Welcome to the latest entry in our Bonus Round series, wherein we tell you all about the new Android games of the day that we couldn't get to during our regular news rounds. Consider this a quick update for the dedicated gamers who can't wait for our bi-weekly roundups, and don't want to wade through a whole day's worth of news just to get their pixelated fix. Today we've got an old-school bullet hell shooter, a music game starring Meatwad, a Minesweeper-inspired puzzler, another puzzler with a Go aesthetic, and a unique twitch game. Without further ado:
Son of Light
Son of Light is a fairly typical shoot-em-up in the old style: shoot everything that moves, avoid all the bullets, and generally pretend to be a tiny, two-dimensional Flash Gordon. (AAA-AAAH!) This one is notable not just because of decent sprite-based graphics or an interesting 4-way customization engine, but because the developer is a model of restraint when it comes to in-app purchases. The game is free, one dollar removes the ads and gives you more money for upgrades, and the maximum IAP level is $3. Not bad.
Shoot the enemies and travel at the speed of light. Son of Light is an arcade video game of the Uncommon Games studios inspired by the great retro type "Shoot Them Up" and the mechanics of games such as "Runner". This « Shoot'em up » (shmup or STG) offers you to cross the universe at the speed of light. Your mission is to overcome in a row the 10 levels that will come to you while eradicating sneaky enemies and colossal bosses.
Give It Up!
Give It Up is basically a playable version of the Bouncing Ball in the old Disney Sing-Along videos. Just try to match the uns-uns-uns rhythm of the background music and tap at the right moment to climb towers or avoid obstacles, sort of like a single-button Guitar Hero. It's much harder than it seems - the margin for error on the jumps is less than a quarter of a second, and multiple obstacles in sequence make for a frustrating time. Which might be a good thing for some players.
GIVE IT UP is a rather hard game where you have to assist this cheerful, singing Blob in jumping through 9 different tracks. So far it sounds easy. You have to feel the rhythm of our friends' frantic bounces with the help of the similarly crazy music. In case you don't tap at the right time, poor Blob smears. Tracks can be unlocked in sequence or by in-app purchase.
Logic Dots
Imagine a more relaxing version of Minesweeper crossed with Sudoku, and you'd get pretty close to Logic Dots. The core element of the game is identifying the places where dots can't be hiding and where they can be, using the hints on the side of the board and a simple process or elimination. It's easy enough at the beginning, but of course the larger boards create more complications. The game is free with "hints" available via in-app purchases.
If you like solving ingenious puzzles, you need Logic Dots. It's easy to play: place dots on the grid and solve the puzzle. Beautifully simple, unavoidably addictive and devilishly difficult as you progress; Logic Dots is a uniquely fantastic combination of Sudoku and Battleship. Each brain-twisting Logic Dots puzzle consists of a blank grid surrounded by numbers. Players need to find hidden dot shapes on the grid, making sure each row and column contains the required number of dots.
Unium
Remember those little pen-and-paper puzzles from elementary school where you had to draw a certain shape without lifting your pen? Unium feels a lot like that. All you have to do is fill in the assigned shape by dragging your finger across the board without ever lifting it. Things get interesting when you have to create shapes with lines inside, forcing you to cross over your progress and strategically flip tiles from black back to white.
Your task is to draw a line. A single line. How complex can that be? Start with one tile and trace a line to the next, then the next. Each tile you pass over flips from black to white, or back again. Using only a single line, can you flip all the black tiles? The simplest puzzle can have hundreds of solutions, and Unium features over 100 levels to solve your way through. Unlock harder puzzles by solving easier ones, learn what works and what doesn't, and solve puzzles in multiple ways to earn achievements.
Satellina
Satellina tasks the player with simply tapping all the dots in a given color on a moving puzzle. Once you clear all of them another block of colors will be accessible, followed by another, et cetera. The interesting part is the animation: as the dots move in formation around the blank board, it becomes harder to keep track of everything. It might just be better to let the movement follow you rather than the other way around. Watch the video if this isn't making any sense.
Satellina: a simple and elegant "puzzle in motion" that can be understood within 10 seconds by a five-year-old, but has also driven adults to obsessive lengths. It has a clean, minimalistic look, a catchy original synthpop soundtrack, a challenging but rewarding (and never punitive) difficulty curve, and a timed structure that's perfect for speedrunning.
Be sure to check out our gaming coverage from earlier this week: