Produced alongside our friends at PocketGamer.fun – THE place to discover your next favourite mobile games – here’s our pick of the best fresh-this-week titles.
While the deals and the stats of the gaming world are important, nothing would happen without the research, funding and, of course, development that goes into making a great game. PocketGamer.fun brings you latest games, lets you see them in action and download right from the page.
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.
Squad Busters
Supercell’s Squad Busters released globally this week, joining the ranks as Supercell’s sixth fully launched game and its first in over five years. The multiplayer squad-builder features characters from across Supercell’s properties and tasks players with merging the same characters into stronger, supersized forms as they battle their foes’ imitations.
There are bosses to loot, friends to beat down, and all-star characters to find from Clash of Clans, Boom Beach, Hay Day, Brawl Stars, and Clash Royale. Matches feature 10 players at a time and modifiers change up the character availability each time, aiming to keep things fresh with 25 characters in many more combinations.
It’s been a 16-month journey from reveal to release and Squad Busters has seen multiple betas along the way, particularly in Canada. The character merging mechanic was introduced in the second beta and became a focal point of the game. And now, after a successful soft launch this April, Squad Busters has finally released globally.
Lego Hill Climb Adventure
In a nostalgia trip updated to the modern day, Finnish developer Fingersoft has partnered with The Lego Group to launch Lego Hill Climb Adventures. It’s a 3D interpretation of the 2012 phenomenon with plenty of Lego aesthetics to go around – from crashed cars shattering into bricks to Lego propellers granting the power of flight.
Lego Hill Climb Adventures has quite a legacy to live up to, with predecessors Hill Climb Racing and Hill Climb Racing 2 having been downloaded a combined two billion times. The franchise has been fundamental to Fingersoft’s growth over the past 12 years, from a one-man company to a globally recognised mobile legend with 118 employees.
In fact, Fingersoft was Finland’s second mobile studio to go beyond one billion downloads – only beaten by Angry Birds creator Rovio. It’s unsurprising, therefore, that Hill Climb Racing landed on Lego’s radar, and shows that the spark is still there for a fresh spin on the classic formula.
ICO-chan Dive
Android-exclusive ICO-chan Dive is the latest casual game out of Japan and the first from developer ICO Warehouse. It’s a 3D dodge-based game full of treats like onigiris, and it tasks players with avoid spinning wheels and breaking through walls on the way down a bottomless chasm. There may ultimately be no escape, but there’s no room for nihilism either, with colourful visuals, upbeat music, and 40 adorable characters more than enough to distract players from their inevitable demise.
Whether it’s a tomato, onigiri or a unicorn, the character variety is huge. Players can even paint their protagonists in the colours of their favourite flag and unlock more options through the gacha. There’s a special character to unlock by clearing particular challenges too.
The casual game is easy to learn with simple swipe mechanics to avoid obstacles, but will be challenging to master as players’ high scores take more and more skill to surpass. It’s the type of title that would fit right in on YouTube Playables, which has now rolled out over 75 games.
Amikin Survival: Anime RPG
After opening for pre-registration in early May, the open-world adventure game Amikin Survival: Anime RPG is out now. Combining quests, comedy, and plenty of stories, the title takes clear inspiration from monster tamers like Pokémon and Palworld, challenging players to “catch them all”, but this time on mobile.
Players start out in a home base and develop it into more of a command centre occupied and managed by the Amikins themselves – the titular creatures to collect. The Amikins can also be made stronger and merged to bolster their firepower, vital to surviving the open world and adding an extra level of intrigue to the colourful quests available so far.
Helio Games has infused Amikin Survival: Anime RPG with crafting mechanics too – a staple of the survival genre – as well as Amikin breeding to make the most unique and powerful creatures imaginable. This power naturally comes into play through Amikin battles, and in empowering players to explore and unearth new parts of the world.
Dice Flight
Subverting expectations, Dice Flight isn’t a turn-based board game but an action-based bullet-hell shooter with chaotic and intense one-minute fights against bosses. Leading a dice army onto the battlefield and rolling into combat is the name of the game, as is customisation, upgrading dice, and building the optimal squad.
Fleets of dice can comprise up to 21 varieties requiring strategic management to overcome the waves of enemies thrown at players, with progression bringing new, more powerful dice into the fold.
Dice Flight was developed by Dearmeta and is out on iOS and Android. The dev’s previous game, Soul Slime, is similarly colourful and requires players to learn boss attack patterns to overcome challenges.
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Combining curated lists of the top games in different genres, plus recommendations of PG’s favourite titles and short videos to browse, PocketGamer.fun, like the domain itself, is all about getting to entertainment instantly.
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