If you heard some thumping this morning, relax. It was just me kneeing my desk over this bit of news: Amanita Design’s iOS port of its beautiful point-and-click adventure game, Machinarium, will only run on the iPad 2. The studio explained the move on its blog, stating that it “needs quite a lot of memory and fast CPU, so it works well only on [the] iPad 2.” That sounds reasonable enough, I suppose.

Amanita then apologized to original iPad owners after stating that there are “no compromises” in the iPad 2 version of the game. Capable Android tablets and the RIM Playbook are still slated to receive their own versions of the title.

In some lighter news, Machinarium has been submitted to Apple certification and “should be” available for download this coming September 8. Have fun, iPad 2 users. Tell us how it goes. Wait, don't -- I'll cry. I'm sensitive about this.

If you don’t mind soiling your hands by participating in a marketing scheme, you could win a chance to play Spy Mouse before the rest of the world does. Firemint and EA have kicked off a ‘contest’ for the long-awaited title, offering copies of Spy Mouse, Dead Space [$6.99 / HD], Real Racing 2 [$4.99 / HD], and The Sims 3 [$.99] as door prizes for discovering the answers to clues posted to this page once a day until August 26.

If you answer the clue correctly, you’ll be entered into a pool to win any of those games. If you so choose to tweet the fact that you’ve solved the clue on the appropriate page, you’ll apparently “double” your chance of winning. Also, for every 100 Facebook “Likes” the game’s page drums up, another winner will be picked for that day. The competition page is located here, while the clue page is here.

TUAW suggests that you use a side-Twitter account to do all of this, and that strikes us as sound advice. Unless, of course, your followers really want to know about Spy Mouse. Chances are, though, they’re more concerned with what you ate this morning and how your commute went. Just saying.

[Via TUAW]

Back in January we reported that retro revival studio DotEmu signed a deal with noted Japanese development / publishing house Jaleco LTD to bring 17 arcade conversions to iOS. Since then we've seen the release of Avenging Spirit [link], Earth Defense Force [link], 64th Street: A Detective Story [link] and P-47: The Phantom Fighter [link] from the Jaleco collection.

Retro gamers will be pleased to hear we've just gotten word from DotEmu that the fifth Jaleco title is just two weeks away.

Originally released to the arcade in 1990, Rod Land is a colorful platformer that challenges you to help a fairy rescue her mother who has been trapped in a tower by an evil force that's building a mobile fortress with which to wreak havoc upon the land. Gameplay involves clearing each screen of baddies using your magic wand (or rod), collecting bonus items along the way for points. Your wand captures an enemy in a magic field that merely stuns them if released, or can be used to destroy them by bashing them to and fro against the ground, resulting in a power-up that can be used against other enemies. A level is complete when all enemies have been wiped out, but you'll want to collect every bonus item along the way, in order to get the max three-star rating for any level.

See a video of the arcade version of Rod Land in action:

I had no prior experience with Rod Land, and so upon hearing DotEmu's announcement, I grabbed the Amiga port to see what it was all about. An hour or so later, I sat the joystick down, pretty anxious for the iOS version to arrive -- this game really is a whole lot of fun.

DotEmu's release will be a universal app (for iPhone and iPad) and will be localized in English, French, Italian, German and Spanish. DotEmu CEO Xavier Liard informed me that Rod Land is the studio's most polished and well-implemented Jaleco release yet. The iOS version runs the arcade original under modified emulation and features positionable virtual D-pad controls.

I've just received a pre-launch build of the iOS game and will post a closer look when the title goes live in the App Store on September 6th.

Following their successful co-release of Zen Wars [99¢] a couple weeks back, Liv Games put their noses to the grindstone to finish up a humongous update that’s been over 3 months in the making for their previous iOS title Legendary Wars [99¢/Lite/HD]. We certainly enjoyed Legendary Wars in our original review, but the game has been updated fairly regularly since its release in January and now includes all sorts of nifty new features like Retina Display support, Game Center, a native iPad version, and tons of gameplay tweaks and enhancements.

This latest update for Legendary Wars stands to be the biggest one yet. Liv Games has revealed that they recently passed the one million downloads mark for Legendary Wars, and all the hard work they’ve been pouring into this massive update is really a way to say thanks to the many fans of the game for their great support.

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The Secret of Chateau de Moreau [$4.99 / Lite] by 4:33 Creative Lab is an entertaining adventure game, which is quite similar to Phoenix Wright [$4.99] / Review], which has heaps of fans here on TouchArcade. Both of these games are interactive story-telling adventures, where you make decisions which determine the outcome. If you love Phoenix Wright, or murder mysteries, you'll probably enjoy this game as much as we do.

