evergreen Archives

What the Golf? / What the Car?

Mini Motorways / Mini Metro+

Grindstone

Alto’s Adventure / Alto’s Odyssey

Sp!ng

Monument Valley+ / Monument Valley 2+

Crossy Road Castle

Stardew Valley

Tiny Wings+

A Slight Chance of Sawblades

$0 at App Store See 7 more

Ridiculous Fishing EX

What is Apple Arcade?

Apple originally released Apple Arcade with the promise of high-quality, exclusive games that are playable across basically every device the company makes. That includes the iPhone, iPad, Mac and Apple TV (though you need a controller for the latter). Over time, Apple started allowing games originally launched in the App Store as well, provided that they met certain criteria. All Apple Arcade games are ad-free and have no in-app purchases, something that really helps differentiate its offerings over the flood of low-quality games in the App Store.

While Apple Arcade launched with a pretty excellent lineup, additional games have unfortunately been fewer and farther between in recent years. Apple has also pulled a number of games from the service, including some of the best ones you could get like Sayonara Wild Hearts, Cozy Grove, Assemble with Care, Shinsekai: Into the Depths and numerous others. It’s a reminder that with a subscription service, things can go away at any time.

While we’re not seeing the same cadence of high-quality original games on Apple Arcade as we did a few years ago, I still think the service is worth the $7 per month or $50 per year subscription if you do a lot of gaming on your phone. Some of the best games in the history of the App Store are here (anything with a “plus” symbol denotes a game that was originally sold in the App Store and then brought to Apple Arcade), and there are still a number of excellent originals worth playing. It is worth noting that the “plus” games were not designed with Mac or Apple TV playback in mind and thus only work on an iPhone or iPad. These 16 games are some of the best you can play, and there are a bunch more I want to try for future inclusion on this list. In the meantime, this should be more than enough to get you started.

Apple

Threes!+

Threes! took the mobile gaming world by storm about a decade ago — it was the original “sliding numbers” puzzle game. Because the three-person development team behind Threes! had the audacity to charge for their game, tons of lesser clones quickly followed. But Threes! is the most satisfying experience, and it’s now part of Apple Arcade.

As with most perfect mobile games, the mechanism here is extremely simple and very satisfying. You slide numbers across a four-by-four grid, trying to combine a 1 and 2 into a 3, and then combining threes to make increasingly larger numbers. Each new number greets you with a goofy catchphrase, and the game has a delightful score that never gets old. If you never tried Threes! in its heyday, this is your excuse to get sucked in.

What the Golf? / What the Car?

For sheer bizarre gameplay, What the Golf? and What the Car? cannot be beat. As the names suggest, golf and racing are the base-level inspirations for these games, but things get weird immediately. The first course has you drag on the screen and then release it to hit a golf ball, but after that your projectiles could be anything from a cat that needs to knock a giant frog off his perch to an egg that you need to land in a frying pan. Truly terrible puns abound, pretty much every time you finish a level; different areas of the map also have ridiculous names (“A hole new world” is just the first I noticed while writing this up). It also pulls in all sorts of different sports to keep things fresh, so expect to find yourself “golfing” on a soccer pitch, for example.

What the Car? uses the same “anything goes” ethos, applied to getting from one end of a level to the other. Of course, you’re usually not driving something that resembles a real car — instead, your car might sprout legs and run, or strap on a rocket pack for an extra vertical boost. Or your car has a set of lawn clippers and needs to cut the grass in a yard before it can exit. In almost all cases, you’re racing the clock to get as fast a time as possible, and the game cleverly puts shortcuts in places most people wouldn’t think to look. Both games are delightful in their absurdity and have a ton of content to keep you busy.

Mini Motorways / Mini Metro+

Mini Motorways and its predecessor Mini Metro are the kinds of games that can be simultaneously chill and extremely stressful. The chill comes from developer Dinosaur Polo Club’s simple animations, bright but somehow also muted color schemes and minimalistic music and sound effects. The stress comes from the gameplay, which always ends up spiraling out of control.

