What’s next for Rovio Mobile? Our guess is probably another Angry Birds [$.99 / Free / Lite/ HD / HD Free] since those cash vaults won’t be filling themselves over the long haul, but Develop seems convinced that the studio is setting its sights on publishing indie games down the line. In a chat about this with the publication, Rovio executive Peter Vesterbacka admitted that Rovio does indeed have plans in the arena. He added that its model would be different, if it were to make the grand switch.

“We have some plans for this area, but not ready to announce yet,” Vesterbacka said. “If we do something in the publishing area, you can expect it to be a bit different.”

The original Angry Birds is a Chillingo published joint via their Clickgamer sub-brand and subsequent spin-offs (such as Angry Birds Seasons) have been self-published by Rovio. No doubt, the studio has learned some things from their experience with Chillingo and have already been successfully going it alone after announcing they won't use Chillingo again.

We’ve seen Bungie create a publishing label in the recent past, so why not Rovio, too? It’ll be very interesting to see how the studio will differentiate itself as a publisher and use the pull of its brand to supplement, fund, and help out other independent developers. Unfortunately, we'll probably have to wait awhile to see.

[Via Develop]

Super Mega Worm [$.99] is one of those games I secretly dislike (even though we love it). I totally recognize that any game starring a huge, brown worm who eats babies and bison and can knock over tanks has significant value, but I’ve never been able to get over its digital control pad and buttons. My worldview has changed courtesy of the iCade, and now Super Mega Worm has become one of my favorite iPad games because of the support it throws to the device.

This game is ridiculous-ancient by App Store standards, so I trust you know it. If you don’t, the Cliff Notes breakdown is this: in the game, you control a large brown worm with a literal appetite for destruction; by eating people, animals, and soldiers, you increase the size of your worm and unlock new powers for obliteration purposes, all the while earning a high score that your mother would be proud of.

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It's expensive to buy and maintain a real horse, but now you can download a virtual one instead from the App Store-- What a world we live in. My Horse [Free] from NaturalMotion Games and MunkyFun is a realistic horse simulation game, which allows you to groom, feed and reward your very own horsey, without ever leaving the couch. Although the true cost of the virtual horse depends on whether you choose to invest in the optional in-app purchases.

The developers goal was to create a horse which is realistic enough for the player to form a bond with. And they've managed to successfully achieve this as the horse graphics and behavior is pretty realistic. It flicks it's tail, grazes, looks around, trots, bucks, walks backwards and neighs. There's no obvious repeated animation loops, or cartoon graphics. You're caring for a real-looking virtual horse.

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GRL Games is known not only as the studio of one Graeme Devine, it's also developing a reputation for bringing video chat to iOS games. Last month we reviewed Full Deck Hold 'Em [Free] and found its video chat implementation fascinating. Now something word game fans can experience the joy of face-to-face play in the studio's latest, Word Chat [Free; Normally 99¢].

With one update under its belt already, Word Chat should be a well-executed experience. But while its single-player modes are great fun, the game doesn't succeed universally -- and it falters, strangely, in the multiplayer experience.

No matter the mode, Word Chat centers around making words out of seven random Scrabble-esque tiles. The words are scored on the letters used, with a modifier added for length. Five letter words are worth double, six letter words are worth triple. For those who manage a full anagram of their tiles, quadruple multipliers are waiting.

Solo, Word Chat offers four ways to play. 200 Tiles gives players (you guessed it) 200 tiles to work through, seven at a time, to earn the highest score possible. Countdown gives players as many tiles as they can work through in 100 seconds. Infinite Play is like Countdown, but additional time is rewarded for words that are four letters or longer.

Word Solitaire was added in the game's first update. It presents players with seven columns of tiles, with only the lowest row exposed. Players must make words with the exposed letters and work up the board until all the tiles are used, at which point they level up and start over. This is easily the most challenging, and potentially frustrating, mode. You can replace up to three random tiles, but in my experience it's not uncommon to reach to the end of a level with no workable words. Having a solid strategy helps, but there's an element of randomness that leaves things occasionally frustrating.

