Dream:scape [$1.99] is a story of death and redemption, a haunting narrative brought to life with Unreal-powered graphics and pitch-perfect sound design. In it, you play Wilson, a coma patient on the verge of death who is given the chance to explore his own memories and discover the truth of a secret that's haunted him throughout his life.

To help you find your way through Wilson's memories, you're given a diary that notes the memories and images you discover on your journey. It will guide you through his dreamscape, a place of deep foreboding. You'll come across meaningful places where voices from the past will give you pieces of the secret, and you'll feel the world close in around you as you approach the final revelation. For an hour or more, you'll be immersed in Wilson's world.

I wanted so much to love Dream:scape. It has all the makings of a classic, with a thoughtful story and fantastic atmosphere. The sound and music are amazing—you're cheating yourself if you play without headphones—and even the voice acting is strong. If you can go into the game wanting only these things, you'll be impressed.

But if you're looking for a game that's enjoyable to play, you should look elsewhere. Judged only on its technical merits, Dream:scape is a mess. I played it first on an iPad 2. The device can play the game with a high and steady framerate, but the textures look strangely low resolution and the control is abysmal. The on-screen controls are slightly too large and awkard to use comfortably. The camera control can't be inverted, and while you can drag to pan the camera, you'll bump into the on-screen camera control regularly.

The controls feel much better on smaller devices, but you'll probably run into crashes on anything but the newest generation of hardware. If this happens to you, try resetting your phone before playing - this game needs a lot of available memory. Given the option, I'd recommend only playing on an iPhone 4 - they've got the power to run Dream:scape well, and the textures look much better on a Retina display. I suspect I would have enjoyed this game much more if I'd only played it on an iPhone 4.

No matter what you're playing on, though, the gameplay just isn't very inspiring. It can be hard to find your way around, and the in-game map isn't very helpful. Also, a good chunk of Dream:scape's short experience is spent backtracking. For example, I noticed a hammer sitting on a box early in the game. It was obviously important, but I couldn't pick it up. A few minutes later, I found a spot where I needed a hammer, so I had to find my way back, grab it, and return. This sort of thing continues throughout the game, so there's really no point exploring anything other than the area you're meant to go. You'll get through every area by the end, and there are no secrets to find or achievements to unlock.

Worse are the game's few moments of action. They require swipes across the screen that only register if you do them in the exact short, sharp manner the game expects. If you fail, you're sent back to the last checkpoint with no indication of how to do better. This may be more of an interactive narrative than a game, but all these frustrations get in the way.

Dream:scape is so close to being amazing that it's hard for me to say this, but the problems just killed what enjoyment I would have otherwise had. If it receives an update to address the control issues, the crashes and the texture problems, then yes, absolutely buy it and experience it. Otherwise, you'll need to judge whether you'd find interesting story worth muddling through the often frustrating gameplay. It's not perfect, but I'm glad I got to enjoy the audio-visual experience and haunting story.

It's exciting that the tiny team at Speedbump Studios was able to put this game together in just a few months. We're obviously seeing the tip of the iceberg of the sorts of interactive 3D experiences we'll be seeing on our iOS devices in the months and years to come. I'm just not sure this one was quite ready for its debut.

TouchArcade Rating:

Like asynchronous-multiplayer word games? Then Hanging With Friends [Free / $1.99] is the game for you.

Brought to us by Zynga and the folks behind Words With Friends [Free / $2.99 / HD], Hanging With Friends is a strange-but-fun combination of Hangman and Scrabble. Like other asynchronous titles (and exactly like the other With Friends games), you start a game by finding someone to play with. You can find opponents randomly, or amongst Facebook friends or your contact list. You can also find a friend by their username or play locally with pass and play.

Once you've found a friend to play with, you create a word using a random selection of letter tiles. You have a chance to earn bonus points by positioning your letters on double or triple letter/word score spaces. When your word is made, its your opponent's turn to guess.

Guessing is done in classic hangman style. You have a set number of strikes based on the length of the word (shorter words are harder, so you get more chances with them), and you can pick from all the letters in the alphabet. Guess your opponent's word before running out of strikes, and you live to play another day. Fail, and your cute little avatar loses a balloon and gets closer to falling into the pit of lava below.

