Mobile developer Vogster was also present at E3 showing off their first iPhone title Robocalypse. Robocalypse was an award-winning real time strategy game that was originally released for the Nintendo DS in 2008 and is now coming to the iPhone.
Robocalypse – Mobile Mayhem for the iPhone features all the zany characters, hilarious dialog and fast-paced, yet accessible action of the original game. In Robocalypse – Mobile Mayhem, players will build and command robot armies to fend off attacks from the evil Demolisher and his near-endless supply of maniacal mechanical marauders.
The game has been adapted to the iPhone with enhanced graphics, music and improved play area.
The game includes 17 single player missions as well as 18 multiplayer (Wi-Fi) missions in both head-to-head and coop modes. Vogster is also hard at work at online multiplayer but can't promise it will make it into the initial release. There are 10 different robot units to use each with different skills, weapons and personalities.
Vogster has posted this trailer of the upcoming game which gives you quick glance at the title, but we've also recorded a walkthrough of the game at E3 which we will post shortly.
Though you may not have heard of iPhone developer Muteki, you've probably already played one of their games. The company has been around for about 3 years and started as a consulting/contracting company for previous mobile platforms. When the iPhone SDK launched, however, Muteki teamed up with Ngmoco and was the development team behind Maze Finger [App Store] and Topple 2 [App Store].
While still enjoying a good relationship with their partners, Muteki is starting to release a few titles under their own brand. They found that their employees simply loved making games and would pursue their own projects after-hours. Rather than stifling that creativity, Muteki is encouraging it and nurturing these promising "homemade" projects. Muteki President Bryan Sawler explains:
The main goal for this series of games is to find a single focused gameplay element and try to really do as much as we can with it.
They are poised to released two of these games in the near future.
The first, which is due any day now, is called Master Jumperton and is another game that is reminiscent of Skybound. The game involves jumping higher and higher by drawing platforms beneath the character. In the meanwhile, you must avoid various baddies while bouncing to higher scores. Global leaderboards will allow you to see how you rank compared to the world.
The second game is one that I was particularly interested in. It's rare that I see a game and think to myself "I love it", but that's what I thought about The Battle of Pirate Bay. Superficially, the game might remind people of Flight Control but the gameplay mechanic seems much more strategic.
The game involves controlling 3 ships by simple swipe controls to defend against the attacking pirates. The big ship is the slowest but has the longest attack range. The small ship is fast but has a very short attack range. And of course, the middle size ship is somewhere in the middle.
Each ship has limited ammo that can be replenished by incoming supply vessels. Your job is to defend your home base as long as possible.
Both The Battle of Pirate Bay and Master Jumperton will be $0.99 games, and Muteki has committed to at least a couple of updates to each game.
They also have an interesting plan to involve the players themselves in feature planning by allowing in-game voting to find out which updates are most wanted. They envision a quick voting choice to appear in-app and results will be sent back to their central server. This way, they will know which features to prioritize for their customers.
Besides Marble Madness, Handheld Games also showed us a couple of their own titles coming the App Store.
The first title is called Batting 1000 and is a bit of a cross of baseball and bowling. True to its title, the game is primarily a batting tournament where you try to do you best across 10 rounds of play. The game is well rendered in 3D akin to Handheld Games' Touch Sports Tennis. Controls are simple and involve swiping upward at the right time to connect with the pitch. The direction of the swipe will affect the direction of the baseball. Handheld Games CEO Thomas Fessler walks us through the game:
The second game is called Lock 'n Load and is a survival shooter in which you are defending your bunker. The game is still at least a month away so several of the details remain in flux. Multiple weapons, power-ups and extras are planned, as well as the eventual possibility of different "skins" or themes.
At E3, we met with 17 year old developer Josh Rosen who had an early build of his upcoming game SciFly 2. Rosen kicked off his iPhone developing career with his original dogfighting game SciFly [App Store]. The original version of SciFly was successful enough to encourage him to dedicate more time and energy into programming. Rosen has been programming since age 10 or 11 and has always had a strong interest in game development.
