Considering the large amount of physics-based puzzlers that get continually released on the App Store, it takes a special kind of title to differentiate itself from the pack. Little Bit Games' The Seed [$0.99]Â does so in a variety of ways. Its emphasis on minimalist (but beautiful) presentation combined with approachable gameplay is a great mix and is executed well. In addition, its subtle narrative and reflective visuals lead to a game that's only sullied by its shortness.
As you might imagine, The Seed tasks players with guiding a magical seed through a variety of barren locales on a quest to regrow the land. This is accomplished by guiding the seed through a variety of stages with the goal of each to land the seed on a flat of fertile ground which allows it to grow a plant and move on. Sounds relatively simple, but the simple act of guiding and moving the seed (which is done via water droplets) is an adventure in itself.
It's time to take a bite of the reality sandwich. At the end of the day, office worker bees can only put out so many fires and circle back to so many tasks before they need to table their workload and develop a more synergistic flow. What I mean to say, I think, is that you need to loosen your white collar, grab a foreign object, and smash your office to smithereens or risk becoming a lifer who goes postal or, worse, stares mindlessly while muttering about a stapler.
The prototypical office drone you play in Smash the Office [$0.99] has done just that. Reduced to a gibbering mess by unrealistic time tables, micromanagement, office jargon, and conversations that no doubt began with "Workin' hard or hardly workin'?", your character takes up the nearest blunt instrument and sets out to raze his workplace to the ground.
Each level drops you in a standard nine-to-five office setting replete with cube farms, servers, computer, and other office gear. With a club in hand, you have exactly one minute to earn a high score by smashing and bashing everything in sight. Once you've, uh, taken the meeting offline in one room, break down the door to move on to the next room of breakables.
Trauma [$2.99] gives us few concrete facts. There is a hospital, a woman in a bed, a doctor offering an uncertain prognosis. Beyond that, a series of dreams pieced together from photographs and memories, narrated by the woman, a victim of a traumatizing accident.
Taken on its surface merits, there isn't much to it. As with its original desktop release, Trauma is a tiny game, an experience of no more than an hour or so at most. There are a few ways to explore its virtues, but only so much to discover. What's there is, however, interesting to examine in a way that few mobile games manage.
The goal is to work through four dreams, each with a specific challenge: a teddy bear crushed under a large weight, a ghost that cannot be caught, a road that must be followed, and path that must be found.
I've been golfing before. The first time I tagged along with my dad. He hit a ball just off a slope. We hopped in the buggy to retrieve it, he told me to lean out and grab it as we rumbled by, I fell out and tumbled down the slope. The second time, I actually played! Just one hole, though. Why? Because golf is boring when you have to, you know, fish your ball out of sand traps and actually walk around. Yep, that's golf: boring at best, painful at worst. Thanks, Dad.
Super Stickman Golf, however, is neither boring nor painful. It is awesome. If you enjoyed developer Noodlecake's golf-slash-physics-puzzler, you'll be happy to hear that Super Stickman Golf 2 [$0.99] is loads better, and available at the same impulse-buy price point.
Super Stickman Golf 2 challenges you to complete courses at or under par. Sounds a lot like golf, right? Well, instead of straight shots from tee-off to the green, each hole in Super Stickman Golf 2 plays out like an obstacle course. There are pits, sand traps, water traps, moving platforms, lasers that vaporize your perfectly-aimed shots, and portals inspired by Valve's popular spatial puzzler: smack a ball through one portal and it pops out the other.
Like many gamers, my three best friends and I have a long-standing gaming tradition. Every holiday, we gather for our perennial New Year's Eve LAN party. In an ideal world, we tear down our gaming rigs on New Year's Eve, drop them off at one friend's house with plenty of space, go to dinner at our favorite Tex-Mex place, and then ring in the New Year over a good 8 to 10 hours of gaming nirvana fueled by salty snacks and sugary drinks.