(more...)

TouchArcade Rating:

Cargo Bridge [$.99 / Lite] is a physics-based puzzle game developed by Limex Games, an outfit that specializes in web distributed titles. This is one of dozens of its original flash creations, none of which possess quite the same pull of Cargo Builder.

Its engine is fickle and it suffers from a lack of refinement artistically and mechanically, but the user-side ingenuity it demands and the devilish situations it puts you in are made of the kind of stuff that keeps you hungry and playing.

In each level, you'll be tasked with building bridges from one point to another using a mix of base-level boards and support girders. The goal is to build good bridges that can support a mix of jolly workers loaded with cargo ranging in size.

The building process takes place inside a virtual blueprint that you can interact with directly via touch. Making things simpler, you're given a few anchor points to plug struts into and an infinite amount retries if your unstable bridge turns causes the death of a worker... or three.

You’ll never find actual building resources in short supply, but money is finite. In my experience, it’s required to lower your ambitions from the get go. I had a habit of staring at each new level with its various pits and structures with wild-eyed glee, but never could I construct something worthy of modern marvel status. Simple is better.

And while nothing you build will be destined to cover the front of a tourist’s postcard, there’s finesse in constructing the most basic of bridges. It’s because Cargo Bridge’s physics is an odd bird. The world has a level of float higher than ours, so your bridges, even the ones made out of wrought iron, tend to bounce about. As a result, you’ll be pressed into making overly elaborate supports, making each task a tad more difficult than you’ll initially imagine.

The physics are the super game-y part of Cargo Bridge, and I can sympathize with the crowd who might come out thinking they’re a little too touchy and bouncy. As I watch what I assume to be perfection tumble into the ether, I have to agree. Then again, it’s hard to imagine the game working it its systems were tuned into our physics. Sure, I’d like something a little tighter at the end of the day, but the game, overall, works.

Visually and artistically, Cargo Bridge depresses. The world is vibrant and the avatars have an air of personality, but as a whole the world comes across as flat. I have to admit, though, I love the screams of dying workers. Few things excite me so.

If you’ve got an iPad and have an architect’s itch to scratch, this isn’t a bad joint to drop your precious coin into. Sure, the physics kind of blow and you’d ideally like to see more out of its constituent components, but there’s a simple pleasure to making bridges that jive in the game’s world. Give it a spin.

TouchArcade Rating:

We neglected to cover the NGP during our visit to Los Angeles for E3. The big news was that, yes, it’s called the PlayStation Vita. Also, the Wi-Fi model will hit at $250. That latter is actually a big deal: Sony is positioning it purposefully to compete toe-to-toe with the Nintendo 3DS on a price level, even though it’s a technically beefier handheld with more functionality.

It’s important to keep the ‘beefier’ part in my mind. If the device launches in 2011 as it’s expected to, it’ll enjoy a window where it’s the top dog. It’ll have games that look better than any other handheld on the market, including the iPod Touch. That’s a compelling enough reason for consumers to buy instantly, short-sighted as they may be.

But, as you know, the mobile phone will only get faster and stronger as the Vita sits on store shelves and stagnates. This is a point that id Software’s John Carmack made while speaking to GameSpot at E3.

The man -- no, the visionary -- believes the Vita is two times more powerful than a phone at the moment, and he seems confident that it won’t compare to phones in just about two years.

"I think that they've picked as eminently a suitable hardware spec as they could for that,” Carmack told the pub. “They're going to have you program for it like a console, so it's going to seem twice as powerful as a smartphone with the exact same chips in there."

"But of course, by the time they actually ship, there may be smartphones or these tablets with twice as much power as what they're shipping with on there. And a year or two after that, it's going to look pretty pokey."

I don’t think you need to lick a toad in order to foretell this. The phone market moves at a ridiculous pace, especially compared to the traditional console / handheld market.

Carmack thinks quicker and cheaper games on the Vita would mean more success in the long-term -- even if it looks ‘old’ compared to upcoming phones. I'm not sure I agree. Big games with high production values like the God of War portable titles, I think, are the best hope that Sony has with this device. Even though iOS is capable of having a big budget games, few studios that I know of throw that kind of production money into a 99-cent-to-seven dollar application.