In Mini Motorways, you’re tasked with building roads to connect houses and businesses and keep traffic flowing. It starts off simple enough, with a couple houses and a few different destinations, but your city keeps getting larger, there are more cars on the road and the layout that was so effective a few minutes earlier is suddenly strained. Mini Metro has a similar vibe, as you build subway lines and stations on a map vaguely resembling some of the world’s biggest cities.

Both games end when stations get too crowded, or cars aren’t able to get to and from their destinations. The last few minutes before it all comes crashing down is incredibly stressful, as you try to reorganize streets or completely change subway designs to keep up with the influx of passengers all in service of getting a higher score. But there’s an undeniable sense of calm that can happen when your subway line is just humming along, or when everyone in your city can get to the store. There’s nearly endless replay-ability here, too.

Grindstone

I’ve been playing Grindstone on and off since Apple Arcade launched in 2019. The puzzler does just about everything right, introducing you to the marauding viking-type Jorj who has to do battle with boards full of cute but creepy enemies. From your starting point, you can trace a bath through the baddies, cutting through ones of the same color all in one move. Make a big enough combo, and you get a grindstone — this lets you switch to another color of enemies in the same chain, making it possible to string together bigger and more complex runs across the board. To beat a level, you usually need to take down a certain number of enemies, or beat a few of the higher hit-point baddies that spawn.

That’s the core mechanic, but developer Capybara Games put a ton of variety into Grindstone. Enemies get more aggressive the longer you’re on the board — so while you can rack up a lot of loot, you might also end up in a situation you can’t escape. There are world bosses that use the mechanics of the previous levels in clever ways, tons of items you can unlock and use to even the odds and a handful of extra game modes that keep things fresh. Not to mention ridiculous outfits you can equip to give Jorj additional powers, like the Santa suit that gives you random power-ups. If you asked me the first game you should download from Apple Arcade, I’d have to recommend Grindstone.

Alto’s Adventure / Alto’s Odyssey

These two games are among my favorites that ever hit the App Store. The extremely chill snowboarding (and then sandboarding) games are beautiful to look at, have excellent music and sound design and there’s a ton of variety in the ways you interact with the world. That’s despite jumping being the main mode of interaction. Once you get good air, you can start pulling tricks like backflips and grinds, and eventually unlock a tool called the wingsuit that lets you float and take flight in limited fashion. It’s the kind of game you can pick up and understand immediately that also has plenty of challenge and replayability.

Perhaps the best trick of these games is the balance between a zen-like play experience and the way that the games nudge you to get better and go further. You’ll be presented with three challenges when you start a run (collect 30 coins, travel a certain distance, do 10 backflips and so forth); once you accomplish those, you’ll level up and get three more. And they can get very challenging! If you want to chase high scores, long distances and make it all the way to level 60, feel free — but if that’s not your jam, the game is still rewarding and enjoyable to play for a few minutes or the entirety of a cross-country flight.

Sp!ng

Sp!ng is a classic, casual puzzle game, albeit one with a ton of polish and style. In each of the hundreds of levels included, you need to move your ball-like avatar from one end of a maze to the other. But the only way to move is if you get close to an anchor point — when that happens, you tap and hold on the screen and your ball gets pulled into orbit around that anchor. Remove your finger from the screen and your ball is flung in whatever direction it would naturally go, before gravity pulls it down. The trick is to link your path between anchors to collect gems and reach the exit while avoiding traps like spike pits.

This isn’t a very elegant description, I’ll grant you, but it’s the kind of game mechanic that you can immediately grasp. It also lends itself to a wide variety of different challenges. As the game progresses, it gets trickier to grab all the gems in a level without throwing yourself into a trap. But figuring out the right path and timing for a challenging level is extremely satisfying. It’s a classic pick-up-and-play for five minutes or two hours kind of game, and there are a ton of game modes you can unlock and different ways to customize your experience. Plus, beating your friends on a leaderboard is always fun.

Monument Valley+ / Monument Valley 2+

Monument Valley and its sequel were two of the buzziest mobile games of the last decade, and they’re all about atmosphere. The artwork, minimal story, music and gameplay all combine to give an atmosphere of serenity with an undercurrent of something unexpected waiting to burst forth.

The gameplay is all about impossible geometry, as you manipulate the world around you to get your character from one end of a level to the other.

