PDAMill’s Free Spree: 26 Games in 9 Titles
by Eric March on March 19, 2009 at 4:47 pm
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App Name: | (Too Many to List) |
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| Developer: | PDAMill |
Version: | N/A | |
| Publisher: | PDAMill |
Size: | N/A |
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| Category: | Logic & Puzzle / Arcade / Casual / Board, Dice & Card |
Price: | Free | |
It looks like HudsonSoft aren’t the only ones prone to giving away chunks of their game library, because it’s veteran development house PDAMill’s turn in the hot seat, and they’re looking to positively embarrass Hudson (and probably everyone else) with the number of games they’re giving away.
PDAMill are giving away no fewer than nine of their titles, which themselves offer up a whopping grand total of twenty-six games, all totally and completely free. Granted, while there are some real gems here, some of the games are derivative and mediocre at best — but it’s mediocrity PDAMill want to shower you with while asking nothing in return, except maybe a nice iTunes review or two. Let’s have a look at all this gamut of gaming has to offer:
The Corsair: (10.6MB) Here we have a target shooting game somewhat along the lines of Lethal Enforcer, Operation Wolf, and so on. The theme here, as you might have derived from the name, is pirates — and who doesn’t like pirates? They’re second only to ninjas in pop culture mythos. It’s a fairly straightforward affair involving you grabbing your musket, picking off the bad guys, and not shooting innocent civlians. The game spans a variety of scenic locals and situations, though the gameplay is always the same. The graphics are unabashedly cartoony but attractive, and while the gameplay never really changes there’s enough variety to keep you occupied for a while at the very least. For a freebie, this one’s a definite download.
Bowling for Burgers: (7.0MB) A bowling tournament between burger joints? It could happen I guess. In the 50s. Fortunately that’s the sort of theme PDAMill aimed for here in Bowling for Burgers, a fairly standard Flash-style bowling game with selectable characters, each with their own strengths and weaknesses. Sound is good here; control really botches it though. It’s the usual swipe to bowl but it’s almost impossible to get a reliable speed when you swipe, and the lane is so small that accuracy is diminished. It’s presented well enough, but with the dodgy controls I can really only recommend this one while it’s free — and even then it’s not likely something you’ll be keeping around long.
Glyphos: Visual Puzzles: (2.3MB) Now this one ain’t bad by half. Glyphos is a picross game that adds the bonus of having coloured picross puzzles thrown in for good measure. There are puzzle sizes ranging from 6×6 to 12×12 (in increments of 2), and if the larger sizes get a bit too tough to click on, there’s a handy zoom feature that pops up a movable magnifying glass to make it easier to tap on squares. The aforementioned coloured puzzles turn up as you progress through the levels and add a fair but of extra challenge to the already oft-challenging picross puzzles. There are 50 puzzles for each board size for a total of 200 puzzles across the board, so there’s plenty to keep you busy here. Definitely one to grab for any picross fan.
Melonchi Minecarts: (12.9MB) Conceptually, Melonchi Minecarts is pretty much the same transport game idea as the ice puzzles in Chip’s Challenge, or iPhone games like Mouse About. In Melonchi Minecarts, you have to connect all of the gems on the screen with tracks that your little dude in a minecart will ride in order to collect said gems. For whatever reason though, you cheaped out when buying the tracks because you got such an irresistable deal on the variety that explodes when rolled over, so you can only travel over normal tracks once. Melonchi Minecarts is a spinoff of PDAMill’s popular Arvale series, and it’s a pretty well done game all in all — the usual PDAMill graphical styling and decent music and stuff. Very much worth grabbing while the grabbing is good.
Gamebox Sudoku: (2.9MB) I hate Sudoku. Yes, I am compelled to say that every time I run across a Sudoku game. Deal. Having gotten that out of the way, This is a fairly pretty Sudoku game rocking a distinctly neon/liquid blue motif. There are multiple board layouts, hints, and unlimited undo/redo. I don’t suppose there’s really a whole lot more I can say about it. I mean, it’s Sudoku, and there’s only so much you can do with Sudoku without turning it into something that’s not Sudoku — which I probably wouldn’t mind, since I hate Sudoku and all. I mean, Hot Box was a pretty cool looks-like-Sudoku-but-isn’t game. I liked that.