[Via Pocket Gamer]

I’d like to write “hot on the heels of the re-release of Dragon’s Lair [.99 / HD], comes Dragon’s Lair 2: Time Warp [$2.99] for the iPhone and iPod Touch.” If I did just throw that out to the ether, I’d be incorrect. The original Dragon’s Lair re-release was shoved out the door in December 2009. Dragon’s Lair: Time Warp joins its predecessor in the App Store in June 2011.

I doubt I’ll ever receive an answer that sits with me well about the hold-up, but I suppose it’s stupid subject to broach at this point. The game is out so... who cares, right?

Let’s talk about it then. Dragon’s Lair 2 has the same feature set as the original re-release, including the move guide, the choice between three, five, or infinite lives. However, there is a fun extra that I’m sure the core enthusiasts out there will love: Dragon’s Lair 2 for the iOS features a “Director’s Cut” version of the game with an alternate ending.

In total there’s eight levels to explore as you play as Dirk who is charged with saving a certain princess named Daphne. This time around, you’ll need a rickety time machine and fast fingers to successfully retrieve her from the evil wizard Mordroc.

Dragon’s Lair 2 is $2.99 on the App Store while it’s predecessor is now sitting at a good 99-cent price point. Check out our review of the first in series to see if it’ll click with you. Lord knows how much these QTE-focused games hurt me on the inside.

Oh! And there's been no word yet if there will be an "HD" version of this sequel for the iPad. We're working on getting confirmation.

Back in February, my jet-setting TouchArcade cohort Eli Hodapp found himself wanting to play some video games on his laptop while on the road. Not one to carry around a bulky Bluetooth controller just for that specific purpose, he came across a novel little app called Joypad [Free] which was a suitable alternative. Basically, the Joypad app runs on your iPhone or iPod touch and turns the device into a wireless controller for your computer with a highly configurable set of virtual buttons.

The Joypad app syncs up with a desktop client which allows it to be used to play any game by remapping the keyboard controls to the virtual buttons on the device. It works really well, is fairly easy to setup and get running, and is a great companion for the traveling gamer, as we noted in our review of the Joypad.

So since that time, the two man operation Zell Interactive who are responsible for the Joypad have been quite busy. First of all, the formerly limited free version of the Joypad has been updated to include all the same functionality of the paid version. Basically, this means you can download the Joypad and the desktop client and have your very own virtual controller on your iOS device at no cost at all. As the developers do enjoy putting food on their tables, the way they will monetize the Joypad from here on out is by offering additional skins as in-app purchases.

The first set of skins will be a retro pack that will offer skins from the NES, Game Boy, Genesis, and many other classic consoles. The skins are purely visual and don’t alter the functionality of the app, but if you use the Joypad for playing classic console emulators then the appropriate skin can add a bit of fun to the experience. The skins will be available individually for 99¢ each or together as a complete pack at a discounted price. The original paid version of Joypad has been renamed Joypad Elite [$11.99], and will always receive all the new content as free updates rather than IAP. If you don’t already have Joypad then the free version is the way to go, but this way they can still say thank you to their previous customers who supported them by buying the app initially.

While the skins are a neat feature, the really big news about the Joypad is that the developers have recently released a free SDK that will allow other developers to easily integrate native Joypad support into their desktop or iOS games. On your computer, this means that if a developer integrates the SDK into their game you’ll be able to play that game using the Joypad without the need of syncing with the Joypad Connect desktop client.

It all works incredibly simply. Just fire up a game with Joypad support on your computer or iOS device and then fire up Joypad on an iPhone or iPod touch. The game will automatically detect the Joypad running and send the appropriate controller configuration to the device. There can be a mixture of various types of buttons, d-pads, or analog sticks on the Joypad that suit each individual game. Shortly down the road, the ability to add custom controller skins for a particular game will be added into the SDK for an even more cohesive experience.

