Shadow Love [$0.99] is exactly the kind of game you'd expect from a developer named Strawberry Gohan (Japanese for "rice," in this instance). This familiar-feeling platformer transforms into something visually and mechanically enchanting, as a world of hand shadow puppets comes alive. Sharing many of the hand shadow puppet enemies and interactive backgrounds in detail would spoil the fun, but the appearances of a four-armed shuriken and finger-firing bosses should coax you to try another stage.
Shadow Love begins as a simple sidescrolling, head-stomping platformer and later adds punching and flying abilities along with auto-scrolling (a la Canabalt) and vertical climbing stages. At the end of each five stages, you fight increasingly challenging bosses, but none of them felt as difficult as the stages themselves. After beating the 30 levels of the main game, a "light" mode opens up with tougher stages.
The shadow puppet visuals and their implementation were so charming that I overlooked the virtual buttons and repetitious music. Shadow Love received similar great praise in the Touch Arcade forums for its visuals during its quiet summer release. The developer recently made the game free, and now it has the chance of reaching a much larger audience.
In my test play, Shadow Love's screen had black bars on the side to suggest it is not iPhone 5 optimized, but it still looked and worked well on the new device. In the end, how often do you get a solid platformer (or any type of game) with cleverly implemented shadow puppets? Exactly.
There is precisely one video game in the world where you get to play as a handsome gentleman who can throw exploding cats from his beard, and right now that game is free just for you. The game in question is Halfbot's The Blocks Cometh [$1.99], and the bearded gentleman I'm referring to is myself. The exploding cats thing is also based on a real life experience, but I just don't want to go into right now. Just kidding. Hey, you can also play as digital versions of Eli and Brad, among a ton of other special characters plucked from the crazy world of video games.
If you need a refresher course on what exactly The Blocks Cometh is, you can read our original review from early last year. However, a massive update arrived later that year that added landscape support, new unlockable characters, and two sweet new game modes which made it an even better experience than the initial release version, which was already pretty darn good.
Then this past August another major update hit which added The TouchArcade Crew as playable characters, in addition to the main characters from Velocispider [$1.99 / Free] and 1-bit Ninja [$2.99 / Free]. Good company to be in, I might add. That update also added Universal and Retina Display support for the iPad, and let me tell you that The Blocks Cometh feels best to me on the larger iPad screen. Also Brad's muscles are all the more glorious on an iPad, and Eli's snark is practically palpable. We dig into that particular update in our TA Plays embedded above.
Don't mess around and give The Blocks Cometh a download while free. It's an incredibly challenging and satisfying endless platformer that was one of my favorite games even before it included the most dynamic and electrifying trio of iOS game editors on Earth.
Ubisoft did something special with the iOS release Rayman Jungle Run [$2.99]. They took the gorgeous art assets from Rayman Origins, the critically acclaimed reboot of the Rayman series that hit consoles last year, and reworked them into a game built from the ground up for mobile and touchscreens.
The result was an auto-running version of the popular platformer with 40 brilliantly designed levels, each crafted with Rayman's various special abilities – like wall-jumping and helicopter floating – in mind. Rayman Jungle Run also boasted some of the nicest visuals and smoothest animation on the entire iOS platform. We thought it was a pretty great game in our review.
Yesterday, Rayman Jungle Run's first significant content update landed which added a brand new world called Potpourri. It contains 10 new levels to play through - 9 regular ones and a new ultra-difficult Land of the Livid Dead level. There are some new gameplay elements here too, like triggering platforms by jumping on plants and the ability to slide on water. This new pack of levels is free to everybody, but just FYI you will need an internet connection to download them to your device.
In addition to new levels, there's also a new in-app purchase option. For 99¢ you can unlock a Heroes pack which gives you a playable Globox character and 2 re-skinned Rayman characters. Big ol' Globox is fun to play as for a nice change of pace, though he seems to use the same voice samples as Rayman which is kind of odd. The skins offer a sinister-looking Dark Rayman and an amusing "Rayman dressed in a Globox costume" character. The different characters appear to only offer cosmetic differences, and all play exactly the same, but are fun nonetheless.
