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ENYO (Free) by Arnold Rauers is a tactical turn-based roguelike game that’s all about hook and shield combat with a Greek theme. If you enjoyed titles like Sproggiwood and The Nightmare Cooperative, then you may like what ENYO brings to the table. It’s not a perfect game, but there’s a lot of potential with this one.

If you’ve paid any attention to the gaming industry in the past several years, then you will have noticed that roguelike games have enjoyed a big uptick in popularity. I’m not sure why others love them, but I enjoy roguelikes because they’re usually RPGs, have interesting game mechanics, and are just downright challenging — it’s fun to watch your progress in the game over time as you try and improve with each attempt. So no matter how many roguelikes there are in the App Store now, I just have to check them out for myself. And when the news of ENYO hit my inbox, I was intrigued, as this game is from the same developer behind Card Crawl, an excellent roguelike dungeon-crawling card game hybrid, which I truly loved. While ENYO doesn’t exactly match up to the great Card Crawl, it’s still a fun little time waster.

Visually, ENYO looks fantastic due to the unique Greek-style art. If you’ve ever delved into the world of Greek mythology, then these flat, black-silhouette-like figures that represent Enyo (Goddess of War) and her enemies will look familiar to you. The character sprites give nice contrast as they stand out against the light beige floor and dark brown walls. Spiked walls and lava are easily distinguishable from the safe zones, and the chosen typography gives the game a legend-in-the-making feel. While the layout of the floors don’t seem to have too much detail, I did like how Enyo and the various enemy types have plenty of finer details packed into their models, such as their eyes, weapons, and different stances. The animations are pretty fluid, though I felt that movement was a bit choppy because of the rigidness of the characters. The soundtrack is fun to listen to, especially if you’re into rhythmic drum beats, and the sound effects are a nice finishing touch.

Since ENYO is a roguelike game, there is only one main game mode, but two levels of difficulty that you can choose from, depending on your skill level. There’s also a Daily Challenge each day if you want to see how high of a score you can get on the set stage before it changes the next day, but this is only available through the upgrade in-app purchase. Regardless, before you are able to fully dive in to the game, there will be a tutorial that shows you how to play. It’s necessary to pay attention to it, because this is not like most other roguelike RPGs that you’ve tried.

In ENYO, you’ll have to help guide Enyo through a morphing labyrinth (procedurally generated) in order to find three legendary artifacts. The goal is to clear each floor of enemies through indirect combat. What this means is that enemies can only be defeated by pushing or pulling them into the lava pits and spiked walls, and if you’re next to them taking hits, you can’t do much about it. You’ll see your hearts in the top left corner, which indicate how many hits you can take before you die. The skulls underneath your hearts represent the number of enemies you’ve killed (white is a point), and that is tallied up after every three moves for your score. When you run out of hearts, the run ends and you’ll have to try again.

The controls in ENYO are a bit different and take time to get used to, since it is indirect tactical combat. Enyo can do four different actions, as shown by the buttons along the bottom: Shield Bash, Hook, Throw, and Stun Leap. In order to move, you’ll have to have Shield Bash selected, and then drag your finger from Enyo to the direction you want to go. You can move multiple spaces at once, but only one direction at a time. This is also the way you’ll bash into enemies and push them into lava pits or spiked walls. The Hook will pull enemies towards you, and it’s best to use this when there’s a lava pit at some point between you and the enemy. Throw lets you throw your shield to push foes, and Stun Leap lets you perform a leap that will stun adjacent enemies. After you perform some kind of action, the enemies move one square at a time.

The key to victory are clever maneuvers that can help you get great chain combos, but it’s harder than it looks. It’s important to take note on how each enemy moves and what they’re capable of. By noticing how they tend to move, you can strategize a plan to outsmart them and get them in the lava or spikes without getting hit yourself. And some foes are able to avoid certain obstacles, like the flying bird-like creatures, so you’ll have to use the hook or throw your shield at them to get them into spikes.

After you die, you’ll see a screen that shows you how you lost, as well as a board of the other ways you’ve died in the past and how many times it happened. It’s a fun thing to look back on, and you can tweet your run results if you want to share your progress. But I was a bit disappointed that there is no super quick way to just restart in the selected difficulty, as you’ll have to exit out of that results screen, go back to the main menu, and select the difficulty again. I think there should just be an instant restart button after a game ends so less time is wasted.

Since ENYO is a free game, there are occasional video ads that pop up between rounds and it will even prompt you before you start a game at times. The daily challenge mode is also available only after you unlock the full game and remove ads, which will cost $1.99.