Gamebox Gems: (10.8MB) Now we dive into the clone anthologies. Apart from the above Sudoku game, PDAMill’s Gamebox series were collections of familiar-but-renamed-for-legal-reasons games, each collection featuring several well-known variants of popular games. Gamebox Gems amasses 8 match-3 game variants into one Forrest-Gump-approved box. Here, you’ll find Jewel Master (SameGame), Rising Diamonds (Fire Drop), Ruby Connection (Shisen-Sho, or the 2D variant of Mahjong or Shanghai), Crystal Cave-In (Connect 4, or in this case, 5), Sapphire Spires (Columns, kinda), Sunstone Swap (Bejeweled), Stone Stacker (Columns) and Stacker Plus! (Columns … but, like, more.) Good graphics ‘n stuff, but fairly average fare for the type. Still, for free, anyone who hasn’t already tired of the match 3 genre can’t go wrong here.
Gamebox Asia: (8.3MB) Three Mahjong/Shanghai variants here: Standard Mahjong (Shanghai), Shisen-Sho, which is like a single-level Shanghai where pairs of pieces must be removed from the board, but can only do so if they can be connected by a line that makes no more than two turns; and Nagori, a memory game using the Magjong tiles. Boards can have different configurations and difficulty levels, and there’s full help available if you need it. Very nice graphics on this one, and of course the same addictive gameplay that marks these sort of games. Probably the best of the Gamebox series of games.
Gamebox Classics: (15.0MB) A collection of 6 classic arcade and computer games. This lot features Blocks (Tetris), Blocks Plus! (Tetris with multicoloured blocks), Snake (obvious), Jewel Master (same as in the Gamebox Gems pack), Cannons (your basic artillery game), and Fireball (Breakout/Arkanoid). Once again, a variety of clones, and some pretty decent graphics throughout. The drone in Cannons is fairly stupid though, so it’s pretty easy to beat. Generally speaking each of these games have better counterparts as individual games in the App Store — but once again, we’re talking about a collection that is presently free and can be had all in one app, so it’s a bit hard to find a legitemate complaint here when PDAMill is just saying “Oh, who cares if it sucks, take it, it’s free!” Okay, it doesn’t suck, it’s a little better than mediocre, but y’know.
Fun Factory: (11.4MB) This last collection features 5 casual games lumped into one app wrapped up in the back story that you’ve taken a job that manufactures uh … fun … stuff … and you must accomplish different tasks on each day of the week. On Monday, Slider has you unscrambling pictures in a standard number puzzle type game. Tuesday, Crane puts you in quality control as you pick off defective toys moving along an assembly line. On Wednesday, it’s Memory time as you match identical items in your capacity as an agent of quality assurance. Thursday brungs Selector, where you step into logistics and direct the right shipments to their proper destination. Finally, you round off the week with “environmental remediation” wherein Balloons has you popping balloons for some absurd reason about animals eating them when they’re released or some damn thing. The game can be played in story mode, where you run through the days consecutively, or you can practice any of the days as you see fit. Not a bad collection, but pretty basic when you get right down to it. It kind of reminds me of the classic 8-bit game Lazy Jones, only without the humour.
Sure, not all titles here are keepers depending on your gaming proclivities, but the cool thing about having this many freebies running loose is that there’s a little something for everyone in here. There is no indication on any of the game descriptions as to whether this is a permanent or temporary freebie — PDAMill being a well-established mobile gaming house however, I imagine this is only temporary, and FSM only knows how long it’s going to stay free, so if you want some o’ this, grab whatever tickles your fancy at your earliest convenience lest you miss out.
(Note: Header link above and badge link below both go to PDAMill’s “artist” page on iTunes. Click on the individual game names to go to the specific game page in iTunes.)
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Posted in Games: Arcade, Games: Board/Dice/Card, Games: Casual, Games: Logic & Puzzle
