There’s no shortage of adventure games on Apple Arcade, and there’s no mystery in that. Adventure games are broadly appealing and well suited to touch. There’s a huge variety in actual game mechanics, however, and The Get Out Kids is less of a traditional adventure and more of an interactive storybook.

It’s lovely to look at. The art style works well on a small screen: clean and clear and colourful. The control work as you’d expect: tap the screen to interact with objects, and to navigate. The game itself is a mix of mini-games, hidden objects, and text dialogue that’s well written, with a cast of diverse characters. One of the two protagonists is a Muslim kid with a stammer, and at one point you have to help him orient his prayer rug. That’s awesome!

Unfortunately, I found The Get Out Kids to be a bit dull. The mini-games vary greatly in quality, and some are a chore to get through. In the first fifteen minutes, there’s also a lot of fiddly hidden-object-finding. Like with Murder Mystery Machine, you can rotate rooms and pinch to zoom; at least in The Get Out Kids you don’t have to navigate a character around, but for some reason the camera zooms out and resets every time you find a hidden object, which makes the whole process even more frustrating. The inventory controls are also annoying, requiring excessive scrolling through a long list of items to find what you’re looking for.

The writing is good and the art is appealing, but the game mechanics drag this thing down, and I felt no incentive to revisit it.

Link: https://apps.apple.com/no/app/the-get-out-kids/id984665065

Murder Mystery Machine (MMM) is an isometric point-and-tap adventure where you play a homicide detective. The opening titles feel very Law & Order-y, so you immediately understand the mood the developers are going for.

The investigation mechanics are expansive and thorough, and there’s plenty of attention to detail. Investigations are very mechanical and require connecting evidence in a virtual workspace.

There’s a lot of detail in the 3D scenes. You can zoom in and out with a pinch, and rotate the camera ninety degrees by swiping left or right. Objects of interest are highlighted and you tap to interact with them or with characters (and corpses). It’s not always easy to find items, however, and in the very first case, I struggled to locate the murder weapon. You can’t pan the camera around independently of your character, so you’re forced to walk around. It can get a bit fiddly. The user interface isn’t scaled for the phone screen, with tiny text and tiny touch targets. This game works better on an iPad.

I’m not sure how save games work, and on two occasions I lost a handful of minutes when I jumped out of the game. That’s not great.

I wasn’t particularly gripped by MMM. I struggled with the controls and there’s something clinical about it, but I guess that’s the point: this is Law & Order, down to the apartment crime scenes and lab work. If that sounds appealing, it’s probably not a bad implementation of the concept. But I personally prefer the much less realistic but more emotionally satisfying Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney series.

Link: https://apps.apple.com/no/app/murder-mystery-machine/id1459658137

Image credit: Polygon

I was kind of dreading this review. I’m a big Adventure Time fan, and the idea of a collaboration between Pendleton Ward and Zach Gage — the man behind iOS games like Typeshift (a personal favourite), Pocket-Run Pool and Really Bad Chess — was enticing. I’m not typically a card game fan, however, so even though the aesthetic was instantly appealing, the genre was not.

I gave it a fair shot.

On the positive side: Card of Darkness isn’t really a card game. It’s a puzzle game with cards, and a very nicely crafted one. Everything looks and sounds great, and feels polished and responsive. It’s also quite challenging, which means I can’t speak to how the game evolves over time. That’s really the only negative: it’s a tough. But this also means that winning is deeply satisfying, and I’m sure there are plenty of players up for the challenge.

I was hoping for more narrative weirdness and character, given Ward’s involvement, but Card of Darkness is undeniably a good game, and you should probably play it.

Link: https://apps.apple.com/no/app/card-of-darkness/id1364257627

Dear Reader is a clever and fun word-based puzzle game where you move words and sentences around to complete paragraphs and finish chapters. The text is based on classic public domain literature like Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice.

The presentation, controls and user interface work in perfect harmony with the simple-yet-satisfying game mechanics. This is a game for readers, and though you don’t have to be familiar with the library of books in the game, it helps to be well read in general.

