Game Topz (gamtopz@gmail.com)

I can’t say for sure that it was the first one to do it, but I can say that my own personal first experience with the “merge" genre was Spry Fox’s Triple Town way back in 2012 when the popular web-based game hit iOS. This was really an evolution of the tried-and-true match-3 genre as your matches would not simply disappear, but would create an entirely new singular block. Every one of the game’s base block types could be matched into a more advanced tier, with those advanced versions then being matched to create the next tier of block, and so on. This was extremely clever because it added a whole new strategic element to matching games where you weren’t simply trying to make matches to clear board space, but you were needing to focus on where your matches were being made on the board so that the resulting advanced tier block could be positioned in a way to create further matches. You also didn’t want to clog things up in a way that you wouldn’t have enough space to make matches a...

Hello gentle readers, and welcome to the SwitchArcade Round-Up for June 30th, 2023. In today’s article, we’ve got quite a few new releases to chase yesterday’s massive pack. Nintendo’s got its latest in the form of Everybody 1-2-Switch! , Capcom brings back a classic with Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective , and Spike Chunsoft is solving a mystery of its own in Master Detective Archives: Rain Code . After the new release summaries, it’s time for the list of new and expiring sales. Not exactly steamy, but it’ll have to do. Let’s get to it! New Releases Everybody 1-2-Switch! ($29.99) Okay, I know this might seem like a sequel no one really asked for, but the odd thing is that 1-2-Switch! kind of quietly sold a lot. Like, more than three million . So there are probably a lot of people out there who are looking for more 1-2-Switch! , but this time with Silly Horsehead Mask. And that is just what this aims to deliver. I will probably be reviewing this, but we’ll see how things go. I need t...

Uken Games’ Millionaire Trivia: TV Game+ () is now available on Apple Arcade as an App Store Great. The standalone version of the game on the App Store is a free to play release with many in app purchases of gems. The Apple Arcade version has none of those in app purchases, and supports offline play and unlimited rounds. Alongside this week’s new release, many notable games on the service have gotten updates. Dead Cells+ saw the massive Return to Castlevania DLC hit Apple Arcade a day later than the standalone premium release. Details for that update and DLC are here . Cooking Mama: Cuisine! has begun its summer event until July 23rd with special summer-themed items and a new present daily for logging in. Dear Reader has gotten its first update in a few months bringing in four new books: The Development of Metaphysics in Persia, “The Vanishing American,” Rubaiyat Of Omar Khayyam, and for you songbirds, How to Sing by the famous soprano Lilli Lehmann. Gear Club Stradale has add...

Annapurna Interactive just announced that Daniel Benmergui’s Storyteller will be hitting mobile through Netflix Games this September. Storyteller is a puzzle game about putting together stories with tools like characters, settings, titles, and more. It features stories covering love, crime, and betrayal. I enjoyed my time with it on Steam Deck and Switch quite a lot. Read my review of it here . Storyteller on mobile platforms will be published by Netflix, and it will include new characters and stories. These will be brought to PC and Switch through an update. If you’ve not played it yet, watch the Storyteller Switch trailer below: I knew Storyteller would be a perfect fit for mobile, and I’m glad to see it finally arrive on September 26th. If you’d like to try it before the Netflix Games release, Storyteller is out now on Switch and Steam. The Steam version is 20% off during Steam’s Summer Sale as well. Check it out here on the eShop for Nintendo Switch and here on Steam. I...

Hello gentle readers, and welcome to the SwitchArcade Round-Up for June 29th, 2023. Lots of new releases today, friends. Lots and lots. We’ve got summaries of all of them, including games like Picontier, Akai Katana Shin , and more. After that, it’s the lists of new sales and expiring discounts. I had an unplanned trip to the hospital today, so that’s about it. Hopefully it’s plenty. Let’s get to the games! New Releases The Lara Croft Collection ($24.99) Okay, this is probably not the first set of games you might be expecting to see under a title like that. These are not the original games, nor are they the Crystal Dynamics games from the PlayStation 3/Xbox 360 era, and they aren’t the recent reboot games either. No, what you get here are the two Lara Croft spin-off games, Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light and Lara Croft and the Temple of Osiris . They’re top-down action adventure games that can be played alone or with friends via local multiplayer, and they’re great. Just wil...