The reality usually played out differently. After several years of frustration caused by out-of-date drivers, lost game discs, forgotten Steam passwords, and bizarre network anomalies (what exactly is a network bridge, and why did it only appear on my Win98 machine?), we threw up our hands and downsized to Nintendo DSes and Mario Kart. This past weekend, the gang got together ahead of schedule and downsized even further.
Armed with our iPhones, we listened to the ranting of one friend who insisted we play some iOS game called Spaceteam [Free]. In preparation for the meet-up, I downloaded the game and perused the list of features. They included teamwork, shouting, confusion, and four-stroke pluckers. Being a big fan of three-stroke pluckers, I could only imagine what fun it would be to tinker with four. I was not disappointed.
Zen Studios has been pinballing back and forth (see what I did there?) with their recent pinball game updates and releases. First, we saw Zen Pinball [Free] proper updated with the three new Star Wars themed tables that we'd been hearing about for the month prior.
The new Star Wars tables were awesome, but Zen Pinball hadn't yet been updated for the iPhone 5 or iPod touch widescreen (tallscreen?) so owners of those devices were left with a letterboxed experience.
Then a few weeks later, as Zen had hinted it was going to do, a standalone version of the new Star Wars tables was released as Star Wars Pinball [$1.99]. The initial purchase of Star Wars Pinball gave you the Episode V table with the additional two tables available as in-app purchases, similar to how buying new tables works in Zen Pinball.
The kicker, though, was that the standalone Star Wars Pinballdid include widescreen support, so if you were dying for that you might have been quick to purchase that version and maybe even double dip if you'd already bought the tables in Zen Pinball previously (that is exactly what I did, by the way).
So just about a week after all that we again bounce back to the regular Zen Pinball, which at long last was updated with full widescreen support for the iPhone 5 and 5th generation iPod touch. Not only that, but four brand new Marvel tables have been added to the available in-game catalog, including an Iron Man table which you can see embedded below.
Zen Studios may have been a bit sporadic in how their latest stuff has been released on the App Store, and I'd imagine that has a lot to do with Apple approval shenanigans and whatnot. The important thing is that Zen Pinball, one of the finest pinball collections on iOS, now looks and plays great on my pinball device of choice, my iPhone 5.
If you've been anxious for that as well or are interested in some new Marvel tables, give the new update to Zen Pinball a look.
When Hunted Cow Studios originally launched Battle Dungeon this past December, it seemed like a promising tactical turn-based strategy title with a heavy emphasis on online play. In fact, even the single player portion of the game relied on Hunted Cow's online servers, as that's where the computer AI lived too. No matter how you planned on playing it, Battle Dungeon required an online connection.
So when the game began to pick up steam in the pirating community, and those same servers began filling up with players who never actually paid for the game, it became financially unviable for Hunted Cow to continue to keep them running. That means the game was pulled from the App Store and servers were turned off, and thanks to how the AI was hosted it made Battle Dungeon useless even for an offline single player experience.
A sad story for a game that hadn't even been out for a week at the time, but Hunted Cow was very good at facilitating refunds for those who bought the game and they vowed to rework Battle Dungeon and re-release it as an offline, single-player only game. After a few months the team has finally reached that goal with the release of Battle Dungeon: Risen [$2.99].
Battle Dungeon: Risen features the same turn-based gameplay as the original game, but spread across 12 self-contained single-player scenarios. Each scenario has a 3-star grading system, and with the level of customization you're given to create a team and progress each character there is a lot of replay value in finding the best team and set of tactics for beating each one. And, as you can see in the comparison screen below, the graphics and lighting have been noticeably improved over the original Battle Dungeon.
While the absence of competitive online matches is a bummer, Battle Dungeon: Risen proves it wasn't a necessary requirement for having a thoughtful, challenging, and highly tactical turn-based strategy experience on mobile. If you enjoyed the original game or just didn't get a chance to grab it before it was removed, give Battle Dungeon: Risen a shot and check out our forums for even more positive impressions.