You play as Antoine, the step-son of the wealthy Count Moreau, who has died under suspicious circumstances and now you're the main suspect. Antoine must investigate the crime, solving puzzles along the way, to prove his own innocence. The story is captivating, almost like reading a book, except you're an active participant in the drama.

This is a "who dun it?" murder mystery, with back-story and a decent cast of suspects. I've met 14 characters so far, including family members, a maid, a nanny, an engineer, a house guest...and yes, there's a butler.  Maybe he did it? Maybe he didn't? Perhaps I did it? That's what makes this game so much fun.

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Freemium experiences on iOS just keep getting better. It wasn't long ago that gamers looking for a free game to play could choose from a variety of -ville and -war titles and very little else. Now, as free-to-play titles regularly hold the top of the charts, we're seeing freemium models worked into all sorts of games.

The latest to catch my fancy is Startales [Free], a darling game about a lonely star seeking the one he loves. Not only does Startales have engaging gameplay, borrowing the hook-and-swing mechanic of games like Hook Champ [$2.99], it also offers something of an emotional experience.

In Startales, you play a small star who has fallen in love. Tragically, you aren't bright enough to be seen by the object of your affections. She simply shines too bright. The other occupants of the sky dedicate themselves toward helping you win your lady love, lending their brightness to you until you shine bright enough.

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Just a couple of months or so ago, we were properly confused by Bungie’s mysterious “Crimson” trademark, its “Bungie Aerospace” trademark, and its move to put an official stat-tracking app (and more) on the storefront. Now, we feel a little bit better, as we’ve been piecing the puzzle together thanks to a reveal or two. Crimson is a game, Bungie Aerospace is a new label from within the studio, and that app was made to support games down the line.

Now that you’re all caught up to, I’ll hit you with this: Crimson, a co-production between the aforementioned label and Harebrained Schemes, is a pirate game slated to hit the iPad at $0 on September 1st. It'll hit the iPhone, iPod Touch, and Android phones at a later date.

We know this because of a brand new handy-dandy website dedicated to the game, which also makes note of the full name, Crimson: Steam Pirates. According to the blurb on the side of the page, Steam Pirates is a turn-based strategy game that somehow blends moment-to-moment action into the equation, too.

From what we gather, you’ll control a fleet of ships across a total of eight possibly story-led “voyages” and use over a dozen different kinds of ships, “over 20 unique crew members” with special powers, and be linked into Bungie.Net’s super slick stat-tracking.

If you get the itch to play more of the game beyond these eight missions, you'll be able to grab eight more on launch day for $1.99 (cheap!). Eight more voyages are being planned for a release later.

Harebrained Schemes has its own page for the game, too, which really fleshes out the story, the mechanics, and the game's systems. The FAQ, which is probably more relevant to your interests at the moment is located here. I link to that realizing it's really hard to come to grips with precisely how a strategy game plays by reading about it in little chunks like this, so we'll definitely do our best to get our hands on it and bring you a cohesive write-up. My gut says this will end up being a sleeker, more controlled approach to Pirates! action.

UPDATE: A user in our comments reminds us that Harebrained Schemes' Jordan Weisman was one of the dudes behind Pirates of The Spanish Main, a "constructible strategy game." We can see some light connections between the products.

Settlers of Catan [$4.99 / HD] is considered, rightly, as one of the best board game-to-digital ports on the App Store. But other than just generally being sharp, it's also infinitely expandable, which is a great thing for the fans. Capitalizing on this is developer Exozet, who just shot Pocket Gamer a note that a new expansion is slated to hit later this year.

So, what is this upcoming expansion? Cities and Knights, which is easily one of the most aggressive expansions of the bunch. In it, you’ll develop cities while using knights to attack other players as well as help opponents defend the world from barbarians from across the ocean. The expansion also ushers in new cards that bolster the overall vibe of the experience.

Overall, there are a lot of fine details in this package, so if you're really interested in Cities And Knights, the Wikipedia article on it should sate your hot desire to learn more.

It’s unknown at the moment whether this will be an IAP or simply a free update, but our dime is on the fact that it’ll cost some dough. And, really, why wouldn’t it considering the amount of stuff it adds to an aging game?

[Via Pocket Gamer]

An expansive new update is now available for Red Nova [$.99], the super-sleek survival-based space shooter that had us going gaga way back in the year 2010. Naturally, the headliner of the new stuff is a brand new episode (Mercy) that’ll have you repelling waves of enemy fighters in a vehicle dubbed the “Raven Heavy Transport.” This very vehicle has also been added into episode one of the game, too, if you’re really into big ships. A new turret power-up, the Gun Pod, has also been added for big destruction opportunities.

This update also throws in your traditional tweaks and fixes. Specifically, load times have been improved and so has the performance of the rendering engine. The HUD has also seen some additional scrubbing, alongside the radar markers, which now scale for distance. Menu fixes have been introduced, too. Neat!

