New Zealand’s PikPok has announced their latest original title I Am Monster is now available for free worldwide on the App Store and Google Play.

In I Am Monster, players are powerful Kaiju, rampaging through a city and smashing the enemies bent on destroying them. As the monsters traverse vibrant districts and new environments, players can collect unique monsters and pets to build the ultimate monster squad. The more the Kaiju smash the more they grow, evolving to enormous sizes and unlocking powerful abilities. But as the cities fight back, deploying bigger and more menacing bosses, players will have to develop their squad and grow to ever greater heights to defeat them.

“Monster movies have been a mainstay of the film industry for a century, and we’ve enjoyed the opportunity to present these worlds and characters from the monster’s point of view,” said Mario Wynands, Managing Director of PikPok. “It’s been great fun immersing ourselves in the world and characters, building on classic monster movie tropes. We think players will love the chance to take a walk in these monsters’ giant, stomping footsteps.”

Expanding on PikPok’s portfolio of original idle games including Doomsday Clicker; and Dungeon, Inc.; Kung Fu Clicker and building on classic monster movie nostalgia, I Am Monster is brimming with action-packed colourful chaos.

[rns_reaction]

The post I Am Monster appeared first on Shane the Gamer.

Riimu Games from Oulu, Finland, introduces a completely new free-to-play fantasy game series for mobile devices.

 In Heroes of Venturia, the first game in the series, you take on the role of a hero manager. The game is inspired by football manager gameplay and traditional tabletop role-playing games. It has a procedurally generated story engine that creates a story arc within quests while also generating interesting events and creatures. The AI driven engine is intelligent and remembers past events.

“We are passionate about role-playing games and this passion shows in everything we do. As our name Riimu (Rune or Runic in English) suggests, our team is all about fantasy worlds. The team has a strong background from Oulu Game LAB and one of our mentors is from Fingersoft, makers of the wildly popular Hill Climb Racing”, comments Timo Kähtävä, CEO of Riimu Games.

In Heroes of Venturia the player manages a growing group of unique heroes to send them on quests to gather loot and fame. The purpose is to build and improve the tavern while the heroes are questing for more resources.

Gameplay will introduce meaningful social features through which heroes can be shared among friends to help them on their quests. Rewards for sharing heroes will benefit both players.

Heroes of Venturia is targeted at mid-core gamers who enjoy easily accessible games with depth and detail. The game will be soft-launched for Android and iOS devices in select countries in December 2018.

The next chapter in the game series will be announced in 2019. It will share similar mechanics, and content can be shared between future games in the Venturia series.

The post Riimu Games Introduces Fantasy Series appeared first on Shane the Gamer.

Storm Boy: The Game, an adaptation of the novella exploring the friendship between a child and his pet pelican, soars to Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Windows PC, Mac, iOS, and Android on November the 20th, 2018.

Based on Colin Thiele’s beloved 1964 children’s book, Storm Boy: The Game is an interactive telling that allows players to experience this classic story in a new medium, taking control of the eponymous protagonist and his amiable pelican companion, Mr. Percival, as the pair explores the lush natural beauty of the Coorong lagoon and South Australia’s majestic coastline.

Developed by Blowfish Studios, this adaptation recreates key moments from the tale while also introducing a variety of entertaining and relaxing mini-games to relish. These activities include sailing, bird feeding, sand surfing, cockle hunting, playing fetch, drawing, and more.

“Our team is proud to translate Storm Boy into the world of games and provide players with a new way to enjoy this heartfelt story, whether they grew up with it or are experiencing it for the first time,” said Ellen Jurik, Storm Boy: The Game’s director, Blowfish Studios. “We can’t wait for everyone to see what we’ve done and are happy to announce our Nov. 20 release date.”

Prior to launch, Storm Boy: The Game will be playable at PAX Aus 2018, taking place October the 26th to the 28th, 2018 in Melbourne, Australia.

The post Storm Boy: The Game Release Date Announced appeared first on Shane the Gamer.

Ark Survival Evolved is one of the major games that used Steam’s Early Access to push itself across the line. Known for being a buggy mess, but also being adored thanks to its survival game nature mixed with Dinosaurs, and more importantly Dinosaur taming, it’s something I have wanted to check out for a while. Now it has come free to play on mobile, and I don’t know how much I want to play this game now.

Ark Survival Evolved plops you on an island which is large, beautiful and full of dinosaurs living their lives. Your job is to survive, get yourself better equipped than the underwear you have been dropped with, and start taming some dinosaurs.

