Twitter user @loyalmoses is one of the lucky people who got their iPhone 4 today who posted three full resolution screenshots of Flight Control [99¢] with the new iPhone 4 enhanced update that hit the App Store today. Click these images to see them full size, then imagine that number of pixels on a 3.5" screen. Yes, it blows my mind too.
We likely won't get our iPhone 4's until we pick them up on Thursday (I'm going to be at the flagship store at 5th Ave in New York City... yeesh.) so if you're one of the lucky ones who managed to get an iPhone 4 we're looking for impressions on gaming on the device. Please shoot us an email at tips@toucharcade.com if you'd like to be an official TouchArcade test bunny.
Imangi Studios'Harbor Master HD [Free] recently received an update which tweaked a few things such as the number of touch points the game tracks (now 6) and adds the new 99¢ DLC map, Pirate Passage.
Harbor Master HD is a free line drawing chaos management game similar to Flight Control, except you're managing boats and you need to not only dock them to unload cargo, but also guide them back off screen. Harbor Master HD launched for free with a single map, Treasure Island.
Pirate Passage is a map with three ports to drop cargo off at, and three cannons to fire in order to shoot the attacking pirates out of the water. Pirates spawn seemingly at random who then come to steal your cargo off ships and eventually sink them. Touching a gun and dragging it in the direction you want to shoot fires the cannon to defend your cargo.
Harbor Master HD is free to play with the Treasure Island map, and really is something you shouldn't miss if you own an iPad. Also, if you're annoyed by in-game advertisements, you're in luck as buying the DLC map completely disables them.
In just a few days Fabulapps plans on releasing its first game called CrossRoads in to the wild. CrossRoads is yet another line drawing time management game, but it sets its self apart by adding a few extra gameplay features all wrapped in a slick art style.
Similar to existing games on the App Store like Car Mania [99¢], you guide cars to their destinations by drawing lines on a map. Fabulapps takes this concept a little farther by adding unique events that occur on each map. For example there is a map were you have to crush zombies in your path as you route cars around. On others, you will need to pop balloons, shake clouds off the screen, and break ice when your screen freezes over.
The feature that most piqued my interest is the multiplayer mode, which allows you to play against another player with the game via Wi-Fi or Bluetooth. Similar to the multiplayer found in Flight Control [99¢] and Harbor Master [$1.99 / Free], you will be able to route cars off your screen and on to your opponents to add even more vehicles for them to manage.
CrossRoads will launch with 4 included maps (one as a free download) and 3 additional maps available as in-app purchases. Each add-on map includes new music, special effects, and new vehicles. The game should be out sometime this week for $1.99.
For more details on the game as it nears release, take a look at the thread on our forums.
I've said it before and I'll say it again, one of my favorite things about the accessibility and low barrier to entry of iPhone development is some of the shockingly off the wall game concepts that people manage to come up with. Extreme Sheepdog Trials [App Store] is yet another example of a strange game that actually is a surprising amount of fun.
As the title would hint, in the game you control a sheepdog and you make your way through a variety of different levels by either tapping where you want your dog to go or drawing a line for it to follow to herd sheep. The thing with this game is, it has so many neat features that any one of them packed in to the game by themselves would have been cool enough, but the complete package is something you've really got to try.
For instance, while there is a standard level pack where you're herding sheep about the countryside, there's also other level packs included that have you doing crazy things like herding sheep in some kind of futuristic space station. These levels are much more puzzle oriented, with switches you will need to hit with your dog to do things like disable lasers so you don't fry your sheep. These levels also have sheep teleporters, and a bunch of other awesome obstacles to work through.
But if you're thinking to yourself, "I am a professional sheep herder, I don't want to touch the screen when I know how to command my sheepdog by whistles," oddly enough, you're in luck. The absolute coolest thing about this game is that if you're playing on a device with a microphone, you can control your dog by whistling. The game will even teach you how to handle a sheepdog using whistles, and as far as I can tell, all of the whistles are what you'd really use if you were really out herding sheep with a real trained sheepdog.
There's even online leaderboards for you to compare your sheep herding skills with the rest of the world.
The only real down side to Extreme Sheepdog Trials is the amount of levels. Currently there are three different packs with five levels each. Some of them are very difficult and will take a while to complete, but it still would be nice to see more. Even though the game is a little light on content, I still recommend giving it a spin if this review has at all piqued your interest-- Just make sure you give the whistle controls a try.