The Joypad developers have added in Joypad support to an open source version of Wolfenstein 3D [$1.99/Lite] just to demonstrate how easily it works:

Another recent addition to the Joypad app is mouse movement and clicking support when playing games on a computer. This means you can control the cursor in a game that normally needs a mouse just using the accelerometer of your iOS device. They demonstrated this feature to me by playing Minecraft using just an iPhone and the Joypad app, and I was pretty blown away with how well it works:

The Joypad app comes with pre-configured settings for both Minecraft and Portal 2, but the controls can be configured pretty much however you want to make them work with a ton of desktop games. They’ve also added support for connecting via Bluetooth in addition to a local WiFi connection, which takes care of some of the connection issues that were present when trying to use the Joypad on a crowded WiFi network.

There have been a few games that utilize playing on the iPad using an iPhone or iPod touch, and EA Mobile is dabbling in this area as well, but the release of the Joypad SDK means that there is the potential for any game to use this functionality, and it can be an attractive extra feature to add to any iOS or desktop game. Couple Joypad support with the display mirroring capabilities of the iPad 2, and suddenly your mobile devices have taken on the traits of a home console. While the Joypad isn’t a total substitute for a physical controller, it still works really well and is a lot of fun to use. Hopefully developers will check out the free Joypad SDK and we will see support for it in many more games in the future.

At WWDC this year, I sat down with Dave Castelnuovo from Bolt Creative to talk about what’s upcoming in the various entries in the Pocket God series. We’ve always been fans of Pocket God [99¢] around TouchArcade, but admittedly hadn’t quite stayed up to date with the series as of late. After Dave showed me some of the recent new features added into the games, I was really surprised by just how much they’ve evolved since I’ve been on Pocket God hiatus.

The biggest bit of news is that the previously iPad-only Pocket God: Journey To Uranus [99¢] is now a universal app and is currently on sale for 99¢, down from $4.99. This version of Pocket God lets you take your pygmies into space to various planets, each with their own unique features. You can also discover mini-games which are based on classic arcade games, like Bump ‘n’ Jump, Joust, and Tempest 2000.

These mini-games are so incredibly well done that they could practically be standalone games on the App Store, and Bolt Creative has plans for many more in the future. Journey To Uranus plays just fine on the smaller screen of the iPhone and iPod touch, and it has really come a long way since first launching for the iPad back in December. The developers plan to adopt a rapid update schedule similar to the original Pocket God game, so expect a lot more from Journey To Uranus in the future.

Speaking of the original Pocket God, the most recent update added a neat Challenge of the Gods feature to the game. There is a new Challenge Menu which offers a few tasks to discover and complete for each of the 39 episodic updates the game has received during its lifetime. This gives a great reason to go back and fiddle around in all of the previous episodes, and once all tasks for an episode have been completed you’ll unlock a God idol for that episode.

This leads right into what will be in the forthcoming episode 40 which is titled Battle of the Gods. You’ll be able to take any of the 39 God idols that have been unlocked in Challenge Mode and then pit them against each other in a battle arena to see who comes out on top. It sounds like a pretty interesting idea, and I’m looking forward to checking out how it works when it launches in early July.

In other Pocket God news, the Pocket God Comics [99¢] app has just received issue #7 of the digital comic based on the game characters. They are also planning on streamlining the comic creation process so as to pump out new issues at a faster rate than they are currently running at. There are more than 20 new issues already in the pipeline, and support for Pocket God Comics is planned for at least the next few years. Also, the Pocket God Facebook game is up to episode 8 and will continue to evolve with new features and gameplay unique from the iOS games.

If you’re like me and haven’t checked in on what's up with Pocket God lately, you should definitely give both the original and Journey To Uranus another look as I'm fairly blown away with just how far the series has come in recent months.

At WWDC, I had a chance to sit down with David Whatley, who brought us GeoDefense and GeoDefense Swarm, to discuss what he's got in store for us iOS gamers.

Whatley's path-based tower defense title GeoDefense is unquestionably the iOS tower defense game I've spent the most time with. There's definite appeal in its minimal, neon glowing graphics and relentless action. During our meeting, the author showed me an in-progress build of sequel GeoDefense 2, which is a tower defense game -- with a twist.

In the simplest terms, GeoDefense 2 is a tower defense puzzle game. The game features a pre-laid track along which the encroaching enemies file through, but each level starts off with a number of towers already in place. Your task is to arrange the towers about the playfield in the most strategically sound fashion, but there's a catch: you can only move towers across straight track segments and empty space; towers can't be moved over each other or over track corner segments. This arrangement lends something of a sliding puzzle feel to the strategerie of the game. To make matters either better or worse (we'll see...), new turrets appear with each wave.