Multiplayer throws you up against a Game Center opponent in Countdown mode. Both players use the same pool of words to keep things fair, so you're kept from seeing your opponent's words. This results in an oddly disconnected experience where the two of you play in parallel until a winner is presented at the end. You can't really take the time to chat, either, since you're on a tight timer.

Worse, there doesn't seem to be any way to decline video chat - at least not while playing with a friend (I wasn't able to find a random match to try it in). You'd best trust any Game Center friends you play with to stay on task. At least you can toggle your own camera on or off.

In Full Deck Hold 'Em, video chat makes a lot of sense. Seeing the expressions of your opponents adds another level to the poker experience, and the game is slow paced enough that you can have a conversation while you're playing. In Word Chat, it's a gimmick. A few tweaks could help, but when it comes down to it short-form word games probably aren't ever going to be very well suited to video chat.

The single-player content of Word Chat is worth the asking price alone (or lack of asking price, in the case of the sale that's taking place as of this writing). I'm particularly fond of 200 Tiles, because it provides a slow, thoughtful experience that most anagram-hunting games avoid. If you're looking for the next Words With Friends [$1.99] you won't find that depth of multiplayer here. But as an inexpensive way to entertain yourself while chatting with a friend, Word Chat will more than do the job.

It’s not often that a game comes around that can be considered both a deep, strategy-heavy game, and a vertical-scroller. Yet, that’s exactly the sort of game that Elemites [Free] claims to be. Dubbed as a “Real-time Scrolling Strategy (RTSS),” Elemites combines the forced movement of a vertical-scroller with the inherent strategy of minion management and wraps it all together with a robust spell and upgrade system. It certainly sounds like an odd game, but Elemites manages to nail this combination and should definitely be on the list of any strategy fan.

In Elemites, you play as Relph, a wanna-be wizard that stumbles upon a magical book of summoning. In addition to teaching Relph how to summon Elemites, golem-like creatures that will attack anything in front of them, the book also convinces Relph to go on a rampage, destroying every village in the land.

So how exactly does a real-time scrolling strategy game play? Relph stays at the bottom of the screen, slowly moving forward (you can only control whether he goes left or right). Meanwhile, tapping anywhere on the screen conjures up Elemites at that location, which will slowly move forward attacking peasants, fences, buildings – anything in front of them. Summoning Elemites uses mana, however, which also doubles as Relph’s shield. Your goal, then, becomes to micromanage your mana by summoning Elemites at the right place and time, while recouping mana earned by downed foes and avoiding enemies gunning for Relph.

Relph also has access to a wide variety of spells that are progressively unlocked throughout the game. Spells range from damage boosts to your Elemites to life drains to chain lightning. In addition, each spell (as well as Relph and the Elemites) can be upgraded numerous times throughout the game by cashing in ‘Vengeance’ points, which are earned every time an enemy is killed or building is destroyed. Even though there are 16 total spells that are unlocked, you can only take five into battle, which means that choosing which spells to upgrade becomes that much harder.

The beauty of Elemites is that there are tons of different ways to play the game. Sure, summoning your minions is going to be a big part of your strategy regardless, but spell selection definitely affects the way you use them. Will you focus more on resource management and keep your active Elemites out there longer with healing and defense spells, or will you take matters more into your own hands with spells that directly affect your enemies? The upgrade system also opens up the door to a variety of strategies, as you’ll have to decide whether to make your spells more potent or invest more heavily in resource management upgrades.

Of course, variety wouldn’t mean much if the game didn’t play well. Thankfully, Elemites takes care of that as well. I appreciate the way that the developers have managed to boil the controls for what could be a complicated game down to simple touch-based mechanics. In fact, the controls may be too simple occasionally; if you don’t pay attention, you could easily exhaust your mana conjuring up Elemites. However, I’d rather the game be hyper-responsive than plagued with delayed input.

Another aspect I loved about Elemites was its overall presentation. The artwork in particular deserves a special mention, as everything from the menus and story illustrations to even the enemies are just well done. It’s obvious that a lot of effort was put into the overall visuals and it definitely shows. One minor complaint involved some strange graphic artifacting that would occasionally show up while playing, but it did little to detract from the gameplay. I even enjoyed the story writing, which does a good job of weaving the tale while not taking itself seriously. My only gripe is with the banner ad at the top of the screen that is present even while playing the game. Granted, the ad gets removed if you purchase the whole game (as a $0.99 IAP), but it still detracts from what is otherwise a great experience. I would have also liked a universal version of Elemites as well, as I think the gameplay would work well on the iPad.