Yes, there are tons of zombie games on the App Store. Yes, there are also tons of line drawing games on the App Store, maybe even more than zombie games... But how many line drawing zombie games are there? Viqua Games' upcoming post-zombie apocalypse line drawer, Zombie Escape is exactly that. Using the same skills you honed landing planes in Flight Control and docking ships in Harbor Master, you can save survivors from a legion of zombies.
Helicopters land, and you must draw lines to guide the survivors to them. Each helicopter can only hold a few survivors, indicated by the dots below each helicopter. When one is full, it takes off, and after a while another one takes it place. Things get hectic quick as the screen fills with zombies and you need to manage the survivors while you wait for a new helicopter to arrive to load them in to.
This is where the toolbar at the bottom of the screen. Crates are randomly dropped in game that contain goodies that the survivors can pick up by walking over them. These goodies include bombs that can clear out swarms of zombies, emergency helicopters that are great for dropping on groups of survivors waiting for a ride, meat to lure zombies, and others.
You can see how this all goes together along with how the difficulty ramps up in this gameplay video:
Three different levels are included that are slowly unlocked as you play, and Zombie Escape has full OpenFeint integration with loads of achievements and online leaderboards. Zombie Escape is currently entering beta testing, and the build I played in the above video is a work in progress that doesn't even have an icon yet. I like what I've seen so far, and can't wait to see the final product once it's fully tested and tweaked.
Last week was absolutely loaded with sneak previews of games, and thanks to the wonderfully fast App Store approval turnaround time so far this year, B-Boy Beats, Robot Rampage, and Drift Sumi-e are all available for download.
The gameplay of B-Boy Beats amounts to keeping your index and middle fingers on the screen of your iPhone and moving them in time with the red and green circles to dance to the songs. This actually seems to take quite a bit of getting used to, as instead of most rhythm games where you're just tapping things along with a beat, you often need to keep one finger down while you move the other one around. Doing well takes an awful lot of brain power as when the songs speed up you almost instinctively just try to go back to quickly tapping like you do in Tap Tap Revenge and other games.
Despite quite a few naysayers in both the comments of our preview article, YouTube comments, and the forum thread, this game is one of the better rhythm games I've played on the iPhone largely because of how different it feels playing it compared to the typical tap to the beat rhythm game. B-Boy Beats comes loaded with nerdcore and once you get in to the gameplay, dancing with your fingers is a lot of fun. (And even more fun if you draw some Nike Dunks on your finger tips.) This is a game that badly needs a lite version, as you really need to get a feel for the game to fully appreciate it.
Robot Rampage is a seemingly endless survival game where you play as a gigantic robot armed with a super laser. Your massive robot is controlled with a variety of touch gestures. Tapping on the side of the screen causes the robot to move in that direction, holding a finger down on the screen fires the laster in that direction. The robot can also punch and stomp by tapping on either side of the robot's torso to punch, and tapping its legs to stomp. As you destroy your surroundings, a gauge in the top left corner fills up. Once full, you can tap and hold the robot to charge up a massive attack that clears the screen.
If you like giant robots, cheesy Sci-Fi B-movies, and destroying cities with huge lasers and robot fists of fury, it's safe to say you'll enjoy this quirky survival game. Gameplay is a little on the simple side, as all you do is rampage through a seemingly endless and random cityscape destroying buildings, soldiers, tanks, and other meager human defenses. OpenFeint integration should provide quite a bit of replay value if you enjoy competing in online leaderboards.
The game involves drawing a single stroke along the racetrack as the path for your car. You must try to hit and connect all the red clipping zones and try to make it through the course as fast as possible. After you draw your single stroke, you sit back and watch the playback in 3D as your car drifts around the corners. Multiple camera angles are provided along with drifting smoke effects. Your ultimate score is based on the smoothness of the line and speed of your run.
Drift Sumi-e is an interesting blend of gameplay reminiscent of Draw Race with a really cool looking sumi-e art style. Gameplay is simple, although it seems to take a back seat to the extremely elegant graphics as most of the game is spent watching your car drift around corners and taking snapshots with the unlockable in-game camera.
Last week we got a sneak peek at Indeeo Games' recently released line drawing game, AirStrike Defense [App Store]. Featuring three modes that the game hops between with each mission, AirStrike Defense asks players to control ships and/or planes in a variety of different combat scenarios.
Regardless of which unit type you're controlling, both naval and air forces are maneuvered by drawing lines originating from the ship or plane. Both are capable of boosting their speed for a brief period of time, and handle much differently depending on the unit. For instance, massive battle ships move and turn extremely slow, while smaller ships move much faster, and your jets move even faster.
