TouchArcade Rating:

The idea behind the TouchArcade Game of the Week is that every Friday afternoon we post the one game that came out this week that we think is worth giving a special nod to. Now, before anyone goes over-thinking this, it doesn’t necessarily mean our Game of the Week pick is the highest scoring game in a review, the game with the best graphics, or really any other quantifiable “best" thing. Instead, it’s more just us picking out the single game out of the week’s releases that we think is the most noteworthy, surprising, interesting, or really any other hard to describe quality that makes it worth having if you were just going to pick up one.

These picks might be controversial, and that’s OK. If you disagree with what we’ve chosen, let’s try to use the comments of these articles to have conversations about what game is your game of the week and why.

Without further ado…

Bounty Hunter Space Lizard

I was drawn to Bounty Hunter Space Lizard (Free) from developer Stay Inside Games based on its wacky premise alone. You’re a lizardperson going through some heavy stuff, man. You’re bumming around space in your space van, trying to figure things out and clear your head. Your space van bites the dust and you find yourself stranded and struggling just to survive. Right after a near death experience, it hits you: You should become a bounty hunter. Yes, that is the solution to all your problems! Because why wouldn’t it be? With a renewed sense of purpose you start searching out those with a bounty on their head.

No, none of this makes much sense, but it doesn’t matter because all it serves to do (besides amuse weirdos like myself) is provide a reason to move through roguelike settings collecting bounties on enemies and testing your strategy prowess. Bounty Hunter Space Lizard is turn-based, meaning none of the enemies on the screen will make their move until you’ve made yours. Like one of its inspirations, the classic Hoplite, Bounty Hunter Space Lizard requires you to be very careful and aware of your positioning and use every little trick you can to be successful.

One of my favorite aspects about the game and one of the twists that sets it apart from similar roguelikes is the ability to “wrap around" from one side of the screen to the other. This opens up all sorts of different strategies than if you were confined to a set of four walls. And not only can you physically move from one edge of the screen to the other, adding a huge wrinkle to that whole positional awareness thing I mentioned before, but you can also fire your weapon and have it wrap around and strike enemies who are in your bullet’s path. This one little feature totally changes the way you’d typically approach a game like this, and it’s awesome.

This is all in addition to the more traditional aspects of a roguelike strategy game, like managing your resources and items, upgrading your attributes and abilities, and constantly weighing the risk versus the reward of any particular situation. If the mention of Hoplite perked up your ears, then I can pretty much guarantee you’ll enjoy Bounty Hunter Space Lizard. And if you aren’t quite sure, well it’s totally free with ads and a one-time IAP to remove them if you enjoy it, so there’s no reason not to check out one of the quirkiest but also one of the most tactical roguelikes on mobile with Bounty Hunter Space Lizard.