Tower defense is a now crowded genre in the App Store, and a notable variation on the formula is welcome. I was very much intrigued by what Whatley showed me of GeoDefense 2, and am anxious to give it a go in its final, release form.

In addition to his GeoDefense sequel, which will be published through his studio Critical Thought, Whatley gave us an exclusive look at his upcoming title, Tiny Heroes, to be published by the other studio with which he is involved, Simutronics. In short, it's Plants vs. Zombies meets Dungeon Keeper.

In Tiny Heroes, you play the dungeon. The objective of the game is to defend your treasures by placing the defenses you've chosen about your dungeon corridors. Waves of classic heroes of various sorts and abilities -- thieves, knights, clerics, wizards, rangers, etc. -- begin to invade your dungeons in an effort to make off with the booty.

The defenses available are a bit more varied than those of the typical tower defense game. There are crossbows, crush chambers, pop-up pikes, allied monsters, bombs, and the like. The incoming heroes vary in their ability to deal with the different defenses; the thieves can sometimes disarm bombs, for instance.

For the creative defense gamer, a forge area in the game allows players to craft their own custom towers. Tiny Heroes will take advantage of the Retina display where available and the graphics look sharp. The iPhone version is set for an August 1st submission to Apple, with an iPad version to follow, in time.

This week on TAS, Eli and I get deep on E3. Expect lots of conversation about feet sores, J-Town peroxide, and games from the show. We also spit some game about Back to the Future: Episode 4 and delve into some topical commentary about the casual enthusiast versus the ‘core’ crowd, App Store sales, and the 3DS e-Shop launch.

Need a hand finding the sources of the content we discuss? Look no further, son. I’ve got your back. Just below the podcast link you’ll find a convenient list for your convenience. Yeah, we like to make things easy.

 

iTunes Link: The TouchArcade Show
Direct Link: TouchArcadeShow-003.mp3

GAMES

Back To The Future: Episode 4
FIFA 2011
Draw Race 2
Pocket Heroes
Game Studio
Shadow Gun
The Gameloft Games, including March of Heroes

DISCUSSION

OnLive For the iPad
Infinity Blade Makes Earns 10 Million
Sword And Sworcery Makes Some Cash, Too
Street Fighter 4: Volt
The Nintendo 3DS e-Shop launches, UI doesn't measure up

SPECIAL NOTE: Next week The Bearded One, Jared Nelson, will join us once again and we'll talk heavily about his trip to WWDC. Lots of cool stuff was shown there, so we'll definitely dig into it. Also, keep sending those questions to podcast@toucharcade.com, or even better, send your voicemails to the following number: +1-951-922-5582 or 951-9-CALL-TA.

Keep being awesome, guys, and we'll yap at you next week.

Of all the outfits at E3 showing iOS related stuff, Chillingo by far had the best overall lineup. All four of these games look great, and I really can't wait to give 'em all a try. They really know how to pick the games they're going to promote now, and while I'm not entirely sure any of these will be the next Angry Birds, they might be the next Feed Me Oil.

Roll in the Hole - The title of the game basically tells it all, and the rest is explained by watching the video. It's a super casual puzzle game that customers on the App Store have basically voted with their wallets in telling Chillingo "We want more of this, please."

Blobster - This is a really interesting game that I'm not sure if I'd totally describe as a platformer, but it does have some definite platforming sort of elements to it. You control your dude with a slick little slingshot mechanic, which really seems like a much better control solution than the typical array of virtual controls and buttons.

DrawRace 2 - I'd be lying if I said I wasn't excited for this game. I liked the original a lot, and the sequel adds cool 3D traffics, more tracks, and tons more goodies.

Contre Jour - Similar to Blobster, I'm not really sure the best genre to categorize this game, but the art style if sick. I'm totally loving the look and feel of this one.

Meeting with EA is always a little weird at conventions. Like most massive companies they're governed by many layers of management, marketing, and more. Because of this, details on a lot of these games are hilariously vague. In fact, I was able to get a peek at The Sims Medival, but at this point in time, the only thing EA is willing to let me take away from the event is its logo. Similarly, all they'd tell me about Madden 12 is that it's better than last year, and it has leaderboards.

