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Wales Interactive is back with a sequel to one of my favorite FMV titles of theirs. Following up on Five Dates, Ten Dates ups the scope of its choose-your-own dating adventure by offering more dates, more options, and even stepping out the the realm of screen-based interactions and having your dates take place out in the world. In all of these steps forward, Ten Dates retains the charm of the original game, making it a fantastic follow up to a great game.

Find your match

Ten Dates focuses on a pair of friends–a man and a woman–who are both looking to put themselves out there for a romantic relationship. They both serve as supportive commentators throughout the journey, but you also start the game choosing which character to follow and make choices for as they make their way around a speed dating event and line up follow ups with the people they got along with.

For the most part, you are just watching video clips that stitch together each event, though there are times where you're prompted to make certain choices. Do you encourage your date to go on about horrorscopes or do you deflect and change the subject? Do you choose to interject to correct someone about what they said or let it slide? Each of these moments not only helps shape the character you inhabit, but also how each potential romantic partner decides how they ultimately feel about you by the game's end.

Charming chatter

One of the things I praised Five Dates for was its direction and how it was so adept at presenting the awkwardness of meeting new people without being too awkward itself (a rare quality for FMV games). I credited the fact that the game was all screen-based communication for that success, but Ten Dates more-or-less nails the same feel using actors who are playing off of each other in the same scene.

Some of the characters themselves are a little cartoonishly written, particularly in their opening interactions, but the actors portraying them commit in a way that feels genuine and endears you to them. Well, at least most of them. With more options in Ten Dates, there definitely seem some characters that don't hold much appeal at all, but I guess that makes the experience feel a bit more true to life.

Speed dater

With options to play as a man or woman (and even explore same sex relationships), Ten Dates feels like a much more approachable and diverse game than the first. That said, there is definitely still room to grow in the kinds of people and relationship styles it includes.

I get the feeling that including the amount of options and potential partners that Ten Dates was a pretty tricky thing to pull off, though, as each date feels a bit rushed. This makes for a nice title to easily play in a single sitting, but it can also make for situations that feel like they progress or escalate at an unnatural pace.

The bottom line

Overall though, Ten Dates is a quality follow up to a game that I already enjoyed the first iteration of. It's an enjoyable and lightly humorous exploration of the dating world and is full of charm without feeling too cringe or awkward.

Source link:https://www.148apps.com/reviews/ten-dates-review/

In a lot of ways, Punch Kick Duck feels like an arcade game ported to mobile. It follows the classic idea of “easy to learn but hard to master” and applies it to a duck that is trying to fight its way through floor after floor of different animal enemies. There's a certain charm to the way this game looks and feels, but it isn't a game that will really stick with you.

3 button fighter

Punch Kick Duck is a game where you play as a duck who has broken out of a holding cell and must battle their way through rabbits, pigs, ferrets, and more in an attempt to escape. The duck automatically marches forward on a given floor, but you can tap and hold to make the duck run and use virtual buttons on the side of the screen to punch, kick, or duck kick to take down enemies standing in your way.

Each enemy requires a certain kind of attack to defeat it. Waist-high pigs, for example, are easy to kick away, while ferret arms are so high up that you can duck kick them as their punches sail over your head. Everyone (yourself included) can be taken out with a single blow, so the game is an exercise in trying to memorize and manage sequences of attacks that can get you through enemies as quickly as possible without getting hit.

Beware the bear

When you complete a floor in Punch Kick Duck, you get scored for your performance before moving right up to the next one to keep advancing. As you climb higher and higher, fights become more and more complicated as well. Enemies start carrying items to throw at you, try to run you over with carts, and there's even a timer that unleashes a bear to chase you if you are taking too long to get to the next set of stairs.

You don't really get additional advantages to help you deal with all of these complications. Your tools stay the same, and it's just up to you to be able to juggle the combinations of attacks to get through enemies while trying to reach the next floor as quickly as possible. As a bit of a cushion, though, players start with ability to take a free hit that doesn't immediately end a run, which you can re-earn by defeating a certain number of enemies in a level. You also gather coins as you play and can spend 40 of them to revive mid-level if you get knocked down.

Tough but fair

It doesn't take long for Punch Kick Duck to get quite demanding by stacking up loads of enemies coming from different directions with all kinds of special attacks. Dealing with these on their own is tough, but even moreso when considering the bear timer. In true arcade fashion, the only way to overcome these things is to just practice and get better at the game.

If playing in its free-to-play state, your various retries get interrupted by ads, which you can disable via a one-time purchase of $ 1.99. There are also additional characters you can unlock to play as, some of which you can only pay for and add additional perks like a coin doubler or discounts on characters unlockable via in-game currency. Overall, it's a pretty tame and unobtrusive monetization model.

The bottom line

It is really satisfying to chain together a ton of attacks and whip through a level in Punch Kick Duck. Doing so is a tough but fair challenges that rewards persistence and practice. There isn't much more to it than that, but for what it is it is well made and fairly monetized.

Source link:https://www.148apps.com/reviews/punch-kick-duck-review/