Skyline Skaters by Tactile Entertainment
Category: iOS Games
Works With: iPhone, iPad
Price: Free

Skyline Skaters is a new free-to-play endless skateboarder that transports you to a world with one of the most ridiculously strict police forces ever. I always thought it was weird in Jet Set Radio Future when the official response to graffiti was for a bunch of officers to run down perpetrators and hold them down so that their boss could come up and shoot them with his giant hand cannon.

These police are a little less hands-on, opting to chase down renegade skateboarders with a helicopter and catch them with a comically large claw. As for the game itself, it’s a fun time once you suspend that disbelief.

Exodite Flies In The Face Of Time-Honored Shoot-Em-Up Conventions [Review]

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Exodite

Side-scrolling shoot-em-ups are typically exercises in excess. You have no shortage of enemies, power-ups, or ridiculously large bosses, and most importantly, you have all the bullets you’ll ever need. Just hit the button anytime, and bullets come out. That’s how it works.

Exodite by Afrodude Works
Category: iOS Games
Works With: iPhone, iPad
Price: $0.99 (promotional price)

“Oh, really?” says Exodite. “How about if it didn’t?” And that’s when things get a little weird.

By limiting your ammo, Exodite brazenly defies decades of tradition. And it’s kind of brilliant for that.

Lightlands Cleverly Injects Efficiency Into Physics-Puzzling [Review]

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Lightlands

Any old physics puzzler can ask you to fling a ball into a goal with a bunch of springs or conveyer belts whatever. And most of them don’t care how you get the ball there, as long as it does.

Lightlands by Torsten Winkler
Category: iOS Games
Works With: iPhone, iPad
Price: $0.99

But Lightlands thinks you can do better than that, and it encourages you to get the ball to its home along the most efficient route possible.

You can still go the “no pictures on scorecards” route and just get the thing to the other thing, but where’s the challenge in that?

Shin Megami Tensei Is As Bewildering On The iPhone As Ever [Review]

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Shin Megami Tensei 1

I should warn you now, the iOS version of Shin Megami Tensei is perhaps the most bewildering game you’ll play on your phone. The game world is unforgivingly nondescript, and you navigate it in first person. It’s very easy to get lost indoors and bypass important people and doors until you get the hang of navigating. I recommend you pause briefly before entering any room to see if a nameplate appears — otherwise you’ll be running in circles. Also, Atlus’ strange control panel shell for SMT is a little unwieldy. I played in landscape mode in order to take screenshots, but I highly recommend playing in portrait mode as the interface buttons are smaller, easier to reach, and not covering the game screen.

Shin Megami Tensei by Atlus
Category: iOS Games
Works With: iPhone, iPad
Price: $7.99

You start off in the midst of a terrifying dream where spirits are being tormented by demons. You rescue your future teammates by saying their names, which breaks the demons’ hold. And suddenly, you wake up. A ghastly murder in a parking lot has set your bustling city on edge and a weird man named Steven is constantly sending you information about a demon summoning program. Yet your mother still wants you to go out and get coffee.

Dead Room: The Dark One Copies Slender (But Does It Well) [Review]

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Dead Room 01

Developer Parsec Productions’ PC horror title Slender: The Eight Pages was one of my favorite games of 2012. It packs an impressive amount of horror and suspense into a very simple idea — being lost in the woods while an unbeatable enemy relentlessly pursues you — and it was one of the few games I’ve ever played that really and truly terrified me.

Dead Room: The Dark One by Donovan Crewe
Category: iOS Games
Works With: iPhone, iPad
Price: $2.99

It makes sense that others would want to get in on that action, and while you have plenty of Slender Man games to choose from in the App Store, Dead Room: The Dark One takes the same basic concept and puts its own creepy spin on it.

And as fairly overt copies go, it’s pretty good.

TriBlaster Adds A Much-Needed Dimension To The Arcade Shooter [Review]

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TriBlaster

You know the drill: You’re up against an endless stream of foes moving toward you, and all you can do is move back and forth and shoot. They may be space invaders or enemy fighters or weird … animal things or something, but it’s always up to you and your single dimension of movement to stop them.

TriBlaster by oeFun
Category: iOS Games
Works With: iPhone, iPad
Price: $0.99

And then TriBlaster shows up and is all, “Pssssh, let’s double that.” So the developers added in a jump button, and suddenly things get completely different.

That’s right, people. Two dimensions. Welcome to the future.

Loco Motors Appeals To Lego Lovers And Amateur Engineers Alike [Review]

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Loco Motors

I don’t own a whole lot of Lego at the moment, and that’s intentional because if I did, I’d just sit around building things all day, and none of these reviews would happen.

Loco Motors by Minority Media
Category: iOS Games
Works With: iPhone, iPad
Price: $0.99 (introductory; reg. $4.99)

Building something from scratch is satisfying, and if it has a function to perform and succeeds, it’s even better. Loco Motors plays on this by letting you build your own vehicle and then use it to complete tasks on a test ramp. It’s essentially two puzzle games in one: one in which you build a car that will run, and another where you let it loose on the track to complete specific tracks.

And luckily, it has an interface that lets you do these things both easily and quickly.

Microtrip Sends You Sailing Down An Infinite, Repetitive Colon [Review]

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Microtrip

Alright, so I don’t know for sure that it’s a colon, but you’re definitely inside something’s guts.

Microtrip by Arthur Guibert
Category: iOS Games
Works With: iPhone, iPad
Price: $0.99 (promotional; reg. $1.99)

And you’ll never get out because Microtrip is an endless faller in which you guide a blob down into the bowels of the bowels of a creature. It’s more pleasant than you think, though, because everything’s all cute-ified and cartoonish.

It’s also a lot of fun, provided you don’t crave variety

Monkey Boots. Because F*** Monkeys. [Review]

By

Monkey Boots

Monkeys are cute.

Monkey Boots by Cocky Culture
Category: iOS Games
Works With: iPhone, iPad
Price: Free

They’re fuzzy, they make little noises, and they act like tiny people if you train them well enough. And they’re mostly cool to hang out with once you factor out bad seeds like that one in Raiders of the Lost Ark that was a Nazi. And the ones who attack humans. And those other ones who attack other monkeys and steal their food for no reason.

Actually, you know what? Monkeys are awful. Here’s Monkey Boots, a fun game about getting one killed repeatedly.