While the first game has a vague sort of story about the central character looking for forgiveness, the sequel made things a bit more concrete. You’re playing as a mother, trying to guide your child through the mazes with you, and there are various meditations both explicit and implied throughout the game. But you don’t need to be a parent to enjoy the game’s clever puzzles and extremely chill vibes. With a third Monument Valley game finally on its way, now is a great time to catch up on the first two.

Crossy Road Castle

Crossy Road Castle is a quintessential platformer, designed specifically with the iPhone in mind. The game features 10 castles, each with an “infinite” number of levels (though things start getting remixed and recycled after level 100 or so). The game was built with the common portrait orientation of smartphones as the only experience, so levels typically involve a fair bit of vertical climbing. It’s the classic “avoid obstacles, grab coins, stomp on baddies” formula, but the art style and variety of animals you can unlock to control adds a unique bit of charm to the experience. It’s also a well-balanced game, not too tough, but with enough tricky challenges to keep you from mindlessly running from one stage to the next. There’s even a co-op multiplayer mode, either locally or through random online matching, for extra chaos.

Stardew Valley

Stardew Valley is one of just a few games that can be credited for inspiring an entire genre: the “cozy game.” Sure, Story of Seasons series got there first and Animal Crossing is a juggernaut, but Stardew Valley really struck a nerve with gamers and non-gamers alike — the title has sold over 30 million copies as of this year across nearly every platform you can name (including Apple Arcade).

If you haven’t played it before, it’s a lovingly-rendered farming sim with 16-bit era graphics given a fresh coat of modern polish. The visuals, music and dialog from the various townspeople you meet all exude charm and friendliness, and there are tons of ways to customize the experience and make it yours, from the look of your character down to exactly what you do with each square of your land. And there’s even some light combat and adventure to be found while exploring mines near your farm. It’s not uncommon for people to sink hundreds of hours into this game, so being able to quickly check in from your phone could make this game even more addictive. For my money, though, I like playing it on an iPad where things are a bit less cramped.

Tiny Wings+

No, this isn’t Flappy Bird — it’s far superior to that short-lived viral sensation. Tiny Wings has you piloting a little bird across a series of hilly islands, using those hills to get speed and air so you can fly as far as you can. It’s a classic “easy to play, hard to master” game, and you might max out how far you can conceivably go within a few days of trying the game. But that doesn’t make the attempt to go further than you ever have any less fun.

Tiny Wings‘ art is gorgeous and the music infections, and the little bird you’re controlling is just adorable. It’s a bright, beautiful and friendly game — but if you really want to master it, it’s going to take a lot of skill, practice and good luck.

A Slight Chance of Sawblades

The mission is simple: don’t get hit by a sawblade. Trust me, that’s easier said than done. In A Slight Chance of Sawblades, you control a pixelated character trying to avoid getting sliced up by a never-ending cascade of sawblades. You’ve got one minute to jump over as many as you can, and that’s pretty much it! But every blade you jump over adds a second to your timer, so if you’re good you can keep this going for a long time.

I’m not very good at it, but it’s still the kind of challenge that’s fun to pick up and try now and then. While most games will probably end with you clearing less than 10 blades, every so often you get in the groove and rack up an extremely satisfying high score. And then you’re immediately humbled by five games in a row where you don’t clear more than two. It’s a rollercoaster of emotions, this game. It may not be for everyone, but I was surprised at how quickly I got sucked in trying to improve my score.

Ridiculous Fishing EX

Ridiculous Fishing was originally released in 2013, back in the golden age of mobile games, when developers could charge $3 or $5 for a well-crafted game without in-app purchases or ads. After getting lost in the sands of time for a while, the team behind Ridiculous Fishing polished it up and added a few new features for an Apple Arcade release last year. As with the best mobile games, anyone can pick it up and play without much introduction. A fishing line descends, and you need to avoid grabbing a fish as long as possible. Once you do, the line starts being reeled in, and you want to get as many fish on it as you can. Moving your line is purely accelerometer-based, but once you pull up your catch… you shoot all the fish out of the sky for money? Yup, this is a weird one.

