Eggggg and Illi

Every week a paid app on the app store goes free for a while and I always take the chance to grab that shit because fuck paying money for app games.  However sometimes I download a title that makes me feel a little guilty for not directly supporting the creator and while I'm not about to go and pay for a game I already own, I want to highlight a couple of titles I got for free so many you can go and support the better side of the mobile game spectrum.

The first game is Egggg, I'm not sure exactly how many Gs are in there but it's more than usual.  Egggg is a two button platform game and the aim is just to get from one end of the stage to the other without dying.  The thing is though that once you press a direction button, you can't stop.  If you push the way you're running you jump and the other button will make you turn around.  While you're running from one end of the stage to the other there are things to collect and little hidden areas of each stage for you to explore which net you stars at the end.  Simply finishing a level isn't too much of a challenge but getting 3 stars on a stage will require some strategising.  The game also mixes things up every so often by giving you a stage specific mechanic or having you fight a boss but generally just reaching the end of the stage is your only worry.  Still, it's a nice, pure little platforming experience and it's the kind of thing you'd easily find on something like Steam for a few pounds but instead its phone exclusive.

EDIT: As soon as I posted this thing I googled Egg and found a Steam page for it and it's "coming soon", so worth buying there if you don't like playing games on a shitty phone screen.  Seriously, it's a goodun

The second game I want to talk about briefly is Illi.  It's a very simple, cute little platform puzzle game that will eat through your commutes like nothing else.  The game play is super simple with each stage being made up of a number of squares or rectangles and you must jump your way to the exit by tapping the screen.  Illy moves around each square by himself and which way he falls depends on which side of the cube you're on when you press jump.  So press jump on the top and you'll fall down but press it on the right hand side and you'll fall to the left.  Illi does not respect the laws of physics.  Each stage comes with a number of "quests" which involve collecting a thing, getting to the exit in a certain number of jumps or beating a stage in a certain time and finishing these quests unlocks more levels.

The good thing about Illi compared to other puzzle games I've played is that it's not bullshit difficult like other shitty iPhone games like Cut the Rope.  The solutions to certain levels in things like Cut the Rope where there's no way you'd figure that shit out without spending money on a solution fairy or whatever piss me off but Illi has that nice level of challenge sort of similar to Portal.  Things that look hard but if you take a moment to think about them carefully are actually quite simple.

I got these games for free but if it wasn't such a stingy piece of shit and someone had told me about them beforehand, I would have easily dropped a few pounds on these titles.  So go check them out because instead of complaining about the sorry state of mobile gaming we should be supporting the people who are actually at least TRYING to do a good job.

Pianista

Pianista is a game that just randomly came up in an advert while I was scrolling through Facebook one day.  Usually I steer clear of mobile rhythm games because despite their fairly decent quality they are almost always full of bullshit that makes me quit.  However the idea of a rhythm game based on classical music piqued my interest so I gave it a try 

So the bullshit that I'm talking about with other rhythm games usually involves the collection and leveling of characters.  You can play a song perfectly in games like Love Live but still end up with a shitty rank because your characters don't have enough levels to earn you the required points.  Luckily Pianista doesn't do that.  You just pick and song, play it and you're graded based on your actual skill rather than any money-grubbing character breeding system.

The game has I think about 50 songs at time of writing with new stuff getting added every so often and songs are played on something called Tour Mode and clearing them in this mode unlocks them for your collection where you can play them freely.  There are 3 difficulty levels of play which are normal, technical and master.  I've not tried master yet so I can't say just how challenging it gets but if you aren't really all that familiar with the genre there are certain songs on normal that may give you a hard time.

As you play songs you earn gold and you can use this gold to upgrade your piano which will get you different bonuses and such but apart from that you don't use the gold for anything else.  There's also a premium currency which I think lets you cut down the wait time on your plays recharging but considering this is something I'll do a song or two with on the train that's not really an issue.  The game also has leader boards so if you're the competetive type you can see how you stand up to the rest of the user base.

My only real complaint is that you get 5 song points to play songs with and then after that you have to wait before you can play any more.  1 song point regenerates every 30 minutes so if you're just fiddling with it it's not much of an issue but if you have a long journey and you were hoping to jam out to some Chopin you may have to start spending premium currency or just listening to him on a music player and live without the game part.

Either way, it's free to download on the app store, the game looks slick, plays really well and has a decent number of songs for you to enjoy.  So unless you hate classical music you should probably go and give it a try.