If Red Nova is alien to you, you can check out our review. Also, take note that the game’s creator is definitely into supporting his title. This is the second big update that we’ve covered thus far, and I’m fairly confident it won’t be the last.

As the mega-fans of UNO recoil in horror and one-star the game’s latest update, Gameloft is preparing a patch to address two of their core issues: the ads and the crashes. In an e-mail floated to us this afternoon, we get the impression that the development team behind the game has identified what the crash problem stems from. More importantly, though, it’s fixing it.

The same goes for the ads, which were essentially links to other Gameloft titles. As of this upcoming update, they’ll be removed from the main menu and the loading screen, which were the two places they appeared in the first place.

As for the IAP cards… well, apparently there’s been a misunderstanding on the user end, as you can disable bonus cards before every match. We’ve also been told that the game doesn’t allow you to use bonus cards that other players don’t have access to, which makes a lot of sense from a competitive design standpoint, but has us scratching our heads over the reviews that game has been seeing post-multiplayer update.

As for an ETA on the fixes, we don’t have one yet. We’ve touched base about that and I’d imagine we’ll be able to get that to you at some point in the near future.

In this week’s bonus edition of The TouchArcade Show, Eli and I chat with Graeme Devine, the creator of the newly released Full Deck Hold ‘Em [$2.99] for the iPad and iPad 2. Before sitting down to release games alongside his family, Devine was a designer and writer for several huge publishers and companies, including id Software, Apple, Ensemble, Atari, and Trilobyte.

We grilled Devine a lot about his resume and how that informs his work now. We also dug into what’s next on his slate. I don’t think you’ll come away from this conversation without learning a thing or two and also becoming as enamored with the man as we are. Devine is awesome and a joy to chat with.

You can download or stream the podcast right below, or hey, you can also subscribe to us on our feeds at iTunes or the Zune Marketplace.

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Telltale whiffed on the PC and Macintosh release of the first title in its episodic series based on Jurassic Park. Towards the end of April, the studio announced that the new series wouldn’t be making its debut in that same month. Instead, these versions would hit alongside the console versions later this fall. This afternoon brings fresh word of firm November 15 launches for the PC, Mac, the disc-based Xbox 360 version, and the PSN versions. It also confirmed something that we wanted to hear: an iPad version is on the way.

We don't have a specific release date on the forthcoming iOS versions, unfortunately, nor do we have any indications if they’ll pack in any extras. Legacy-wise, I don’t think it’d be wise to suspect anything new or, heck, even tuned to the iPad, but I suppose anything is possible in a world that has the power to morph cheese into peel-able strings. (more...)

Video games industry consultancy firm EEDAR and the dudes from Penny Arcade are assembling an iOS app that’ll tell you what game you should play next, and presumably, surprise you with a game or two you haven’t heard about before. It’ll be called the Decide-O-Tron and it’ll roll out at some unspecified date in the near future for the generous price of $0.

“The Decide-O-Tron is essentially Pandora for games, that’s about as clear as I can make it,” Penny Arcade’s “Tycho” wrote on the site’s blog. “It can very quickly build a library of the games you like and own, and then -- just as quickly -— tell you what you should play next. It will be available for iOS devices, and it will be free.”

In addition to being able to document your own library of games for use in the app, it’ll also give you access to EEDAR’s ridiculous-huge database that draws from just about every modern-ish platform, including the Xbox 360, the Virtual Console, and even the GBA and Gamecube. From what we understand, as it nails your likes and dislikes, it’ll suggest games from this database. You’ll also be able to browse celebrities’ lists, too, if you want to play what all the cool kids are. (more...)

Duke Nukem Forever proved earlier this summer that if you find something ancient, non-functional, and barely relevant, with a minimal amount of effort you can turn a profit by selling it purely on the basis of historical curiosity. This is also the premise of the History Channel’s Antiques Roadshow, where people bring in old items to experts hoping to strike it rich by stumbling upon rare and sought after pieces.

Namco Bandai, also no strangers to digging up cheap old franchises and pawning them off on unsuspecting gamers, decided to capitalize on the popularity(?) of the series by releasing Antiques Roadshow [$4.99] for iOS. After taking a monocled eye and a white gloved hand to this title from start all the way to laborious finish, how does it fare in appraisal? Let’s just say it’s going to take more than some wood glue and a certificate of authenticity to justify the price of this junk.

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Retro gamers out there, especially those on the other side of the pond, have had a great resource available to them for reliving the 8-bit classics, in the form of Elite's ZX Spectrum: Elite Collection emulator series, which landed last October. While it had basically zero presence here in the states, the Sinclair ZX Spectrum was probably the leading home computer gaming platform in the UK and various other parts of Europe during the early '80s.

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