It’s another game that begs you to sink time into it, trying to make it as deep into the ocean as you can before you pick up a fish; then, you want to grab as many fish to shoot as possible to make as much money as possible. It’s a great feedback loop, and, well, it’s just a ridiculous game. It gets even more fun when you use that cash to grab power-ups like the chainsaw lure (which lets you just tear through fish in the ocean as you see fit) or a spring to make the fish fly extra-high, all the better to plug them with your shotgun.

The post The best Apple Arcade games so far, updated for 2020. appeared first on Best News.

]]> https://aitesonics.com/best-apple-arcade-games-140053796/feed/ 0 The best Playdate games for 2024 https://aitesonics.com/gaming/best-playdate-games-190049201/ https://aitesonics.com/gaming/best-playdate-games-190049201/#respond Wed, 04 Sep 2024 08:39:44 +0000 https://aitesonics.com/gaming-best-playdate-games-190049201/ Owning a Playdate comes with the perk of already having access to 24 games at no additional cost from the bundled-in Season One — and some pretty good ones to boot. But there are a ton of great games outside the Season One offerings too, for when you’ve finished the whole batch or, for newer […]

The post The best Playdate games for 2024 appeared first on Best News.

]]> Owning a Playdate comes with the perk of already having access to 24 games at no additional cost from the bundled-in Season One — and some pretty good ones to boot. But there are a ton of great games outside the Season One offerings too, for when you’ve finished the whole batch or, for newer players, while you’re waiting for new games between the weekly drops. Here, I’ll highlight some of the best games I’ve played so far from the Playdate Catalog. It’ll mainly be split two ways: games that use the crank and games that don’t. There are also a couple of titles that aren’t quite games, but are worth checking out all the same.

Quick Overview

A Balanced Brew

Angel Pop

Root Bear

$3 at Playdate Catalog

Mars After Midnight

Summit

Touch Egg

$1 at Playdate Catalog

Reel-istc Fishing

Under the Castle

$10 at Playdate Catalog

Pullfrog Deluxe

Core Fault

You’re Gonna Miss the Bus! (YGMTB)

The Keyper

$3 at Playdate Catalog

Eyeland

$2 at Playdate Catalog

You Cannot Go Back

$3 at Playdate Catalog

Penrose

$2 at Playdate Catalog

Four Corners

Gun Trails

$8 at Playdate Catalog See 15 more

The Botanist

$9 at Platdate Catalog

Bloom

$10 at Playdate Catalog

Echoes of the Emergent

Games that use the crank

A Balanced Brew

A Balanced Brew is one of those games that feels like it really captures the essence of the Playdate. It is simple, quirky and way more challenging than it first seems. You play as a man with a handlebar mustache who is in desperate need of his morning coffee, and there’s only one way he can travel to get it: by unicycle, obviously. Using the crank, it’s your job to safely deliver him to the coffee cart (where the good coffee is), being careful to keep him perfectly balanced so he doesn’t wipe out.

There’s a lot working against you — gravity, uneven roads, mud, pooping birds — and it quickly becomes an addicting grind to beat your own personal bests. A Balanced Brew is a great one for anyone who enjoyed Crankin’s Time Travel Adventure from Season One. And there are tons of coffee puns to appreciate throughout.

$8 at Playdate Catalog Angel Pop

Angel Pop

If shoot ‘em ups are your thing, do not skip the Playdate bullet hell that is Angel Pop. It’s an arcade-style shmup with cute visuals, adaptive difficulty levels that change as you play and a relentless onslaught of projectiles to dodge. The bullet patterns themselves are hypnotic, if you can take a moment to notice them while you’re trying not to die. You can play this one using the crank to control the direction of your fire, which is my preferred method, but there’s also the option to use the d-pad and A/B buttons.

$6 at Playdate Catalog Root Bear

Root Bear

Root Bear is another quintessential Playdate game, for reasons I only recently came to understand. In Root Bear, you are the bartender in charge of a root beer tap and you have to pour sodas just right to appease the clientele of a bunch of dramatic bears. Your success relies on precision crank-work — screw up their orders, and the bears won’t pay you well. They also may start screaming. It is so unserious, but engaging nonetheless. It’ll have you chasing high scores, but also chasing the smug satisfaction of showing those bears that you can pour a decent drink, thank you very much.