This is a good game. I enjoyed playing Dear Reader. I’ll probably return to it, though it does require more focus and attention than some other puzzle games.

Link: https://apps.apple.com/no/app/dear-reader/id1470280172

The opening credits for this game reminded me of Catch Me if You Can, sporting a 1960s spy thriller vibe. It’s great!

The game, however, looks nothing like that, which feels a missed opportunity. Operator 41 is a grid-based 3D stealth game featuring an agent (the “Operator”, I assume) sneaking past patrolling guards and security installations. The moment you’ve been spotted, the level restarts: there’s no grace period, and you can’t run away. It’s punishing.

The stealth mechanic, at least in the opening levels, is quite basic and too-often frustrating. Stealth is a challenging game mechanic to pull off, and this game doesn’t. One wrong tap, and it’s back to start. Patient players may find that the game improves over time, but I didn’t get that far. I have a low tolerance for stealth games, and Operator 41 didn’t do it for me at all.

(And they should have stuck with the 60s aesthetic in the actual game.)

Link: https://apps.apple.com/no/app/operator-41/id1475042637

I never played Mini Metro, so I wasn’t sure what to expect from Motorways. There’s no shortage of puzzle games on Arcade, a sequel to an existing hit was probably a good bet.

I find the opening minutes of any given Motorways session to be relaxing. Things look clean and simple. I’m not one hundred percent sure how I’m supposed to optimally play the game (and yes, I did play the tutorial) but that doesn’t matter…for a while. Once traffic gets heavy and I run out of road tiles and bridges, however, relaxation gives way to stress, and I quickly succumb to my poor motorway choices. Inevitably it ends in disaster.

I don’t think I get this game, but it’s very pretty, it sounds great, and it’s been perfectly designed for a phone screen. The fact that it stresses me out means I probably won’t return to it very often, but I can also see how this might be a perfect distraction for many people.

Link: https://apps.apple.com/no/app/mini-motorways/id1453901000

In Projection, you control a shadow puppet on a stick. Your puppet moves through a world of scenic silhouettes. It’s quite pretty and striking; the world is monochrome but not colourless. You control your character with a virtual gamepad, which, given the puppeteering theme, feels like a missed opportunity to do something more interesting — and more touch-friendly.

Aside from the art, Projection doesn’t really stand apart from other puzzle platformers. You use moving lights to create shadows, which your puppet can walk on. This helps her navigate past obstacles. It’s clever, but not hugely original, and sometimes frustrating. I repeatedly got my character stuck in tight spaces. Moving a light helped me get out again, but it can get tedious and fiddly.

Your avatar, a little girl, is a bit of a juvenile criminal: during the first few minutes of playtime she steals an apple, jumps on top of a police car, and causes said car to crash into a wall. Then she gets arrested and yelled at by her parents. I honestly didn’t have much sympathy for her: she deserved her punishment! I wasn’t sold on her motivations for constantly getting into trouble, and the narrative didn’t grab me.

The game is artful and thoughtfully designed, but I didn’t find it particularly fun.

Link: https://apps.apple.com/no/app/projection-first-light/id1454738916

There are a lot of puzzle games on Apple Arcade, but it makes sense: a lot of people play puzzle games. They’re easy to play during busy commutes (or on a toilet break) and they appeal to a wide and diverse audience.

Possessions. is another perspective-based puzzle game. You position your “possessions” — furniture and decorations — in various rooms, by moving a 3D camera using the intuitive touch controls. It’s kind of like Spek. (with which it shares a wayward period) except with colourful 3D visuals. You use the illusion of perspective to place objects in space. There’s a simple story of sorts, with cute dioramas of a life playing out in the scenes you’ve assembled.

This is not a difficult game, and while very pretty and very playable, it can also get a bit monotonous. The easy-listening piano doesn’t help. It’s always pleasant, but never particularly exciting. There’s nothing wrong with that, but there’s also nothing that enticed me to return after playing it for half an hour.

Possessions. is a nice diversion. I don’t think it’ll be anything more than that for me, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t play it. Especially if you enjoy puzzle games.

