Lapsed Gamer Radio

Flipping Legend (Developed by Hiding Spot Games & Published by Noodlecake Studios Inc. Available on Android & iOS)

The game is an infinite runner at its core, but due to the graphics and draughts-esque movement it doesn’t feel as on rails as most infinite runners. You start the game by picking either the ninja or warrior character and your goal is to make your way up the chequer board level by jumping diagonally left or right and avoiding obstacles and attacking enemies. There is a timed element to the game as at the top of the screen there is an energy bar that is depleting to keep you on your toes and pushes you to continue onwards. To aid your progress are collectibles in the form of coins that you can use to upgrade the abilities of your hero, and each run will bestow on you experience points based on the number of enemies beaten and distance travelled. Levelling up through experience unlocks new abilities that can then be used and upgraded.

Each area has its own look with the first three areas progressing from forest to graveyard to volcano. There are checkpoints in the game which will activate a portal at the start of your next go. The portal allows you to, for a small coin cost, warp to the checkpoint and skip the previous areas.

There are some IAPs in the game for chests that give coins or character skins, as well as a one time purchase to remove ads. Additional characters can be unlocked by completing challenges in the game or, in the case of the warlock, purchased with coins.

Noodlecake Games have a long history of publishing great mobile games and I always regard their involvement in a game as a mark of quality. Flipping Legend is another one to add to their list of thoroughly enjoyable titles.

Worth your time/money? Yes

WWE Tap Mania (Developed by The Tap Lab & Published by Sega. Available on Andrid & iOS)

The roller coaster ride of discovering WWE Tap Mania went something like this:

“Oooh, a new WWE game!”

“Oh, it’s on smartphone.”

“Oooh, it’s published by Sega!”

“Oh, it’s a coin clicker game.”

So it was with much trepidation that I installed WWE Tap Mania to see how bad an example of the coin clicker genre it was. 

The premise of WWE Tap Mania is that you are a wrestler making their way up through the ranks against a variety of jobbers (9 for each level) and then battling against a 10th opponent in order to progress to the next level. The attack moves for your wrestler are activated by tapping. After a few levels you come up against a named WWE Superstar and when you defeat them you earn a card for them. You can then add the Superstar to your team of 5 (including yourself) and they will then fight for you as you tap, and fight for you when you are not playing the game. The fights seem decidedly one-sided when you have 5 on your team against just one wrestler, but the Punch-Out-esque size difference helps suspend your disbelief.

Each win earns you money that you can then use to upgrade each wrestler on your team, and other free money can be earned by waiting on timers running down and by watching ads for other games. As well as the earned money there are other commodities to collect like gold bars (also available to purchase separately), card packs (with only one card per pack sadly), perk points and shards. Gold bars are used to buy more card packs (card packs can also be purchased using real world money) and card packs will give you Superstar cards (any duplicates to cards you already have are converted to shards which go towards unlocking the Superstar. Very rarely you may end up with a full Superstar card that can be added to your team straight away). Card packs may also give you money, more gold bars, or perk points that you can use to upgrade the special moves of a chosen Superstar.

Once you get to level 100 you can choose to continue or, as is common in these sort of games, ditch any progress for a stat boost that makes the game “easier”. I’ve prestiged twice now and not seen a massive improvement in my progress. It also suffers the same issue that nearly all clicker games have which is that there doesn’t appear to be any end goal to anything you do.

Overall your enjoyment of this will be determined by two things: your interest in WWE, and your tolerance of clicker games. For me my interest was higher than my tolerance, but not by much. 

Worth your time/money? No

Defuser (Developed by Shallow Sky Studio. Available on Android & coming soon to iOS)

Defuser is a simple, but frenetic bomb defusing game. The premise is to stop the bomb from exploding by keeping each of the numbers in the seven nodes as high as possible by tapping them.

As you tap on one the numbers on the rest decrease by one so your next move is to tap on the lowest number each time. To make the game hard you have to watch out for the multiplier, the timer and the heart. The first two need to be tapped as soon as possible to prevent them hindering you, and the heart is to be avoided else it ends your game!

Each go has the possibility of lasting three minutes, but I’ve never even got close to lasting that long. So far my best score is 200 and I’m pretty proud of that! if you beat 200 let us know.

Worth your time/money? Yes

Massive Match (Developed by Cozy Barrel. Available on Android & iOS)

MMORPGS are a massive genre within gaming, and sitting on top of the pile is World of Warcraft as (probably) the best known of all of them. MMOPGs (massive multiplayer online puzzle games) are not so well known. There are some out there, but their names certainly don’t trip off the tongue easily.

So what is Massive Match? Ostensibly it is a match 3 game with challenges and board sizes randomly assigned for each game. What makes it different from traditional match 3 games is that the board sizes are much larger and a group of players are working towards completing the challenge. You can pinch and zoom and pick an area of the board to work in and get on with clearing your little area. Sometimes you may find yourself working in the same area as somebody else which means occasionally missing out on a match as they get there first.

As well as the challenge of each board you can also score chase to try and get to the top of the table of the players involved in that game.

The overall package is slick and games last only a minute or two. A good one to dip in and out of.
Worth your time/money? Yes