Considering that Elemites is available for free with the first world unlocked, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t be checking this out. It’s simply an entertaining game that manages to test both your reflexes and strategy IQ and offers enough diversity to distinguish itself from the pack.

Simogo’s Bumpy Road [$2.99] is one of the most inventive, intuitive, and refined experiences on touch devices, so we’re pretty stoked to hear this bit of news: against the odds, the game has hit 100,000 downloads. This is a pretty big deal for the independent outfit, which doesn’t have the same name recognition as, say, a Firemint and is, obviously, competing against tons and tons of other independent studios for the mass market’s dollar.

In more practical news for those of you who aren’t interested in milestones, Bumpy Road will go on sale soon thanks to this accomplishment. Starting this Wednesday and rolling until late this Thursday, you’ll be able to grab the game for $.99 instead of the usual $2.99.

You can read our review of Bumpy Road at this handy-dandy link. Spoiler: we liked it. Oh, and just as a side-note here, we’re in the process of trying to grab an interview with Simogo for another bonus episode of our podcast. As soon as we can, we’ll get that out to you.

[Via @simogogames]

About a year ago, Hypership Out of Control [$0.99]made its debut on Xbox Live Indie Games, better known as that place where good games go to die. Thankfully it's come to a platform where it might get a bit more attention, as it should. It's crazy fun.

Here's the score: you pilot a spaceship that's lost its brakes. The accelerator is floored. Your ship is speeding out of control and it's up to you to keep it from crashing. Don't even think about blinking until you've made it through safely.

Hypership Out of Control doesn't stray far from the archetypal vertical shooter. The ship flies and shoots ever upward while obstacles pass around it. Relative touch controls are the order of the day - that is, the ship echoes the movements of your finger, no matter where you touch the screen. They're precise and effective, which is for the best. Where this game diverges from the norm is in speed, and a lot of it.

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Cowboy Guns [$0.99 / Lite / HD / HD Lite] is probably the most generic name for a game that I’ve heard in a while. Thankfully, that faux pas is one of the worst that Chillingo’s latest offering commits. Sure, Cowboy Guns isn’t going to win any awards for innovative gameplay, and the general lack of variety accompanied by an uneven difficulty is somewhat annoying. However, Cowboy Guns does succeed at creating a decent dual-stick shooter supported by a single player story that takes you through the harsh domain of the Wild West.

Gameplay-wise, Cowboy Guns is a classic dual-stick shooter similar to Minigore. In fact, the visuals sort of have a Minigore motif as well, although the muted graphics of Cowboy Guns are not as detailed, regardless of whether you opt for the retina “HD” version or not. The main adventure mode in Cowboy Guns has you playing as “The Kid,” a former gang member turned law man that must take down his former posse when they threaten his town. Okay, the story isn’t going to turn any heads, but it’s nice to see a dual-stick shooter actually try and incorporate a full-fledged story into the game instead of the usual generic prompt accompanied by hours of mindless killing. If a cheesy narrative-based game mode isn’t for you, Cowboy Guns also has a quickplay mode that operates more like the traditional games you find in this genre (although you need to play through at least some of the adventure mode before you can unlock quick play).

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The answer to the eternal question of what happens when a plane filled with crates of animals crashes has finally been answered by pioneering iOS developer TransGaming. The answer is found in Kula Blox [99c / HD], and apparently, in the event of an airborne disaster, animals feel the need to eat everything under themselves in the food chain on the way to the ground. Hey, it seems plausible.

You choose an animal to control and then use tilt or tap controls (or both) to move left or right, through the air, preying on any animals smaller than yourself, chasing them down if they try to flee. If you collide with a larger predator, you'll lose one of your three hearts (lives) for that fall. The more animals you eat, the larger and more dominant you become, as you move up the food chain.

