I've been slowly playing through Dr. Fun Fun's Hi, How Are You [App Store] since it came out nearly two weeks ago now, completely unaware of the phenomenon that is Daniel Johnston. I originally intended on writing about this game because I hadn't seen another cell shaded platformer on the App Store. However, after doing some research on the history of Hi, How Are You's development, I got turned on to the world of Daniel Johnston and quickly became aware that this is Johnston's life of art and music distilled into a iPhone game.

The premise of Hi, How Are You follows the theme of most of Johnston's music in that you're battling the forces of Satan to find love. Playing as Jeremiah the Innocent, you will make your way through over 25 levels to remove the curse of Satan. As the game progresses, you slowly change from a frog, to a block, to a ball, and finally back to human form.

Your movement in the game is controlled using the accelerometer and the two stop signs in both lower corners of the screen instantly stops your character from moving. Initially this seemed like such an odd set of buttons to have cluttering the screen, but it didn't take long for this seemingly strange control element to really grow on me as you never need to worry about finding the exact center of where you calibrated the accelerometer to in order to stay in place.

Instead, you hold the stop button, tilt the direction you want to move, let go, and you're off. This control method allows you to navigate the different obstacles in game with ease. The camera can be panned right of left by pressing either side of the screen, and to zoom out you press both sides at once.

Completing the levels in game involves hopping over every tile, turning them green, then finding the exit. It's not that easy though, as you quickly come across all kinds of obstacles, moving platforms, and other puzzles. The bottom of the screen displays your life, along with the time, the number of tiles left to turn green, and the number of bonus tiles on the level to be turned red. While each level is timed, you can keep playing and complete each level even if you run out of time, you just won't be awarded for beating the clock.

Hi, How Are You has a soundtrack featuring several of Daniel Johnston's songs, and an art style matching Johnston's drawings. The difficulty ramps up nicely, and with each achievement you unlock a unique piece of artwork to view. I had fun playing the game, but after doing some reading on the life of Daniel Johnston, Hi, How Are You has taken on a whole new layer of awesome. Dr. Fun Fun not only created a game with a neat style that's fun to play for people who have never heard of Johnston, but also an amazing piece of fan service for those who have.

If you'd like to know more about the world of Daniel Johnston, he has his own Wikipedia article, and his life is detailed in the 2005 documentary, The Devil and Daniel Johnston which is available on iTunes along with all of his music and several music videos.

Hi, How Are You is a fun platform puzzle game with a unique art style. If you're not a fan of Daniel Johnston, playing through this game might just make you become one.

App Store Link: Hi, How Are You, $2.99

Here are some games that have come out recently that are worth a look, but with all the excitement this week between the Eliminate and TouchPets Dogs previews and the 360iDev Game Jam they sort of fell between the cracks of front page coverage.

Bloons Tower Defense

Last month we posted an early trailer for Bloons Tower Defense [$2.99], an iPhone port of the Bloons spinoff tower defense flash games, all playable on the Ninja Kiwi site. Bloons [99¢ / Free] was a wildly popular game on the App Store, and if the positive reactions in our forums are any indication, Bloons Tower Defense may be another hit.

Bloons Tower Defense comes with 50 levels over 15 different tracks with multiple difficulty levels and unlockable medals for each. The game has the same touch controls of other tower defense games on the platform, along with oodles of different towers, upgrades, and tons of balloons for your monkeys to pop.

Mr. Mahjong Touch

FDG Entertainment, most famously known for Parachute Panic [99¢ / Free] and Bobby Carrot [$3.99] recently released Mr. Mahjong Touch [$4.99] based on the popular Mr. Mahjong series of mobile games.

Mr. Mahjong Touch features 100 layouts, 4 tilesets, tons of unlockables, and even a shop system where you can buy power ups. Big Albie posted a review of the game on our forums, and according to him, the game is "easily one of the best mahjong games on the platform."

Galcon Labs

Galcon Labs [99¢] is an evolution on the original Galcon [$2.99 / Free], providing the same basic gameplay with four new game modes not found in the original.

• Billiards – The the planets that make up the battlefield are in constant motion.
• Stealth – Enemy ships are only briefly visible after launching from a planet.
• Crash – Ships collide with each other, so instead of just going after planets you can run in to the enemy to win.
• Assassin – Players start with assigned planetary targets, the first player to capture their targets wins.

