The followup title to the extremely popular (and free) Jelly Car game has finally made its way into the App Store. The original Jelly Car was released back in October 2008 and has since developed a pretty massive following. The game is a driving/platforming game in which you drive a squishy car through squishy worlds, trying to reach the exit.
The sequel is being published by Walt Disney and comes with more than 30 new levels, new power-ups, and three new modes. The original free version remains in the App Store if you never tried it.
Auditorium is an abstract Flash puzzle game which shares a lot of gameplay elements with the various games on the App Store that utilize the gravity of objects to change the path of other objects on screen. Instead of guiding rockets or spacemen around the screen as in G [$1.99] or Gravity Sling [Free], in Auditorium you have to guide a flow of light particles in to the audio containers on the game board.
Each level has a different set of movable pieces that all have different effects on the flow of these particles, from simply controlling its direction, speed, or even attracting or repelling the flow. The early levels start in grayscale, but quickly make way to vibrant colors and different audio containers that can hold each the various particle colors.
The game itself is so unique that it's extremely difficult to describe. Thankfully, there is a free demo that only requires Flash to play available at PlayAuditorium.com along with a whole slew of videos on YouTube showing how to solve the various levels in game such as this one below:
According to EA Mobile's Facebook page, Auditorium is coming "Fall/Winter 2009" and will have 25 levels played through 5 acts.
Riptide Games has released the first game that was the product of the 360 iDev Game Jam. The Game Jam was an all night coding session for developers to try to create a game in 10 hours. This particular game was created in conjunction with Jonathan Hartstein of Pyro Monkey Productions and Eric Lannan of Crucial Games.
Gravity Sling is an inertia based puzzle game, where you must try to get the astronaut back to the space shuttle safely. In order to do this you'll need to take advantage of gravity from the nearby planets as you sling the astronaut through space.
Here's a promotional video showing how the game is played:
Rather than releasing the game at the expected $0.99 price point, Riptide games has taken advantage of Apple's new policy allowing games to be distributed for free with the ability to purchase additional content. 15 levels are included in the free version, with 30 additional levels available in-app for $0.99. This eliminates the need for a Lite version and could be a peek into how things may evolve in the App Store.
Early this month Empty Clip Studios gave us an exclusive preview of the upcoming iPhone port of their download / retail Wii rhythm puzzle title, Groovin' Blocks. Those anxious to get their hands on this one can now try the full [link] or lite [link] version, which went live in the App Store yesterday.
Each of Groovin' Blocks' 50 levels is played to a pumping techno soundtrack with scrolling beat-indicators on either side of the screen. Block clusters slide onto the playfield in a Tetris-like fashion, and will ultimately come to rest at the bottom of the screen. A tap on the 'drop' button will quickly drop the piece into place — but if you "hit a beat" (tapping the drop button during a beat of the soundtrack) the blocks will be bigger, brighter, and worth more points. Hitting consecutive beats without a miss increases your score multiplier — but miss a beat and it drops back to zero. Hitting the occasional Superbeat, shown brighter in the scrolling beat display, will double your current score multiplier.
Certain blocks contain power-ups that can be collected only if you hit a beat when placing said block. Power-ups are unleashed when the successfully placed block is destroyed by a match-three scenario.
GameSpot calls the Wii version of Groovin' Blocks "a music-based game like no other." As we said in our preview look, there's no shortage of match-three puzzlers in the App Store, but Groovin' Blocks' musical / rhythm component really does set it apart from the pack.
EA recently release a cute point and click adventure game for the iPhone called Mystery Mania. It's a charming adventure game that was originally released for mobile phones before it was ported to the iPhone.
The game offers 27 puzzle rooms throughout which you unravel the mysterious storyline. You play the role of F8, a robot with amnesia who must figure out what's going on. Touch controls offer the ability to interact with your environment and you must perform tasks in the correct order into order to solve each room. The game as been relatively well received in our forums with mostly positive experiences.