Seriously if you like challenging but rewarding games that feel like they're tailor-made for mobile, and are a visual treat to boot, then you need to have Rayman Jungle Run in your collection. The new update adds 25% more levels to the game for free, and if you want to float Ubisoft an extra buck the unlockable skins are a cool bonus.
I have to admit, when I first laid eyes on Ski Safari [$0.99] when it released back in April, I had to let out a groan. Another endless running game? Sigh. But I try never to judge a book by its cover (or rather, its genre) so I downloaded the game and took it for a spin. Much to my surprise, there was a ton going on in Ski Safari that totally set it apart from similar titles. The biggest thing was how it controlled. It used just a single "touch anywhere" control mechanism that caused your little skier - who was racing across the snowy terrain as quickly as possible trying to outrun a pursuing avalanche - to jump into the air, and rotate into a backflip if you held down long enough.
This single-touch and single-rotation gameplay really worked well in Ski Safari, as the game was not only about keeping your speed up and avoiding obstacles so as not to be overtaken by the avalanche but also a risk/reward element as you tried to pull off as many backflips and tricks as possible and land them cleanly in order to drive up your score. Something about the simplicity of playing coupled with the subtle depth of high score chasing really clicked with me and Ski Safari.
Besides that, though, Ski Safari had an undeniable charm and a huge variation of things that could happen in the game. You could crash into a penguin and use them as a temporary sled while racing down the slopes, or launch off a cliff and get picked up by an eagle who would take you along for a ride through the sky, along with so much more. It seemed like the more you played Ski Safari the more little details like that you'd come to notice, and that's not even going into the staggering number of unlockable items and power-ups in the in-game shop or the numerous achievements and leveling system built into the game.
We originally really enjoyed Ski Safariin our review, but since that time the game has been updated several times adding in even more features, unlockable items and environments to play in. It's simply incredible how much is stuffed into Ski Safari, and right now for the first time ever you can download the game for free. After actually trying out Ski Safari and realizing it wasn't just another me-too endless runner, I would have had no problem recommending it in its initial state for the asking price of 99¢. The fact it has been expanded so much since then and is available for free makes it a definite must-download, and I have a feeling it's just going to keep on improving well into the future.
There are so many things to love about Sega's classic Jet Set Radio. Back when the game debuted on the Dreamcast in 2000, it set the gold standard for visuals, music (courtesy of Hideki Naganuma) and pure style, creating a game that simply hadn't been seen before. The iOS port of Jet Set Radio [$2.99], in some ways, takes that original experience and makes it even better with high-def visuals and a much faster framerate. Unfortunately, like a lot of ports before it, Jet Set Radio's virtual controls leave a lot to be desired, especially when you take into consideration the natural difficulty curve of the game.
If you're one of the few that have never played (or heard) of Jet Set Radio, this is a game about turf wars within the city of Tokyo-to. You take control of a skater gang known as The GGs as they battle rival gangs to take control of the town. Battles take place via missions that span three different parts of the city, with the goal of most missions being to spay the graffiti of your gang over any rival gang marks. While that sounds simple enough, tags can and will be found in areas requiring precise platform skills. In addition, rival gangs, as well as the Tokyo-to police force will always be gunning for you. Finally, a perpetual timer exists in most missions, keeping you on task. Jet Set Radio is a perfect example of a game with a great balance between platforming, action, and exploration.
Right out of the gate, 4NR [$0.99] provokes a couple of big, big eyebrow scrunching obstacles to understanding what exactly it is. It opens with Proverb 15:24 ("The path of life leads upward for the prudent, that he may turn away from Sheol beneath."), has a name that could imply it's a l33t-themed game about a certain British-American hard rock band, and it also looks like it's a Game Boy game prototype. Ignore all of that, tap to start, and 4NR reveals itself to be something much more straightforward, and also much more vexing, than any of that suggests at first glance.
The "Sheol" referred to in the game's intro is from the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible, and it just means "the underworld." Hades. Heck. H-E double hockey sticks as my dad -- and Mitt Romney -- used to say. When the game kicks off you have two paths to take to escape your fate: Either you can ascend to the heavens or you can mine your way down below and try your luck there. Either way, there's gonna be lots and lots of ladders. Think of it as Lode Runner: Spiritual Edition Unplugged With Extra Salvation Sauce Extreme (in two colors).