There are very few motifs out there that haven't been beaten nearly to death by a deluge of games crafting variations of the same story. Zombies. Pirates. Ninjas. And yet, I've somehow maintained a soft spot for the story of the well-meaning robot caught up in something bigger than itself. Whether it's a brilliant point-and-click adventure like Machinarium [$4.99 (HD)] or the frantic puzzling of Robot Wants Kitty [Free], I can't say no to the task of taking care of something cute and artificially intelligent. So it's no great surprise that when I heard Teotl Studios was bringing their well-received head-scratcher Unmechanical [$3.99] from PC to iOS, I had my download finger at the ready.
Set in a mysterious, subterranean expanse, Unmechanical follows a plucky propellor-equipped robot on a mission to bring life back to a place long-forgotten. Armed with only one ability - the power to emit magnetic rays that allow you to carry objects, lift latches, and power switches - you zip through a series of interconnected rooms and pathways, slowly coming to understand what you're doing, and where you are. What stood out immediately for me was the way the game's vague narrative leant itself to a mobile port.
Scenes are shot in a purposefully limited field of view, forcing you to fly slowly outward to the walls of a cavernous room too understand its scope, take in its many machinations, and gain a sense of your surroundings. Looking down on the scene as it rests between your hands within the confines of a phone or tablet screen helps immerse you in the unknown, giving off the sense that you - like your spinning protagonist - are under the microscope.
This oscillation between a sense of both discovery and ambiguity is maintained in the puzzle structure, where Unmechanical truly shines. What seem at first like tenuous, disconnected elements of a sprawling space soon give way to a clear goal, albeit one that seems massively difficult. Yet by testing, investigating, and probing the scene, you see see a small, simple first step. When you take that first step, suddenly the path forward seems a little clearer, a little less uncertain, and a bigger picture takes shape: one that you couldn’t see before. Clever, tangible puzzles based around levers and switches soon take their place in larger, multi-part mind-benders that reveal their scope as you progress. Watch out for a particularly satisfying sequence that seems like it begins with a one-off test of refracting lazers, which comes full circle to deliver a hugely satisfying challenge many screens later.
The whole experience is tied together with controls whose simplicity have me torn. On one hand, the boiling down of the Windows version of the game - complete with its controller control option - to two key gestures, is hugely admirable. Resting your finger on the screen and dragging it where you'd like to go handles movement, while tapping the character turns its magnetic function on and off. The massive diversity that Teotl Studios eeks out of that combination serves as a compliment to the game's overall elegance, and very rarely feels forced. Things do, however, feel occasionally spotty in ways that can frustrate. A demand for precision when it comes to the magnetic field, and some imprecise hit boxing for turning it on and off all result in actions being repeated, or solutions being botched needlessly.
To that end, not all of the game's smaller challenges fall down on the right side of that divide between logic and experimentation. A handful of sequences feel altogether too rote, and the ensuing "puzzling" amounts to a lengthy sequence of carrying and dropping. Meanwhile, a couple roadblocks seem to lack any rhyme or reason, and fall down on the side of tiresome trial and error. Make no mistake: Myst [$6.99 (HD)] junkies will enjoy whipping out a notepad to do some detailed cataloguing, but the sparing nature of these types of puzzles makes them feel out of place and at odds with the game's otherwise consistent tone.
That, ultimately, is what helps Unmechanical rise above the kinks in its own machinery to stand out as a deep, satisfying experience: a tone and game world worth exploring. On a platform focused so misguidedly on "replayability," the game's gorgeous setting, subtle story, and (mostly) wonderful puzzles make it something better - deeply playable. Huge kudos to Teotl for flexing their acrobatic skills with Epic's Unreal Engine here on mobile as well, where even an iPad 1 is able to clunk its way through the entire game without crashes (though it's not advisable given the graphical dip!). Fellow robot sympathizers, players looking for a mental workout, or anyone bitter their iPad still can't play Machinarium: don't let this one pass you by.
