Guncho

I am impressed with the consistent quality of games from Arnold and his teams. Guncho is as great a game as Card Thief and Card Crawl. They are all deceptively intricate mechanically, but there is no deception in Guncho. You will realize quickly that the game is unforgiving and each encounter is open to several solutions. I appreciate player choice a lot, especially when it meaningfully impacts the story or gameplay, so I am already hooked. The game is free and not freemium/pay-to-win/etc. Normal mode and daily challenges are available to the player for free without any interruptions. This is consistent among several of Arnold’s games. It is a breath of fresh air in the bloated selection of free mobile games. While there are no interruptions in the free version, it has significantly higher stakes. When you die in a stage, you have a limited number of replays, but these can only be activated by watching ads or purchasing the game. This is the standard of how ads should be implemented, and it says to me that Arnold actually considers the player’s enjoyment when he develops a game.

Bug Report: (“report a problem Just says bad gateway and I didn’t see reporting on linked sites): if leaping away from dynamite the dynamite pushes you away after the leap as though you had been standing next to it. Seems to be checking start of turn flag or something to decide if pushback. ________ This is something to point at regarding smart, concise game design. The controls are smooth by being integrated with the core game mechanics. Typically used do a lot of sub-menu hunting to indicate intent, but this game keeps interactions tight. One of the core conceits, that your direction of shooting is tied to the bullet representation and selection display *seemed* like it would be too surreal to work, but interacts deftly with the pace and strategy of the game. (Adding a bit of planning and play, but not bogging the game down.) Atop all that the game is high-impact + strategy, which makes for fun plays where you set up moves to avoid, attack, and use opposition and environment to your advantage. Great game. Easier to pull up rules for environment objects would be nice though.

I spent quite a lot of time playing Enyo. I found this game, and it seemed like a natural evolution on the concept of the grid based, tactical, turn by turn, butterfly effect game play. Low and behold, I found out they were made by the same people. The game play is clever and effective, the theming is well done, the sound design is great, and the fantasy of being some hardened gun men who knows how to plan ahead is clear. All I ask is that more bosses and content be added, and I would happily buy the full version of this game. Seriously, the music in this game is great. I can’t get that guncho lietmotif out of my ahead.