Out at GDC 2010 last week I had a chance to sit down with Wes Paugh of Dinofarm Games to get a bit of hands-on time with their upcoming iPhone roguelike, 100 Rogues, which we covered, most recently, last month.
Wes explained that 100 Rogues is designed to be approachable by adventure gamers that aren't necessarily hardcore roguelike aficionados. The game features a modern, enhanced graphics set that should appeal to players more than the fairly sparse presentation of most roguelikes out there. Certain options and items have been kept more basic, as well, in the name of keeping things straight forward for the player. For example, there are only two character classes: Fairy Wizard and Human Crusader, and there are a good number of items to collect and equip along the way, but not the thousands of obscure scrolls found in the more traditional roguelike offerings.
100 Rogues, a name inspired by the SNES title 100 Worlds Quest, features not only an array of dungeon enemies, such as Bats, Rats, Skybabies, Gypsies, and Bandits, but also the occasional boss enemies, including a Genie and even Satan himself. A tap-based inventory and attack menu system designed to be quickly accessible on the iPhone has been implemented.
The initial release will feature two game worlds, with four to five additional worlds to be made available down the road through updates.
Have a look at the brief gameplay video we were able to capture during our meet.
The iPhone is happily host to several excellent roguelike dungeon crawlers, including Rogue Touch [$2.99] and Sword of Fargoal [$4.99]. Based on what I saw of 100 Rogues at GDC, Dinofarm's own take on the formula is sure to be listed among those of quality.
100 Rogues is set to appear in the App Store in just a couple of weeks.
Gamenauts has been a game developer since 2005 with titles for the PC, DS and Wii. The company, however, is about to make their first move into iPhone gaming with a brand new title called Stickbound.
The game centers around a new gameplay mechanic where the character extends a stick to pole vault themselves throughout the level. The came consists of a series of platforms that must be navigated as you try to get as far as possible.
As you can see from the video, tapping on screen extends the stick in that direction. Well timed and placed taps will keep your character in motion as you try to make it farther. Falling in between the platforms results in your demise. The game is expected to have global high scores, unlockable characters as well as mini achievements. Stickbound is due later this month.
While out in San Francisco covering GDC 2010 I saw many games for many platforms, the iPhone among them. Â And I'm happy to report that I didn't encounter a single "bad" iPhone game at any point during the week. The trip reinforced the fact that iPhone gaming is just huge -- and it's growing. And iPad gaming, based on what I saw from numerous developers, is going to be amazing.
But of all the solid titles I spent time with, the one I'm most excited about is Sword & Sworcery EP which we took a brief look at earlier in the week. I've given the game a great deal of thought since we saw it at GDC and wanted to go into a bit further detail and share some additional thoughts on it for our readers.
Sword & Sworcery EP recently won an achievement in art award in the IGF Mobile 2010 competition. It's a stylized, artistic adventure developed by Superbrothers + Capybara Games + Jim Guthrie that dazzles with its rich and mysterious atmosphere established by a unique pixel art graphical presentation, an ethereal soundtrack that sets the mood for every screen, and sparse instructional cues on the outset that make you, the player, feel like a truly small entity in a large, alien world.
The designers call it "i/o cinema."
Right now I can't fully setup the scene for you, as the whole of the scene is still in the minds of the game's creators, not yet entirely implemented on the iPhone. What we were shown at GDC 2010 was meant as a teaser, a taste of the world that will be fully realized in the estimated three months between now and the game's App Store release. But what we did see was, in a word, moving.
In Sword & Sworcery EP, you control a female character exploring a mysterious world. Armed with sword and shield, you begin to explore your edenesque surroundings, tapping and holding in the intended direction of travel. You walk along paths, climb up and down stairs carved into the landscape, wander into the depths of the backdrop -- even walk upon water. Brush a finger across a tree or bush and it responds to your touch.
But why are you here? What is your mission?
As you wander about this strange world you hear the chirping of insects, see various fauna dwelling in the bracken. Before long you encounter a strange being of obvious intelligence peering out at you from the wilderness. It retreats in response to your chase and gives little indication as to whether it is friend or foe. Eventually you follow it into its lair and are challenged to a fight. As you rotate your iPhone to enter the game's fight mode, you begin exchanging blows with this curious character. With some savvy you bring it to its knees, rendering it helpless, waiting for your final blow.
But...do you end this creatures life? Will you deal out death upon this helpless being whose world you have infiltrated? Or will you show mercy?
I will tell you that, in playing the game for less than five minutes, my feeling was that this strange creature was not an enemy. When it came time to deliver the killing blow, I very much felt that it would be wrong to do so. In the interest of fully demonstrating the game, however, I went ahead and ened its life. I regretted having to do so and found that, for hours after I set the game down, I felt guilty for having slaughtered what may have been a peaceful and benevolent creature. The experience absolutely saddened me.
This, from about four minutes of gameplay in a title that presently exists only as a teaser that presents but a portion of the creators' total vision. I consider my reaction to this experience to be highly telling. I honestly can't recall ever playing a game so emotive, so affecting.
Now, I don't mean to sound like an elitest gamer, or one that looks down my nose at other players, but if all you are interested in is button smashing and explosions, then Sword & Sworcery EP is probably not for you. (And, mind, I do, myself, enjoy a great many button smashers.) But if you are open to a game that can take you on an emotional journey, cause you to examine your own system of morality, and deliver an experience quite unlike anything you have known before, then Sword & Sworcery EP is probably worth your while. (And this is a game, not merely an artistic curiosity -- discussion with the designers about what's to come assured me of that.)
The comment thread trailing from our initial look at the title is lengthy and rather polarized. People seem to either love what we've shown of the game, or hate it. The love points mostly mirror my own, presented here, while the hate points bemoan things like "unsightly", pixellated graphics, "lack of visuals", obviously "boring gameplay", "rehashed crap", and a misspelled title.
The pixel-art graphics serve a two-fold purpose, in my opinion. Use of such a graphical presentation necessarily adds a certain degree of vagueness to what the player is able to know about the onscreen avatar. This vagueness forces the player to become closer to the main character because the image of just what the character looks like exactly involves a bit of imagination on the part of the player. Additionally, the graphics style is a clear nod to Eric Chahi's 1991 classic Another World (a.k.a. Out of this World) which delivers a somewhat similar play atmosphere and was a major inspiration for this title, as designer Craig Adams of Superbrothers revealed to me. And so, if there's any "rehashing" going into Sword & Sworcery EP's equation, it's of Another World, which few would call "crap." And that's not to mention the fact that, as far as pixel art goes, in Sword & Sworcery EP it's original and very well done.
Wanting to share a bit more of the title than is revealed in the twovideos released this week by the developers, we recorded some gameplay on the expo floor at the Superbrothers + Capy + Jim Guthrie booth in the IGF Mobile area. Thanks to Craig for the fingers.
All of us here at TouchArcade find Sword & Sworcery EP to be an amazing piece of work and are extremely anxious to get our hands on the final version in order to discover more about the nature of this mysterious game world. And, if you think what you see here holds little interest for you, well -- you may be right -- but if ever there was a game that might just take you by surprise, I'm guessing this is it. It's a situation that really makes me hope that the developers offer a free, lite version so the haters can at least give it a shot before passing it by.
At any rate, we'll take a very close look at Sword & Sorcerer EP when it hits the App Store mid-summer and let you know what we find.
Autralian-based iPhone developer The Voxel Agents were also present at GDC 2010 and gave us a preview of their next major update to Train Conductor. Train Conductor is a chaos management game that was originally released in December. We reviewed the game and found it to be fun and frantic. The main criticism of the game has been a lack of endless or survival mode -- but readers should be happy to know that this mode will be added to the coming update.
The other big feature for the new version is the addition of new America map and levels (shown above). The new levels we were shown were based on the Grand Canyon and New York City Subway. See our hands on video to see them in action.
The update will be free and due in late April. The current version of Train Conductor remains available for $1.99.
Whether you love or hate ngmoco's new freemium payment model they've implemented in all of their recent games, it's hard to deny the popularity of Eliminate. Eliminate: CO-OP [Free] was released this evening, and as the title may hint, adds a new co-op mode where players team up to fight swarms of attacking bots.
This new game mode also includes all kinds of new loot to collect to turn in to credits for the various armor and weaponry upgrades included in the game to make your character even more powerful.
The recently released trailer shows co-op gameplay:
If you've grown bored of Eliminate in the past, it might be worth giving this new game mode a spin. It seems pretty fun so far, although having played similar game modes in many XBOX 360 games, it really really makes me wish Eliminate included some kind of voice chat.
Back in May of last year a mysterious video appeared on YouTube showing a surprisingly full featured port of Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2 for the iPhone. The next day, the developers clarified that while the game was running amazingly on the iPhone, it was unlikely to ever see the light of day. Disappointed, we eventually just gave up on waiting for Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2 to be released.
Here is a copy of the original Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2 video, although since it was ripped from YouTube and re-uploaded, the quality seems to have taken a substantial hit:
As you can see in the screenshots, it seems that the controls have seen a major overhaul following the initial release of the video. According to Tony Hawk's twitter feed, the game is real, and is going to be available soon.
As someone who played the original Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2 until I broke my Nintendo 64 controller, I cannot wait. We will post any other details we're able to dig up on the game in the future.
At GDC 2009 we had chance to sit down with Engineous Games and have a look at their in-development iPhone game construction set, Sketch Nation Shooter. Â The system was in a very early stage back then and has evolved notably, since. Â We posted a demo video the developers released back in December.
Sketch Nation Shooter, as Engineous describes it,
...allows users to create their own games by drawing a player, enemies and a level on a piece of paper and taking a picture of the drawing with their iPhone camera. Users can then share their creations with their friends and other users. Our unique image recognition technology automatically detects the objects drawn and calculates collision boundaries. Sketch Nation Shooter is the only game to incorporate the iPhone camera in such a way. iPod Touch users can import their drawings through the Photo Library. After the drawings are imported into the game, users will be able to place enemies and powerups as well as set their properties in our easy to use in-game editor and then play with their unique creations.
Here at GDC 2010 a year later we had a chance to meet up with the developer once again and were shown a rather impressive demo of the app in its current state, in which he created a simple game in under two minutes and took us through the paces of several more complex games. Once created, users can share their games with other players online through their Facebook login and compare global high scores.
Have a look at the video we captured that demonstrates the system in action.
It's an impressive piece of work and we're anxious to see how much gaming goodness iPhone gamers can create with the system. Sketch Nation Shooter for the iPhone is expected to arrive in the App Store in early April. The developer indicates that an iPad-specific version down the road is likely.
Team Phobic's sequel to their popular Bounce On platformer for the iPhone has almost arrived. Team Phobic has released the lite version of Bounce On 2 ahead of the full version's release scheduled for March 29th. The original Bounce On has been a consistently popular platformer for the iPhone that was first released December 2008 but has seen consistent update since that time bringing the total level count to 75.
The Lite version contains 3 levels of the new game which features a much enhanced graphical engine which allows for 3D sprites, special lighting effects and even gravity changes. Team Phobic has also adopted a special alternate "key" level system which opens up different paths/objectives on the same physical levels. Like the original, there are special hidden items, this time represented by "phobic coins". In order to make the game more accessible, Team Phobic removed the limited number of lives, now allowing you unlimited retries from the last checkpoint.
Full version features will include:
3 Worlds
Over 100 keys to collect
Boss fights
21 unique musical tracks
Use the accelerometer or touch controls
Plus+ Enabled
iPhone OS 3.0 is required and Team Phobic plans to update the Lite version with additional levels before the full version's launch on March 29th. Try it now for free.
Gameresort showed us their latest game here at GDC. Downhill Bowling 2 provides a sequel to their strangely fun bowling mashup.
Like regular bowling… except you control a bowling ball as it charges down some crazy slopes with jumps, coins, bombs, cannons, speedups, sheep, grow and shrink pickups and mushrooms. Did we mention the raccoons?
The sequel offers the same downhill action but in 3 different environments with 10 levels each. It also introduces a jump button which adds a bit of platforming action to the mix as well as the ability to equip powerups at the beginning of each level.
Here's the sequel in action:
Downhill Bowling 2 is expected for release in summer. In the meanwhile you can still play the original on the web or from the App Store [Free / $2.99]. Gameresort has also been busy over the past year with a casual free bowling game Doodle Bowling [Free] which has gained a huge audience.
Apple has started accepting pre-orders on the Apple iPad for delivery in April. The Wi-Fi version of the iPad will be the first to ship by April 3rd while the WiFi + 3G versions will follow in late April.
Apple announced the iPad originally in January and represents a larger tablet-sized device running Apple's iPhone operating system. The iPad has seen a lot of excitement among developers with several planned game launches designed specifically for the device.
The final game that Gameloft showed us at GDC was Fishing Kings, a fishing simulator that they're hoping to target the hardcore fisherman iPhone owning market segment with. Freeverse's Flick Fishing has been insanely successful, and Fishing Kings utilizes a similar control method in addition to some new cool features in attempt to add another layer of depth to fishing on the iPhone.
The most substantial addition is an underwater camera that allows you to see all the fish near your lure, as well as what your lure is doing. What lure you choose also apparently has an effect on how effective your fishing is with more fun things to fill your tackle available to unlock later in the game.
15 different fishing spots are included spread across 5 unique locations, each with the proper fish for the water you're fishing in to make up 30 fish in all to catch. Al of these things are secondary to the voice acting included in the game. While you're reeling in a fish, the in-game announcer is constantly cheering you on. It's beyond ridiculous, and only made worse due to the typical Gameloft voice acting quality.
Fishing Kings is expected to be available late March.
Steph Thirion is the brains behind Eliss, an independent game that we fell in love with at last year's GDC. Eliss was an excellent example of the sort of innovative gaming that becomes possible with the incredibly low barrier of entry that the App Store provides.
While Eliss was not a runaway success for Thirion, it performed well enough that he has been able to devote his full time to making more games. His latest project is called Faraway and last night, we sat down with Thirion who gave us a demo and explained the inspiration behind the game.
Thirion reveals the seed idea for Faraway was simply to create a game that involved drawing constellations. From this premise, he began testing and exploring various mechanisms to accomplish this. In the end, he was inspired by Canabalt, a game that uses the iPhone's screen as one single large button. Similarly in Faraway your only control is a single button.
Despite that fact, you actually have a lot of control in the game as demonstrated in the video (button presses are off-screen in this demo):
In Faraway, you control a comet by activating a gravitational pull by simply pressing a single button. Each time, it activates a gravitational pull to the nearest star. Using well timed presses, you can slingshot your comet into the right direction. The goal is to create as many complex constellations in the time allotted. Powerups include speed-ups as well as time-extenders. Creating large and looped constellations add to your high score (which will be recording on a global leaderboard). Once time runs out, you are treated with a panning view of the constellations you've created.
Thirion reports the game is very much still in progress and he's planning on performing significant user testing and balancing before release. I really enjoyed my brief time with the game even at this early stage. The single-button slingshot mechanic works really well and trying to precisely create a constellation remained a just-out-of-reach skill, so I'm looking forward to the final release to get a chance to play some more.
During last night's iPhone Developers Union party, here at GDC 2010, I had the chance to sit down with Dan Bliss of BinarySquare and have a look at his new, retro-styled block elimination title Kerplinkus [App Store].
Now, many of you out there are surely thinking you need to see another block elimination game like you need a hole in the head, but Dan has managed to deliver a fresh take on the formula that's simple and highly challenging -- in fact, it can be downright panic inspiring. It works like this: you start off with a playfield consisting of upwardly advancing rows of differing blocks. Particles that match the rising blocks fall from above and, in the case of a match, eliminate the blocks they hit (and any bordering blocks of the same design) or, if the shapes don't match, add a block to the column in question. The goal of the game is to see how long you can keep the tallest column from touching the top of the screen. The real strategy lies in the fact that you can swap any two of the advancing blocks by tapping one and then the other. The trick is to wisely determine which columns to focus on to keep the game going. It's a pretty frantic affair.
Like BinarySquare's earlier title, Space Out [App Store], the game features a highly-retro, pixellated graphical treatment that lends the title a distinctive look that some gamers (like me) will love. Old school music and sound effects, created using the Commodore 64's famous SID chip, are also featured.
While it's true that the App Store is flooded with block elimination games, Kirplinkus really does deliver a fresh twist on the formula. See BinarySquare's demonstration video for a look at the gameplay.
Yesterday, we met with Glu mobile a development team that has generated a following with a number of fun and different titles including Glyder and Beat It. We took a look a few of their pending games which we've detailed here:
Escape from Nom
Escape from Nom is an original game from Glu that is coming as early as May. The game is a physics puzzler that I think will be of great appeal to fans of iBlast Moki and Peggle. Since the game is so far out, we don't have any screenshots but I was able to play with an early build of the game at GDC.
The game is a level-based physics puzzler comprised of 5 different worlds each with 10 levels. Each level is a single screen with your circular character (Allen) at the top. Your goal is to simply align Allen left/right and drop him into the water below. Each level, however, introduces more and more obstacles as well as enemy "noms" that will eat poor Allen. You are given a set of tools (bumpers, accelerators etc..) that can be placed on screen to bounce Allen around obstacles and get him to the final destination. The game has a very similar play style to the aforementioned iBlast Moki where trial and error is employed to figure out the best path for Allen to go.
Glu already has a level editor in place and expects to allow users to create and share their levels, allowing potentially endless gameplay. We'll hear more about this title in the coming months.
Stranded 2 Mysteries of Time
Their next title Stranded 2 actually was born on traditional mobile phones and is now being brought to iPhone. This sequel will be arriving in mid April and is an adventure/story game set on an island. The game employs an isometric view with virutal d-pad controls. As you explore the island and speak to characters, you are assigned missions and sub-quests as you unfold the mystery of the island.
The game also incorporates time travel as a component where you are sent back and forth during the course of the game. The main story is expected to take a few hours, while completing the side-quests will take much longer.
We should see the game arrive in mid-April.
How to Train Your Dragon
The last game we saw was actually released just yesterday. Fans of Glyder and Glyder 2 will be interested to hear about this cross-branded game based on the upcoming movie How to Train Your Dragon from Dreamworks. The premise of the movie involves a young Viking named Hiccup who manages to capture one of the dragons that have been attacking their village. Unable to bring himself to kill dragon, Hiccup finds himself developing a new friendship.
The game takes place as a sidestory to the movie plot and is narrative based storyline with individual missions. The game should be quite familiar with fans of Glyder as it's obviously based on the same engine and mechanic. Glu has tweaked the gameplay a bit to accommodate the story line -- for example dragon's are not dependent on the thermals to gain altitude.
How to Train Your Dragon is available immediately. Discussion thread available.
The long wait is now over; you can finally play through the whole Puzzle Quest story on your iPhone. Today, TransGaming’s Puzzle Quest was updated to version 1.5 enabling in-app purchases and a few other graphic, sound, and bug fixes.
If you already have Chapters 1 & 2, all you have to do is update your game and visit the in-game store to buy Chapter 3 for only $1.99. If you not sure about buying one of the best RPG puzzlers, download the free version, then purchase chapters 1, 2 and 3 for only $4.99.
TransGaming says that the trilogy includes content from the Revenge of the Plague Lord expansion pack and the original game. Making this a great deal for $4.99 or $6.98 depending on what route you take.
Discussion in our forums has been positive and so far no issues have been reported about the update.
Out at GDC 2010 last week I had a chance to sit down with Wes Paugh of Dinofarm Games to get a bit of hands-on time with their upcoming iPhone roguelike, 100 Rogues, which we covered, most recently, last month.
Whether you love or hate ngmoco's new freemium payment model they've implemented in all of their recent games, it's hard to deny the popularity of Eliminate. Eliminate: CO-OP [