Just last week we posted a new trailer for the Phase 3 update for the futuristic racer Repulze [$2.99], and it seems the Apple approval process went rather smoothly as the update popped up in the App Store today.
To quickly summarize, Repulze is a racing game with a focus on speed and a futuristic look, something akin to the Wipeout series. We enjoyed the original game as well as the Phase 2 update earlier in the year, but the action was focused on single car time-trial style racing rather than actually racing against opponents or battling with weaponry like in the Wipeout games.
Not a bad thing by any means, because Repulze did what it intended to do very well, but it wasn't exactly what some fans were looking for from the game. Today's update takes Repulze closer in the direction of what those fans were asking for with the introduction of AI opponents and a new weapon system to use during races.
I've been saying this for a while, but Repulze is one of my favorite racing games to come along in a while. I enjoyed its original iteration, the Phase 2 update, and I'm looking forward to spending some time with the new Phase 3. Check out our forums for some more impressions of the new update and be sure to give Repulze a look if you're looking to quench your need for speed (and vehicular combat).
Does anyone remember The Conduit? That ambitious Wii shooter that combined mystery and lore with with action fundamentals, and made a run at carving out a core niche on the system? Its developer High Voltage Software seemed primed to make a name for themselves on the back of that game and its sequel. After the tepid reception of Conduit 2 a couple of years ago, however, the talented studio all but disappeared into the contract work they were doing, with big name brands like Toy Story and Star Wars burying their recognition. Now, of all platforms, it seems like it's iOS that has given them a new lease on life.
From first-person shooter to endless runner, High Voltage's Le Vamp [$0.99] puts you in charge of the safety of what may be the world's cutest prince of the undead. Having just escaped from his crypt, the titular character charges headstrong out into the big wide world, obliviously looking for someone to play with amidst the dangers of sunlight, other monsters, and enraged townsfolk. Naturally, it falls to you to keep him out of harm's way...unless you're the real monster, because seriously: who wants to see this adorable baby vamp bite the dust?
Rovio's latest Angry Birds release took the epic struggle of Birds versus Pigs and mashed it together with the epic struggle of Rebel versus Empire in the Star Wars universe. And it worked, as Angry Birds Star Wars provided a ton of twists on the usual bird-flinging formula while simultaneously doing a great job of implementing the Star Wars universe without feeling forced or tacked on. We thought Angry Birds Star Wars was really great in our review.
More is on the way, too, and GameTrailers has landed the first brief glimpse of an upcoming Angry Birds Star Wars update which will add levels set in Cloud City, the setting of Lando's dirty backstabbing and poor Han getting frozen in a block of carbonite. Good times!
GameTrailers will have more on the Cloud City update on Monday, so keep your eyes peeled for that and it sounds like the update is basically done and should be hitting in the very near future.
With its large screen and multi-touch controls, real-time strategy titles have had somewhat of a resurgence on iPads (and its smaller iOS brethren, to a lesser extent). Bitmen Studio's Galactic Conflict RTS [$5.99]Â is the latest such title, with a focus on tons of spaceships on-screen and the requisite massive scale of dogfights. While Galactic Conflict certainly succeeds in that regard, the rest of the game is relatively benign, leading to an otherwise standard real-time strategy game.
Following the last remnants of Earth across space, Galactic Conflict's campaign features a dozen missions that put you in control of the Terran Confederation as they strive to defend themselves from attacks by the Pyros race. Narratively, what little story that exists in the campaign is told through standard in-mission cutscenes. While I found the campaign a good way to get introduced to all the ships and upgrades, from a story standpoint it was relatively bland. Thankfully, a skirmish mode and decent multiplayer offering exist for folks that just want to get into the battle.
Hacking isn't much of a competitive sport. There are certainly competitions out there like Pwn2Own, but they don't look much like Hollywood's idea of hacking—you know, the bright colours, trippy graphical interfaces and sexy music (and people).
But what if they did?