Link: https://apps.apple.com/no/app/possessions/id1459918235

Tangle Tower is a point-and-tap adventure that successfully blends traditional exploration and puzzle mechanics with a murder investigation, with breezy, confident writing and voice acting that recall classic LucasArts adventure games.

Unlike traditional point-and-click adventures, the two protagonists are not always on-screen. Instead, you tap scenery and objects to trigger snappy and well-written conversations and actions. There’s also an inventory, and a well-designed (albeit occasionally frustrating) investigation mechanic that requires you to combine facts and suppositions, characters and items into successful deductions. (Think Clue, but with more narrative and emotional complexity.)

I found this process to be a bit trial-and-error at times, especially since you need to get it right before you’re allowed to progress, but as long as you pay attention to the dialogue and tap everything in a given scene, it’s not too difficult. And there are hints if you get it wrong too many times. (I’d still be stuck if it wasn’t for that.)

It’s clear that this game is a labour of love. The level of detail is impressive. I wasn’t completely sold on the mood, but I also didn’t play it long enough to get sucked in by the story. I’ll give it more time, preferably on the iPad. The controls and user interface work perfectly fine on the iPhone, but there’s enough visual detail to warrant a bigger screen.

Tangle Tower is yet another game that showcases the range and diversity of Apple Arcade. It’s wonderful that relatively niche adventure games like this can find a home and an audience on the service.

Link: https://apps.apple.com/no/app/tangle-tower/id1437742603

Explottens, which I assume is short for “exploding kittens”, is another twin-stick arcade shooter. This has one kittens in it, but once you get past the cut-scenes, it’s hard to tell what they’re supposed to be. The visuals are muddled and busy, and difficult to read, especially on the phone screen. I also found it surprisingly hard to fire my gun in any particular direction: my kitten’s plane kept pointing downwards. I’m sure I would have figured it out eventually, but I gave up quickly. While that’s unfair to Explottens, there are other, better, twin-stick shooters on Arcade, and unless you’re really starving for another one, I’d give the exploding kittens a pass. Also: “Explottens”? Really?

Link: https://apps.apple.com/no/app/explottens/id965816162

I really wanted to like Lifeslide. I’d hoped it be Pilotwings with a paper aeroplane. It’s not that, and while that’s not the game’s fault — the expectations were entirely of my own making — Lifeslide also failed to engage my love of virtual flying.

The game has two fundamental problems. One is the tilt controls, which are intended to make me feel more immersed, but actually achieves the opposite. On both the iPhone and iPad, tilting the device became a physical inconvenience and made it difficult to properly control the plane. The other problem is that I found it hard to understand whether my paper plane was tilting up or down, due to the shading and light on the model. This meant that I’d be stalling when I thought I was tilting downwards, and vice versa.

If neither of these problems apply to you, there’s also a lack of focus and purpose, at least in the early parts of the game. There’s nothing wrong with a meditative game without missions, but there was no immediate sense of direction. I was just…floating. And crashing. And stalling. And I never felt like I was soaring.

I regret not connecting with this game. It feels like a missed opportunity.

Link: https://apps.apple.com/no/app/lifeslide/id1472966619

Spidersaurs is, so far, my least favourite Arcade game. Why? The touch controls are terrible. I had to quit playing after less than fifteen minutes, because the controls were driving me crazy. I had a hard time jumping and a hard time aiming my gun. I didn’t try playing with a controller on the iPad or TV, because the whole game felt very generic and bland to me. The Saturday morning cartoon aesthetic was done better by Hot Lava — though, to be fair, Spidersaurs seems to be going for an early-to-mid 90s vibe rather than 1980s.

I don’t like writing negative reviews. It’s not fun. I have more fun liking things than disliking them. But there it is: I didn’t like Spidersaurs at all.

Link: https://apps.apple.com/no/app/spidersaurs/id1452303230

Two days, two Snowman-published games, but this couldn’t be more different from Skate City.