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Rovio Mobile’s Angry Birds [$.99 / Free / Lite / HD / HD Free] is a big deal. It and its various iterations have been downloaded collectively over 350 million times, advertisers and marketers are licensing the property’s characters and mechanics at will to promote products like nuts and phones, Wal-Mart is selling official toys in kiosks, and now at least one enterprising retailer is set to start offering a gigantic line-up of dreadful Halloween costumes based on the IP.

Fulfilling the world’s fantasy of being a Pig King for a day is Costume Discounters. The company is now taking pre-orders for a host Angry Birds helmets, baby costumes, and regular costumes based on the brand. It’s hard to tell at a glance if these are official goods, but that point doesn’t drown out the fact that Angry Birds demands a level of awareness so great that retailers reckon people will wrap their babies in it. This is wild stuff.

Anyway, if you’re into looking like a doofus an Angry Birds character this Halloween, you can grab a costume for around $30-$50. Look how happy these people are! You could be happy like them!

[Via MacTrast]

There are two things I want in life: (a) more content in 11 Bit Studio’s Anomaly: Warzone Earth [$1.99 / HD] and (b) a working Space Marine chain-sword that doubles as a potato peeler. I’ll never get the latter, but the chances on the former seem great right now. 11 Bit just wrapped up an interview with relative game Web site newcomers Split Kick and confirmed that one more Squad Assault level is coming to the App Store version of the reverse tower defense game in a fresh update. Even better, more content is being planned alongside a possible sequel.

Talk about a treasure trove of information, right? Here’s 11 Bit’s Pawel Miechowski’s relevant newsy-news words:

Currently an update is on the way to Anomaly WE on App Store. Apart from the several fixes, it’ll deliver a new Squad Assault mode and it is placed in Baghdad setting too. Additional downloadable content for iOS version is in the works and it’ll introduce some new improvements to the concept and some new locations, although that levels are desert-based too. Much of the “processing capacity” is used for the development of other versions that I mentioned, so we do not have enough powers to produce extra content for PC/Mac version now. However, we’ll do in the future. We’re also planning content for the possible sequel and there are brand new ideas and brand new locations considered.

On the studio's blog last week, 11 Bit added that this update, in addition to bug fixes, will also make the HD version Universal. This means that if you held out on iPhone version, you'll get it for free with a download of the iPad one.

Actually, let’s add a third thing to that list. As great as the first game is and as powerful as the prospect of downloadable content for it is, I’d like to go ahead say that I want a new Anomaly game with new locations, new missions, new powers, and new mechanics, too please. Thanks, guys!

[Via Split Kick]

On this week’s bonus episode of The TouchArcade Show we sit down with two of the three dudes behind Hogrocket, Ben Ward and Pete Collier. As you may know, Hogrocket is one of the several studios formed from ex-Bizarre Creations employees following Activision’s sudden and silly decision to shut down the studio. We discuss the fallout, of course, but we spend the majority of our 20 or so minutes together on Hogrocket’s first release, Tiny Invaders [$1.99], and how their hardcore development experience informs their work on the iOS platform.

You can grab this week’s episode just below via direct download or streaming. If you like what you hear, why not subscribe to us? You can do so via iTunes or the Zune Marketplace and catch our episodes the very second they’re uploaded onto the Internet. Also, it’s free! What a deal!

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Monsters Ate My Condo [99c] is a super-crazy vertical match-3 game, from Adult Swim and New Zealand developers PikPok, which features intentionally high-energy, cheesy, over-the-top Japanese-style graphics, music and sound effects...and obviously, monsters. There's basically three things to do:  Keep the monsters happy, score points and try to stop your condominium from toppling over. If you can do this, you'll score (quite literally) billions of points.

Four colored monsters are hanging around your residential high-rise. There's a blue unicorn called 'Reginald Starfire' who wears a leotard, a red crab with a boat on it's head,  a green Japanese business-man with one eye and a yellow chihuahua called Lord Ferocious with it's brain hard-wired into a robot-body.

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On the heels of the “Nintendo should move to mobile” investor talk and other related drama, Meganoid [$1.99] creator Orange Pixel decided to do something huge: develop a phone game the way it believed the publisher would if it ever bothered to enter the sector. Stardash, a super simplistic and obviously retro-inspired platform game, is the end result of this experiment, which hits later this week across the iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch, and Android.

