21 Dice – oddly addictive for something so simple!

Hey guys, welcome back to Withinthegame.com!

 

I’ve got a very simple yet rewarding game here for you today in 21 Dice by developer BitStern. This game is a very simple idea, reach 21 with a series of random numbers given to you in the form of a dice roll. Once you reach 21 then the stack gains a star, and eventually this stack can reach 21, which is essentially the victory condition, although there are different modes in the game.

Each round begins with three different stacks surrounding the dice roll, and you just swipe the dice into each stack. If you go over 21, the stack is no longer usable and makes it hard to continue. You can swap the dice roll with a back up you’ve saved earlier, which means you can get out of a difficult situation using it, but sometimes you end up completely stuck which can quickly result in a successful seeming round ending rather suddenly, which is endlessly frustrating… although that is part of what actually makes this game so addictive – it’s very quick to start up a new game, so you end up striving to beat your previous score, or last a bit longer and so on. As you know know from previous posts, this is something I always look for in a mobile app as it’s this frustrating addictiveness which can make an app catch on and become a continued source of fun.

I actually quite enjoyed this game, it’s very simple and quick to get going, and whilst it doesn’t have a lot of depth, it’s not aiming for that, it doesn’t need a story behind it or anything like that, it’s just a simple game which you can hop on whilst travelling or commuting or waiting for the doctor and so on.

If you want to give it a go, you can download it here.

As ever, thanks for reading, let us know what you think of the game if you try it out!

If you enjoyed our review, subscribe to our site at the top of this page, and follow us at our social media sites below 🙂

Tom

Shurican – like Flappy Bird… but with ninjas

Hey guys, welcome back to Withinthegame.com!

 

I’ve said in my last few reviews that apps which have that instant restart thing, where as soon as you die you’re at the beginning ready to go again, are the easiest to get addicted too. And so I found myself sitting in the sun in my back garden testing out today’s game, and suddenly it was two hours later.

Shurican by developer SnoutUp is one of those apps where you die… a lot. But as soon as you do, you’re straight away at the start and you just tap to start your little ninja jumping along his mission again. Its incredibly addictive gameplay as the game is so hard, as you dodge blades, demons, fireballs, and more blades.

Artistically its quite cartoony, something I find a lot in apps which have this kind of catchy gamplay. I like how they don’t try to be the next big fancy looking game, but go for something which looks ok and works, I find this quite refreshing compared to the PC games I play or test which often strive to have the best graphics going.

Gameplay is just a simple tap to jump, and double tap to throw a ninja star. This made this one of the quickest games to pick up I’ve tried in a while, as it took me no time at all to get the hang of the Flappy Bird style movement up and down. It’s a pretty fun game all told! Definitely give it a go if Flappy Bird is your kind of game.

If you want to try it out, you can download it here.

As ever, thanks for reading, let us know what you think of the game if you try it out!

If you enjoyed our review, subscribe to our site at the top of this page, and follow us at our social media sites below 🙂

Tom

FuzzBalls – fluffy family friendly fun for phones!

Hey Guys! Welcome back to Withinthegame.com!

 

Can you tell I worked hard on the title? Don’t judge me. Titles are hard.

Today’s game is FuzzBalls from developers xdebugx games. It’s a bejewelled-style match up the pairs game, making them disappear and more fall down from off the screen etc, with interesting features such as blocks, and bombs, and a colour matching system.

In terms of gameplay, the game is pretty fun, and requires very little in the way of complicated control knowledge – it’s just tap one colour and then tap another – making the game fantastically pick-up-and-play-able. That’s definitely a real term not one I just hacked together with hashes. You have to mix the primary colours together to make the other colours, and then mix them to make brown or black, and so on to get two or more of the same colour next to each other.

Matching up the different coloured fuzzballs is accompanied by various cute little sounds which will definitely appeal to younger players. The art style is cartoony and cutesy as well which is going to help this. This makes the game a simple and easy to play game which would be completely comfortable on a child’s phone or a family tablet, or a teenagers phone for the journey to school, or even an adult for that commute to work.