Oh well, I'm sure we'll have more details soon. Anyway, on with the show-

Madden 12 - The Madden series iterates heavily from year to year, with basic tweaks, improvements, a new roster, and maybe even a new feature or two. This year seems to be no different. The player models seemed to look a little better, the textures were a bit more crisp, and of course, it ran fantastic on the iPad 2.

FIFA 12 - Us Americans don't care too much for soccer, but it's really cool to see EA expanding their system they used in Scrabble to use smaller iOS devices as controllers for a game taking place on the iPad.

Battleship - Everyone remembers Battleship, right? Do I need to explain how it works? Here's what you need to know: No online multiplayer. Weird, right? Either way, the little animations between shots looks neat, and are easily skippable by tapping the screen.

Monopoly: Here and Now: World Edition - Aside from having entirely too many colons in its title, this version of Monopoly has an entirely new board and some other nice additions that you can see in the video.

Capcom (and their tiny mobile division Beeline Interactive) had a massive booth at E3. In this tiny booth was a single kiosk showing off their iOS offerings. Regardless, the guys are Capcom were totally excited to show everything off. I'm sure people will be most interested to check out Street Fighter IV Volt, the upcoming addition to the iOS Street Fighter series:

On the beeline side of things, they had two freemium titles I was able to get video of. I'm not entirely sure how popular these will be amongst our community, but that sure hasn't stopped Smurfs' Village from making bazillions of dollars.

Monster Pet Shop:

Dream Park:

Alright, I'll admit I'm a little excited for Dream Park, but only because I'd love an iOS version of Rollercoaster Tycoon.

It seems like every convention we see a game (or, sometimes, games) that make us take a step back and say, "Whoa, now that's really cool." As a former hardcore Dungeons & Dragons player, Pocket Heroes hit all the right notes for me. Here's the game in a nutshell: Take a party-centric tabletop-style turn based game, give it sprite-based UI, and then add in Words With Friends-style push-powered asynchronous online multiplayer.

The developers explain it better than I can:

It remains to be seen just how awesome the game will be once it's finally released, but I'm super excited for this. Some of the best times I've had in a gaming environment has been in Dungeons & Dragons games, so if F5 Games can even capture a sliver of that fun I'll be totally happy.

For more details, check out the thread in our forums.

Do you find yourself craving Mario Kart on your iPhone, but then are depressed every time you realize that there isn't a Nintendo logo on the device, making such a thing hilariously unlikely? Well, Sega might be offering the next best thing. Sonic & Sega Allstars Racing takes a load of hints from Mario Kart, and utilizes their array of Sega characters instead of the Nintendo favorites. It's got multiplayer, loads of power-ups, a cool drifting system, and more.

Check it out in motion:

Gameloft's Shrek Kart [$4.99 / Free / HD] didn't really scratch that Mario Kart itch how I wanted it to, but I'm thinking Sonic & Sega Allstars Racing might. Stay tuned for more details from Sega.

Believe it or not, E3 wasn't all big name developers and publishers, even though the insane show floor would make most believe otherwise. No, actually, it turns out that there were quite a few indie developers around enjoying the sights and sounds that I was able to catch up with. The first of which was the guys from Muteki Corporation, who had a few really rad things to show off.

Dragon Fantasy - There's already a thread in our upcoming games forum, but here's the gist- Muteki, like most of us old school gamers grew up with all kinds of fantastic old school RPG's. The battle system is basic, the graphics are pixelated, and the story is gloriously cliche... And that's just the way we like it. Dragon Fantasy is an homage to these games of yore.

Give it a look:

Next up was Game Studio, a neat little utility that we got a semi-secret look at during GDC earlier this year. It's in the same vein as Game Salad and other similar easy game creation suites, except this one exists entirely on the iPad. My favorite feature of it is the drag and drop game logic portion.

Check out this extensive walkthrough:

Last, but certainly not least, was a look at an impending update for Super Jetpack Dragon IV [Free / HD]. It shifts the gameplay style from an endless running kind of thing to a level-based platformer. It's pretty neat, and more features and functionality in existing games is always welcome around here.

Take a look: