Neverball: A Free Alternative to Super Monkey Ball
posted July 8th, 2008 1:15 PM EDT by blakespot in Jailbreak, Maze, iPhone games, iPod touch games
Too fond of your jailbroken iPhone or iPod touch to go “iPhone 2.0″ on the 11th? Not looking forward to your friends with updated iPhones waving Super Monkey Ball in your face? Well, beat them to the punch–right now–with Neverball for the jailbroken iPhone and iPod touch.
Developer Lazrhog who brought us the port of Kenta Cho’s excellent Noiz2sa has been busy porting the Super Monkey Ball-inspired Neverball to the iPod touch. He recently released v1.0 to the public; it can be accessed from Installer.app.
From Wikipedia:
The main gameplay of Neverball is based on moving a ball using gravity by tilting the game world, not directly controlling the ball (it is somewhat similar to the game Labyrinth without the holes in the middle). The mouse (or a similar pointing device), keyboard, or joystick tilt the level to help guide the ball to a goal, via an obstacle course, with a set time limit. Moving platforms and other crazy objects get in the way, making levels progressively harder. To unlock the goal on each level, the player must collect a required amount of coins. Coins come in three different colors: yellow, red and blue. Yellow coins are worth 1, red are worth 5 and blue are worth 10 coins or points. Collecting 100 coins gains an extra life.
Neverball is free software under the GNU General Public License and is also avaialble for Mac OS X, Windows, Linux, FreeBSD, and the Sega Dreamcast.
Neverball is not currently slated for release through the iTunes App Store because the developer does not own a Macintosh and, as such, cannot utilize the iPhone SDK for development. He is currently trying to raise enough money through donations on his product pages to secure a Mac and release his titles for iPhone 2.0 devices. Looking at the quality of his ports, we hope Lazrhog reaches his goal, and fast!
July 8th, 2008 at 2:28 pm
Just downloaded it and played a couple levels…flipping awesome. With skills like that, how in the heck does this guy not have enough money for a Mac?
July 8th, 2008 at 3:14 pm
yep, hopefully this guy will get a Macbook soon.
July 8th, 2008 at 11:54 pm
Skills and greed do not always go hand in hand. I’d always found it amusing that many starving great artists works gained in value after they died. The Neverball author needs to hire himself a manager.
July 9th, 2008 at 5:58 am
Always funny watching developers fail at their own games.
…
or was that someone else playing?
July 9th, 2008 at 2:21 pm
Maybe I’m crazy, maybe I’m blind, but this is like the Nth time that I’ve read (here and elsewhere) that something “can be accessed from Installer.app.” No, it’s not.
So then, I:
Update my Installer.app, refresh all sources, still not there.
Follow *every link on the page* looking for a repository address to add to Installer.app. Nothing.
Google for any related info in the hopes that there’s some info that wasn’t in, or linked to via, the original article. Nope.
So can anyone tell me where the hell to get this and try it out? Normally I love all the apps that everyone releases via Installer.app or elsewhere, but this is one of the *many* times I’ve found something that I’m dying to try out, but there’s zero information on how or where to *get it.* =
July 9th, 2008 at 4:10 pm
Whenever I post an Installer.app story, I do think to get the repo link. Somewhere in my prep for this article I saw it, but at publish time I just could not find it. I checked my Installer.app (unmodified repo list) and saw the game there - so I let it go.
I’ll see if I can find the link. A valid criticism.
July 9th, 2008 at 8:20 pm
Hey Blake,
Apologies if my comment sounded like a rant on Touch Arcade - was meant to be more of a universal criticism of *many* sites that omit the actual info! In every case that comes to mind, articles here have add all the info needed. =)
Thanks a bunch though!
July 9th, 2008 at 9:35 pm
Looks like it’s here
http://thebigboss.org/repo.xml
July 10th, 2008 at 2:44 am
Cant wait!
September 1st, 2008 at 5:57 am
Yeah i dont think the game has been ported to version 2.0+ so you wont be able to aquire this game. The game was awesome, more engaging than monkey ball i reckon. But i did play this 3 months ago. But compared to monkey ball i think this game is better. Go Lazrhog!
October 10th, 2008 at 5:15 pm
I still can’t find the game, and the source on this page does not work. Can someone please post a new source that works I really am excited to play this game. Thanks