In the .biz realm, we often find ourselves wrapped up in the investments, deals and stats of the gaming world (and rightly so), but it’s also important to highlight the games themselves – the fruits of the labour that can only appear after years of research, funding and, of course, development.
So here are the most exciting new mobile games right now, the developers and publishers behind them, and why, exactly, they’ve made the cut.
Apex Rumble
An iOS-exclusive city builder, Apex Rumble is infused with 80s arcade action, chiptune beats and an all-around psychedelic aesthetic bringing something incredibly fresh to the genre. It goes beyond building – or in this case rebuilding – a city, featuring 60 levels of Voxel Brix collecting on the way to restoring Apex City.
Essentially, the goal of the game is to “gobble up” small towers, growing in the process like the mobile classic Snake. But players must avoid black towers and aim to stick to colour combos, with high scores earning greater achievements and landing players better standing on the leaderboards. The rewards they win go towards rebuilding a metropolis.
Developer Epicore is a one-man studio based in Sweden, and has described Apex Rumble as what would happen “if PacMan, Tetris and SimCity had a weirdo kid”.
Potion Permit
Open-ended pixelart sim Potion Permit is finally out on mobile, popping players into the shoes of a chemist and tasks them with curing the townsfolk of their ailments, exploring with their pet dog, and engaging monsters in real-time battles for resources.
These resources can be used to help out the locals who come to the clinic, with a whole gameplay mechanic built around diagnosing their ailments. In classic mobile fashion, Potion Permit also features town upgrades and material farming, with concoction crafting providing an alchemic twist.
Potion Permit comes from the Indonesian studio MassHive Media, and has crossed over to mobile almost 18 months on from its console launch. To make up for the wait, the mobile port is only half the price of its console version, and even has popular publisher Playdigious’ seal of approval.
iLLANG
Something of a Werewolf-inspired Among US-like, social deduction game iLLANG tasks players with working in groups of up to 20 to find the “wolf” of the party, known as the Illang, to put an end to their wicked deeds.
Each round, the Illang (either one player or a whole secret team) can sabotage the rest villagers’ objectives and eat them one by one. And in classic Werewolf fashion, at the end of each phase players communicate to determine who the Illang is. If they guess right that Illang is wiped out of the game. If they guess wrong the game continues and at the end of the third night, the team with the most remaining members wins.
Out now in soft launch, Challengers Games is encouraging players to get started on its Asian server while the US and European servers prepare to go live, with plans to distribute 100 Lucky Tickets and 20,000 Gold to all players as compensation for the wait. Saves will be transferable across servers when the game fully launches, while cross-platform progression is already fully implemented.
Edenight: Idle RPG
While an RPG full of chibi girls might not be the most revolutionary of concepts, Loongcheer Game has certainly kicked off its latest release with a bang – bringing more than 80 collectable characters right out of the gate and a special 1000-draw freebie for beginners to utilise in Edenight: Idle RPG.
As the name suggests, this new release is an idle RPG title, with gameplay revolving around auto battles and AFK fights, with victory securing resources to reinvest. There are dungeons to explore and a fortress to level up, story challenges, PvP and PvE content, and more.
And available now in open beta on Android, players can already get started with collecting and building a team of “cute and beautiful girls”, if that’s their cup of tea. With so many characters and mechanics already, it’s clear that Loongcheer Game knows what it’s doing when it comes to the idle genre, and the company’s back catalogue certainly explains why – with Tap Monster, Tiny Pixel Knight, Dark Hunter, Tale of Sword, BeyondWarrior and Girl Evo all idle RPGs in this dev’s portfolio.
GPixel
Retro racing game GPixel places charm front and centre, simulating car races not on a racetrack but on paper. Digital paper, obviously. The concept plays upon classroom boredom of days gone by – of flicking objects around a table, drawing paper tracks, and filling time.
This JesterDay game also takes a turn-based twist on racing, tasking players with planning moves across the grid in advance as opposed to swerving round the track on impulse. Besting foes requires strategy over speed, be that in World Tour, Time Countdown or Moves Countdown mode.
The title features 28 circuits, 20 patterns and even an atmospheric Night Race, where players compete in the dark.
