Blog moved !

Blogger doesn't give the freedom to build easily whatever type of post / pages you want, so I moved away from blogger and the blog continue here:

http://whiteseeker.github.io/

I keep the same Google+ account and twitter account, so no need to "re-follow" you can just update your bookmark (^_^)

Thx !

(Oh and BTW, the new Monster Hotel review is available on the new blog !)

Thug Racer

Thug Racer bring Out Run on Android! It's one of my favorite game since a couple of months!

As many good game it's easy to learn and hard to master. Super simple controls: turn left, turn right and brake. An easy goal: complete 5 stages as quickly as possible. But completing that goal require a lot of practise and skills to avoid other cars, escape police patrols and avoid crashing in the walls.

Monetisation is really good: you can play the game in arcade mode (the main one) for free,with some ads from time to time at the end of a run. You can also do a one time purchase to get a new golden skin on your car, get access to the endless mode, remove the ads, and also help an indie!

Thug Racer is made by Super Coockie Games, two indie game developers from London: Dan and James

Pros	Cons	Note
Simple gameplay hard to master Great graphic style Really nice monetisation Easy to play in commute	A bit repetitive	9/10

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Cards and Castles

Cards and Castles is a fresh mix of Trading Card Game & turn-based strategy game. Lately I haven't been a fan of all the clones of Magic the Gathering that popped up lately on mobile apart from Hearthstone! But Cards and Castles get me intrigued, and pleasantly surprised.

In C&C you play your cards to create units on a battlefield, or influence them with buff and debuff. Unlike most TCG game, the battlefield is a grid with lots of cells (5*9). Consequently choosing your deck is only one part of the strategy: using your units properly on the battlefield is at least as important. You'll have to position them, calculate range etc, guess the opponent next move & cards, prepare for area damage, etc. The game has 5 different factions: Vikings, Crusaders, Pirates, Warlocks and Ninjas. Each deck can mix together 2 factions, or just use one faction, as you prefer. The difference between factions and the variety of cards available give you a lot of freedom to create synergy in your deck, and offer a deep gameplay.

C&C has a single player mode, but, as for most TCG, all the fun really start when you compete against real players. You'll have quests, monthly reward for ranked game (custom skin ...). Game is really well balanced and devs are very close from the community, listening to feedback and reacting very quickly. The game also have frequent update with new content.

Monetisation is done through pack of cards you can either purchase with real money or with the in game virtual currency (roughly one pack of card every 3-4 multiplayer game depending on quest and victory ratio (^_^) ). However to get the most rare cards you'll be likely to spend money, and the cards you get are random, with no way to exchange between players. Unlike hearthstone you can't craft the specific card you need.

Cards and Castles is made by Bit Mass, an indie studio of 5 game developers based in San Diego.
Oh and BTW the game is cross platform Android, iOS and PC (steam).

Pros	Cons	Note
Mix TCG & turn-based strategy game Well balanced & deep gameplay Challenging multiplayer Cross platform Android, iOS and PC	Singleplayer also require internet connection Monetisation: Spend to get (randomly) great cards UI is quite complex	7/10

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Uppercup Football

Uppercup Football is an intense fantasy soccer-ball mobile game with crazy rules. Believe me, I'm not usually a fan of soccer-ball and even less in a video game, but Uppercup Football add a ton of fun into it !

First it has a super easy control system, one handed, in turn by turn, really perfect for mobile. Second you have some crazy rules, changing each match, like: Rugby balls, electroballs, trees or even mines on the field, etc. Finally there is about 100 levels, all different, with more and more challenges.

You can perceive the amount of time and effort spent in polishing the game, the menus and gameplay. The art and animations are great, but I'll let you judge by yourself as the game is free to install with a one time in app purchase to unlock the full version (restorable on any device). 

Motion Twin is the french studio behind Uppercup Football. Motion has a few extraordinary component:

• Every employee has the same share of the company. That mean the same salary, same power of decision, same responsibility.
• They have their own programming language called HaXe. It can be compiled into C++, Action Script of Javascript and all their games are made with HaXe.
• They made a ton of great web browser games with a unique gameplay that you've NEVER seen anywhere else. If I had to pick one: Mush, but there are more, a lot more.
• 11 frogs. Errrr employees I mean (^_^)

Go try uppercup football ! You have no excuse it's free to install !

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Sorcery

Today let's check Sorcery. Do you know the "books where you are the Hero"? If you liked these books as much as me, you'll love Sorcery, and if you don't know them but like Fantastic books, you should really try it!

After choosing your character you'll start a captivating adventure, full of mystery, and you'll decide every actions of your hero. When you played The Witcher or Mass Effect you barely have 5-7 meaningful choices to make during one game. In Sorcery you have at least 100 of them, leading to different adventures, different difficulties, different stories to discover. You'll fight monster with a unique combat system, collect and use items in your inventory, and even cast magic !

If you like Sorcery 1, you'll be able to pursuit the same adventure with Sorcery 2 and 3 where you can get your progress from the previous opus through a simple "code save" you get at the end of each game.

The sky is not 100% blue, the music could be better, the "game" also miss achievements to push you to explorer different path of the story, and cloud saving would have saved you from keeping note, somewhere, the code you get at the end of the story (And probably loosing it).

Sorcery is made by inkle, a studio founded in 2011 by 2 game developers in the UK. As game dev I have to mention Inklewriter, the tool behind Sorcery and The Banner Saga, designed to help you publish high quality interactive stories. Inklewriter is free (But I haven't found the license). It's a great tool to create this kind of book experience but also when creating cut scenes, try it online ! Sorcery is premium so no iaps, no ads, no bad surprises.

 

Sorcery!

 

Sorcery! 2

 

Sorcery! 3

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Rymdkapsel

Rymdkapsel took the essence realtime strategy (RTS) games and released it in a unique and pure experience.

If you know about RTS you can hardly imagine be playing one on mobile given the amount of actions you have to do every seconds. Well Rymdkapsel succeed surprisingly well at removing the low level management to let you handle only the high level decisions. You decide the layout of your space station, the amount of minions in each kind of "job", and then watch them working, adjusting your orders and adding new ones on the fly. You build the layout of your station by assembling rooms with different purpose. Each of this room have the shape of a tetris block which make it increasingly difficult to build an optimal station.

As the gameplay, the art style is minimalist. It is relaxing and the design help you focus on what matters: taking decisions quickly, and reading easily what is happening in your station. Regarding the lenght of the game, Rymdkapsel offer 3 different modes: the normal mode, a harder mode called "Plus" and a "Zen" mode without enemies where you just play at your own pace. It also offer some achievements, and a leaderboard to compete for the longest resistance time.

Grapefrukt Games is the Sweden studio behind this game. Grapefrukt Games consist of exactly one guy: Martin Jonasson. Finally Rymdkapsel is a premium title, so as usually, no bad surprise: no ads, no in app purchase, no hidden cost !

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Tiny Guardians

Tiny Guardians is a surprising strategy game where your role is to protect one enchantress, Lunalie, as she journeys in search of the Sorceress.

Taking some elements of tower defense gameplay, it twist them in a very refreshing way. Instead of protecting a fix point, as in a classic tower defense game, you protect Lunalie as she slowly travel through the map. And instead of building tower you choose the heroes that will protect her. You can choose from 12 different classes of heroes: knight, archer, cleric, assassins, etc. Each heroes has 4 upgrade, giving you plenty of different strategy to finish each level.

The gorgeous art style transport you across 14 different levels having a Story and Challenge Mode, each with three difficulties. Collecting every achievements require quite a lot of investment and will provide you with hours of gameplay.

Tiny guardians was made by Kurechii, a Malaysian independent game studio founded in 2009, and now employ 4 persons. Tiny Guardians is a paymium title, it means that you pay to purchase the game and then the game offer some optional in-app-purchases. It may sound bad but actually these in app purchases are not at all necessary to completely finish the game in a reasonable amount of time. They are mostly there to unlock different esthetic outfits for each hero. So be reassured, you'll not need to spend any additional money after purchasing the game.

 

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