Reactions on our forums have been mixed as some people feel there hasn't been enough change to justify an entirely new game, while fans of the original are greatly enjoying Galcon Labs. If you haven't played a Galcon game, I recommend trying Galcon Lite.

Toy Bot Mini Missions

IUGO seems to be pumping out additions to the Toy Bot series like crazy lately. Toy Bot Mini Missions [$3.99] is based in the Toy Bot universe and comes packed with 100 mini games and 12 unlockable playable characters. These ultrashort levels are a bit of a departure from the other Toy Bot games which feature an extended level structure.

Fans of the Toy Bot series may want to consider Mini Missions, but if you're new to the Toy Bot world, you might want to try some of the other games or even the free version first. Take your pick of the seven different Toy Bot games on the IUGO App Store listing.

Dromsynt's Squareball is one of those games that seems to demonstrate what a wide range of reactions a single gameplay mechanic can generate.

Squareball offers a touch-screen spin on the retro gameplay of breakout. The ball in Squareball constantly bounces up and down and your job is to navigate it to the end while knocking out certain blocks and avoiding others. You'll also need to avoid gaps in the wall that will send your ball flying out to oblivion.

Instead of controlling the ball's movement, you are actually sliding the level around the ball by swiping your finger on the iPhone's screen. The game runs very smoothly and adopts a simple "retro" look for its graphics. Here's the game in action:

It certainly isn't an easy game and is, in fact, quite frustrating. But is it fun? Well, we played the game shortly after its release, and we didn't love it. While we liked some aspects of the game, we simply didn't feel compelled to keep on playing, and therefore couldn't recommend it.

While that might have been the last of it, some rave reviews (higher ranked than Spider: The Secret of Bryce Manor at IGN) and interviews drawing parallels to Super Mario Brothers, make it clear that a certain group of you are going to go gaga over this game. Meanwhile, others had an even more negative reaction than we did with iLounge saying the game is "worth asking for your money back if you make the mistake to actually buy it."

Now, the recent release of a Lite version gives you the chance to decide into which camp you belong.

App Store Link: Squareball, $1.99, Squareball Lite, Free

Pirogue Studio's Dinky Ball [$1.99] is fast-paced ball rolling game that managed to suck me in.

While the game is set in a 3D environment, you simply control the ball's forward and backward motion on a circular platform by tilting your iPhone. Tapping on the screen causes you to jump, and the goal is to get your ball to the red box which completes the level. Each level comes with a time limit and you want to complete each level as quickly as you can. The game starts off easy enough, but special types of surfaces soon appear that impact your ball's behavior. Black blocks slow your ball down, while white speed it up. Later levels have disappearing blocks, jumping blocks, and more.

The game comes with 60 levels total but each level is a rather short timed run. Depending on your past experiences with ball rolling games, this is more a feature rather than a flaw. The game's simple controls and short level designs offered quick challenges that kept me interested in the next level, reducing some of the frustration found in other ball rollers. The downside, of course, is that levels can be run through very quickly. I made it through 24 before things got very challenging.

See the game in action:

Overall, the game is nicely put together, but does seem to have some basic flaws. There are 4 save slots that allow you to play the game through starting at Level 1. There's no way to go back and play a particular level, however. While you get timed per level, there appears to be no way to access these times. It's possible that the entire 60 level run time is summed together, but I'm currently stuck on level 45.

Still, a surprisingly good ball rolling game that keeps you playing.

App Store Link: Dinky Ball, $1.99

Across from Subatomic Studios I ran in to Sam from InstantAction. He showed me an early development version of a game his company is working on called Flipt. The game plays a lot like Shift, a platform puzzle game where you can shift the game world back and forth from black and white to change the platforms you're running along.

Where Shift had a button to invoke this change, everything in Flipt is controlled via the accelerometer. Both Shift and Flipt are hard games to describe, so check out this video I took of the game on the PAX floor. Thanks to the terrible lighting and being bumped around by the crowd, the video quality isn't the best:

[ Full HD version | Low Bandwidth version ]

Flipt is still in development, and a lot of the animations and sound are just placeholders. Regardless, it looks pretty cool and we look forward to seeing more of the game in the future.

