I Can't Stop Staring At This Week in Gaming Apps

There are weeks [[link]] when all the gaming apps that we review or play seem to follow some sort of loose theme. This is not one of those weeks. I’ve been staring at this week’s collection for an hour, and I’m not seeing a prevailing trend. There’s a two-player pinball game, which has nothing to do with a cute alien-bashing action game, which has nothing to do with a tiny racer, a movement puzzle game or a Tiny Wings wannabe. And where the hell does ski jumping fit in? Is it a sport or falling gracefully?(new Image()).src = 'https://capi.connatix.com/tr/si?token=995c4c7d-194f-4077-b0a0-7ad466eb737c&cid=872d12ce-453b-4870-845f-955919887e1b'; cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "995c4c7d-194f-4077-b0a0-7ad466eb737c" }).render("79703296e5134c75a2db6e1b64762017"); }); Perhaps I’ll find something more concrete in this week’s app reviews. *looks* Nope. It’s create your own theme day here on the Week in Gaming Apps! Feel free to stare while I run down the games we played and reviewed between Monday and Friday. Android Duncan and Katy — $.99 A delightful little action-adventure game from a two-person development team out of Spain. Lovely graphics, simple gameplay, and much fun to be had. Jail Run Puzzle — Free (Technically) Addictive movement puzzles with an unfortunate pay scheme—the app is free, but eventually you’ll run out of steps and have to either download other free apps or pay money for more. Fun while it lasts! Suspect: The Run — Free All the fun of a high-speed chase followed by a traffic copter without having to make the police incredibly irate. iOS Table Top Racing — $2.99 From the co-creators of the futuristic PlayStation racing series Wipeout comes a racing game almost entirely unlike Wipeout! It’s still quite lovely. Ski Jumping Pro — $.99 An incredibly pretty and well thought-out game about people on skis [[link]] leaving the safety of the ground for no good reason. Sunny Hillride — $.99 It wants to be Tiny Wings in a car, but it’s not quite there yet. Graphics are nice, but it needs more than just hills and jumps. App Reviews for the Week of January 26 – February 1 https://kotaku.com/gyro-controls-yes-i-need-gyro-controls-to-destroy-cas-5979530 Gyro Controls? Yes, I Need Gyro Controls to Destroy Castles For the record, I hate the iPhone’s gyro controls. Hate, hate, hate. Make that, hated, hated, hated. As iOS game Catapolt has made me aware, sometimes times, gyro controls are the way to go. More » https://kotaku.com/this-game-is-witty-charming-gorgeous-and-nigh-unplaya-5979722 This Game is Witty, Charming, Gorgeous and Nigh-Unplayable “Oh good, this is one of those games,” I thought to myself happily as I started up Marcus Eckert’s Wide Sky on my iPod Touch. The gorgeous, somewhat melancholy music and stark, four-color imagery suggested that this would be one of those charming little independent mobile games that slips into the… More » https://kotaku.com/dungeon-quest-is-a-free-dose-of-heavily-distilled-diabl-5979858 Dungeon Quest is a Free Dose of Heavily-Distilled Diablo The opening screenshot for this review of Shiny Box’s Android action role-playing game isn’t very flattering. That’s because every time I picked up my Nexus 7 to capture a screen I ended up playing Dungeon Quest [[link]] for another half-hour instead. More » https://kotaku.com/arranger-is-like-a-musical-zelda-meets-psychonauts-5979956 Arranger Is Like A Musical Zelda Meets Psychonauts If you’ve been paying attention to our burgeoning mobile coverage, you can’t have missed talk of Arranger, an iOS game by musician Arman Bohn from a few months ago that recently got an updated iPad version. More » https://kotaku.com/my-perfect-world-is-populated-by-pixel-people-5980530 My Perfect World is Populated By Pixel People A game designer is a combination of a programmer and an artist. A preacher is a philosopher and a dreamer combined. Meld a magician and a scientist and you have a wizard. More » https://kotaku.com/an-abstract-puzzler-in-the-most-artistic-sense-of-the-w-453100101 An Abstract Puzzler in the Most Artistic Sense of the Word Dutch painters in the early 1800s sure knew how to combine lines and colors. They called the movement “De Stijl”, which is Dutch for “easily replicated in Photoshop” (or possibly “The Style”), and artist Piet Mondrian was one of its prime movers. More »