The game has been out on console for a while, and it seems like it’s a fun take on the survival genre, so porting it to mobile phones, with its size and complexity is ambitious at least. The problem is how the game runs, but I’ll touch on that later.

The controls are well designed, using your touch controls to move around like a joystick, but they resisted the urge to put a faux one in place, which was the right call. Swiping in the right ways allows you open your items and menus, which never felt intuitive, but I got there eventually. With a bit more time with the game, I’m sure anyone could adjust to that.

When standing still, the game looks surprisingly good, with detailed plants and dinosaurs around. Unfortunately, the game moves, a lot, and as such it quickly becomes a rough ride. Frame rates drop from a barely usable degree to borderline unusable, regularly. The number of times I’d be moving towards something, touch to grab it, and after that moment see I overshot it, was frustratingly high.

The problem is that because the game is survival based, it needs to be fair enough that if you didn’t deserve to die, you shouldn’t. But so many times I would be running and lose my path because of the choppy framerate, or when I think I’m doing one thing, it does something else.

These issues were absolutely exacerbated by me trying to learn the game for the first time too. Trying to learn the fundamentals of the game, while the game struggles to show it to you, or respond, is immensely frustrating. If you are familiar with the game and can laugh at some quirks or aspects that go wrong, then it could work, but this isn’t a place to learn. For context I was playing this game on a Samsung A8+, so not a $1400 phone, but hardly a weak contender.

Ark Survival Evolved is free to play on iOS and Android, so it costs you nothing to see if it works on your phone better than mine, except your time. (Comment below if you have played ARK: Survival Evolved on mobile and let us know it worked well for you).

The post ARK: Survival Evolved (Mobile) Review appeared first on Shane the Gamer.

Katsu Entertainment announces today that its award-winning mobile game, Warhammer: Doomwheel, is on sale all month long (July) through the Apple App Store and Google Play in celebration of the Second Edition of Warhammer: Age of Sigmar.
Created in collaboration with Games Workshop, Katsu Entertainment’s Doomwheel is a wickedly fast-paced endless runner that arms players with one of the most notoriously deadly warmachines in the Warhammer world, the Doomwheel.

Return to the world that was and claw through the Skaven ratmen ranks as a bloodthirsty warlock. Build up your masterpiece of destruction and crush your enemies under your ultimate wheel of … DOOM!

As a fledgeling Skyre Clan warlock rising to power in the Skaven — rat-kind —  underworld,  create and customize your iron-reinforced wheel. Fuel its thirst for death with hallucinogenic warpstones and pamper it with upgrades from the workshop that include deadly spikes, razor-sharp blades, electrifying bolts of warp lightning and, of course, the crunching sounds of your enemies. The Doomwheel is a one-stop solution to all of your problems — rival clans, pesky goblins, dwarves, humans, fellow ratfolk and, through the Ogre Kingdoms and Tomb Kings DLC, tyrannical Ogres and legions of mummified undead.

“There’s never been a better time to jump into Warhammer: Doomwheel than today,” said Stephane Imbert, Co-Founder and Director of Development at Katsu Games. “It’s the perfect way to celebrate Warhammer while on the go. We have big ideas for the future, with plans for more DLC in the works, so there’s plenty to look forward to.”

Warhammer: Doomwheel is available on the Apple App Store for i-devices and Google Play for Android.

The post CLAW THROUGH SKAVEN RATMEN ON THE GO appeared first on Shane the Gamer.

Mobile games, especially free to play ones, always make me apprehensive. How much game is there going to be and how much of it is going to be trying to convince me to spend money, and how much money is fair to spend, are always issues I struggle with. Might and Magic: Elemental Guardians falls on the better side of those issue, but it still pulls you a little.

Might and Magic: Elemental Guardians is a turn-based battle and monster collecting game. As weird as it may be to see as the describer of the game, as they are usually aspects of something else like an RPG, the game is boiled down to those two aspects.

Monster collecting is based around a loot box system, or better described as a loot gem system. Throughout the game you get a lot of gems to crack open, and each time you do so you get a creature to add to your collection for the upcoming fights. This is a clear point where you can spend a lot of money if you’re not careful, but the game does dole out gems to crack open regularly. This makes it feel less dirty, but you need to be careful to not get hooked.

Monsters are ranked on a star scale, and when their hit their level cap you can rank them up to increase their leveling capacity. You are also able to strengthen your beasts using runes, which having varied stat boosts, such as increasing attack, defense, and accuracy. You level these runes up as well, using a system where you commit resources, and it decides if it does or doesn’t level it up randomly. This is one of those mobile systems that seems gross as you can burn resources for no gain, letting you spend some real money.

