Currently Playing: October Mobile-5
Tsuro
We have the physical board game version of this at home, and it's one of current my favourite games. It has a low barrier to entry as it's pretty intuitive to grasp, yet rewards careful strategising and ruthless competition. It's also very pretty to look at! The mobile version takes everything that's great about the physical game and makes it easy to carry around in your pocket, and as a bonus you can play against the AI when there is nobody else around. Or if everyone is refusing to play with you because you gloat horribly when you win. Either or.
Divide by Sheep
I'm pretty sure that enjoying this makes me a bad person. Divide By Sheep combines my two least favourite things in the world - violence against animals, and maths - and by some sort of witchcraft turns them into a game I can't get enough of. You'll need every ounce of brain-power to figure out some of the puzzles, but it's incredibly satisfying when they come good. Playing can be headache inducing at times, but I reckon it's probably doing my synapses good to creak its way through this selection of brain-stumpingly sadistic live-stock slicing subtraction conundrums.
Full of Stars
Full of Stars fascinates me. I love mobile games where a tried and tested formula is flipped on it's head and someone tries to do something really innovative within the confines of a pretty rigidly defined design genre. As a endless runner with a branching narrative, its an experience I've not had previously, and I want to spend more time figuring it out. However, the excessive difficulty and awkward monetisation effort mar clarity of the design; it would perhaps have been better suited to a Steam release.
Stack
There's not a great deal of meat on this one, but what is there is really well done. Time your taps to build the highest possible tower of the slidey slidey blocks and try not to explode into a rage when you fail due to nothing more than your own incompetence. It's simple, its slick and it's compelling. It works for pass & play, or solo time-wasting and it makes satisfying "plong" noises when you get it right. What more do you want really?
The Little Fox
This is a gorgeous looking game, the fox avatar is too adorable! It's pretty damn hard, which isn't necessarily a bad thing but the abruptness of the "deaths" detracts from the polish. A "fainting" animation, and more gradual transitioning into the fail screen would really lift the user experience, and would be fairly minor features to implement. It almost feels like a student game in a way, where there is extreme talent and polish in some areas, and then silly oversights in others. But it's still very charming overall.
