Goodnight Games has made an interesting action game in Malevolent Machines [$1.99]. It's a game with some clever ideas, and a unique art style that looks both a little ugly and yet detailed and stylish in its own way. It's a game with some bugs and issues, but a lot of good ideas at the heart that shine through the experience. It's an experience that may be off-putting to some folks, but its unique charms and quirks wormed its way into my heart as an entertaining and unique action game.

Malevolent Machines has you controlling Dr. Leyla Green, a mad scientist of sorts who commands the deadly Juggerbot and a glowing claw. Her creatures have been set free by a mysterious foe that's her strangely-named assistant, Reginald von Cornballer. That's not exactly his name, but Leyla keeps messing up his name in a running gag, and I'm being thematically appropriate here. If they win, the world's done for, and Dr. Green loses her funding, so in the name of science, she's going to take down her escaped minions. So, through 25 levels and a high-score-chasing survival mode that unlocks once you beat the game, you have to take these foes on in an auto-running action game. The combat has you controlling both Juggerbot and Leyla. You tap to fire with Juggerbot, and then you can swipe up to jump, down to slide, and right to use Leyla's attack that both punches and repels objects. the levels increasingly chain together more and more difficult sequences of enemies, and force you to worry not ju...