Gameloft's port of Earthworm Jim is, well, Earthworm Jim. If you're unfamiliar with the game, it originally appeared on the Sega Genesis in 1994, and since then saw ports on numerous platforms soon to be including the XBOX 360 via XBOX Live Arcade, the PS3 via PlayStation Network, and the Wii via WiiWare.

The story begins with a high tech super suit falling from space and landing directly on top of an earthworm named Jim. The suit somehow mutates him in to a larger earthworm capable of controlling its various functions. Jim overhears the villains of the game discussing devious plans regarding Princess What's Her Name (Yes, that's really her name) and Jim decides to to go on an adventure to save the princess from killer golfish, evil cats, and queens with slugs for butts. The game was a hit and was even the basis for a short lived cartoon series on the WB.

An on-screen D-Pad (or joystick, configurable via an options screen) controls your movement, and buttons handle jumping, slapping your earthwormy self like a whip, and firing your gun. The controls work, but based on our brief time with the game, it seems to provide a mere shadow of the experience on the original Sega Genesis with the 6 button controller and nearly perfect D-Pad.

The first level felt more difficult than it should have been, and in the version I played (which likely is still under development) the buttons for Jim's various actions seemed a little too close together to accurately mash with my thumb. Also disappointing was that in the levels where Jim flies his pocket rocket there is no accelerometer support.

You can get an idea of what I'm talking about in this video running on a 2nd generation iPod Touch:

[ Full HD version | Low Bandwidth version ]

Of course, as with all the games we tried today, we didn't have enough time to fully evaluate the game, and we'll certainly spend more time with it when it's officially launched.

There are two ways you can look at Gameloft's Earthworm Jim: It seems to be a great port of the game, runs as well as you could expect, and is the closest thing you're going to have to playing the original in your pocket unless you feel like hauling around a Sega Nomad and the Genesis cartridge. On the other hand, it seems likely to share some of the annoyances of other virtual D-Pad platformers, and while it's certainly playable, the game does feel like it was designed for a real D-Pad (which, of course, it was).

As if you needed one more difficult decision to make today, you can now either get a Subway $5 foot long sandwich, or five games that all have recently been dropped to 99¢. As strong as the allure of the meatball sandwich is, given the original price of some of these games, now is the time to buy if you've had your mouse hovering over the buy now button in iTunes in the past.

Castle of Magic, 99¢ – A really neat platformer by Gameloft, Castle of Magic has a level of detail seldom seen in iPhone games. Fun level designs, cool boss encounters, and a magical game world make for a highly enjoyable game. There is a down side to the amount of visual flair in the game, as Castle of Magic does have significant load times on older devices, so you might want to check out Castle of Magic Free [App Store] first.

Rise of the Lost Empires, 99¢ – Gameloft's real-time strategy game that takes place in a fantasy setting with two included campaigns, one for both orcs and humans. Colorful graphics and loads of voice overs make for a pretty fun game, but if you're the kind of person who sits down and plays through entire games in one sitting, Rise of the Lost Empires can be beaten in a matter of hours. If you're more of a casual player who plays games in small burts, the game should keep you busy for quite a while. Rise of the Lost Empires Free [App Store] is also available if you want to get an idea of how the game plays before purchasing.

Smiles, 99¢ – If you have room on your iPhone for another match three game, Smiles has more variety in it than most other similar games. Featuring 14 different game modes and 3 themes, Smiles has been well received by the iPhone gaming community and was even a finalist for the best mobile game at the Independent Games Festival Mobile Awards. If you want to see what all the fuss is about, Free Smiles [App Store] will let you get your feet wet.

Silent Scope, 99¢ – Originally a awesome arcade game, Silent Scope for the iPhone has the same wacky premise of you playing as the world's top sniper trying to rescue the President and the first family from terrorists. The controls make some of the boss encounters and tracking moving enemies fairly difficult, so the $5.99 original price point was hard to swallow because of that. At 99¢, Silent Scope is worth a try if you've found yourself enjoying the other sniper games on the App Store.

