Top 5 Apps of the Week: Racing, a Fighting game and Child Creativity!

We're not just throwing five apps and mobile games at you at random, but carefully curated software. Android or iOS, free or paid, productivity app or shooting game - everything is included. We install these apps, try them out, and sort out the apps that just want to take money out of your pocket or that simply have no added value.

Do you incur costs, are there advertisements or are there other pitfalls? If so, we'll let you know in our app description. This week we're getting you excited right at the start with Dreamdale—a game that doesn't really want to decide which genre it belongs to. Perhaps it's best to decide for yourself and give it a try. Shades is a little more straightforward: A solid fighting game where you should trust your skills of hands and feet.

With Pok Pok, we also cover your children's creative side. CSR Racing 2, on the other hand, is a simpler game that satisfies the visual senses. Because the garage wants to be filled with licensed street cars by winning the quarter mile. The final pick is aBattery, which gives you a deeper insight into your battery status. However, you should know how to debug.

Dreamdale (Android & iOS)

From SayGames comes a game with strategy/building game and RPG elements, which is nevertheless a casual game. In Dreamdale, you are the hero who has to free his kidnapped princess. Okay, my thought in such a kidnapping situation wouldn't be: "Let's develop the island here before I look for my lady of the heart", but that's just the way the game is now.

First of all, you cut down trees and chop stones, so you gain resources. Some of these can then be processed further and are used, among other things, to expand the island piece by piece. You can go fishing with a small boat and later visit/conquer other islands with a ship. Spoiler: If you free your princess, the game is not over, but you move with her into a den, which must also be furnished from then on.

So you fight your way through dungeons like in a role-playing game, build your island like in other building games, and furnish your house like in The Sims or something. The best of all worlds, so to speak

• Price: free / Advertising: oh, yes / In-app purchases: yes / Account required: no

SayGames offers you all this but bombards you with advertising. There are videos that you have to endure and videos that you can endure. You can voluntarily click on the latter, which is highly recommended, as they save you valuable time in acquiring the resources you need. You can unlock these ads for just under a tenner and of course, there are many other in-app purchases. However, these are not necessary to progress in the game.

Even after freeing the princess, there are plenty of quests. Other residents help you build up resources, you have to expand your storage and production capacities and therefore have your hands full for a long time. The quests will sometimes take you to other islands, where you can fight monsters in dungeons and collect goodies, or simply develop new lands and resources.

A little tip for those who are annoyed by the advertising: You can also play the game offline. So cut the connection and play more relaxed, but then without the helpful voluntary videos. For me, the game is very relaxing fun with cuddly graphics, despite the advertising.

• Download Dreamdale from the Google Play Store and the Apple App Store.

Shades: Shadow Fight Roguelike

Get your blood pressure monitor ready, because things are about to get wild. Shades: Shadow Fight Roguelike is not for the faint-hearted or slow to react. Fight your way through countless opponents with different fighting skills. But be careful, every step could mean the end.

The combat action is simple, you have a weapon or use kicks and punches to fight your way through the levels. The special thing here: You get a reward after every fight. This increases your health points or increases your chance of dealing critical damage. Believe us, you'll be grateful for every bonus because the opponents are really tough right from the start.

• Price: free / Advertising: yes / In-app purchases: yes / Account required: no

There are further rewards after each passage. Weapons and armor await you here, which you can then upgrade. To do this, you use the resources that you acquire during the course of the game with each further victory.

All in all, Shades: Shadow Fight Roguelife is a really nice way to pass the time, with simple yet attractive fighting animations. What's Tekken when you can also play Shades: Shadow Fight Roguelike?

• Download Shades: Shadow Fight Roguelikefrom the Google Play Store and the Apple App Store.

Pok Pok (iOS)

Do you have small children at home or in the family? Then you probably know how creative they are at creating a whole universe full of life from a pile of dead building blocks. The Pok Pok app currently has 17 virtual playrooms full of interactive objects and aims to encourage precisely this approach.

The app is primarily aimed at children between the ages of two and seven and follows the Montessori approach, in which children find a prepared environment in which they can find their own way. So there is no pre-prepared action, but—like building blocks—lots of objects that can perform their own actions and interact with each other in a variety of ways.

• Price: 7 days free, $6.99 per month or $45.99 per year / advertising: no / in-app purchases: no / account required: no (but subscription)

In the game rooms, the little ones can push figures around and feed them with honey that falls from virtual beehives. Or they push individual parts back and forth in ball tracks and thus influence the tracks. Or they can build their own figures from heads, torsos, and legs. Or build their own living village from small tiles.

You or your children can try out the app free of charge for seven days. After that, the app costs either 6.99 euros per month or 45.99 euros per year. This week, Tok Tok also won an App Store Award for 2023.

• Download Pok Pok from the Apple App Store.

CSR Racing 2: Drag car racing

If you are looking for car racing with particularly high-quality graphics and little demand on your driving skills, then my tip today, CSR Racing 2: Drag Car Racing, should be the best choice. As the name suggests, it's not so much about hitting the perfect apex in a bend to accelerate out of it at exactly the right moment - no, it's all about the quarter mile and finding the right moment to change gear.

• Price: free / Advertising: yes / In-app purchases: yes / Account required: no

As already mentioned, the highlight of this game is the graphics. The fleet of almost 50 different vehicles does not include fantasy cars, but licensed and roadworthy cars from Audi, BMW, Bugatti, Ferrari, Mercedes, Porsche, Lamborghini, and many other models that you would probably never be able to afford in real life. By now you know that such licenses always entail a hefty purchase price for the game.

But in this case that's not a problem, because in principle you can enjoy the game for a long time without having to invest a penny. Of course, you can spend up to $9.99 euros when buying your next tuning parts, because you can customize everything on your vehicles, from the appearance and interior to the engine, exhaust, and chassis parts. So take another look in your garage and under the hood before the next drag race, because the money you won in the last street race will make CSR Racing 2: Drag Car Racing twice as much fun.

• Download CSR Racing 2: Drag Car Racing from the Google Play Store and the Apple App Store.

aBattery (Android)

In addition to all the games, we also have a really exciting app for your cell phone that will help you keep track of everything. We're talking about aBattery, which gives you precise information about your battery status. However, this only applies to Android smartphones and some of the information is only available for smartphones with Android 14. You also need to activate debugging via Wi-Fi and download Shizuku from the Google Play Store.

• Price: Free / Advertising: No / In-app purchases: No / Account required: No

Once you have installed Shizuku, you need to activate the developer options. This is quite quick. Open your settings and look for the item "About phone", tap on it and then look for the build number. Press it seven times and you have activated the developer options. Now open these and search for "Debugging via WLAN". Activate the item and then hold it down for approx. 3 seconds to open the context menu. There you only have to activate the pairing mode.

Now all you have to do is start debugging via Shizuku and you can distribute the necessary authorizations in aBattery to read out the battery data. On the Google Pixel 6, you can already see that the maximum capacity has decreased slightly and has already gone through 302 charging cycles. So if you want to check whether everything is OK with your battery, these small steps and the aBattery app are definitely worthwhile.

• Download aBattery from the Google Play Store.

That's it for our apps of the week. Enjoy them - and continue to enjoy this 1st Advent. The nextpit editorial team wishes you a great rest of the weekend and a relaxed start to the new week!