Where Cards Fall is an absolutely beautiful puzzle game, where you expand and collapse stacks of cards to provide platforms for a boy to navigate. It’s not too challenging, at least in the early stages, although the tap controls can be fidgety at times. Sometimes the game would read my attempts to fold or unfold the deck as taps to move, and the boy would jump down from a stack, leaving me to set everything up all over again. This game might be better suited to the iPad, where the truly beautiful art has more room to shine, and where navigation and the two-fingered pinch controls might be more forgiving.

In-between the puzzle platforming, there are remembered moments from the boy’s past (or at least that’s how I read it). I didn’t get far enough to understand the connections and metaphors, and the “Simlish” voice-overs disrupted the melancholy mood, but it’s all so beautifully made, it’s easy to get wrapped up in the game’s unique atmosphere. This is certainly one of the most striking and aesthetically pleasing Apple Arcade games.

Link: https://apps.apple.com/no/app/where-cards-fall/id1466331487

I suck at Skate City. Not in a self-deprecating, cute-introduction-to-a-review way. No, I just suck, which makes it hard for me to review the game.

You probably know Skate City. It was featured on-stage at the Apple Arcade reveal. It’s an, uh, “endless skater”. I’m not sure they call it that, and it’s not just that. It’s like Tony Hawk met and married Alto (from ‘s Adventure/Odyssey), and they had a child (weird) who they decided to name Skate City (weirder). You skate, and do tricks, and complete challenges, and earn points to unlock stuff.

It’s a pretty game with chill music and, I suspect, pretty good touch controls. The presentation is top notch. Everything about the game feels polished and of high quality. Very Apple-like. It’s not surprising they made it a poster child for Arcade.

Yet, unfortunately, I suck at this. In my time with the game, I wasn’t even able to make it to the second city, Oslo, which was my goal. I only got to see Los Angeles, which looks lovely, sure, but it’s no Oslo.

The game is certainly worth a download, if only to see if you suck at it as much as I do. Probably not. Chances are you’ll enjoy it, especially if you’re into skating, which I’m patently not.

Link: https://apps.apple.com/no/app/skate-city/id1182476302

This is a pretty basic platformer, featuring a bouncy teenaged half-genie, with ropey touch controls and bland art.

I understand that it’s difficult to make good platform games for a touchscreen. Some games resort to auto-running, leaving the player to focus on just jumping: Rayman does this incredibly well. Others choose virtual joysticks and buttons, something that, in my opinion, rarely works as well. Shantae is no exception: timing jumps is difficult, as is getting the half-genie to jump in the right direction. It’s a frustrating experience overall. I didn’t give the Apple TV version with the physical controller a try: the look and mood of the game was a big turn-off.

I guess it’s obvious that I didn’t like this game very much. There are much better platform games on Apple Arcade. Unless you find the setting and main character uniquely appealing, I don’t see a good reason to play Shantae and the Seven Sirens.

Link: https://apps.apple.com/no/app/shantae-and-the-seven-sirens/id1451660353

Or to be more accurate: Jenny LeClue - Detectivu, which is objectively a great name.

This is a very pretty game with some clever mechanics, and the developers have done a good job with the touch controls. They’re not perfect. At times it does feel like the game is designed for mouse input. But it’s a lot better than many other cross-platform games of this type, and I have to give them credit for getting it mostly right.

Of course, this is a point-and-tap adventure game, so the story, dialogue and puzzles are central. Unfortunately, I rarely have more than thirty minutes to play any particular game before I write a review. There are instances where I feel I have to give a game more time before I can write anything, and also instances where I’ve spent more time with a game because I enjoy playing it.

I haven’t given Jenny LeClue nearly enough time. That’s not because I didn’t enjoy my time with it, but because it’s the kind of game that requires patience and attention. This isn’t something you can play one-handed on public transportation or while waiting in line for takeaway food. I don’t have much to say about the narrative or what happens beyond the first half hour — but I liked what I saw. There are perhaps a few too many false starts and framing devices, and I was left somewhat confused by the opening fifteen minutes, but it’s mysterious and intriguing and so very pretty, I definitely wanted to keep going. And I probably will — or at least encourage my daughter to play, so I can watch over her shoulder.

