Game On: Pokémon Sleep, Stardew Valley+, Dead Cells, Netflix Gaming, Unity’s PolySpatial Beta, and Epic Games’ Battle with Apple

The videogame industry is huge, surpassing movies and music by wide margins. Apple has seen a lot of success with mobile games, but it’s history with desktop gaming leaves a lot to be desired. However, one thing is clear. Apple wants to expand its presence in the videogame industry and sees Apple silicon as the key to its success.

While the jury’s still out whether the company’s ambitions will succeed, beginning today, we’ll be publishing periodic roundups highlighting the biggest news in gaming on Apple’s platforms. From the iPhone and iPad to the Mac and Vision Pro, we’ll cover the big name games coming to Apple devices, along with notable industry and developer news.

What the Golf? running on visionOS. Source: Unity.

This week, Unity announced a beta program for PolySpatial, a tool for visionOS developers that integrates with other Unity tools to help developers bring their Unity-based games to Apple Vision Pro. I wrote about the company’s announcement, which also revealed that Triband’s What the Golf? is being adapted for visionOS, earlier this week where you’ll find links to Unity’s blog post about PolySpatial and its beta program.

This week, I also covered a story by Lewis Gordon on The Ringer that takes an in-depth look at Netflix Games’ history and ambitions. It’s a fascinating look at a the video streaming company’s efforts to place a lot of small bets on mobile platforms like the iPhone and iPad, as well as console and PC gaming, in an effort to stay relevant to its subscribers.

Pokémon Sleep.

There was big game news this week too. Pokémon Sleep, a gamified sleep tracking app from The Pokémon Company that’s been in development since at least 2019 debuted on iOS and Android. According to Ash Parish at The Verge:

Sleep works by having you place your phone on your pillow after doing any of the fifty ‘leven million Pokémon-themed activities you can do nowadays. (Back in my day, all we could do was catch ‘em all — all 151 of them — and we liked it!) The app purports to track your sleeping habits via your phone, and when you wake up in the morning, the app will tell you how well you slept and compare your sleeping style to that of other ‘mon.

If you think Pikachu might help you get a good night’s sleep, you can download the game from the App Store here.

Dead Cells.

Touch Arcade reported on a couple of popular iOS games this week too. Dead Cells, one of my all-time favorite iOS games, recently got the highly-anticipated Return to Castlevania DLC on iOS and Android, so the site’s Mikhail Madnani wrote a comparative review covering the DLC on multiple mobile platforms.

Stardew Valley.

Stardew Valley+ is out on Apple Arcade today with support for the iPhone and iPad. Touch Arcade also reported on the upcoming update to Stardew Valley. Version 1.6 isn’t out yet, but its creator, Eric Barone, recently posted on Twitter about the update, which Touch Arcade’s Madnani says:

will bring in a new festival, new items, more dialogue, secrets, and more.

There’s no release date yet, but if past updates are any indication, version 1.6 should be a lot of fun.

Finally, the litigation battle between Epic Games and Apple continues. Epic didn’t get a lot from its antitrust case against Apple, but the court did rule that Apple would have to make adjustments to some of its App Review Guidelines. However, as Richard Lawler of The Verge reported, the judge agreed to postpone the implementation of the new anti-steering rules until after Apple appeals the court’s decision to the US Supreme Court.

Game On is periodic roundup highlighting the biggest news in gaming on Apple’s platforms. From the iPhone and iPad to the Mac and Vision Pro, Game On covers the big-name games on Apple devices, along with notable industry and developer news.