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Death Coming ($1.99) by Sixjoy is a dark and humorous puzzle game about death. If you enjoyed games like Party Hard Go, Slayaway Camp and Friday the 13th: Killer Puzzle, then you will love Death Coming, since it falls into the same kind of genre.

These days, most of my gaming time has been with Monster Hunter: World on my PS4. However, when I need a break, I've been looking for games on my iPhone to keep me busy. If you've been following me on AppAdvice, then you'll know that I'm a sucker for puzzle games of all kinds. In fact, it's hard to think about a puzzle game that I have yet to try out on the platform. And I like cheesy horror flicks, so games like Slayaway Camp were perfect. But that came out a while ago, and I need something new. So when the news of Death Coming hit my inbox, I was intrigued. The game came out on PC last year, but I had never heard of it until now. And I'm glad I found out about it, because it does not disappoint.

$6.99

Party Hard Go

TINYBUILD LLC

$2.99

Slayaway Camp

Blue Wizard Digital LP

Free

Friday the 13th: Killer Puzzle

Blue Wizard Digital LP

Visually, Death Coming features beautiful pixel art that reminds me of various Kairosoft games, as well as the opening sequence for the HBO show, Silicon Valley. Despite going with a pixelated aesthetic, Death Coming manages to pack in a ton of detail for the various environments and characters. It also utilizes a top-down isometric perspective, as you're essentially like a god…of death. This makes it easy to see everything in a single glance, and you can zoom in freely with multitouch gestures. The frame rate for the game is smooth and fluid, with no issues of lag or choppiness on my iPhone 8 Plus. The soundtrack is oddly upbeat and quirky considering the dark nature of the game, but that just makes it more humorous to me. Plus the sound effects are delightful.

You're just an average old guy living his life, until one day you die in a freak accident. Not knowing what happened, you don't realize you're dead until Death reveals himself to you. Death makes a promise that if you help him harvest enough souls, he'll revive you, leaving you no choice. You end up becoming an agent of Death: a Reaper.

Since Death Coming is essentially a puzzle game, you'll go through the story in a linear fashion with levels. To unlock the next area, you must have cleared the one before it. However, solving the puzzles themselves don't have to be in linear order — just trigger the death traps as you please and get your kills, with weather permitting of course. Your goal in each stage is to kill a minimum number of people (indicated at the top right corner), but you do so by making it all look like accidents. Eventually, the Angels show up and act like police — if they catch you in the act, then you're "arrested" and lose a heart. Once all three are gone, then it's game over, and you have to restart.

The controls in Death Coming on mobile are simple and intuitive. Because each stage can be pretty vast, you can freely pan the camera around with one finger. To zoom in or out, just do the pinching gesture. Your new Reaper powers grant you the "Reaper's Eye," which lets you notice death traps in the environment, such as water and electric poles, flower pots, billboards, dangerous boxes piled high on shelves, and more. If you notice something that could be triggered, just tap on it. It'll be red if it's a death trap, while also highlighting areas that it will affect in red. Tap it again to trigger it, and hope that you catch some some unsuspecting victims.

Again, watch out for the Angels, as they'll arrest you if your Reaper Eye highlights a potential trigger and gets caught in their scanning range. Death Coming also features areas with more elaborate death traps, where you have to get rid of security patrols before it can be used.

The levels become more complex as you go, requiring more brainpower and multiple attempts. Observing the behavioral patterns and idiosyncracies of the NPCs is important, as it helps you figure out the right moment to trigger a death trap, which is key to killing efficiently. When you meet the bare minimum of required kills to clear a stage, you can stop and move forward. But another option is to stay and strive for gold, because why not master a stage?

Another fun thing about Death Coming is the fact that there are unique stories for each stage. For example, the second area on the map features the "Glorious Leader" who resembles Kim Jong Un in a satirical fashion, and you're in a factory that's working on restoring power to a nuclear missile. There's spies trying to sabotage the Glorious Leader, but Death doesn't take sides — just get him those souls.

Play as death, and manipulate the surroundings to bring judgement time to others.

The Good

Death Coming is definitely a unique puzzle game that stands out from the rest. It's packed with gorgeous and detailed pixel art with an eccentric soundtrack to boot. The controls are simple to pick up and intuitive for touch screen devices, so it works out well. The stages are pretty elaborate, full of surprises, and it can be fairly challenging to beat, so prepare yourself for multiple attempts and high replay value. The dark humor is more silly than anything, so it's perfect for anyone who enjoys some satire.

The Bad

While Death Coming is great, the levels can take up quite a bit of time, and that's the only drawback to the game. I don't think it's something that you can just pick up and play when you have a few moments. Death Coming is best suited for those longer gaming sessions, due to the amount of observing, planning, and execution involved in clearing stages.

The verdict

As someone who loves a bit of dark humor and puzzles, Death Coming is just perfect and right up my alley. The graphics are visually impressive with the modernized pixel art, and the sound design is fun to listen to. It's also worth taking the time to read Death's quips to your character, because who knew Death could have a sense of humor anyway? The puzzles themselves are challenging, and the Final Destination style accidents are downright entertaining.

Death Coming is available on the App Store as a universal download for your iPhone and iPad for just $1.99. There are no in-app purchases.

9.4

OVERALL

Graphics 10

Sound/Music 10

Replayability 9

Game Controls 9

Gameplay 9

$1.99

Death Coming

Sixjoy Hong Kong Limited

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Jot – Notes & Todos ($1.99) by Things That Are Brown is a no-fuss app for taking quick notes and nothing else. In a way, it's the antithesis to Collections, which is another recently released app that I've enjoyed. With Jot, you get quick text and basic lists, nothing more and nothing less.

When it comes to remembering things, I usually end up just jotting everything down on my phone somewhere. For years, I've been using Drafts for all of my note-taking needs, since the app quickly captures and allows you to do a multitude of actions with the text afterwards. I know others who just use Apple's default Notes app, and that's all fine and dandy, but maybe neither of them are for you. After all, one can be rather complicated, and the other is simple enough but has that weird paper texture thing going on, which can be distracting. What if you want an app that is completely distraction-free and super easy to use and has no bells-and-whistles to worry about? Then my friends, Jot – Notes & Todos is the answer.

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$2.99

Collections – Photo Bookmarks

Yakow Limited

$4.99

Drafts: Quick Capture

Agile Tortoise

Jot has a cute and simple icon, and once you tap it, you're taken to a barebones interface that is designed to get out of your way. You'll find the main screen is a list of existing notes, and a button in the bottom right corner (reminiscent of the "New Task" button in Things 3) lets you add a note with ease. Swiping horizontally on notes in the list reveal actions, and the omnipresent search bar at the top means you can search through your notes at any given moment. On the initial launch, there's a brief tutorial that shows you the ropes, but honestly, the app is so straightforward it's not needed and can be skipped through. Seriously, Jot is incredibly effortless to use, and perfect if that's what you're looking for. It's like dealing with a digital piece of paper that's always ready for you at any given moment.

By default, there's a few introductory notes waiting for you in the main screen. These notes pretty much give you the instructions on how to create a new note, take action on existing ones, and how to use the search. It's easy and there's no hassle involved.

If you swipe left on a note, it reveals the Pin and Archive actions. Pinning makes a note stick to the top so it never gets pushed down in the list, and Archive is for when you're done with a particular note. Even if a note is in the Archive, you can still search for it with the search bar, as the app looks through all text in notes.

When you swipe right, it reveals actions you can take with the text inside of the note itself. You can copy all of the text to paste somewhere else, or share it using the iOS Share Sheet. One nice touch about Jot is the fact that if you swipe and pull the note enough, it defaults to the action on the outside once you release your finger, meaning it's either copied or archived. If you want to share or pin, just swipe enough to reveal the actions in the drawer, and then tap to select.

When you need to create a new note, just tap on that big purple button. You'll find yourself in the note editing screen, which features it's own typewriter-like mode, so that the text shows up in the middle of the screen, pulling in your eye focus. When you move into the next line, or enter those line breaks, your current text just gets pushed up, and the cursor still remains in the center. It's distraction-free at its finest, and I also like the thicker cursor, as it feels more solid than many thinner counterparts I've seen.

Jot is also capable of simple to-do lists. To turn your note into a todo list with checkmarks, just tap on the checkmark toggle box. The clock button allows the app to remind you about your note or list with a few options, ranging from "Soon" to "Tomorrow" or "In a week" or a custom reminder date and time. According to Jot, "Soon" is considered one hour from now.

The search bar in Jot allows users to search their notes for anything, including archived notes. Just type in the words you're looking for, and Jot shows results in real-time. It's fast, responsive, and comprehensive since it searches through all text.

Jot is designed to be simple, barebones, and easy to use. You can access the settings by tapping on the notepad button in the top right corner. This brings up a menu with a few options, like autocorrect, auto-archiving of completed lists, launching in the compose screen by default, and requiring Touch or Face ID for authentication for access to the app. There's no syncing options or extra things to worry about, such as titles or manual saves.

Jot is perfect for those who want a simple and fast, distraction-free note-taking app without the fuss.

The Good

Jot lives up to its name — it's an no-fuss app that lets you quickly dump your ideas, notes, and other text quips, then get back out and carry on with your day. It's fast, simple, and has enough features to make typing easier, without being overwhelming. The swipe-based gestures mean you can take action on a note quickly, and being able to have basic todo lists with reminders is nice.

The Bad

While Jot is good for what it is, this definitely won't appeal to everyone. The lack of syncing options could be a big drawback for certain people, even though Jot wasn't designed to be a long-term text editor or note app. It's for quick things you need to jot down, and then you copy the text for elsewhere while archiving it in Jot.

Also, the lack of titles could be an issue for some, and it's impossible to have a mix of basic text and list in one note. If you want a list, it's all or nothing here. So if you were looking to make a titled list, that's too bad — you just have to live with an untitled list here.

Another thing to note is the fact that longer notes appear truncated i n the note list, and there's no 3D Touch to peek and pop a note. This would be a perfect addition to the app to make it easier to view longer notes. And if you have phone numbers, emails, addresses, or URLs, they aren't clickable within Jot itself. While I understand that Jot is geared towards simple text only, having the option to launch other apps directly from within Jot saves a lot of trouble.

The verdict

I love using my phone to take notes and write, so naturally I had to give Jot a try for myself. While I can see the use case for it, I don't think Jot will be replacing Drafts for me. This is simply because I prefer an app that has a way to save my data in the cloud, as I use it as my notepad for everything I need to reference later. And what if something happens to my phone and I didn't copy the text out of Jot? It might end up gone forever, and I don't want to take that chance.

However, if you're looking for a simple app for quick notes and lists, complete with reminders, and don't need iCloud or Dropbox syncing, then Jot may be for you. If my workflow was different, then this app may have worked for me.

Jot – Notes & Todos is available on the iPhone App Store for $1.99.

8.1

OVERALL

Lasting appeal 8

iPhone Integration 8

User Interface 8

Is engaging 8.5

Does it well 8

$1.99

Jot – Notes & Todos

Things That Are Brown

Source link: http://appadvice.com/reviews