The early of SciFly 2 shows a more ambitious project with the introduction of various upgrades, weapons and enemies. The game is presented in a single world map with multiple islands. Each island must be overtaken by destroying all enemies. Movement from one "level" to another simply involves flying from one island to the next. This level system is similar to the linked island environments we saw in Glu's Glyder.
SciFly 2 offers multiple aircraft with differing abilities (damage, shield, speed, and armor) as well as various slots for upgrades (weapons, shields, thrust). Ships can additionally be customized by color as well.
This video of the current build shows off some customization and then actual combat:
I had the pleasure of meeting with iPhone developers Team Phobic at E3 this week. Team Phobic is a small development group based out of Boulder, Colorado that is responsible for iTD, Bounce On and, most recently, Micro Mayhem. Team Phobic is also a very active member of TouchArcade's forum community.
Bounce On seems to be their flagship product and they've continued to pour in massive amounts of effort to provide additional content to their iPhone platformer. While we took an early look at the game back in December, the developers have since added 3 additional "worlds" as free upgrades. The latest World 4 update was released just yesterday and brings a great new look as well as a number of new features to the platformer.
World 4 (Mystic Oasis) offers a number of nice new gameplay elements:
Speed ball power-up
16 new levels
New enemy
Traps
Physics puzzles
Boss level
This gameplay shows many of the new elements from World 4 as played by one of the members of Team Phobic -- so be warned, it's really not as easy as he makes it look:
So, if you passed up Bounce On before, now's the time to take another look. It's on sale for only $1.99 at the moment which is an amazing value.
Team Phobic revealed that there will be one more free world (World 5) added to Bounce On before they will consider it complete, and have also started work on Bounce On 2 which they promise will bring innovative new elements and look to the genre.
We had the opportunity to spend some time with Hands On Mobile at E3 and talk to them about their iPhone gaming plans as well as a look at some of their upcoming titles.
Hands On Mobile is a global game publisher that has been around for 6 or 7 years already and is amongst the top mobile game publishers in the world. While they've certainly had an interest in iPhone development, they are now readying a steady onslaught of titles into the App Store throughout the rest of the year. They are also planning on introducing their own original titles later this year and into 2010.
Hands On already has a couple of titles in the App Store and are responsible for Crystal Quest [$4.99] and 3D Hunting [$0.99] and also worked on Yetti Sports [$0.99] which is a port of a popular Flash game. In continuing that trend, they are near completion on a port of the original Kitty Cannon Flash game in which you try to launch a cat as far as you can. Several similar clones have already made its way into the App Store.
Our readers, however, are probably most familiar with Hands On as being the developers behind the first person shooter Prey Invasion that we first reported on back in February. Based on the PC and Xbox game, Prey for iPhone offers 5 levels of first person shooting action that should last you "a couple of hours" in gameplay time.
The controls for the game are very flexible with both dual analog stick controls (left movement, right look) as well as digital left/right up/down buttons. In either case, shooting is done by tapping on the screen. The analog controls are detailed nicely in this hands-on video:
Marble Madness was first published by Atari Games in 1984 and is the original ball rolling game that has always seemed to be a natural fit for the iPhone. The original game included 6 maze-like levels that you must complete before time runs out. Various objects and enemies stand in your way.
Over the years, Marble Madness has been ported to a variety of platforms, and at E3 we were able to spend some time with the iPhone version. Mobile developer Handheld Games has been working with Midway to bring Marble Madness to the App Store. This version of the game includes the 6 original levels along with some modernized tweaks and new look, but also contains a "Classic" mode that allows you to relive the old days.
Additional gameplay modes include: Targets Race, Size Race, Flag Race and Night Race. The various modes introduce a variety of secondary goals (roll over Targets, slalom between Flags) or new challenges (different Size balls, or Night mode with limited visibility) on top of the original levels.
We aren't allowed to provide you any screenshots or video of the game just yet, but will do so as soon as we are given permission. Handheld Games also showed us a couple of their own games including Batting 1000 and Lock 'n Load which we will feature in another article.
Gamevil sat down with TouchArcade today to show us the next iPhone game they are working on for a September release. Hybrid Eternal Whisper is another port of a popular Korean game by the same name.
