Demon's Tilt and City of Brass

It's all about your score?

Demon's Tilt

This is a very odd multi tiered pinball game that makes use of pixel graphics and bit tune type music. Unlike conventional pinball, you get all sorts of odd stuff blocking the ball here - like flying eyeballs, fireballs from an evil mage and many more.

Since there are in built gutters (where you have no paddles) and the gap between your paddles is big enough for the ball you have the additional control of "tilting" the game, which basically just moves the ball over a little bit in the direction of your choosing. An odd one for sure, but since it's just about getting a high score its not one I stuck with for very long.

City of Brass

In this first person game your goal is to get through each randomly generated level of a cursed city as quickly and with as much treasure as possible while dealing with the many traps and undead within. Unfortunately the combat (which there is plenty) feels very off, and worse this is a roguelike which means if you die you get to start all the way from the first level again. The only thing you get to keep is a score to remember how well / poorly you did previously. Not my cup of tea at all.

Combo Breaker: Four game mixtures that don't quite work!

Automachef

Mixes robots and food?

This puzzle game is all about delivering food in a restaurant with the catch that everything is automated. In your limited space you must place ingredient dispensers, food prep machines, grills to cook things, an assembler to put things all together and robotic arms and conveyor belts to move everything around to deliver finished plates to the diners - all while being within budget, minimizing ingredient waste and excess power usage.

Luckily you have as many test attempts as you need to get it right, because I'd rate this difficult on my puzzle scale - and I'm only a few kitchens in! Certainly not my cup of tea, as I have more fun with the Overcooked style of game play, but if you like puzzles (especially of the jigsaw variety) this one should be on your radar. Two smart robot arms out of five.

Yooka-Laylee

One of the protagonists would probably eat the other...

A kid's game where you play as a lizard and bat team, out to recover a book taken by the silly villain whose evil plan involves stealing all the books in the world. It's cute enough but this 3D platformer gets old quick as your controls are cameracentric but the camera position lags behind your turns. Easiest way to describe it is if you press the button to move left and hold it down in most games you just strafe left. In this game you go in a circle, which is horrible when coupled with moving platforms and timed events.

The final nail in the coffin is the stupidity of the pages though. Surely you can just grab it through those bars if it doesn't fly out on its own. Not recommended for anybody.

Oh noes, it's totally trapped.

Yoku's Island Express

A pinball platformer.

A cockroach tied to a circular rock makes for an odd hero, but this game does make him look kinda cute as he takes on his new job as island postmaster. True to form, most of the quests involve delivering stuff around the large island and while it is a pseudo-platformer there is no jumping. Instead, you can activate pinball like mechanics all over the island to send your little guy flying all over the place.

Where this falls down for me is the grinding. Some pinball levers need to be unlocked by fruit currency which you gather in larger pinball segments. This means having to repeat these until you get the required amount which can get old really fast. It's a shame because this is actually a fun concept and plays well, but alas - I have enough games that require grind. Sorry Yoku. Two fruits out of five.

Speed Brawl

Side scrolling brawler with a time limit!

This game has some nice cartoon style art and one of the best openings I've seen in a while. In it you play as a tag team of racing pugilists who need to complete each race course as quickly as possible. Obviously enemies block your path and you can't move on until they are all defeated - meaning you have to fight REALLY well.

It's an ok premise and while the controls take a little getting used to what kills it for me is the sound effects which boils down to the repeated yelling and grunts of your character. Yep, brawlers are noisy but this just gets painful really quickly. Two poles out of five. Not recommended.

Peggle Deluxe

I know this is an old game from Popcap, but I only just recently tried it out since it was free in the Origin game launcher. At its core it is a version of pinball with a slew of cute critters that help you get past all 55 levels to reach Peggle Mastery and for some reason this simple, casual and kid friendly game is insanely addictive.

Waaaaay too addictive...!

There are 75 challenges afterwards to reach grandmaster rank (of which I've done 48, they're getting tough!) so it's not like you will run out of things to do too quickly. If you're looking for an in betweener game or diversion then you might want to give Peggle a look. I give it four balls out of five, just from its addictiveness! >.<