PWN: Competitive Hacking [$1.99] imagines just such a competition, a tournament that pits Hollywood hacker against Hollywood hacker. They style themselves in cyberpunk accoutrement and have names like Axiom and Cipher. The neurally augmented, the leader of an underground army of hackers, the government agent-turned freedom fighter—these are the sorts of characters that enter the tournament, and that's about all you'll ever know of them.
The colorful cast is a campy treat, but it's just window dressing for the main game: a head-to-head battle for digital territory. The game is played on a grid of linked cubes called nodes. Both players have one node to begin with, and the first to leave the opponent with nothing wins. This isn't a game of manual dexterity—you only need to tap a node to capture it. The time it takes to be captured is dependent on a couple things, namely the number of connected nodes you've already captured and which power-ups you and your opponent have in use.
When Zen Studios originally announcedStar Wars Pinball in early February, they had stated the three new tables based on the iconic series would hit as both DLC for the existing Zen Pinball [Free] app and as a brand new standalone game. Then when the Star Wars DLC finally hit Zen Pinball towards the end of the month, there was no sight of said standalone game.
For whatever reason it was running a few weeks late, but Star Wars Pinball [$1.99] has just launched in the App Store as its own separate app, and it comes equipped with widescreen support for the iPhone 5 to boot, something we can't say for its older Zen Pinball sibling.
For the $1.99 download of Star Wars Pinball you'll get the table based on Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back, with the Clone Wars table and the one themed after Boba Fett available as in-app purchases for $1.99 each, all the same price as in Zen Pinball.
I'd like to see Zen Studios get widescreen support into the original Zen Pinball, and according to their Twitter it's on the to-do list. But if you held off on the Star Wars DLC before because you weren't interested in the whole package, or you're just dying to play with widescreen support, you can check out the standalone Star Wars Pinball right now. Oh, and just in case you missed it before, if you're like me and you love pinball but are completely terrible at it then check out this video series we came across to tighten up your game of silver ball.
In an interview over at Polygon, Minecraft developer Mojang discusses a new service they've got in the works called Minecraft Realms, which is coming to the desktop and Minecraft: Pocket Edition [$6.99 / Free] versions of their popular sandbox game. The aim of Minecraft Realms is to streamline the creation and hosting of worlds for online multiplayer, as well as a reliable system for enabling or disabling mods, and make these tasks simple for non computer savvy folks to do.
Since nearly the very beginning of Minecraft's launch, two of the biggest customer support issues have involved troubles hosting worlds on outside servers and running mods that could possibly conflict with each other and create issues in or break the game. Minecraft Realms should offer a "one click solution" for the people who need assistance with these things. Mojang has been working on an official mod API that they hope to release at some point, and this can be used to create a library of officially supported mods which can be enabled through the Minecraft Realms service with the assurance that it won't cause problems with the game.
The Minecraft Realms service is currently in closed alpha, and should launch in the desktop Minecraft sometime before summer. There will be a monthly fee somewhere between $10 and $15 dollars to use the service, and like the game itself Mojang hopes to frequently add new features to the service and flesh it out over time.
Even more exciting is that Minecraft Realms will be heading to the mobile Pocket Edition too. It'll likely cost less money on mobile, but offer a similar functionality to the desktop version. Mojang is also toying with the idea of having the mobile and desktop versions interact with each other in various ways, which would be incredible, but right now it's a huge technical hurdle. Not out of the question, though.
You can look forward to Minecraft Realms hitting before the summer, so be sure to check out the original interview at Polygon for even more insight into the upcoming service and we'll definitely give you a heads up when the update rolls out to Minecraft: Pocket Edition on mobile.
Considering the large amount of physics-based puzzlers that get continually released on the App Store, it takes a special kind of title to differentiate itself from the pack. Little Bit Games' The Seed [$0.99]Â does so in a variety of ways. Its emphasis on minimalist (but beautiful) presentation combined with approachable gameplay is a great mix and is executed well. In addition, its subtle narrative and reflective visuals lead to a game that's only sullied by its shortness.