$3 at Playdate Catalog Mars After Midnight

Mars After Midnight

Mars After Midnight makes a cozy experience out of something that should feel tedious: cleaning up the refreshments table after a group therapy session before the next meeting begins. Not only are you the one-person (one-alien?) cleanup crew, but you’re also in charge of screening prospective Martian attendees to make sure they really belong. How do you determine such a thing? Well, for the Gnat Knife Handling session, you’ll want to only allow in knife-wielding gnats. For the Farty Party, everyone should be… uh, farting. You get the gist, I hope.

It’s very silly, but not too silly to detract from its charm. As a worker at The Off-Colony Community Support Center, you’re just trying to make as much money in donations as possible to support the facility and, in turn, Martians in need. You must promote its services to ensure residents in all sections of the settlement know about it, and you need certain resources to make these meetings worthwhile. None of these things are free. Mars After Midnight is a unique game that is perfect for the Playdate, making use of the crank but also requiring coordinated button-pressing to control your tentacle arms.

$6 at Playdate Catalog Summit

Summit

Summit takes platforming to the extreme, and will have you problem-solving nonstop to avoid dangerous obstacles and fatal falls as you climb painstakingly to the top of the mountain. It’s the kind of game that can really piss you off — expect to die hundreds of times over the course of a full playthrough. At least, that’s how it went for me on my first try (432 deaths!). Like Celeste, a game it bears much resemblance to, Summit will show you an exact death count.

The levels are cleverly designed and the background music is entrancing. Summit is surprisingly emotional, too, and bits of its story are revealed progressively as you reach higher and higher altitudes. You can play it all the way through in 1-2 hours, though I bet there are more skilled gamers who can do it in less.

$6 at Playdate Catalog Touch Egg

Touch Egg

Touch Egg may be one of the oddest games available for the Playdate right now. In this high score chaser, you use the crank to extend a freakishly long finger and poke an egg over and over and over — but there’s a creepy man standing in the room with you, and he does not want you to touch the egg. So you can only do it when his eyes are closed.

It’s equal parts bizarre, hilarious and compelling. Each run is 60 seconds, so it’s great for when you just want something quick to pick up here and there. It’s also a good one to pass between friends, so you can compete over who gets in the most egg touches. But be warned: it’s easy to get hooked.

$1 at Playdate Catalog Reel-istc Fishing

Reel-istc Fishing

Reel-istic Fishing probably isn’t like any other fishing game you’ve played before. Yes, you cast your line and then use the crank to reel it in, but the job isn’t done once you’ve hooked the fish. There’s an absurd second step: after reeling in your catches, you then have to harpoon them out of the sky. It’s a really goofy take on the classic fishing simulator, and a lot of fun.

All the species of fish you caught are logged in the Fincyclopedia, and you can use your earnings to upgrade your boat and equipment at the shop, which is run by a fish in disguise. There are a lot of peculiar little details to take in, and the music is very relaxing.

$8 at Playdate Catalog Under the Castle

Under the Castle

There are a few great dungeon crawlers out there for the Playdate, but Under the Castle is particularly charming. You play as a hero wearing a very large hat who must free a village from the grips of the Evil Lord. There are three dungeon areas where you’ll carry out your quests: the crypts, the sewers and the mines. In each, you’ll have a different purpose. In one, it’s killing enemies. In the others, it’s saving the enslaved villagers and collecting the Orbs of Light.

Under the Castle is impressively detailed, and it has one of my favorite crank mechanics yet: by cranking, you can disappear into the huge hat to hover over gaps. In Normal Mode, you’ll lose any items you picked up during a run if you die, but your dungeon progress will stay as is. Hard Mode brings permadeath.

$10 at Playdate Catalog Pullfrog Deluxe

Pullfrog Deluxe

The Tetris formula never gets old, and Pullfrog Deluxe puts an especially fun twist on the classic block puzzle. For one, there’s a cute frog. In Pullfrog, you have to use the frog’s sticky tongue to grab onto the blocks as they fall and arrange them properly. You can break the blocks by repeatedly striking them with the tongue, too, to make things fit more nicely. And using the crank, you can make the blocks fall faster. It might sound simple, but it’s a lot harder than it seems once everything starts moving. You can only pull, not push — and if the blocks fall on the frog, you’re dead.

