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When the visually stunning platformer Viking Mushroom went silent after its initial unveiling back in the summer of 2015, nobody was more excited than I was to see it resurrected under a brand new name last month. That new name is Oddmar, and it really looked like the few years of silence were put to good use polishing up the experience. Oddmar is a free movement platformer starring a viking of the same name who is out to protect the world from a bad guy with a humongous nose. Or something like that. It's from some of the folks who are responsible for Leo's Fortune [$4.99], one of the best platformers on mobile, so you know Oddmar is worth getting excited about. We were able to go hands-on with Oddmar during GDC a couple of weeks back, and were really impressed with what we saw. Here's the official trailer again in case you missed it before...
The long-running Habbo franchise gets its latest game, out now on mobile, called Hotel Hideaway [Free], and it's a social MMO where you get to interact with other hotel denizens on a giant, permanent vacation resort. You can do all sorts of stuff. You can spin the wheel for prizes, you can buy new outfits, get a new hair color, mine for new materials from interdimensional rifts...you know, typical vacation stuff. There's also a whole gesture system where you can combine different body parts and movements to do different things, like shaking a giant foam fist at other people. The whole game's a lot about interaction and talking with people, so please don't be a jerk. This hotel is supposed to be classy, don't go telling people to die! But, as a social MMO, I guess that's what people are gonna do...
The classic strategy game title Rome: Total War [$9.99 (HD)] arrived for the iPad in the fall of 2016, and it sure was fun to be able to shape history while on the go. Since then two expansion releases have arrived: Rome: Total War - Barbarian Invasion [$4.99 (HD)] was released just over a year ago and Rome: Total War - Alexander [$4.99 (HD)] released last July. All three games are strictly for the iPad, which makes sense on one hand being that they're menu-intensive games with tons of UI elements and tiny little soldiers running about. On the other hand, that sucks for iPhone owners, you know? ..
Nothing gets my motor humming quite like a highly-polished, mobile-friendly puzzle game, and that looks to be exactly what Soap Dodgem from developer Lost Ducks will offer. You'll guide five different "soap heroes" across a hundred levels in the land of Bathroomia, taking out the menacing "mold creatures" and restoring cleanliness to the land once again. Yes, it's a silly premise, and I love it. The high level of quality is fully on display in the following trailer for Soap Dodgem, which shows off the game's clean visuals (pun intended) and several of the interesting mechanics you'll be up against...
Jam City's upcoming Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery game has a release date, and voice acting talent. The game will release on Wednesday, April 25th, and voice actors from the movies will appear in the game, including Dame Maggie Smith, who played Professor McGonagall in the movies. Michael Gambon, who played Professor Dumbledore in most of the Harry Potter movies, will reprise his role, along with:..
Welcome to the latest SwitchArcade Roundup, where we're covering some interesting tidbits of news on the Nintendo Switch, and running down all the new releases from the past couple of days! PAX East is going on right now, so expect some news on titles on the show floor to pop out, but actual news might be slow, as PR tries to survive four days in Boston. Still, the flow of new releases continues unabated, and there's some interesting stuff still happening around the world of the Switch. Let's dive in, shall we?..
From now until May 17 you can get the brand new Australia DLC for Civilization[Free (HD)] 6 on iPad for 50% off. The Australian faction features full housing from coastal starts. Their districts get improved yields when build in attractive terrain. They also have a new leader that provides bonus production to Australia when they have been the target of a declaration of war or have liberated a city. Led by John Curtin, champion of the Labor Party into and through World War 2, Australia brings with it a number of new goodies to the Sid Meier franchise. ..
Dust: An Elysian Tail [$5.99] is a fantastic combat-heavy Metroidvania-style action adventure game that originally released on Xbox 360 during the summer of 2012 but has since made its way to pretty much every other platform, including a surprisingly great iOS port in October of 2015. Besides being a great game, Dust also made waves for being almost entirely the work of just a single developer, Dean Dodrill of studio Humble Hearts. Given its incredible art and animation and overall level of quality, that's almost impossible to believe, but it's true. ..
I was pretty darn excited to see that Revolutionary concepts, despite mostly being out of the mobile gaming world for a number of years, took the time to update two of their most unique offerings to save them from the 32-Bit Appocalypse last year. First up was UFO on Tape [Free] which received a 64-bit update in March of last year, followed by the phenomenal puzzler Gesundheit! [$2.99 / $2.99 (HD)] which received its 64-bit update the following June. Then this past December, the developers did me one better by updating UFO on Tape with full screen support for the iPhone X, and it looked glorious. Now, following in the footsteps of its partner, Gesundheit! has also received a welcome iPhone X update and it is looking better than ever...
The next Hearthstone[Free] expansion, The Witchwood, finally has a release date and it's next week! The final few card reveals are trickling in and we will be tuning in with Lead Developer Ben Brode and Sean "Day[9]" Plott as they bring in the final 20 cards on April 9 on Hearthstone's twitch channel...
Fighting Fantasy Classics [Free], the latest incarnation of the popular gamebooks of years gone by, is a great delivery system for the top-notch digital conversions developer Tin Man Games has become known for. It launched with a few titles that had yet to get the Tin Man touch, and there are lots more on the way. While the team is busy converting those books, however, they've also pushed out an update that addresses some of the feedback they have received...
It's time once again to round up all the best new iOS game releases of the past 7 days. As is the case with mobile, I'm still struggling to keep up with all the new games that launched last week, and the week before, and the week before that, and… you get the idea. This week is certainly not one to play catch-up with, as there's tons of great stuff hitting the App Store this week. Ava Airborne is the latest from the makers of Hopiko and PKTBALL, and it's an absolute gorgeous experience. Then there's the long-awaited game adaptation of Ken Follett's 1989 novel The Pillars of the Earth, and iOS ports of the '90s point-and-click adventure series Simon the Sorcerer. Truly an eclectic week! So check out the full list of games below and let us know which ones you'll be picking up...
As anyone who is a regular reader of TouchArcade probably knows, we took part in Train Jam 2018 leading up to our week at GDC 2018 last month. If you're unfamiliar, Train Jam began five years ago and is the brainchild of developer and all around game industry bright spot Adriel Wallick and it tasks developers traveling to GDC to create a game in the 50+ hours it takes to ride an Amtrak train from Chicago to San Francisco where GDC takes place. The jam has only grown each year since it began, and this year's Train Jam sold out an entire train's worth of people, which equals roughly 340 riders. The folks from VICE caught wind of Train Jam and decided to tag along for the ride too. The result is this 6-minute video which captures some of the people jamming on the train and their stories, some of the gorgeous scenery, and the all-around great vibes of the entire event...
There are very few games that I've spent as much time on or enjoyed quite as much as Teeny Titans [$3.99] from Cartoon Network and Grumpyface Studios. I was absolutely obsessed with Teeny Titans for weeks after it came out, and then once I beat every mission and upgraded every character, I started all over again. The game was THAT fun. In fact, if not for the phenomenal Crashlands [$6.99] being released the same year, Teeny Titans was in heavy consideration for our Game of the Year 2016 award. So you can probably imagine the delight that is literally coursing through my veins right now due to Cartoon Network and Grumpyface announcing a Teeny Titans sequel called Teen Titans GO Figure! Get it? Go figure? Because you collect figures in the game! I love it! Check out this awesome trailer...
The original Pako - Car Chase Simulator [$1.99 / Free] began life on mobile back in the summer of 2014 as a super fun and stylish endless survival driving game, and it only grew and grew from there with a slew of updates in the years that followed. Eventually it found its way to desktop where it was also quite well-received. For the sequel, developer Tree Men Games went in the opposite direction, creating a game for desktop and console first and then porting it to mobile in January of this year. To get the game working well on mobile, the visuals were toned down and some of the content from the console and PC version was left out, but that didn't stop Pako 2 [$1.99] from being one of the most fun releases of 2018 so far. Now Tree Men are beginning to flesh out the mobile version to bring it more on par with its older siblings, and today a new Pako 2 update has added a new level and three new vehicles into the game...
There has been no slowing the rate at which we have been getting the new Hearthstone[Free] expansion, the Witchwood, card reveals and there is a lot of speculation brewing over the new possibilities these cards will be bringing to the meta game. We've been wondering how they will all rank with the pre-existing in-game collection. Once again we've hand picked a few that really have some tremendous potential and will probably be the cause of joy or despair depending on which side of the table you'll be on when they enter play later this month...
Pokemon GO [Free] will get you to clean up the world soon it seems. Niantic has teamed up with Playmob for an event to clean up the world on April 22nd. This event has been dubbed the Pokémon GO Earth Day Clean Up and it will happen across various locations worldwide. In addition to actually cleaning up, attendees will be able to donate to the Mission Blue Foundation to help support marine protected areas worldwide. The goal of the event is to get trainers to join up and gather garbage and debris in locations that need a lot of work. ..
If I was going to compile a list of my favorite mobile platformers, then the 2016 release Super Cat Tales [Free] from Neutronized would be right near the top. Not only does it contain cats, which is automatic points in my book, but it is filled with colorful visuals and sounds that harken back to the types of happy and fun platformers I'd play on the Super Nintendo back in the day. In fact, with its level of polish, if you replaced the cats in Super Cat Tales with Mario and friends it'd be easy to believe that this actually was a product from Nintendo themselves. So it makes me more than a little excited that Neutronized has just announced a Super Cat Tales sequel with an incredible new trailer...
I recently picked up the Steamworld Dig series on my trusty Nintendo Switch during the recent Easter sale, and I am now completely hooked on any game that involves burrowing into the earth. It's hard to explain, but I now have an insatiable desire to dig into the ground and discover the wonders beneath the surface, and Diggerman looks like it'll be able to scratch this peculiar itch. While slightly more of an arcade experience than Image and Form's cult indie hits - you don't have to worry about retreating back to the surface in Diggerman - the frantic race deep into the earth combined with a need to keep your battery topped up looks like a lot of muddy fun. We first looked at Diggerman back at PAX West last year, but developer Digital Melody has today released a new gameplay trailer showcasing the frenetic action at offer...
Asmodee Digital, the fine purveyors of digital board games across various platforms, today announced a release window for Terraforming Mars from Fryxgames. Originally announced last year for a 2018 release, Asmodee is bringing Terraforming Mars to iOS, Android, and Steam later this quarter. It will be launching next month on Steam through Early Access for people who can’t wait for the final product. Terraforming Mars sees you play as a corporation and create oceans and forests with resources coming from Earth through various game modes. Watch the introduction trailer for the original release below:..
