If you’re looking to get away from it all, you might want to check out this game. …and then it rained is an arcade game full of sound, rain, and colors, and it’s the perfect game for a quiet few minutes away from the hectic pace of your life.
With true zen-like minimalism, there are just a few simple mechanics at work here, but it may just be the best game you play all week.
Check out the video below to see how it plays.
Great games don’t always need amazing graphics and sound, but they do need a strong premise and a lot of heart. A Dark Room, an outstanding text-based adventure game with minimal graphics, starts off as a simple survival story and eventually blossoms into a full-on Fallout-style role-playing game (RPG).
Much of the joy of playing A Dark Room is watching it unfold in surprising new ways. The game starts simply — you’re alone in the dark with a single button to press to start a fire. Eventually, new buttons appear so you can perform actions like collecting wood, and a character called the Builder shows up to help you form a shelter.
When you first start playing Hill Runner, it seems impossible. And then after a few dozen dismal failures, you have a really good run and restore your faith in yourself. And then you’ll mess up the next try immediately.
It’s a glass case of emotion, this game.
But it’s very simple, and it’s free, and it’ll offer some distraction and charm for a few minutes if that’s all you’re looking for.
New game Mutants: Genetic Gladiators aims to be your go-to when you want to battle it out with comic book-style monsters that you mutate and create yourself.
The game, from French publisher Kojobo, originated on Facebook, gathering almost 6 million players with a turn-based arena battling scheme that mixes role-playing level-up mechanics with an interesting combat system that uses various monster “genes” to add to the strategy. You’ll choose three mutant gladiators for your battle team, and then pit them against other teams — both AI-controlled and actual other players — for ultimate supremacy.
Check out the launch trailer below for some hot comic-book creature battling action.
Two coders who’ve never met sat in their respective man caves 1,400 miles apart making a game that proves once and for all that whiz-bang graphics aren’t necessary when it comes to building a hit.
Called A Dark Room, their “minimalist text adventure” has stormed the App Store — averaging 10,000 downloads a day (at $0.99 a pop) and currently holding the No. 1 position for paid iPhone games (see our review here).
Here’s how Michael Townsend and Amir Rajan created an indie iOS game with no graphics that became the most unlikely success of the year.
Ever since Disney revealed its grand Infinity gaming universe, we’ve been wondering when Marvel-themed playsets would arrive — or even if they would. Disney bought Marvel in 2009, and it made sense the characters would show up: Infinity would be the perfect setting to flaunt the newly subsumed superheroes. Problem was, nary a whiff of Marvel could be found at Infinity’s January 2013 launch.
Nevertheless, Thor, Iron Man, Black Widow and the gang are coming to Disney Infinity — and boy do they look awesome.
Of course you have the Nintendo 3DS in your bag — it’s an outstanding handheld gaming system with a bevy of first- and third-party game titles that range from the strategic to the evocative.
You know the device is capable of some brilliant gaming for adults, but good lord, Nintendo, could you maybe bypass the primary colors? Maybe offer, say, a black version? Something in gold, maybe? The sophisticated folks at Waterfield know that you’re a grownup now, so they’ve created the City Slicker, a lush cocoon of a 3DS and 3DS XL case with a proper leather flap that ages along with you.
I like words. I like writing them, I like spelling them, and I like picking the perfect one for the sentence I’m creating. And I like playing with them, too, if you couldn’t tell from all the word games I choose for reviews.
But even if you aren’t a Word Nerd like I am, you’ll probably enjoy Fiasco. It’s a moderately paced competitive spelling game in which you create as many words of three or more letters as you can by dropping tiles, Tetris-style, onto a board.
You can get time and point bonuses for longer words, which is basically the only way to win. Because this game is pretty challenging.
Sid Meier’s Civilization V is the best “4X” (eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, and eXterminate) game out there, and it can be yours for 67 percent off the regular price of thirty bucks right now in this exclusive to Cult of Mac offer from publisher Aspyr.
Civ 5, as it’s colloquially known, is the distillation of all that is good about the $x genre, which is why the game received universal acclaim and a score of 90/100 on review aggregator site Metacritic.
Aspyr wanted to find a way to acknowledge the support of Cult of Mac readers.
“It’s an exclusive deal for Cult of Mac readers on one of our most beloved titles,” said Aspyr’s Michael Blair. “This is a big ‘thank you’ to the Cult of Mac readers and to Cult of Mac for covering Mac gaming!”
You may not need a mouse much these days if you’re rocking a Macbook or Magic Trackpad, but if you do any kind of gaming on your computer, you know a mouse is essential kit.
Pro gamers rely on lag-free, incredibly high-tech controllers and gaming mice, and Steel Series is one of the top contenders in the field. Their series of gaming mice and keyboards are precision engineered to provide whip-fast response to any twitchy input a gamer needs in their chosen gaming environment.
The Steel Series Sensei wireless gaming mouse is an ergonomic marvel with ten buttons, its own software control app and some scary-quick response times.
Despite all that high-tech nonsense, it’s super easy to use and feels good in the hand. Which is important when I’m jacked into an all-night MMO session with 12 of my besties, raiding the lair of whatever monster it is that we’re all trying to kill.
I love this damn mouse more than I can say.
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 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.
While many are sure to remember the old hit-game Fruit Ninja, not many are still playing it. Though the slicing mania may be on halt in one app, Apple’s current app of the week KingHunt aims to keep you going at it. Claiming to be the next generation of the slicing game genre, slice your way through crazy objects and plenty of fun-filled levels. Do you think you can become the ultimate hunter?