Gamevil describes Hybrid as a stylish action game where the fighting and special moves take precedence over the RPG storytelling elements found in Zenonia. After their experience with the popular Zenonia game, Gamevil is taking additional steps in adapting Hybrid's interface system to be iPhone native by eliminating the original joystick control interfaces. In this early build, however, they warned that many interface elements were still in transition and the language remained in Korean.
The game is structured around 150 levels where you must fight off a number of combatants on each level. Backgrounds and environments differ across levels and different skills and actions are both learned and earned over the game. The game does carry over some RPG elements including equipment purchases and earning abilities. There are various control combinations and swipe controls that invoke different attacks. Mastering these controls may become essential in progressing through the battles. While no official gameplay estimate has been provide, it seems like this could easily provide many hours of gameplay.
Hybrid Eternal Whisper is said to have been very popular in Korea selling as many copies as Zenonia did. As a result, we're very hopeful to see the final release of this game, and we'll keep you updated over time.
In case you needed more evidence of how remarkable Firemint's Real Racing is going to be when it hits the App Store, the company released this new (final) trailer for their upcoming game:
36 cars in three classes, a dozen unique tracks, five game modes
Three divisions to play through
Massive career mode with 57 events to complete
Ten licensed music tracks from indy artists
Six cars on screen
Touch or tilt to steer
Manual or automatic acceleration and braking
In-car cockpit view or external camera
Local multiplayer over WiFi
Online league play
Online leaderboards
Video replays on YouTube
Create personal leaderboards at www.cloudcell.com
You can follow @RealRacing on Twitter, check out the FaceBook page, and, of course, keep an eye on Touch Arcade for news about this highly anticipated racing game. Real Racing will also be featured at the iPhone Launch Party at WWDC.
Yesterday we took a first look at two particularly promising Gameloft games Real Tennis 2009 and Castle of Magic. While we posted the developer's trailer videos, without seeing them played in hand they never quite capture the feel of the game. So, here are a couple of hands on videos we recorded.
This first video is of Gameloft's upcoming side-scroller Castle of Magic which looks and feels like a console-quality platformer on the iPhone. This video shows a Gameloft representative playing through one of the levels. The beautiful graphics, variety in level design and extra little flourishes really impressed us:
Now this next video is where I try my hand at Real Tennis 2009. Now, I do manage to lose every point, but to be fair, it was one of my first times playing and I was just getting used to the controls. That said, I did spend a little more time and found the game to be fun and controls pretty solid. Note that swipes can be used to produce different strokes such as lobs, slices, drop shots and more.
At E3, Gameloft was also demoing two new rhythm games that are coming to the iPhone by the end of June: DJ Mix Tour and Guitar Rock Tour 2. Both games bring the traditional formula of tapping to music that has been seen on the iPhone already. The biggest advantage to these games are the officially licensed songs that will be familiar to most.
DJ Mix Tour is aimed towards electronic/dance music fans and includes songs such as Poker Face, Just Dance, Womanizer, Get The Party Started, Open Your
Heart, Four to The Floor, Cry For You, and more. In all it contains 16 licensed hit songs.
Meanwhile, Guitar Rock Tour 2 offers 19 songs including I Love Rock & Roll, Helicopter, and Paranoid.
At E3 on Tuesday, Vir2l Studios demoed to TouchArcade a few gaming titles they will be releasing in the coming months.
AMF Bowling
AMF Bowling is a popular existing mobile game that Vir2l is porting to the iPhone.
AMF Bowling is a more stylized version of bowling with over-the-top characters each with their signature move after you build up enough Psyche points. The game is played across 12 different environments with 12 different characters. Some of the environments listed for the mobile version of the game include Route 66, Spielgasse, Hong Kong Penthouse Palace, Studio 77, Ten-pin Shrine, Highland Bowling, Deep Space Lanes, and more.
The controls of the game were simple but enjoyable. It starts with a simple two-tap swing -- the first tap to start and the second tap timed to give you the maximum power. Once the ball is released, however, you control the direction of the ball with the accelerometer. A simple mechanic, but one that gives you more a feeling of participation over some of the other App Store bowling games.