“Using GameBoy style graphics and sounds for extra memories of old-school running and jumping. It’s a little experiment to see if I could create such a game in the way the big N would do it,” Orange Pixel wrote on its blog. “A lot of care has been put in the level-design and the simplicity of it all,” it said.

Outside of the look and feel, Stardash's multi-faceted progression seems to be the place where Orange Pixel is really attempting to crib and build on Nintendo's secret sauce -- you can clear levels by beating levels within their time limits, by collecting coins, or by finding hidden keys that open up secret levels. Stardash will launch with four worlds containing nine levels each. And while the goal of every level is as simple as “run to the right until you see a balloon,” every level will have its share of challenges and secrets.

I don't think anyone is seriously expecting a level of Nintendo refinement (read: budget and time) from Stardash, but what a neat and challenging way to approach a project, huh? We’re definitely down for giving it a go as soon as possible and we’ll bring you our thoughts when we do get our grubby little hands on it.

If I have one single gaming kryptonite, it's the endless runner. Since Canabalt, I have put my mitts on nearly every single one on every device I can in every type and iteration on the same theme, from Robot Unicorn Attack to Jetpack Joyride. Put one of these in my hands, and I will not leave the house, eat or accomplish anything productive. Be-Rad Entertainment's Serious Sam: Kamikaze Attack! [99¢] takes the idea of the endless runner, then packages it with a series of smaller levels.

While most people are probably hoping for a more true-to-form Serious Sam experience on iOS, you'll instead be taking on the role of one of the Headless Kamikaze's here, chasing after Sam in hopes of taking him out with your exploding hands. The game comes as part of the Serious Sam indie series, which tasks independent developers with taking on their own version of the universe, Mommy Games and Vlambeer have already taken their shot and now its Be-Rad's turn.

As is the case with most running games, to finish a level you'll have to avoid bouncing bombs, flying missiles, and oddly placed shrubbery on your journey. To do so, you'll get a nice little double-jump and a hefty kick, but don't kick too much, because it'll add to your rage meter causing you to explode prematurely. It's a good thing you get several lives to complete your attack on Sam.

It's a bit similar to Be-Rad's other runner game, Lame Castle, but with a thick coating of Serious Sam -- which basically just means it's considerably more violent. Like most running games, your goal is to run to the right, tapping the left side of the screen makes you jump and tapping the right side makes you kick. You'll have around 40 objective based missions that are nice and short, and after the first couple missions you'll unlock an endless mode and eventually a frog kicking mode (which incidentally, is exactly what it sounds like).

The controls are far looser than most runner games and offer you a much higher chance to correct your mistakes. The double-jump helps a lot, as does the kick -- it's not just about avoiding obstacles, it's also about destroying them. It's helpful in a lot of ways, and the looser nature of the whole thing makes it a far more relaxing runner than most.

Each of the standalone missions comes with secondary objectives as well. These tend to be one of just a few different types with a different numerical goal attached. For instance, you'll need to kick thirty frogs in one level, or kick sixty rockets in another. These are points modifiers, which help up your overall score on the leaderboards. When you complete the bonus goals and certain levels, you'll also unlock permanent boosts like the number of lives you get or how quickly your rage meter grows.

What's going to immediately catch you is the visuals, which have a hand-drawn look to them and seem like they were created entirely with a colored pencils and a scissors. It works to great effect, even though the environments or obstacle types don't really change much throughout the experience.

Which is the biggest problem with Serious Sam: Kamikaze Attack! You can't really criticize a runner game for lack of variety, but since this one comes packed with smaller, mission based sections, it does feel like they could have done more to diversify the experience. The endless mode doesn't really need much, it's a fine endless runner, but since the objective based stuff feels like a great opportunity to really change up the experience, it's too bad it didn't happen.

You'll get the occasional ribbing and off-the-wall humor of the Serious Sam series in the form of sound effects and the incidental visual cue, and as a weird standalone package, Kamikaze Attack works well. Running around without a head and with bombs for hands is far more fun than you'd think, and even if the game doesn't ramp up the challenge as much as most of its ilk, the total quirk and oddness of it all should make for an enjoyable experience for most.