Power Touch Pros, 99¢ – An immensely popular series in Japan, Power Touch Pros is an arcade baseball game with a ridiculous amount of customization to it. You can play exhibition games, entire seasons, change the overall difficulty, enable or disable errors, and even change whether or not there is wind in the game. Gameplay can be as simple as tapping or extremely complex depending on how far you delve in to the options available.

Earlier this month we profiled Mad Monkey Studios, a mobile developer that indicated they were beginning the development of iPhone games, but only those that would take specific advantage of the advanced capabilities of Apple's new iPhone 3GS hardware.

A few weeks later, the studio posted a video that showed a 3D shader-driven visual technique.  The technique is somewhat reminiscent of the cartoon stylings in the '80s a-ha video 'Take On Me.'

Early this morning, a simple game based on the demo, Sktech Hop [link], was released in the App Store and, as promised, is only compatible with the iPhone 3GS.

Sketch Hop is a simple and free "2.5D" side-scrolling jump-the-obstacles platform game that challenges the player to take a bouncing ball as far down a scrolling row of logs as possible, without falling into the gaps.  It's a tap to the screen to jump (the longer you hold, the higher / farther you'll jump), and that's pretty much as complicated as it gets.  As a game, it really just stands out more as an example of 3GS-specific game making from a studio that, when it comes to the iPhone platform, is dedicated solely to Apple's flagship device.

See a reader's video (which lacks audio) of the game in play.

It's a simple free download for 3GS users, but non-3GS users aren't really missing out on much… yet.

App Store Link: Sketch Hop, Free

From the creators of Puzzle Prism, Mr.AahH!! [App Store] is yet another game for the iPhone that is so simple it can be described in a single sentence, yet so much fun that it can keep you playing for hours. You swing on a rope from platform to platform touching the screen to let go and tilting to refine your fall. That's all there is to it.

Who is Mr.AahH!!!? Where is he going? Who is he running from? Where is he getting this endless supply of rope? None of these questions have answers, and it doesn't matter because the simple gameplay slowly begins to ramp up with different sized platforms, wind, and even modifications to the gravity that keep you playing even longer. Just when you start landing in the center of every platform for extra points, the game throws you a curve ball and you will need to adjust to still landing on the platforms with a strong headwind and maybe even low gravity.

The simple art style of the game is wrapped in energetic chiptune music along with different graphical and sound effects depending on how close to the center of the platform you land. After you miss a platform three times it's game over and your score is submitted to an online leaderboard. It's at this point that you realized that you barely cracked the top 500 and you could totally do better than that if you just play one more time…

Here is a video by the developer that shows all the features of the game:

In my opinion, Mr.AahH!! ranks right up there with the simple classics of the App Store like Doodle Jump, Flight Control, etc. The deliciously simple gameplay has kept me coming back for more, but you don't have to take my word for it, there's a lite available that will let you swing through a small series of platforms. If nothing else, give Mr.AahH!! Lite [App Store] a try.

App Store Link: Mr.AahH!!, 99¢ – Mr.AahH!! Lite, Free

Two weeks ago, a small indie team called Krabl released their first iPhone game Ynth [$4.99 ] into the App Store. The game is an original iPhone platform puzzler that offers a unique game mechanic in which you as a small bug must rotate a box across marshland while avoiding the various obstacles. All the while you need to avoid falling into the water, getting killed by spikes, or being crushed by falling objects.

It's an interesting concept for a game — and yet remains one that I want to like more than I actually do.

Technically the game is very well produced with good controls and nice artwork. On screen buttons allow you to jump left/right or (if you are against a wall) rotate the box you are in 90 degees left/right. Loose rocks inside the box can crush you, and you can only survive a fall of a certain distance. Additional elements, such as one way doors and springs add to the difficulty in later levels.

The game is hard to explain but this developer video shows the gameplay well:

Each level requires some trial and error to solve so even in the early levels you'll find yourself playing them again and again (and not always in a good way). The developers do provide a generous Lite version which offers 9 levels from the full version and gives a very good taste of the game. The full version contains 60 levels.

We're not sure if the gameplay captured us enough to fully recommend, but it's certainly worth a try for those looking for a different kind of action puzzler.

App Store Link: Ynth, $4.99, Ynth Lite, Free