The other way to boost your beasts is with evolution, to make sure the monster collecting doesn’t feel too much like another pocket monster collecting game. Evolving gives more stat boosts, and makes your creatures look more impressive. Monsters vary from looking like witches, orcs, elemental wolf cubs and baby griffins, so evolving them is fun watching them become more impressive looking in your team. Evolving my little fire griffin was especially satisfying as it looked awesome in every stage of the transformation.

Leveling your beasts, their skills, runes, and evolving them involves a lot of resources. Resources are dropped regularly thanks to reasonably short battles, and a massive list of achievements that completion nets a lot said resources, and gems for monster hatching. Making sure you keep an eye on these is the best way to get the most from the game without spending a lot of coin.

I haven’t touched on the gameplay yet, because it’s not the most interesting thing. The game uses a rudimentary turn-based battle system, pitting your team against enemies, in waves. Your creatures each have some moves, and your character has a move that powers up throughout the fight. It’s a well-crafted simple turn-based battle system, but there not much more to it.

The story mode has you playing through a training scenario, which has huge leveling spikes. With minimal dialogue, and a lot of time between dialogue, it’s hard not to forget the story beats soon after you read them. This grinding throughout the modes is consistent, though you can use auto battle to complete repetitive battles while you watch something else.

Online is a bit more fun, which has you set up a defensive team. When you’re not watching, your defensive team has fights with opponents, and you can fight other people’s defensive teams when you’re feeling energetic. Wins net you a specific currency to spend, but it takes an age to afford anything.

Might and Magic: Elemental Guardians is a gorgeous game, that works well, and rewards you often. It’s grindy, which is clearly geared to spending money for time saving, but if you play it casually, you wouldn’t have to drop much coin to enjoy the game. T

he monster collecting, and evolving is fun, but takes so much time to complete. All-in-all it’s free to play enough that you can have a satisfying time, but it will put opportunities to spend money in front of you a lot.

[AdSense-C}

The post Might & Magic: Elemental Gardens (Android) Review appeared first on Shane the Gamer.

Leading games publisher PikPok announced to us here at STG the launch of Slam Dunk King for Android on Google Play, joining existing availability on iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch on the App Store.

Slam Dunk King is a basketball arcade game originally released on iOS in 2011. Featuring multiple game modes and unlockable custom content, players must master and chain together dunking tricks, combos, and power-ups to become the Slam Dunk King.

Working in partnership with Krome Studios, PikPok recently updated Slam Dunk King on iOS, bringing the six year old fan favourite up to 64-bit compatibility. The studios have partnered once again to bring Slam Dunk King to Google Play, revamping the retro hit with bug fixes, updated compatibility and support, and all new themed court and ball content.

The Slam Dunk King app is available for free for Android on Google Play, and iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch on the App Store.

The post PikPok Go for a Slam Dunk appeared first on Shane the Gamer.

Racing game developer Eden Games and Gamevice, an approved Apple MFi and Samsung Mobile Accessory Partner announced to us here at STG that Gamevice is now an official partner to Eden Games, offering full controller support to their hit mobile racing game, Gear.Club.

All races in Gear.Club are now fully playable with Gamevice controllers, providing a console like gameplay experience to fans of the game. The design and development team at Eden Games has received extraordinary support from Gamevice to integrate this feature and Gear.Club has been fully optimized and balance-tested to ensure precision control with all Gamevice controllers.

Fighter IV, Minecraft, NBA 2K18 and now, Gear.Club. Gamevice allows users to achieve a new level of usability and comfort over a mobile device’s touchpad interface, and offers the lowest latency of any mobile controller available.

“Gear.Club’s authentic driving experience was a perfect match for Gamevice as the controller delivers precise control to a racing game that focuses on realism,” Said Phillip Hyun, CEO, Gamevice, Inc. “In working with the team at Eden Games, we found a high level of commitment and passion in creating the best experience for their players and are glad that our controllers are now part of that.”

David Nadal, CEO of Eden Games, adds, “When I saw the Gamevice controllers for the first time, I was very impressed by its console-like quality. I wanted to support this product in Gear.Club almost instantly as it brings greater accuracy to the driving experience. After seeing the enthused help and support we’ve received from the Gamevice team, combined with better control and comfort that the device brings, they have naturally evolved into an official partner of Eden Games.”

