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Pop CultureJuly 28, 2016

This Week I Played: Free phone games

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As time pours forward we as a species are going to have to come to terms to life without Pokémon GO. No matter, Joseph Harper has your back.

Those coming down off the Pokémon Go megahigh are probably looking for something new to tap at on their phone while they walk to work/use the toilet. As such I figured it’s a good time for another roundup of cool iPhone/Android games. Here are three I’ve really been enjoying. They’re all free so there’s basically no reason to not try them next time you’re in the shitter.

Skyward

Skyward comes to me from mobile game powerhouse Ketchapp. You control two oscillating dots that move ‘skyward’ through an Escher-ish structure. It’s an extremely beautiful game. It’s all about falling into a rhythm and giving control of your thumbs over to your instincts. It also has relaxing music, and every time you place a dot it makes a nice, wooden, clickety-clack noise. It’s excellent. The game has a hardcore mode which makes it much more stressful but also introduces a pretty charming night-time colour palette. As you move up, the structure continuously reassembles itself in a variety of forms. It’s made up of square panels, some of which give your dots special abilities/disabilities to keep the game interesting.

The Line of Zen

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Another offering from Ketchapp, The Line Zen is the sequel to The Line. I have no idea why it has “Zen” in the name because it is stressful af. You control a little blue ball moving through and endless red maze. If you touch red, the ball charmingly explodes into one thousand smaller blue balls. It’s a lovely animation. Along the way there are little green bits that you can push around like a little shield. I’m very aware that this description makes no sense. It’s the kind of game you should just download and play. I find it very difficult, but also incredibly satisfying. Moving little green shapes around is especially good. I can’t really explain the feeling of pushing a green triangle into a swarm of small red squares. But I can assure you it is fun and good.

Dunkers

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Dunkers is a game where you have long arms and do weird one on one dunk battles. You can choose from a diverse lineup of characters that includes many races as well as two types of bear, a disgusting chicken, and a poo.

I can’t tell yet if Dunkers is a good game or not. I was playing it last night and got on an insane hot streak where I basically couldn’t not dunk on people. But then when I loaded up the game this morning I got absolutely humiliated by the panda bear, the disgusting chicken, and a thing that looks like a gameboy.

The controls are absolute madness, but I think that’s part of the fun. You just bounce around the best you can and dunk wherever possible. Sometimes the game thinks you’ve dunked, but really you just got the ball near the hoop and held onto the ring. But that happens in real life too, so I guess it’s fine. One really unusual feature is the built in ability to record the game screen and your phone’s mic. I guess the idea is that you will record yourself dunking on AI/your friends and yell shit out like in the greatest video of all.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKPxtnnj2Vs


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