Welcome to ‘This Week’s Games’ and already we are predicting this to be one of the best weeks for game releases this month! So sit back, get your App Store ready, and enjoy our preview of this week’s upcoming games.

Fairystone (by Odenis Studio) — June 25th

It’s peaceful, positive and beautiful and you can do so much with it. Construct your home, invite fairies, and create an incredible ecosystem full of life and magic. Truly, there is no limits for your imagination: you could compose music, create a castle, fly like a bird, and so much more.

Fairystone is probably as close to Minecraft an app can get without being sued. It is a sandbox game which allows you to construct many buildings and homes. The game runs natively on iOS at an impressive 60fps and has amazing graphics, making the environments look very good. Not much more is known about the game as its developers have decided to keep quite, but we do know it is out on Thursday.

Fort Meow (by Surprise Attack Games) — June 25th

Fort Meow is a pillow fort physics-based puzzle adventure involving cats, destruction and a dusty old manor.

Nia has ventured into her grandparents attic to read her grandfathers journal, but her grandmother has turned into a crazy cat lady. Use the surrounding objects to build a fort to protect Nia from the attacking Cats. Is it just me, or should Nia be more worried about the floating objects! Fort Meow releases on iPad and PC.

LEGO Batman: Beyond Gotham (by Warner Bros.) — June 25th

The best-selling LEGO Batman franchise returns in an out-of-this-world, action-packed adventure! Play as Batman and join forces with characters from the DC Comics universe as you blast off to outer space to stop the evil Brainiac from destroying Earth.

The first of the two LEGO games releasing this week, enough to make any LEGO fan happy. The incredibly popular LEGO Batman is back in the next installment of the iOS hit. Play as any of the 100 available characters, or as Batman (just so you can say “i’m Batman”) as you try to gain control of the lantern rings. There are over 45 missions to play, and as always this LEGO game offers great value for money.

LEGO Minifigures Online (by Funcom) — June 29th

Get ready to meet the Minifigures! Collect them all and bring them with you on grand adventures in LEGO Minifigures Online – an epic online adventure where you get to explore colorful locations such as Pirate World, Space World and Medieval World!

Although not technically coming out till next Monday, we have included it in todays post to not miss it. The game has been out as a F2P game on PC for sometime now. Funcom and LEGO though have decided to take the step and turn it into a premium title now, and in doing so also release it onto iOS. The game plays like an RPG as you and friends play online and discover various different areas, all unsurprisingly consisting of LEGO. On top of completing quests you can also unlock minifigures to play as.

Pixels (by Namco Bandai) — TBA

This summer, it’s game on or game over! When aliens misinterpret video feeds of classic arcade games as a declaration of war, they attack the Earth in the form of the video games.

Two games in a row that have movies based on them! Pixels the video game is releasing sometime before the end of June in collaboration with the upcoming release of the movie by the same name. Not much has been mentioned about the game, all we know is what was said at Global Gamers Show by the games producers who said “it would be a tower defence game with the added ability of players being able to fire manually.” We expect the game to release this week, possibly on Thursday.

Also coming this week:

• Arrow (by Ketchapp) — June 25th
• Downton Abbey: Mysteries of the Manor (by Activision) — June 25th
• Furdemption (by RareSloth) — June 25th
• Piloteer (by Fixpoint Productions) — June 25th
• Space Platform (by Ahmed Imam) — June 25th

If you are a developer or publisher with a game coming out soon, and want to see your game featured, send us a tweet or contact us via email.

Apps over the years have changed in terms of pricing. It used to be the case where you had a free “lite” version of a game, and a pro version. In-app purchases were to remove ads and enhance the experience. Now, almost no apps have a lite version, and the majority of in-app purchases are used to actually play the game.

Apple has begun highlighting non-freemium games in a new section of the App Store the companies calls, “Pay Once & Play”. The company describes the section as “great games with no in-app purchases”. First spotted by MacStories, the section is divided into three categories: Recent Releases, Blockbuster Games and App Store Originals. Some of the popular titles include: Minecraft, Thomas Was Alone and Threes!.

Here are a few more games listed in Pay Once & Play:

• Blek
• Hero Emblems
• XCOM: Enemy Within
• Battleheart Legacy
• Space Marshals
• Goblin Sword
• Gunbrick

The section was first spotted in the UK, and has since spread all across the world to places like Europe, the United States, and various other countries.

From the description on Youtube:

Block Fortress is an iOS exclusive game that combines the freedom and creativity of block-building games like Minecraft, the strategy of tower defense, and the action of first-person shooters into one totally unique gaming experience. It offers more than 30 different building blocks, 16 different turret blocks, and tons of additional items to build (including mining blocks, lumber blocks, storage crates, power generators, and much more). It also includes many different weapon and item upgrades for your character – all brought to bear against the relentless attacks of the Goblocks!

If you’re excited as much as we are, Block Fortress will land on the App Store March 7th.

Yup, that’s right folks! Mojang has released an update for their highly popular game Minecraft – Pocket Edition featuring some new objects and bug fixes. If you’re interested, you can read the full update log that we have for you to see below and in addition to that, if you want to pick up the lite version click here.

ATTENTION!
Known bug – game may crash when clicking on empty furnace inventory slot.

Minor release 3.2 (Furnaces – No more unlimited items)
– Furnaces! Every available block and item can now be gathered, crafted or smelted into.
– Grow trees! Saplings dropped when harvesting leaf with Shears.
– More tiles such as thin glass, and half blocks in different material.
– Gold, diamond and iron ore can now be gathered (smelt them for stronger tools)!
– Fixes: less flickering/Z-fighting on some devices, mobs have correct health, fixed rendering of fence gates and half blocks in hand.

This update is free to download, however, you can buy the full version on the App Store via this link.

Yup, that’s right folks — just like the computer version of Minecraft, even Minecraft – Pocket Edition has the ability to install custom texture packs as well. Installing texture packs on the mobile version may not be as easy to on the computer version, it’s still worth the extra time if you’re willing to try. Continuing on though, read on below for the full how to guide and all the information you need.

1. Downl0ad iExplorer.
2. Connect your iOS device to your computer.
• Minecraft – Pocket Edition must be installed (of course)!
3. Open up iExplorer.
4. Navigate to “com.mojang.minecraftpe” and open “minecraftpe.app”.
5. Drag and drop the iOS specific texture pack files into the folder.
• Make sure you replace all existing files. Note: Making a backup of the original files is recommended!

In the mean time though, here’s a helpful forum to get you started with on your adventure to find texture packs.