Gear.Club is a realistic driving experience, with fully simulated engines, powertrains, suspensions and aerodynamics. Gamevice provides greater control as players explore breathtaking settings and compete live with their online friends and foes through unlimited races and championships.

This high-octane game is more than just racing – it is an authentic world of cars. Car-lovers can collect, upgrade and customize some of the most gorgeous exotic vehicles in their performance shop and enjoy details such as engines and interiors in fully-rendered 3D.

Gear.Club has launched as an Apple Editor’s Choice to #1 overall downloaded app on Apple App Store rankings in 77 countries, #1 free game in 85, and #1 Racing game in 142. Gear.Club has topped the charts in territories including the US, UK, Germany, France, Russia, Italy, Spain, Brazil, India and Canada. The game has also gathered critical acclaim from automotive media references such as Top Gear or Car Throttle.

The team at Eden Games’ track record includes the creation of the V-Rally and Test Drive Unlimited franchises, among other major racing game hits on various consoles.

With prices starting at $59.95 (USD), Gamevice provides lightning-fast control to video games and mobile controlled gadgets for popular iOS and Android smartphones and tablets on the market.

The post Gamevice Brings a New Level of Precision appeared first on Shane the Gamer.

gumi Inc. has announced to us here at STG that The Alchemist Code is ready to launch this month.

The epic mobile strategy role-playing game (SRPG) will arrive in the App Store and Google Play Store starting November 14, 2017. 

The Alchemist Code will be available for players to download for free (with in-app purchases) on both iOS and Android devices and is available in English, French, Spanish and German languages.

The pinnacle of Japanese SRPGs, players can delve into The Alchemist Code’s universe of infinite possibilities and customize strategic teams with jobs, skills and equipment to be deployed on multi-dimensional planes of different elevation and orientation.

Featuring classic tactical elements, The Alchemist Code is a full-scale strategy RPG with a plethora of high quality content — from intense missions, gloriously animated 3D battles, to stunning anime-styled cutscenes, superb music and voice acting — all to bring the world of Babel to life before your eyes.

Despite a blood-soaked pact by the seven kingdoms to secure peace for Babel – a land scarred by conflict and war – the desire for power has proved irresistible to many. Alchemy, which was sealed away years ago has begun to seep back into the world.

Granted the powers of Alchemy, players can battle monsters and heroes across the faraway lands of Babel. Left at the mercy of the gods and the seven deadly sins, who will prevail and bring about a change in the world?

The post SRPG The Alchemist Code Release Date Revealed! appeared first on Shane the Gamer.

Today SEGA Networks launched Sonic Forces: Speed Battle, a real-time multiplayer game that pits players against opponents from around the world in action-packed battles.

Developed by HARDlight, the UK-based studio known for Sonic Dash, Crazy Taxi: City Rush, and Sonic Jump, Sonic Forces: Speed Battle features 15 playable characters from the upcoming Sonic Forces console game, including fan favorites like Classic Sonic, Knuckles, Amy, and Omega, as well as lesser-seen characters like Zavok, Metal Sonic, and Chaos. At launch, the game offers 12 tracks, set across three unique environments, two of which were inspired by the Sonic Forces console game. Players can build a roster of characters, levelling up their squad in an effort to battle their way up global and regional leaderboards.

“With its fast-paced multiplayer action, Sonic Forces: Speed Battle continues our vision of bringing entertaining, high-quality titles to the mobile space,” said Takashi Iizuka, VP of Product Development of SEGA of America. “We look forward to seeing how fans respond to the unique runner style and competitive gameplay.”

“With our combined experience making racing games and runners, in Sonic Forces: Speed Battle, we set out to make a battle racing game that is – above all things – fun to play, and we couldn’t be happier with the result.” said Chris Southall, who heads up HARDlight. “Each game sees you matched with three close rivals to compete online in fast-paced, real-time, first-across-the-line battles. Use skill and strategy to navigate the exciting arenas of play, collecting and deploying items on the track to thwart your competitor’s progress. There’s a wide variety of power-ups and characters that we are sure will keep fans delighted as over time they fight to win and rise through the ranks, accessing ever more challenging Levels.”

Sonic Forces: Speed Battle is now available to download for free (with rewarded ads and in app purchases) from the App Store for iPhone and iPad – and it’s already optimized for the iPhone X. Additionally, the game is coming to Google Play for Android devices on November 16, 2017.

Download Sonic Forces: Speed Battle now to satisfy your need for speed and – if you’re any good – victory!

The post Speed Battles with Sonic! appeared first on Shane the Gamer.