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Google's Family Link accounts aren't as restrictive as they used to be — but they still kind of suck
I locked myself into a Google child account for a week — these are the limitations and workarounds I discovered
Children under the age of 13 can't create an unsupervised Google account for themselves. Instead, parents have to set up the accounts for them using Family Link, which is supposed to give them a lot of control over what apps and games kids can get, how much screentime they're allowed, and which websites they can visit. Parents can even get a streamlined overview of their kids' app usage à la Digital Wellbeing. But what does it feel like to sit on the receiving end of the system? Needless to say, kids seem to hate the service, and they're vocal about it; the Family Link for kids app has a staggering average rating of 1.4 stars on the Play Store.
It looks like Pulse SMS has been bought by Maple Media — get ready for intrusive ads?
Memories of Cheetah Mobile come to mind
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If the name Maple Media doesn't ring a bell, it might be time to put the Californian company on your watchlist. Over the past few years, the startup has purchased many popular Indie Android apps like the podcast player Player FM, the photo collage maker Pic Stitch, and a whole bunch of games.
Google, much like Portal's fictional Aperture Laboratories, engages in pretty much perpetual testing for... basically everything. Latest up on the A/B block is the in-app purchase interface. A handful of our readers are seeing a new dialog resting at the bottom of the screen, rather than Android's previous floating and centered confirmation.
Vector Unit has enjoyed a pretty good reputation on Android for a good while now. Not only have they released some pretty popular titles but they have also gone out of their way to support the Android platform more than most. Things like Play Games achievements, leaderboards, and cloud saving have all been a standard for the studio since their inception. Making sure to provide HID controller and Android TV support is also a big plus for them. When you take all of this into consideration, it is no surprise that they have gone on to perform exceedingly well, and deservedly so. Today we take a look at their latest release MouseBot, a corridor platformer that offers a ton of levels and a whole lot of polish.
The Play Store team is killing us. Over the past couple of months, we've seen so many server-side tests for interface changes that we've lost track of them all, and which ones are official and which ones are still not available to everyone. Just today we discussed a significant improvement that could have apps and games show up separately on the Store, and now we're back with another change.
The original Badland was a beautiful adventure game with interesting physics, gorgeous graphics, immersive soundtrack, and enough charm to land it on my personal list of 15 hauntingly beautiful dark and atmospheric games. The game was done so well that we forgave its late arrival on Android compared to iOS, applauded it for implementing cloud save and immersive mode for gameplay, and even lauded its implementation of free to play. This is a direct quote from Ryan's review of Badland:
Match-three games are inherently derivative at this point - there's only so much spin you can put on a genre so played-out that even your grandma is probably getting a bit bored swapping kitty cats for lollipops in a landscape best described as the pink-and-yellow paletted fever dream of a six-year-old. But if you're looking for yet another match-three indulgence that sits in at least one of the more desirable mid-outer circles of hell, you might enjoy the latest take on the genre from one of its earliest innovators, Pop Cap, in the form of Bejeweled Stars.
If you're an avid tabletop role playing game enthusiast, it's almost impossible that you haven't heard of Pathfinder. This re-organized variant of the Dungeons & Dragons ruleset, published by Paizo and supplemented with a huge variety of extra modules, literature, and lore, has quickly become one of the most popular tabletop RPGs on the market. The publisher has created a few satellite properties for Pathfinder, including novels, comic books, and a licensed card game called Pathfinder Adventure.
The last two Rayman games to grace Android, Rayman Jungle Run and Rayman Fiesta Run, are some of the best examples of the genre on the Play Store. Now the developers are branching out by bringing Rayman back to his platforming roots. The third game in the series, Rayman Adventures, allows for more direct control of the 2D characters as they run around the screen. That makes stages bigger and less linear, encouraging players to explore every nook and cranny. You know, like an adventure.