AMF Bowling is due for release in June.
Legend of WuKong Warrior Legend of WuKong Warrior is an interesting take on the side scrolling platformer. The game features an intersting mechanic that we've seen before in games such as Skybound [App Store] and applies it to a side scroller.
The game combines the use of the accelerometer and swipe controls to maneuver your character through the levels. Swipes below the character draw small cloud platforms for him to jump upwards. Ongoing swipes continue to elevate the character while accelerometer controls provide direction. Enemies provide obstacles which must be dealt with using swipe attacks.
The game will include 20 levels and is not due for release until July. We'll be very interested to see how this game turns out.
Sexy Lexy
Now this one hardly seems like a game, but it is... well, sorta. Sexy Lexy is a high quality rendered companion which you interact with using a series of gesture swipes. Each successful swipe on the right locations unlock additional animations, and after you find all the right spots, you move on to the next level.
Each level, of course, is marked by new seductive animations and a bit less clothing. In the end, despite its clearly adult nature, the game itself will fall somewhere in the PG-13 arena. Vir2l reports they are working closely with Apple to ensure the App is suitable for App Store release. We should see this one sometime in July.
At E3 Expo, Gameloft also gave TouchArcade a hands on with their upcoming Real Tennis 2009 sports title that will be showing up in the App Store as early as next week.
Real Tennis will offer sports gaming fans another solid title from Gameloft as it seems to offer the same level of depth that we've come to expect from Gameloft's sports titles such as Let's Golf and Real Soccer 2009. The app combines accelerometer, joypad, and even gesture controls to the game of tennis.
The basic controls worked intuitively, with movement controlled by the on-screen joypad and swinging with a virtual button. When serving, the accelerometer is used to target your serve. Specific gestures with the button are said to invoke different types of strokes, but I didn't get a chance able to master it in my brief time with the game. You can play as one of 8 different fictional players with different attributes. Different locations offer different surfaces which affect how the ball plays.
The official list of features includes:
8 players entirely modeled in highly detailed 3D graphics.
From Paris to New York or Stockholm, play in 7 stadiums on 3 different surfaces – clay, grass and synthetic – each providing a different experience.
Local Wi-Fi Multiplayer to challenge your friends in real time!
Controls making the most of the iPhone/iPod touch features
Serve by tilting your iPhone!
A wide array of strokes for a deeper experience: Lob, drop shot,
smash and more.
A Career mode that lets you join a tennis tour just like a real professional player.
Gameloft's video shows how the game looks, while we have a hands-on video that we will post shortly.
The game is expected as early as next week and will be priced at $5.99.
EA has a large booth here at the E3 expo. Tucked in with the mobile games were a couple of iPhone titles that we hadn't heard much of yet.
EA had an early build of their real-time strategy game Command & Conquer for the iPhone. The game is expected by the end of the year and has been adapted to the iPhone's full touch screen. The demo unit they had only had a single large "sandbox" mode for show purposes but the full version will have full campaign mode.
Our video walks through some of the controls and gameplay of the release.
Chillingo and developer h.grenade have provided TouchArcade with the final build of the much anticipated space shooter Circuit Strike One.
We recorded this first hands-on gameplay video that shows the game in action. Those with just casual familiarity with the game might think that the game looks like many of the multi-directional survival shooters that have recently invaded the app store. Developer Shay Casey explains, however, that the game is actually a zero-g physics game much like Asteroids.
The real key can't be said enough - it is a zero-g physics game just like Asteroids so do not try and keep your thumb on the thrust.
Casey says that once you get used to the controls there is a great payoff "allowing maneuvers like strafing, 180 degree j-turn style attacks and more. .... Once you get the hang of it and the controls "click" for you it opens up a world of possibilities."
The game also features an Airbrake, Reverse Thrust and an invincible "Bullet Time" mode. Our skills aren't up to speed quite yet (as you can tell in the video), but the game looks great and you can get a feel for it through this hands on video (played on an iPhone 3G):
Circuit Strike One has been submitted to the App Store and is due any day now. We've been following this one for some time, and glad to see the release is almost upon us.
