One-hundred and forty-three in a series. Welcome to this week's overview of the best apps and games released for Windows 8.x/10 in the past seven days.
Microsoft released a new Windows Insider build yesterday and revealed that more than 75 million devices are running Windows 10 one month after release.
Only a handful of apps and games were released this week, and none received the best of the week award.
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.
Discounts This Week
Red Stripe Deals are back. Microsoft added them to the new Windows 10 Store. You find them listed under Collections when you open the store.
- Halo: Spartan Assault, action game in the Halo universe for $2.99
- Halo: Spartan Strike, another action game in the Halo universe for $2.99
- Jewel Tree: Match It (Full), a puzzle game for $0.99
- Extreme Landings Pro, a flight simulator for $4.99
- LightTrac, a tool for outdoor photographers for $0.99
- Files&Folders Pro, a file manager for Windows 10 for $1.99
App of the week
No award this week.
Other apps
Better StartMenu ($2.99, free trial available)
Better StartMenu enables you to create custom tiles for Windows 10's Start menu.
The program requires a helper application that you need to download from the developer website to create the tile.
Once it has been created it is displayed in the app which lets you pin it to the Start menu of the operating system.
The program is versatile as it supports running all kinds of apps and desktop programs but also files, folders, web pages or shortcuts.
Set Sail (free trial available)
Set Sail is a simulation game in which you buy, repair and sell sailing ships in the Caribbean.
To do that you need to keep an eye on your gold, wood and workers, build and upgrade shipyards and other buildings, and make sure you buy ships on the cheap and sell them high.
You need to complete specific goals in each level of the game and use new buildings and options provided in those as well to make sure you reach it before the time runs out.
The game itself is simplistic but fun to play if you enjoy simulation games.
The application rotates local or remote wallpaper images automatically after setup.
It retrieves images from Bing or uses local images exclusively for that.
The app lacks the versatility of desktop programs such as Wallpaper Juggler that support features such as setting custom intervals and downloading wallpapers from several Internet resources.
Binary Enigma ($0.99, free trial available)
Binary Engima is a challenging puzzle game in which you need to fill each tile with 0 or 1 following simple rules:
- Each row needs to be unique and have the same number of zeros and ones.
- No more than two zeros or ones can be next to each other either vertically or horizontally.
All levels can be solved following these basic rules. The free trial version features 75 levels and access to the daily challenge while the paid version unlocks harder levels and beat the developer options to challenge friends.
Record daily activities to keep a record of them. The app displays various activities in its interface which you can select to start keeping track of its time.
Activities are limited to those provided by the application, and there does not seem to be an option to add past activity information to the application either.
Ocean Runner 3D is an endless running game in which you try to survive for as long as possible.
Swipe left and right, up and down to avoid obstacles scattered along the way and collect coins and puzzle pieces.
New levels are unlocked automatically when you collect all four puzzle pieces in previous levels.
Important Updates
- Age of Empires: Castle Siege received a big update that changes various game mechanics.
- Live Streaming displays ads now to free users. There is an option to remove ads by purchasing the Ad Removal option that was integrated into the app.
- Torrex, a BitTorrent client has been updated for Windows 10.