Best Windows apps this week
One-hundred and thirty-one in a series. Welcome to this week's overview of the best apps and games released for Windows in the past seven days.
The official Dropbox application is universal now, and Microsoft released a new build of Windows 10 for Insiders on the Fast ring.
This week saw the release of several high quality apps and games (mostly games). App of the week is the excellent Pocket client Poki which synchronizes your Pocket articles automatically and features offline access among other features.
As always, if I missed an app or game that has been released this week that you believe is particularly good, let me know in the comments below or notify me via email instead.
The following applications and games are discounted by at least 50 percent this week.
- Dragon's Lair, the classic arcade game for $4.99
- Pettson's Inventions -- Deluxe, a puzzle game for $1.99
- 16bit Trader, a medieval trade game for $0.99
- Cyberlink PhotoDirector Mobile, a photo app for $4.99
- Pilot Brothers 2, an adventure game for $0.99
- Modern File Explorer, a Windows Explorer alternative for $1.49
Best app of the week
Poki is a free Pocket client that you can use as a standalone client on Windows.
The client requires a Pocket account and syncs data using it automatically.
Poki displays all saved pages in its interface, lets you filter the articles in various ways or search for specific articles of interest.
It works online and offline and ships with an achievement system to keep you entertained while you are using the application.
A premium version is available that adds themes, background synchronization and options to update items when offline to the application.
Other apps
This is a basic image editing application which lets you add captions to photos.
The app features several pre-made captions, for instance about love, fun, or birthdays, that you can add to the photo with a couple of clicks or taps.
While that is straightforward, it provides you with options to add custom captions as well. Customize fonts, positions and styles, add artwork or apply filters to the background.
Creations can be saved to the local system or shared directly using Windows' share functionality.
Bun Wars HD is a tower defense game that pushes the unit limit to new heights.
Instead of defeating waves with a couple of dozen attacking units, up to a thousand units attack your positions in a single wave.
The main goal of the game is to defeat your castle against the attacking hordes. You build different types of defensive structures, towers mainly, for that.
You can use the terrain to your advantage, for example, by building towers on hilltops or blocking the advance of enemy units by placing towers strategically in narrow spaces on the map.
Zombies!!! Board Game ($3.99, free trial available)
This is an adaption of the popular board game in which you control one human survivor of a zombie apocalypse.
The game supports up to four human or AI controlled players, and the main task of the game is to reach the helipad and escape the attack before the other players.
The full game supports several standard and custom games modes including survival and automatically generated towns filled with zombies.
Fanband ($1.99)
Fanband is an application for Microsoft Band that requires the device and the Windows Phone version of Fanband.
The app enables you to modify the theme that is shown on the display of your Microsoft Band.
Add your favorite sports team, college or movie character using the application.
Roboto ($2.99, free trial available)
Roboto is a classic platform action game in which you control a robot on a hoverboard.
You get the classic jump and run action but also extra capabilities like hovering in mid air for a brief period of time.
The game's presentation is excellent. It features different worlds to play through, boss battles, different boards and suits to equip and a set of power ups to make things easier for you.
Leo's Fortune ($4.99, no free trial)
Leo's Fortune is a beautifully designed platform game in which you hunt down a thief who stole your gold.
The game features different environments, traps that you need to avoid and physics-based puzzles that you need to solve to advance.
Ice Age Avalanche is a match-3 type of game featuring characters from Ice Age.
The game introduces new elements such as moving items in all directions and not only vertically or horizontally.
Apart from that, it offers more of the same. If you like match-3 type of games, then this is certainly one that you will enjoy.
Astro Bouncer is a casual endless game similar to Flappy Bird.
You control an astronaut who tries to survive for as long as possible by using a jet pack and well-timed jumps to avoid spikes and other elements that hurt you.
While you are doing this, you try to collect stars and power-ups that help you survive longer.
This is a basic game in which you need to drop characters at the right time so that they land in tubes placed in each level.
The game starts off easy but becomes difficult later on when new elements such as rocks, removable bars, bombs or moving characters are introduced.