As you successfully clear horizontal rows of blocks, you’ll earn powerups like the ability to double jump or a longer tongue. There are little eyeballs embedded in some blocks as well, which bring their own secrets that’ll be revealed as you progress.

$8 at Playdate Catalog Core Fault

Core Fault

If you like Vampire Survivors, you should definitely give Core Fault a try. You play as a mining drone who is tasked with digging for a resource, Cores, on an alien planet. But the area you’re exploring is overrun with eldritch creatures who do not want you there, so you’ll constantly be fighting them off. The further down you go, the more overwhelming they become. There’s a lot adding to the challenge of Core Fault’s central mission — you control the droid’s motion using the crank only, and all of your weapons are auto-fired, meaning you have to rely on their timing to defend yourself.

There are progressive upgrades that will make you more powerful against the enemies as you pass each level, but the enemies themselves will be stronger and more abundant the deeper you go.

Games that don’t use the crank

YGMTB

You’re Gonna Miss the Bus! (YGMTB)

You’re Gonna Miss the Bus!is an extremely addictive endless runner that throws so many obstacles at you it’s a wonder you can make it anywhere at all. It’s your mission to get little Henry to the school bus on time, but Henry’s town apparently has no sidewalk obstruction laws. As you run, you’ll have to jump over benches, flower pots, toys, garbage bags, delivery robots, tree roots, huge cracks… you get the point. There are also aerial obstacles that you’ll have to slide under or poor Henry will smack his head. You can play in Normal Mode, in which you’ll have a few lives and can continue your run after a couple of mistakes, or One-Shot, where you not only have one life, but the obstacles are on steroids. It’s a great time, I promise.

$6 at Playdate Catalog The Keyper

The Keyper

The Playdate Catalog has a pretty decent assortment of adventure games that will keep you busy for a couple of hours, and The Keyper is the perfect introduction to that world. You play as the newly appointed caretaker of an apartment building called the Winchester 21. Unfortunately, you don’t have any of the keys you need to access different parts of the building, so you have to hunt around for them. As you explore, you’ll meet a bunch of interesting characters and uncover what secrets (and gossip) they’ve been holding onto.

The Keyper has a good mix of story and puzzles, and manages to be both dark and funny at times. By the end, it becomes unexpectedly sentimental. Was the real treasure the friends we made along the way? You’ll have to play to find out.

$3 at Playdate Catalog Eyeland

Eyeland

Eyeland is a cute adventure-puzzle game that’s best played straight through in one sitting. It only takes about an hour to complete. The main character is a small blob who lives in isolation on an island and one day finds there’s no way to leave. Then one night, in a dream, the island mysteriously expands and you have to help the blob find its way back out to the normal world. Eyeland is a simple but beautiful game that’s heavy on atmosphere, with a few clever puzzles and quirky characters to round it out. If you want to dip your toes into the Playdate Catalog with something that’s short but packs a lot of heart, this is a good place to start.

$2 at Playdate Catalog You Cannot Go Back

You Cannot Go Back

In You Cannot Go Back, every choice you make is critical. You are in a dungeon, trying to escape, but the rooms are all booby-trapped. There are clues hidden throughout, some of them more subtle than others, and these will help you determine the correct way to proceed. That includes numerical patterns to figure out, symbols to remember and brief flashes of light highlighting the safe order of steps to take. You can only go up, down or forward — as the name implies, there’s no going back.

This game uses the d-pad and it’s recommended you flip the Playdate on its side to play in the portrait orientation. It’s a really unique experience and will put your brain to work a bit. Each run is pretty short, lasting only a few minutes, and the levels are randomly generated so you can play it over and over.

$3 at Playdate Catalog Penrose

Penrose

The Playdate Catalog isn’t exactly brimming with horror titles just yet, but there are a few spooky gems in there and Penrose is among the most memorable. Penrose is a beautiful, haunting nostalgia trip that sees you trying to guide the player character out of a mostly abandoned town. There are strange beasts, a disturbing living mall with cheekily named stores and a catacombs puzzle that’s just a little infuriating until you’ve figured it out. It’s relatively short, and there are a few different endings you can run into depending on the choices you make.