Gameplay is structured through a series of mission, each with slightly different objectives. Some naval missions ask you to navigate a fleet of battleships through an ocean full of mines, or avoid bombers trying to sink your ships. Air missions involve bombing enemy ships, and there's a combination mode where you're managing your air offensive while protecting your naval fleet.
The sea missions are fun, but I found the various bombing missions to be the most enjoyable by far. As you progress through the game, you'll need to take out entire fleets of enemy battle ships with your bombers and your performance is graded by your overall bombing accuracy. Achieving a high accuracy score is easier said than done, as it takes quite a bit of skill to precisely drop bombs on enemy fleets filled with a variety of ship types that all behave differently.
Where things went south for me was when AirStrike Defense has you managing both bombers and ships at the same time. Instead of having everything take place on a single screen, you hit a button in the top left corner that switches in between the screen with your air forces bombing the enemy fleet and the screen with your fleet avoiding the enemy bombers. It's confusing and disorienting constantly switching back and forth between both battles to manage all your units at once.
While I wasn't crazy about the combination missions, AirStrike Defense does a great job at mixing up the objectives enough to keep gameplay fresh. The line drawing controls work great, and there is a ton to work towards in the game as you slowly get access to different types of ships and planes. AirStrike Defense is definitely worth a look if you've enjoyed line drawing games in the past, and want something a little more involved than Flight Control and similar spinoffs.
What do you get when you cross line drawing with a pack of hungry lions? Lion Pride [App Store], of course. As OpenFeint's free game of the day, you really don't want to miss this strange warthog munching simulator.
The premise of the game is simple, you control a pack of lions and need to gather food for the rest of your pride. Thankfully, in this corner of the African savanna there seems to be a constant stream of warthogs, gazelles, and other beasts to munch on. Similar to Draw Race, you control the speed of the lions by how fast you draw lines from them on screen. Sneaking up on animals is important to keep them from running off, so you start by moving your lions slowly, then quickly go in for the kill. If something starts to get away, tapping twice on them will briefly stun them.
As you get further in to the game, you get more lions to control and tougher prey which needs to be attacked by multiple lions in order to be brought down. Lions need to be positioned to work as a team to all strike at once, and if any wandering hyenas come on screen they need to be scared off to prevent them from disrupting your food supply.
I really liked Lion Pride when we first took a look at it, and since then they've added additional game modes and all kinds of OpenFeint functionality to give the game tons of replay value through achievements and friends challenges. There's even fun facts about lions in game, how can you go wrong?
Indeeo Games gave us some early details on their upcoming iPhone game that they plan on submitting to the App Store within the next few days. AirStrike Defense seeks to blend familiar line drawing controls with an RTS element, allowing players to take control of a variety of naval and air forces to engage in full battles where you attack the enemy fleet with your air force while you defend your own fleet from theirs.
AirStrike Defense comes with three game modes: Air attack mode, where you attack the enemy fleet with your planes, naval defense mode where you defend your fleet, and and all-out battle missions which combine both game types.
With how quickly the App Store approval process has been lately, if Indeeo Games follow throughs with their plans and submits AirStrike Defense in the next couple days, we could have the game in our hands as early as next week.
Streaming Colour's latest game, Monkeys in Space: Escape to Banana Base Alpha [App Store] is the end result of developer Owen Goss's series of nine video blogs that covered everything from early prototyping to the game's release-- And are totally worth watching if you're an aspiring iPhone developer or are just interested in a look behind the scenes of indie game development.
Your task in Monkeys in Space is to direct colored monkeys to a space station of the matching color. To accomplish this goal, you draw on the screen to create what looks like a tractor beam to pull the monkeys to safety. For additional points, monkeys of the same color can be chained together using similar drawing gestures before finally sending them off to their respective space station. The game is over when two monkeys that aren't part of the same chain collide.
3 maps are included, which are slowly unlocked as you rescue enough monkeys and the game saves exactly where you were when you quit or are interrupted-- A feature which should be far more common than it actually is. If like many of our forum members you have an unnatural obsession with OpenFeint-enabled games, you will be happy to know that Monkeys in Space features both online leaderboards and a set of achievements to pad your OpenFeint score.
Monkeys in Space has gained a considerable fan following on our forums, and while the contest is over now, Owen even had people creating fan art for the game:
There's no doubt that the chaos management genre is quickly becoming just as packed as the match 3 section of the app store, but the gameplay in Monkeys in Space manages to be different enough from the Harbor Master and Flight Control standards that it feels fresh. As you progress in the game and get more comfortable with the chaining mechanics it seems like you get even more brazen with how many monkeys you will chain at once-- Usually resulting in a rogue monkey crashing into your massive 8 monkey chain you're working on.