If you are not currently an iPad owner but have an iPhone or iPod touch, developers want you to know that your smaller screen is nothing to be ashamed of. Similar to how the previously iPad-only Bastion [$4.99] came to the smaller iOS devices last week, Fluttermind's haunting puzzle platforming adventure Incoboto [$3.99 (HD)] now has a small-screened counterpart on the App Store called Incoboto Mini [$1.99].
Incoboto originally launched for iPad back in February this year, and we thought it was simply excellent in our review. At its core it's a platforming game set in fiendishly designed puzzle-like levels, but like most great games there's so much more than what you see on the surface. Incoboto tells a particularly engaging and emotional tale, with dark undertones and some heavy subject matter despite its cheery visual look. Taking in the atmosphere of the Incoboto world is just as important as wrapping your head around and completing its levels.
While Fluttermind previously thought that this sort of "big screen" experience wouldn't translate well to iPhone, it turns out that everything that made Incoboto great on the iPad has successfully transitioned to the smaller screen after all. Unfortunately, a crash bug slipped in there as well which seems to be affecting a small portion of players. As Fluttermind notes in our forums and right in the App Store description, a fix has already been submitted and should be out soon.
I wouldn't let that scare you off, though, as Incoboto is one of the most unique and beautiful experiences you can have with an iOS game, and if you aren't equipped with an iPad then now is your chance to experience it for yourself. Or, if you're like me and loved the iPad version, this is your chance to re-experience it all over again on the smaller screen.
Beavertap Games launched their inaugural iOS game Mikey Shorts [$0.99 / Free] back in August, and we thought it was simply outstanding in our review. Its main focus was on speeding through levels as quickly and efficiently as possible, though it was also very welcoming to those who just liked to leisurely run and jump through each stage at their own pace. The levels in Mikey Shorts were incredibly well-designed, and the inclusion of Game Center leaderboards fired up the competitive nature of gamers in our forums as they battled it out for top times.
Mikey Shortswas updated about a month after release with new levels and disguises, and late last month a special Halloween-themed version appropriately called Mikey Shorts Halloween [Free] launched for free with several exclusive levels. Today, another new update has landed, and this one is especially neat. It features 15 new disguises, each one modeled after a different indie iOS game. Check out the full list of what games are included below, along with review and forum links where appropriate, and you can see the collection of disguises in the screen right under the list.
If you haven't given Mikey Shorts a try yet, download the lite version or Halloween version and take it for a free spin. I can also effortlessly recommend all of the games on the list above, and it's pretty cool to see Beavertap paying homage to so many games, many of which are platformers that are direct competitors to Mikey Shorts. That's the Indie Scene for you though, warm fuzzies all around, and all that.
The two easiest ways for folks on the iOS store to make money as quickly as possible: 1) Exploit people's profound love of nudity. 2) Exploit people's profound love of retro-style games. Polyroll [$1.99 / Free] only excels at one of these, which is terrible news for people who love nudity. (Sorry. Fortunately, I hear there are plenty of places online to see it for free, unless you count the sizable toll it takes on your soul and budding sexuality.)
"Exploit" isn't quite the right word, but we've become conditioned to feel that retro-style graphics are basically a marketing gimmick in 2012. I mean, really, there is no real reason to make games look like old NES or SNES games today unless it's an aesthetic choice of some sort: You either are trying to evoke the feel those old games had or are simply trying to wrest a fistful of nickles and dimes from players because you know that they'll think, "Hey this looks like an old game ZOMG!"
All of this is to say: Until you play it, Polyroll might seem like another gold-rushing game trying to horn in on the 8-bit "revolution," but it isn't. It's doing something more deft: Actually filling in some gaps and introducing some new ideas to the classic platformers it's drawing inspiration from.
At the ripe old age of 30, the boy that was Prince Adam is now a man. A He-Man, and the Masters of the Universe franchise is back with us in the all-new He-Man: The Most Powerful Game in the Universe [Free] from Chillingo. And this isn’t just a dusting off of the 80s cartoon toy advert you and I grew up with. It’s a reimagining of the cheeseball franchise that clearly understands its audience isn’t 10-year-old boys any more; it’s the immature men (He-Men?) they’ve grown into.
Everything about He-Man: The Most Powerful Game in the Universe draws heavily upon a delicious retro-ironic conceit, and that was a very wise design decision. So wise, in fact, that I suspect it was actually the saucy Sorceress who came up with it.
Anyway, He-Man and his buddies have undergone a slight change of appearance, hinting at the popular 'super-deformed' art style prominent during the hallowed days of 16-bit gaming. And that’s not all the game borrows from those wonderful times, back when the pixel was king.
There's nothing quite like speed-based reactionary games on iOS. Smooth framerates combined with fast-reflexes and responsive controls usually make for a title well-suited for the touchscreen. Skyriders [$0.99], with its futuristic feel hits on all these points and then some. Add in great level design and some subtle RPG mechanics, and Skyriders rises above the rest as a great example of challenging and fast arcade fun.
From a basic gameplay perspective, Skyriders is relatively simple. Each level has the player racing from start to finish on a track filled with boosts, stars, barriers and chasms. Besides simply making it to the finish line (which isn't as easy as it may sound), players are also tasked with trying to get as high a score as possible, which is centered around earning and maintaining a high multiplier. Multipliers are gained by collecting stars and hitting boosts consistently (a meter at the top of the screen acts as a timer for how long you have to boost or collect a star before the multiplier dies). Meanwhile, hitting barriers (you can jump or dodge them) instantly kills your multiplier, while falling off the racetrack ends the run.
Half of every one of Polara's [$0.99] levels is out to kill you, but which half is up to you. This auto-running platformer is made up of two colors, and you can swap which one you interact with with the tap of a finger. It's not just a matter of red versus blue, though. Sometimes you'll be blue and red shots will kill you. Other times you'll find yourself face-first in a blue wall that's just knocked you to your death. Reacting isn't a matter of simple color recognition. It's that, understanding, and reflexes all rolled up in every jump and swap.
There are three responses to each obstacle: switch colors, remain the same, or avoid it all together. You'll have to weigh each option dozens of times in every level, and that constant calculus is taxing. You'll fall into patterns, and that's when the game crushes you.
Polara is at its best in those moments when it plays against your expectations. It's fine when it's hard and quick, but it's better when you're running merrily along switching back and forth and it smacks you in the face. Maybe it's a small but sudden change to a pattern, or maybe you suddenly need to switch away from a color. Regardless of the details, it's the surprises that shine far more than the moments that have you tapping and tapping and tapping every half-second.
It's hard to get frustrated either way, because the game is incredibly forgiving. Not easy; forgiving. Checkpoints are never more than a few moments apart, and you'll quickly find a spot that makes you very happy that's the case. For me, it was one segment with a quick red-blue-red-blue-blue-red, with two changes in each jump. It wasn't a hard maneuver, but I slipped into the obvious pattern over and over, unable to make that last second switch. For an auto-runner, Polara rarely lets you play on auto-pilot.
If constant checkpoints sound like nothing worth testing your skills against, don't fret: the game also makes an excellent and vicious endless runner. In the "Other Modes" menu, you'll find an endless mode that does away with checkpoints and randomizes the obstacles. If you're willing to put in a little time and effort, there are five more to unlock.
Each time you finish a story level, the game tells you that it's been unlocked. If you revisit it, there are two new objectives: collecting letters spelling POLARA, and finding a special item hidden somewhere unpredictable. As you complete enough of these challenges, more secret modes open up. You can also play for flawless, zero-death runs if you're into that much punishment.
At first glance, it makes sense to describe Polara as the bastard of Ikaruga and Canabalt. It isn't quite a fair comparison to make. Color switching was only half the challenge in Ikaruga—maximizing your score was the other half. It's the part that seems to be missing at points in this game, as you find yourself collecting colored orbs and soaking up beams to no effect. It isn't until you play for the secondary objectives that Polara feels complete. Those orbs make good obstacles when they sit right in front of the letter you need, and the beams hang out below to make you switch to collect and switch again in midair.
This does leave much of the game's 50 level campaign feeling a bit like Intro To Color-Switching, but to its credit that primer is badly needed. Despite a simple base mechanic and a small collection of obstacles to work with, Hope This Works Games has done a fantastic job of introducing new challenges at a steady pace. The studio combines and recombines each element to create situations that go from being puzzling to simply difficult as you work your way through them.
The story isn't quite as vital, but it's not half bad. Polara suffers from the same sense of dissonance that plagues most games that rely on comic-style cutscenes—it's often hard to relate the story to the action as it plays out—but the story it tells is compelling enough. Short and fairly uncomplicated, but hey, it's a coherent story in a mobile game. That's nothing to scoff at. It serves as part of a strong package, along with striking scenery flying by behind the neon foreground, and a good beat accompanying the whole experience. None of these things stand out particularly, but neither do they detract.
There are plenty of reasons to recommend Polara, but the one that takes it past the tipping point is the sheer volume of quality content. One trip through its levels takes a few hours. The second trip through is even more satisfying. And on top of all that, there are six endless modes to play with to your heart's content. It's almost unreasonable that a game should offer this much for this little. In a time when consumable IAP is king, Polara stands out for its stand-alone offering. If you find yourself asking for more games that are sold complete, then this is most definitely one that deserves—or requires—your love.
Earlier this afternoon, Eli and I spent some time with Polara [$0.99]. It's an auto-runner with a welcome twist: color-shifting. While doing the standard platform shenanigans, you'll also be tasked with shifting the colors of the game's portagonist's suit back and forth from red to blue depending on the obstacles you stumble across. It's a cool mechanic in practice, as it adds a superb brain-twistery layer to the action.
Polara is a hit with our readers, and we're digging it, too. If you'd like to see it in motion before diving in, go ahead -- we've got your back. Just hit the play button on this thing below.
For a limited time, the game is on sale for 99¢, by the way.
Oh, neat: Ivy the Kiwi [Free / $2.99] is now a video game that you can play on your iPhone or iPad. The game's original creator Prope unleashed a touch-friendly version of its perpetual motion game this morning. And from what we've seen of it so far, it works just as well on our phone or tablet of choice as it did on its previous platforms, the Wii, Windows Mobile and Nintendo DS.
If you're in the dark here, Ivy the Kiwi is an auto-runner starring a cute bird. Its core mechanic revolves around vines. In the game, you'll be tasked with tracking vines on the screen to control how the bird moves and to bridge any gaps that it might come across. On touch, you do this by simply swiping the screen where you see fit.
We'll have more on this soon, but we've got a trailer above if you want to see the game in motion. It's of note that this is appears to be the downloadable DSiWare version, as it has 50 levels instead of the retail version's 100, according to Joystiq.
Naw, Weird Al wasn’t really involved with this, although a polka-flecked rhythm game that doubles as a parody of “Paperback Writer” would be pretty rad. Pizza Driver [Free] is a much more straightforward kind of game: You hold down anywhere on the screen to accelerate your bike, let go to jump, and tap again to execute a landing.
All the while, you’re racing against the clock, which delivers the game’s biggest challenge. The time limit is brutally short on each stage, and until you are able to rack up enough dollars (in-game ones) to upgrade, you should get used to seeing the first few stages over and over and over again.
Eventually you can buy continues, more hearts that will make getting hit by a car less of a big deal, and other things. But, unless you get incredibly impatient and want to pony up real dollars to buy fake ones for upgrades, you’re going to have to just put in the time and effort to earn your right to advance on.
Shadow Love [$0.99] is exactly the kind of game you'd expect from a developer named Strawberry Gohan (Japanese for "rice," in this instance). This familiar-feeling platformer transforms into something visually and mechanically enchanting, as a world of hand shadow puppets comes alive. Sharing many of the hand shadow puppet enemies and interactive backgrounds in detail would spoil the fun, but the appearances of a four-armed shuriken and finger-firing bosses should coax you to try another stage.
There is precisely one video game in the world where you get to play as a handsome gentleman who can throw exploding cats from his beard, and right now that game is free just for you. The game in question is Halfbot's The Blocks Cometh [