If you want to try the game out for yourself you can find it here.

As ever, thanks for reading, let us know what you think of the game if you try it out!

If you enjoyed our review, subscribe to our site at the top of this page, and follow us at our social media sites below 🙂

Tom

Doppler – bringing the wire loop game up to date!

Hey guys, welcome back to Withinthegame.com!

 

A big thing about mobile gaming these days is how addictive the gameplay actually is – a game which you don’t feel any desire to keep playing will die off, leaving only those who infuriate and challenge players, perhaps even whilst giving them a way to compete with one another. You’ve all seen the like, people posting their ‘Flappy Bird’ scores, talking about what level they got up to in ‘Candy Crush’ and so on. This is what the biggest draw with mobile gaming is, and I always try to keep that in mind when trying out some of the android games I review for Withinthegame.com. 

“the developers have kept it looking interesting with flashy flares and effects on the line and the circles”

Today’s offering has definitely got this addictive nature down to a tee. Doppler is a game still in development from developers My Go! Studio designed to replicate the age old gameplay of the wire loop game – the one where you have to pass that little wire loop along the weaving other wire, without touching it, and get all the way to the end. It required steady hands, and coordination, so naturally I sucked something terrible at it. Doppler has captured the spirit of this old game perfectly in my opinion, required you to keep two circles touched at all times, and navigate along a winding line, not getting too close, and not getting too far away either. After a time, it speeds up, making it harder.

Artistically, there’s not much you can do with a single white line, but the developers have kept it looking interesting with flashy flares and effects on the line and the circles – it’s not something which adds to the gameplay but it makes it look pretty. The music of the game is perfect as well, an 8-bit style slightly sinister sounding track at first which speeds up as you advance through the game.

“Doppler has the addictiveness mobile games thrive upon down perfectly”

As I mentioned earlier, Doppler has the addictiveness mobile games thrive upon down perfectly – once you lose, it immediately restarts the game with no loading time, just straight back in, a challenge flung straight at the player. Can you beat what you just did? Was that round not quite as good as you know you can do? Want to try again? Right there in front of you is the start. Resist it if you can.

Doppler is currently in development, so it’ll be out on the various app stores in the future – the developers are aiming for end of this month or early next.

As ever, thanks for reading, let us know what you think of the game if you try it out!

If you enjoyed our review, subscribe to our site at the top of this page, and follow us at our social media sites below 🙂

Tom

Vagante – roguelike hack’n’slash with a bite

Hey guys, welcome back to Withinthegame.com

‘Roguelike’ games are in vogue at the moment it seems, with many developers taking up this procedural level generation as a method of keeping their game playthroughs fresh and interesting. Today’s game from developers Nuke Nine Games is a roguelike known as Vagante. A dungeon delving dip in to the old school of adventure games, Vagante has a lovely soundtrack, fantastic art style and excellent level generation. I have to say, the intro scene you’ll see above, just after the warning about the current alpha state of the game, was one of my favourite bits, just for the music, and just how nice it was. It reminded me of many older style games I had on my old amiga (which I’m probably now going to dig out of my loft).

Gameplay is standard hack and slash style, jumping around the dungeon killing everything that moves and so on. You earn experience and level up along the way, earning new abilities and so on, rpg style. It’s permadeath as well, so if you die… time to start right back from the beginning. So don’t die!

The only issues I found were a slight difficult in turning around, but I am currently of the opinion this was an error with myself rather than the game, and I found the game quite hard, but again, this was me being useless rather than the game difficult. Seriously. Just watch the video above, I’m pretty terrible. Hopefully it’ll show off enough of the game for you to decide for yourself what you think of it though.

If you want to try it out (and I recommend you do if you’re a fan of the old amiga/snes era games which had this style of gameplay) you can get hold of it here.

As ever, thanks for reading, let us know what you think of the game if you try it out!

If you enjoyed our review, subscribe to our site at the top of this page, and follow us at our social media sites below 🙂

Tom