I loved the art style in this, and there’s a mix of heaviness and dark humor that really struck a chord with me, as I imagine it would for anyone who looks back on their past with a complicated mix of longing and revulsion — especially millennials who grew up in the suburbs and spent a lot of time hanging around at malls and doing delinquent things at the park.

$2 at Playdate Catalog Four Corners

Four Corners

Four Corners really caught me off guard with how addicting it is. This game seems so simple: there are a hundred squares arranged in a grid, and you have to create rectangles by linking four squares of the same color, each acting as one corner of the rectangle. Creating a rectangle will clear all the squares within its boundaries, earning you points and helping you progress to the next level. But you’re racing against the clock, and spotting the possible rectangle arrangements once all those white, black and gray squares are laid out next to each other suddenly isn’t so easy when you’re under the gun.

I expected this to be a laid-back, matching sort of puzzle game but it ended up getting my heart rate up. And I could not put it down. There’s also an announcer that will start counting down when you’ve only got a few seconds left, which really adds to the anxiety, but what really gets me is how it’ll cheer you on when you made a particularly impressive combo, making remarks like “OMG” in a hilariously toneless, robotic voice.

$6 at Playdate Catalog Gun Trails

Gun Trails

Gun Trails is not for the faint of heart. This high-speed shmup goes from zero to 100 before you have a chance to register what’s happening. In it, you pilot a futuristic fighter jet and have to take on a never-ending swarm of enemies, gunning them down as they try to gun you down. The bullet patterns don’t leave much room on the small Playdate screen for dodging, so you have to be sharp. It really has an arcade feel to it, from the music to the way it screams “Gun Trails!” at you when it boots up, to the seemingly impossible high scores on the leaderboard.

Comics, visual novels and more

The Botanist

This short interactive comic feels like it makes perfect use of everything the Playdate has to offer. It follows the journey of a botanist who is exploring alien worlds in search of edible plants, but runs into a bit of trouble. It is mostly told through illustrations, and you use the crank to move through each panel. But there are moments where you’ll have to get a bit more involved in the story — in one section, for example, you’ll need to tilt the console to guide the botanist’s movement through a zero-gravity room.

The Botanist only takes about 15 minutes to get through, but it’s a well-crafted story with some really gorgeous art that I think even people who aren’t into visual novel-type experiences can appreciate. And, there’s a sequel for when you finish and are hungry for more.

$9 at Platdate Catalog Bloom

Bloom

Bloom has gotten a lot of praise from Playdate owners, and it’s easy to understand why. The art is beautiful, the story feels personal and the soundtrack is the perfect thing to lull you into a chilled-out state. But Bloom is also a weird one, in that it doesn’t feel quite like a game with its narrative-heavy presentation, but also doesn’t exactly feel like a visual novel.

Bloom mostly plays out through text messages, and corresponds to real time. You play from the perspective of Midori, who has decided not to attend college (unbeknownst to her parents) and instead opens a flower shop. As she chats with her family, her girlfriend, friends and other characters, you read along and choose her responses. There’s also a simple gardening element — in which you buy and plant seeds, water them and harvest them to make some money — and an arcade-style mini game.

Bloom is the kind of thing you check in on a few times a day until you’ve reached the end, which could take several weeks. There’s not that much to it in the sense of gameplay, but there is something very satisfying about the way it uses the crank to switch floors, moving from Midori’s apartment room to the roof where her garden is. It probably won’t be for everyone, but it’s worth trying if you like social sims.

$10 at Playdate Catalog Echoes of the Emergent

Echoes of the Emergent

Echoes of the Emergent is made by the same team who created Bloom, but unlike the previous title, it’s wholly a visual novel. And it’s much, much darker. Echoes of the Emergent is the story of one girl’s struggle to survive and find answers about what happened to her family in a post-apocalyptic world. After a cataclysmic event wiped out everyone and everything around her, Ayumi has been living on her own in a building that’s somehow still standing, scavenging for food to get by.

It’s a heartbreaking story that shifts between Ayumi’s present time and flashbacks to her past. Echoes of the Emergent takes a few hours to complete and is illustrated with eerie, subtly moving visuals that will really suck you in. It left me hoping we see many more visual novels for the Playdate in the near future.