Hi everyone, and welcome back to My Week Unwrapped, where I discuss all the games I’ve been playing over the last seven days. My YouTube penalty ended and I’m now able to upload videos again, so there’s a lot this week, both because of videos I recorded last week and also a lot of notable new releases. The highlights for me are Hades and Slice & Dice, but there’s a lot of other games to discuss, so let’s get to it.

Hades – NETFLIX

Supergiant’s fast-paced roguelite, Hades, won a whole slew of awards when it first released in 2018 on other platforms, and I kept up hope that it would come to iOS eventually. That day had finally come, thanks to Netflix, but that does mean you can’t own it outright and need a subscription to play it. Still, I’m glad to have the opportunity to play on my platform of choice. So far, I’ve played about 1.5 hours all with touch controls and am finding it challenging but manageable thanks to all the mini progressions that make you feel stronger. I’ve managed to unlock two weapons and almost a third and I’m having a blast with the shield. You throw it and it bounces off enemies like a boomerang. I’m especially impressed with the art style, voice acting, and the fact that every run produces new dialogue. And of course there’s the three-headed dog Cerberus that you can pet and give gifts to. I’m not sure how long I’ll stick with it, but I’m still enjoying it at the moment. And I like knowing that God mode is always an option if I decide I just want to see the story and not worry about the combat. If you have a Netflix subscription, definitely give Hades a go. And if you don’t, the $6.99 ad-supported plan will allow you to play all the games without ads, so it’s a great option if you don’t care about their streaming content.

Slice & Dice

Slice & Dice is a turn-based roguelike based on dice that just released this week on multiple platforms, including mobile. It took me a bit to get the gist of it, but once it clicked I couldn’t put it down. I played in bed on my phone the night it released, thanks to its support of both portrait and landscape modes. The goal of the game is to survive 20 battles against all sorts of different monsters. But each of your teammates’ skills and abilities are mapped out on the sides of a single die. At the start of each turn, you roll all their dice and whatever skills they land on are what they can use this turn. You do have the option to re-roll the dice, but only twice per turn. Then you need to use those skills and abilities to attack and defend against the monsters before they can wipe out your team. At the start of your turn, you can see what each enemy will do when it’s their turn. So you want to try and take out any monsters that will kill one of your heroes or use your defensive abilities to protect the ones that will take the most damage. Any heroes that survive the battle will have all their health replenished, and those that died will be revived at half health. You also get either a character upgrade or an equipment piece after you win a battle. There’s a ton of depth to the game, both in the classes and items you choose, as well as how you play out each turn. There’s also three difficulty modes to help you ease into things, as well as other modes to keep it from getting stale. I highly recommend giving it a try, especially since there’s a free demo. If you like what you see, you can unlock the full game for $8.99.

Deep in the Woods

Deep in the Woods is another puzzle adventure game from Cotton Game, the folks behind the Isoland series. I grabbed it not just because of the developer but because I loved the art style — more so than any of their other games. The whole atmosphere is just spot on, like some old folk tale. Unfortunately, I didn’t love everything about the game. First off, the music drove me mad. It’s on a very short loop and then stops abruptly, leaving long moments of awkward silence. The game is too quiet without the music, though, so I didn’t like turning it off for long. The puzzles themselves were often interesting, but I didn’t like how easy it was to miss objects. It’s hard to tell what’s interactive and what’s just decoration, so I spent much of the game pixel hunting to make sure I didn’t miss anything. It’s also frustrating that the inventory items don’t have names, so I often wasn’t even sure what I was holding. For the most part, I managed, but it was frustrating to get stuck because I either overlooked an object in the huge mass of plants, rocks, insects, etc., or just couldn’t tell what I was even holding and what it might be used for. I think with a few adjustments it could have been a very easy game to recommend. But as is, I’m hesitant to recommend it to anyone but die-hard fans of the developer’s works. Or if you just want to experience the artwork and don’t mind needing to look up a guide once in a while. In fact, I have a walkthrough here and am planning to make a better one this coming week. I suggest watching some of my gameplay videos before deciding whether to buy it.

Pipunka The Jumper

Pipunka The Jumper stood out to me with its quirky 3D graphics and price tag of only 99 cents. I didn’t know much about it, but I figured it would be a typical platformer. It actually turned out to be more like Flappy Bird with a limited number of hops before you have to land. The goal is to hop to collect your “buddies” and avoid enemies and then you’ll randomly find some object that will allow you to transport to a new area. To be honest, the whole game feels pretty pointless, since everything seems randomized and not in a good way. Enemies end up in positions that make them impossible to avoid, so I was dying pretty often. Also, when I bought the game there were no IAPs listed in the App Store, but I quickly learned that you could buy 1000 coins for $0.99. Considering how slowly you earn coins in the game and how much it costs to unlock new characters — all that are able to jump a lot more than the starter — I felt pretty much instant regret for buying the game, even for a buck. The whole point of the game is just to earn more currency to unlock more characters — which you can do by spending a couple of extra bucks for currency. The actual gameplay itself was not enjoyable at all and feels ultimately pointless. I personally would not recommend this one.

Matexo

I’ve continued playing Matexo and now have completed all but the final level pack. I’m surprised just how tricky the game has gotten even tho the concept is quite simple. I’m still working my way through the last level pack, but you can find my walkthrough for the rest here.

Genshin Impact

And last, yes I’m still playing Genshin Impact. I finished the alchemy event, which was fun but started to drag on a bit near the end. I also played through Chiori’s test run but still need to do her story quest. There’s a new event that started today that’s fine but not terribly exciting. I think this version is supposed to be a pretty quiet one, with a new area coming in 4.6. So I’ll probably have fewer videos over the next few weeks.

And that’s everything I’ve been up to this week. I’m also on the seventh season of The X-Files and not bored of it yet, so I guess I’m in this for the long haul. Anyway, let me know in the comments section which games you’re playing and I’ll see you back here next time with more of My Week Unwrapped!