Take a look at the video and see what you think.
Leo’s Fortune is one of the most beautiful iOS games I’ve seen in a while. But beyond its good looks, it also has an intriguing story, fun puzzles, and a ton of personality.
And I could stop right there, but then you wouldn’t hear about the cool physics and simple controls and the fact that the hero is a Star Trek Tribble with eyes like a Muppet and an undeniably amazing moustache.
This game basically has everything.
Bandai Namco’s mid-April press event didn’t have too many surprise announcements or knock-you-on-your heels demonstrations, but one upcoming PC game seems promising. It’s called Rise of Incarnates, a free-to-play, four-player fighting game where you control half of a team of superheroes battling it out in a ruined city.
Last night the app waltzed into my life, a stylish-looking game with head-sure confidence and whip-smart intellect. It didn’t waste any time getting down to business. It needed a thief with nimble fingers, and I was just the gamer for the job.
There are over a million apps in the naked App Store, and Third Eye Crime is one of the stylish ones. It’s a noir-themed stealth action game where you play as a detective with a passion for thievery and a touch of psychic ability.
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.
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.
Hundreds of new games come out every week in the App Store. A select few are the next must-play title that everyone will be talking about for the foreseeable future. Most of them are perfectly decent but may not receive the attention they deserve. And then you have the third group: games so odd, bizarre, and head-scratching that you’re not sure what to make of or do with them.
They aren’t necessarily bad; they’re just confusing and weird. And worst of all, people may never know that they exist. But that’s why we’re here.
Here are some of the strangest games to drop into the App Store this week, and they’re all weirdo versions of other titles. What you do with this information is between you and your iPhone.
Roll the dice, as many times as you like, and add the results together to create a huge attack number. Use that number (and a ridiculously large sword) to bash in the heads of random dungeon monsters.
Roll a one, though, and your turn is over. This cost-benefit system comes right out of a slot machine in Vegas and it’s got me hooked.
As the game editor here at Cult of Mac, I spend a lot of time with a controller or touch screen in my hand. Of all the fun games out this week on the iPhone and iPad, I’ve got to say, Tiny Dice Dungeon is the one I’ve spent the most time playing.
If I was forced, say, to choose my iOS Game of the Week (and I’m not), I’d pick this one.
Recycling is generally perceived as a good practice to help save the Earth. In the new game Scrap Squad, it’s quite the opposite: You sort and recycle to dominate the world.
Tap and drag bottles, cans, paper and other refuse down a conveyor belt and into corresponding colored robots as fast as you can. Do you think you’re a good enough evil genius to top the high-score charts?
Take a look at the video and see what you think.
David is a brilliant and challenging game about a little square facing off against some giant, cheap-as-hell foes with nothing but a minimalist game version of a slingshot.
You can see what they’re going for here, but it’s more than just David and Goliath; this plucky little game reminded me a lot of Shadow of the Colossus, one of my favorite-ever PlayStation 2 games. It was also about a little guy killing giant things, but unlike that title, which is ambiguous about whether or not you should be destroying these beasts, David is pretty confident that these geometric a-holes gotta die.
And killing them will not be at all easy.
The third episode in acclaimed adventure game The Wolf Among Us has just dropped on Steam, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and iOS, and –if the trailer below is any indication — it’s a doozy. Titled ‘A Crooked Mile,’ the new episode looks to raise the stakes for its main character, the detective in a city full of ex-patriate fairy tale characters.
It looks like Bigby Wolf is really working on the “bad” part of his better known moniker (The Big Bad Wolf) in this video game series based on the Eisner Award-winning Fables graphic novels by Bill Willingham and published by Vertigo Comics.
The trailer (below) is short on details but long on accolades as it shows Bigby tearing through the magical side of New York, dropping the F-bomb and getting very, very angry. Those red eyes aren’t a good sign for anyone.
It’s not uncommon to find yourself in a situation throughout the day when you’re just bored and looking for something to do. New iOS game Spin It will bring a fresh type of gameplay to your device to keep you entertained. Spin colored circles around the screen to match them in sets of three and four. Can you spin your way to the top of the high-score charts?
Take a look at the video and see what you think.
Sinkers has been out for a couple weeks now, but if you haven’t played it yet, you should.
It’s a minimalist puzzle game with two controls: You tap to remove all of the pieces of the same color that are touching, and you swipe up to “sink” the board and fill in the gaps from the pieces you’ve removed.
You have 20 moves to make as many points as you can. And that’s basically all you need to know, other than that this game is worth your time.
If you’ve ever wanted to slash and hack your way around a party full of your friends, now may be the time. Bonsai Slice is a new free-to-play multi-player iPad-only party game that has you using your iPad as a sword, slicing and dicing your way through a bunch of wacky objects. You’ll collect new swords, chase high scores and crazy combos, and compete with your friends in real time and online.
You can even play in single-player mode, but where’s the fun in that?
Check out the video below for a taste of the sword-swinging action.
The app store is notoriously known for having tons of endless runner games. While some developers are sticking to the running genre, others have taken to jumping. The new app Jumping Jaxx is an endless jumper where players must swipe platforms on the screen to keep the character from falling into a giant wave. Dodge piranhas, catch powerful boosts and collect as many flowers as possible to reach a new high-score and purchase upgrades. How high do you think you can help Jumping Jaxx reach?
Take a look at the video to see what you think.