Again, Jenny LeClue looks great and it’s clearly a labour of love. It’s free with Apple Arcade and works very well on the phone (and iPad), so there’s no good reason for not downloading it. Especially if you’re a fan of adventure games. And pretty art.

Link: https://apps.apple.com/no/app/jenny-leclue-detectivu/id882562699

Everything about Grindstone oozes polish, quality and focus testing. And yet, to its credit, it feels idiosyncratic. This is obviously a game made by developers who understand the platform. It’s reflected in the user interface and touch controls, clean, clear and expressive art, and the mix of mobile game mechanics. It’s a fantasy hack-and-slash Candy Crush.

Grindstone is fun to play. I’m definitely not the target audience, and yet I was constantly having just one more go before sitting down to write this review. Everything about the game is tailored to keep you engaged, keep you playing, and to provide incentives to do so. It’s really, really well made. In many ways, it’s the perfect mobile game. You can play it for three minutes, with one hand, finish a level and feel rewarded.

This game wasn’t made for me, but I still enjoyed it, and for the millions out there who enjoy puzzle mechanics and are looking for that short, sharp hit of dopamine as they chain together mighty attacks, Grindstone’s your ticket.

Link: https://apps.apple.com/no/app/grindstone/id1357426636

Neo Cab is something quite special. It’s a beautiful interactive story about relationships and starting over and losing your job and generally about being a modern human dealing with modern problems. And also about driving an Uber. Or something close to it.

You’re mostly picking dialogue options while driving passengers from one place to the next, but you also have to earn cash to recharge your car, and manage your mood with an actual mood ring. The dialogue is good and the characters interesting and well-written. And the central relationship is almost maddeningly realistic: it can be hard to play, but also hard to put down.

I really liked the art and music and overall mood of Neo Cab. Give this game a shot, it deserves to be played.

Link: https://apps.apple.com/no/app/neo-cab/id1464869565

My 12-year old daughter has played this game a lot more than I have. Here is her guest review:

The graphics are cute and fun, and the controls are easy. The whole game is calm and charming, and quite well put together. Nightmare Farm has a gentle theme song that demonstrates its creepiness and cuteness. The girl you play has a sad but sweet backstory, and the way you slowly uncover it makes you crave more.

However, the game lacks a bit of excitement and peril. It’s something I return to when I think about it, but I don’t play for longer than 5 minutes, as the game involves a lot of waiting. There isn’t a lot to do, and the game is somewhat lacking. Despite the fact that it isn’t top notch, I find myself going back to it again and again. Overall, it is a pretty, relaxing and laid-back game that doesn’t involve a lot of thinking or energy.

Link: https://apps.apple.com/no/app/nightmare-farm/id1411211308

This was one of the highest profile Arcade launch titles, and it got a lot of exposure, partly due to the big name publisher, Capcom, and particularly because it looks quite impressive for an iOS exclusive. And it’s not bad, as long as you’re playing with a controller.

Shinsekai is a Metroid-style adventure where you play a beautifully animated aquanaut exploring the deep sea. You discover new areas, pick up objects and expand your air supply, which must be closely watched. Air is used for breathing and for propulsion. You come across various dangerous creatures like crabs and jellyfish that you can kill with your wrench. You mine minerals to upgrade your suit. There’s a story, or at least some sort of mystery to be sold, but I’m not quite sure what it is.

The touch controls use virtual joystick and buttons. They’re not great. I struggled controlling my aquanaut, especially when it came to jumping and grabbing onto walls, and there’s too much complexity for touch. Using a controller, the Apple TV version is much easier to control, and the performance is pretty good.

The game looks polished and pretty in screenshots but the detailed art looks muddled on the small screen, and it’s hard to understand where the floors and walkable surfaces are. Dangerous sea creatures are also often obscured by the scenery. Things are better on the big screen, but it’s still too busy and not easy to navigate.

I found Shinsekai a frustrating experience to play with touch controls, but much better with the physical controls and on a big screen. I still had problems with the slow pace and controls, and muddled art, but it’s not a bad game. It’s perhaps better suited to a platform like the Switch rather than iOS.

Link: https://apps.apple.com/no/app/shinsekai-into-the-depths/id1465048285