Not sure about where you live, but here in the unofficial U.S. subheadquarters of Gamezebo in Central Pennsylvania, summer is preparing to arrive with a vengeance. In other words, while Mother Nature decided to not turn up the heat as soon as schools got out in June, now that it is officially summer, the 95-plus-degree days are coming.
While there are many ways to beat the heat, including such time-honored staples as air conditioning, ice cream and the local pool, we prefer a combination of the first one and new mobile games. There’s nothing inherently cooling about playing something on your phone or tablet, it’s true, but it’s a great way to have some fun while minimizing your movement. That’s crucial when the temps start climbing toward triple digits.
Fortunately, the mobile game gods (okay, probably just developers and publishers) have blessed us with another crop of new titles on the app stores. Among them is Nintendo’s latest Pokemon game, and even though it’s a little different from the norm and has already been out on Switch, it’s bound to be pretty popular. Let us tell you about that and the other stuff that’s new and looks good to play while chilling inside.
Pokemon Quest
Ask for Pokemon on mobile and ye shall receive. Pokemon Quest is an action RPG that is simple to play and uses a block-based art style you’ve seen on mobile before. The Pokemon fan community seems a little divided on its use, but suffice it to say that it’s cute enough that many people will dig it, and hey, it’s a legit Pokemon title you can play on your phone. Considering how long people had been asking for that, let’s not look the gift Ponyta in the mouth.
Up Left Out
We’ve always got time for a promising looking new puzzle game, regardless of the season or temperature. Up Left Out appears to fit that description, as the latest effort from the creator of Klocki challenges you to slide, rotate and unlock the puzzle elements in the game’s 50 levels at your own pace. No IAPs to worry about or text to distract you, just you and some puzzle to solve. Hard to imagine anything much more chill than that.
Battlelands Royale
It’s fair to wonder if there needs to be mobile-specific battle royale games since, you know, the heavy hitters from the genre can already be played in their full forms (more or less) on tablets. Still, since battle royale isn’t going away any time soon, it’s cool to see stuff like Battlelands Royale, which takes the genre and tweaks it with a top-down perspective, cute art and shorter battles. It will be interesting to see if it finds an audience.
Call of Mini: Beyond Infinity
While the last Call of Mini game was unabashedly a mobile riff on Call of Duty, this one features mechs instead of little soldiers, and we’re … not mad at it at all? Yeah, it actually looks pretty cool, and we’re suckers for anything mechs anyway. Test your skills in 11 different mechs across multiple third-person shooter game modes and we’re guessing you won’t miss those little troops all that much.
- App Store (Free)
Super Jump Soccer
Since the World Cup is still ongoing, albeit without the U.S. since we didn’t even make it, we feel somewhat obligated to include a soccer game if there’s one to include each week. There is this time, and the secret sauce that Super Jump Soccer has versus other soccer games is that it’s based on ragdoll physics. Sounds weird but actually looks pretty interesting, and we dig interesting.
- App Store (Free)