If you're crazy about these kind of games, Monkeys in Space is a worthy addition to your collection. If you've enjoyed docking boats, landing planes, steering Santa's sleigh, commanding soldiers around, and all the other things you do in these games... Why not help some monkeys get back to their space station?
So, is it possible to fit another worthy line-drawing game into an already crowded market? Backflip Studios thinks so with their new game Harbor Havoc 3D [$1.99].
Like Flight Control, the objective of the game is to route your ships to their proper docks. Simply draw a line from the ship to the dock and you're on your way. Harbor Havoc 3D's claim to fame, however, is the incorporation of multiple layers of vessels that you must properly navigate. Depending on the map, this can include submarines, boats and helicopters or even submarines and ground rovers in the underwater map. Each type of ship can only collide with like ships, so keeping this in mind is critical for success.
The game comes with 4 maps: Far East, Atlantis, Arctic, and Lighthouse. Each offers a variant in gameplay. Far East is your straightforward Flight Control setup where you are docking different ships to their ports. Ships, however, don't have to be undocked as in Harbor Master. The game also adds an anchoring mechanism by tapping on a ship that will keep them in place. The Far East map is going to feel boring to anyone who has put in much time in any of the existing line-drawing games, but Atlantis and especially Arctic are where things get interesting.
The developer's gameplay video shows how crazy things can get and even shows the locked Lighthouse level which gives you a partially obscured view of the play area.
For advanced players who have gotten bored of Flight Control and are looking for more of a challenge, Harbor Havoc 3D manages to provide added layers of challenge without necessarily being different just for the sake of being different.
Everyone loves a freebie! If you don't already own these four games, their respective developers recently released lite versions for you to whet your appetite before jumping in to the full version:
Lion Pride Lite, Free (Lion Pride, 99¢) - A neat spin on line drawing games, Lion Pride has you taking control of lions and chowing down on the various prey of the African wild. Utilizing a Draw Race-like system where the speed of the line you're drawing determines how fast you move, Lion Pride is a great addition to the somewhat crowded line drawing genre. We enjoyed the full game in our review, and Lion Pride Lite is really worth checking out.
Uno Free, Free (Uno, $4.99) - What even needs to be said about this? If you've ever played the XBOX Live Arcade version of the game, the iPhone version is very similar. If you haven't, just imagine the classic game of Uno playable against AI opponents as well as friends or complete strangers online, all without needing to carry around a deck of Uno cards.
Dungeon Defense Lite, Free (Dungeon Defense, 99¢) - Dungeon Defense is similar to a tower defense game, except instead of building towers you position guards in a number of predetermined points on the map. You have a variety of units that can be placed such as swordsmen, archers, or axemen, and you need to fend off waves of attackers. The lite is worth checking out if you're a fan of the tower defense genre.
NFL 2010 Free, Free (NFL 2010, $2.99) - If you're looking to find out how a full-on football game works on the iPhone, give NFL 2010 Lite a try. We thought NFL 2010 was impressive in our review, but since then, Madden NFL 10 has also been released. Gameloft has attempted to make the decision between which game to get a little easier, recently dropping the price of the full version to $2.99.
Drawing games are becoming more and more popular, and for good reason. Out of all the different control methods on the iPhone, few are more natural than simply drawing on the screen.
Draw Race [App Store] takes a unique approach on racing games. Employing the familiar drawing mechanic, you literally draw your racing line around the track. The speed of your finger controls how fast or slow you go and once the race starts your car tries as hard as it can to stay on the line.
If you draw too fast around a corner your car can spin out so there is a small skill curve to the game as you get a feel for how fast you need to draw compared to the handling capabilities of your car. Currently included in the game are 20 tracks, and once you complete a race in the single player mode you'll be able to race other people online and compete in time trials.
The developer released the following trailer:
Flyloop [App Store] utilizes a similar drawing mechanic, only this time you're drawing circles around butterflies to catch them as they fly across the screen.
What initially appears as a tranquil game of catching butterflies in a field quickly escalates in to frantically drawing circles trying to match pairs. The game has an acoustic guitar soundtrack, and global high scores if you're in to that kind of thing.
Watch the trailer for Flyloop to see it in action:
Both of these games use screen drawing in different ways to create entirely different gameplay experiences. Draw Race and Flyloop are both worth checking out if you want a couple of simple fun games without needing to use virtual D-pads or tilt controls.