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- Oh, 600613, you 1337 h4x0r. Take a look at the max limits in some countries:
Most apps on the Play Store are free, and those that are paid usually cost somewhere between one and five dollars. The top price for applications and in-app purchases in the US version of the Play Store before today was $200 (which usually wasn't actually seen except for IAPs for freemium games). Last night, the Play Store developer support page for paid apps was updated, and in nearly every territory where paid apps are supported, the top limit was increased by two to three times. Developers can now set apps or in-app purchases to as much as $400.
Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft, is a pretty awesome game that combines simplicity, strategy, and luck better than any other card game I've tried. Since being introduced to it a few months ago, I have played more matches than I care to admit and, for the most part, I have thoroughly enjoyed it. That is, until recently. Over the past couple of weeks the game has gotten really stale. It seems that every day I play against the same 8-10 decks that everyone uses and that is getting kinda old.
There's a new Marvel movie coming out tomorrow in the US. You may have heard about it - it's kind of a big deal. So what better time for a developer to release a new game featuring as many Marvel (comics, not movies) characters as possible. You've got to have something to do while you ignore the repeating video ad for Dave's Discount Family Insurance that plays before the trailers start up, right?
Zombie games are not novel. In fact at this point, they're about as far from "novel" as you can get before slipping right off the treacherous slopes of ironic reference. But SNK's latest mobile game Best Busters actually manages to infuse some new ideas into the zombie shooter genre, and pull it off with the developer's signature anime style. Now if only they could do so without falling into the trappings of free-to-play mobile games...
There's a new 2D fighter available for Android, and it stars iconic Marvel characters! Now settle down, it's not Marvel Versus Capcom. Nope, this is a new property licensed by Marvel and developed by Kabam, which specializes in that sort of thing. Formerly a browser game, Contest of Champions has an impressive setup for a mobile fighter, with tap and swipe-based gameplay replacing the somewhat impractical on-screen buttons. But once you master the innovative controls, you'll find yourself in familiar freemium territory.
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 a racing game with unique controls, a chess game for kids, and a gorgeous God of War ripoff. Without further ado:
Go to the Play Store on your Android device and look for Tiny Death Star, the Star Wars-themed version of Nimblebit's smash hit casual game Tiny Tower, and you won't find it. If that's surprising, you're not half as shocked as Nimblebit. According to a report from Pocket Gamer, Lucasfilm's new owners at Disney decided to un-publish the game without even telling the developers their plans. Disney also pulled a Star Wars card game, Assault Team, though that me-too CCG title is hard to get upset about.
As part of the new rules that will require developers of paid apps to disclose an address, Google is also adding price ranges for in-app purchases to the Play Store. The change was set to go into effect today, according to Google, and sure enough the Play Store client on phones and tablets is showing the cost of in-app purchases in apps. However, it's literally only the price range. There's no data on what the individual purchases consist of.
There's a new Asphalt game available from Gameloft! But fans of the previous titles might not be so thrilled with the latest one. While Asphalt 8: Airborne was more or less a clone of arcade racers like Need For Speed, Asphalt Overdrive is a lane-based, candy-coated "endless" racer, with the player running away from cops in a Day-Glo take on 1980s California. It's a free download for Android 4.0 or higher.
The original Beach Buggy Blitz was one of the first graphically-intensive games on Android, a frequent install for people who wanted to show off the power of their new phone or tablet. That being said, it was a bit simplistic: you "raced" along an endless beach, more or less playing catch up until you ran out of time. The sequel, Beach Buggy Racing, is much more of a conventional kart racer. It's got full races, power-ups, multiple characters and carts, and even single-device split screen multiplayer.
Tactical strategy is an interesting hybrid game genre, combining the thinking and placement of a strategy title with the turn-based combat and slow burn improvements of an RPG. AntiSquad Tactics is the first original take on squad strategy we've seen in a while, and unlike games such as X-COM, it's designed for mobile first. But what might interest the purist gamers in the audience is that AntiSquad is available in both a free-to-play and a premium version.