As a fan of roguelike games, I’m enjoying ENYO so far, but I do think that it is lacking in variety at the moment. While each level of the dungeon is procedurally generated, there just doesn’t feel like there are enough different enemy types and hazards to deal with, so gameplay can get a bit repetitive. The controls also felt a bit clunky to me, as you have to have your finger on Enyo and trace the path you want to take, rather than just swiping anywhere on the screen to initiate movement or action with a weapon. While the graphics and sound are pleasing, the rest of the game is more like a diamond-in-the-rough.

Even though I’m a big fan of Card Crawl, I found ENYO to be slightly disappointing in terms of content and controls. If you don’t mind ads and less-than-optimal controls, then ENYO is worth a look, especially since it’s free. But I think holding off until it’s more polished is a better choice.

ENYO is available on the App Store as a universal download for your iPhone and iPad for free. There is an in-app purchase of $1.99 to “unlock” ENYO’s Daily Mode and remove ads.

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BLUK ($1.99) by Deepak Madathil and Pixel Ape Studios is a physics-based platformer game where you control a single block with magical abilities. If you’re a fan of skill-based games, then Bluk is one that you should check out.

As a gamer for a little over a decade now (didn’t fully get into video games until I hit high school), I’ve gone through a lot of mobile games since I’ve started at AppAdvice. Even though my latest addiction has been Pokémon Go since it’s release in July (I’ve been out for hours at a time just walking around), I like to come home and kick back with more games that don’t require me to put my feet to work. For these moments of the day, I love relaxing games that still keep my mind stimulated, because that’s just a terrible thing to waste. When the news of Bluk hit my inbox, I was pretty excited to check it out, since one of the guys behind Bluk also created Blyss, another recent favorite. Needless to say, I’m not disappointed by what Bluk brings to the table.

Visually speaking, Bluk reminds me a lot of Monument Valley because of the abstract, isometric visuals that have a minimalistic aesthetic to them. While some may not like how almost every other game tries to copy Monument Valley’s style, I like it, as it calms me every time I see such graphics. Bluk features simplistic architectural structures within a soft, pastel-colored world that does turn dark at some points, and it’s just a nice visual treat for the eyes. The 3-D rendering is great, with the foreground in sharp contrast to the objects in the far distance, and I truly love the colors that they chose to represent the world of Bluk. Animations are buttery smooth, and the ambient soundtrack helps soothe your soul as you focus on the game itself. Overall, Bluk is a great visual and audio package that will delight everyone.

In Bluk, players control a block that has special abilities, and you find yourself on a journey to uncover a darkness that is disrupting the eternal harmony of the realm. There are several different worlds in Bluk, which you can traverse through one-by-one. The transitions between worlds is done seamlessly, as you’ll just notice by the change in pillar color, and the background color shifts over. Once you reach a new world, you’ll be able to start from that point on a new run, rather than starting from the very first world each time. The new areas that you’ll uncover will introduce their own peculiar obstacles that you’ll have to overcome, so the variety and difficulty of the game is kept fresh and interesting. The game is also pretty lenient on how you can play, as well, since you can either go through the rather abstract story, or just always play endlessly.

Controls in Bluk are simple enough for everyone to understand. The block starts out on a pillar, and there are many more pillars that are laid out in front of it. You just drag your finger on the screen to aim the block with the dotted trajectory line, and then release your finger to jump. It’s like Angry Birds controls, except without the annoying birds and pigs. The goal is to land on the next pillar without falling, and if you manage to land inside of the square on the pillar surface, you’ll earn bonus points for the “perfect landing.” If you don’t land in the square, you’ll still get one point for a successful landing. The moment you fail to land and fall, the run ends and you’ll see your high score. You can then choose to retry from your chosen starting point, or you can go to the main menu and pick a different one.

The game starts out pretty easy, but naturally, the difficulty amps up as you get further in. Eventually, you’ll find pillars that will topple as you jump, or they’ll start to fall one piece at a time, so you’ll have to work quickly to make it to the next pillar. However, the block will also find runes at certain points, and these runes unlock new abilities, such as extending your trajectory line so that you can be more accurate with the jumps. There’s only five runes to find, and you can easily see your progress on the title screen. Bluk also has achievements that you can obtain, leaderboards to compete on, and even a Hall of Fame, so the replay value is extended.

I’m still early on in the game, but Bluk is proving to be a fun and challenging game that is not like anything I’ve played on mobile before. The graphics are gorgeous due to the clean aesthetics and colors, the music is tranquil, and the one-touch controls are intuitive. The gameplay itself is distinctive and the difficulty amps up at a nice, gradual pace. I’m really enjoying the game so far, and it’s definitely a title I’ll be coming back to when I have time to kill.

I recommend checking out Bluk if you’re a fan of physics-based platformer games that require both skill and patience. Bluk is on the App Store as a universal download for your iPhone and iPad for $1.99.

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