The only real criticism for some has been the relatively short length and ease of difficulty of the game, though it appears to be a good time during. Here's some of the Lite gameplay recorded by AppBank.
Two things, however, may convince you to give the game a shot. First, EA offers a free Lite version that gives you a taste of the game, and second, they have temporarily dropped the price of the game from $3.99 to $1.99 for the next 24 hours.
Bryan Mitchell's Geared [99¢ / Free] is an excellent puzzle game that revolves around a very simple gameplay mechanic: Arranging gears on screen to make a working set of gears that connects from the yellow gear to the blue gear(s).
Geared starts simple and quickly progresses to levels that require pixel perfect accuracy to complete. We greatly enjoyed Gearedin our review, and it even spent some time as the #1 paid app in both the USA and UK back in August.
Version 1.1 adds 40 new levels, new gameplay elements like gears that can't move and will jam your other gears if you get near them, along with a bundle of various tweaks and bug fixes. For instance, a new interface to move gears around makes getting them in their pixel perfect positions much easier, and if you find yourself stuck on a level you can skip forward.
If you've enjoyed Geared, now is the time to mash "Check for Updates" in iTunes and get started on the new levels. If this is the first you've heard of the game, I highly recommend at least trying the free version. The developer has started a thread for the new version in our forums, so if you have any questions about the game, that's probably the best place to ask them.
If you've really found yourself stuck in levels 1-80, a fantastic guide was posted on the Mac Rumors forum. Just beware, this will spoil the entire pre-update game for you– Geared Levels 1-80 Walkthrough
World of Goo is a physics based puzzle game where you must use the various goos to build a structure to reach the end point of the level, represented by a pipe that sucks the unused goos off of your tower and in to a reservoir to calculate your score. The several types of goos in game all have unique properties, and the completion of each level hinges on exploiting each goo's abilities.
World of Goo exists on the Mac and PC (there's even a Linux version) and you can buy the game on WiiWare. To celebrate the anniversary of the game's launch, developers 2D Boy announced on their blog that World of Goo is coming to the iPhone:
We have it running well on the iPhone 3GS, and with a little luck we hope to get it running smoothly on the 3G as well. Hopefully more news on this soon.
Here is the trailer for the Wii version of the game:
It's unclear right now whether this is a straight port of the original, an entirely new game, or a little of both. Either way, World of Goo is one of the best computer games I've played recently, and I highly recommend giving the demo a try. The developer's web site features a free downloadable demo, but news of the iPhone port seems to have brought their web server to its knees. If you can't access it, the demo is also available on Steam.
Update: If you want to skip the demo entirely, you can buy the full version of the computer game until the 19th for whatever you want to pay for it. If you can get the 2Dboy site to load, you can buy World of Goo for its normal price of $20, or $0.01. Whatever you feel the game is worth.
After a very long and dramatic legal battle between Mobigame and Tim Langdell over a trademark dispute over the name "Edge", the game has once again appeared on the App Store. EDGE [App Store] is a game where you control a colorful cube through a series of 3D isometric maze-like levels packed with puzzles to solve and obstacles to overcome.
Featuring both touch and accelerometer controls, EDGE requires both quick thinking and fast reactions to progress past the first few levels.
We enjoyed EDGE, and recommend picking the game up now — both because it's a great game and also in case it gets pulled again as it's unclear whether or not EDGE is here to stay. An official statement from Mobigame is said to be coming soon.
If you haven't kept up with the "Edge" dispute which has caused quite a stir on the Internet, EA recently petitioned to get the "Edge" trademark thrown out, and Langdell responded calling the petition a "desperate attempt by EA". For a complete background on the dispute, check out the summary provided by TIGSource. Needless to say, the whole situation is unfortunate, and it's sad to see such a great iPhone game caught in the legal crossfire.
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.
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.
Auditorium is an abstract Flash puzzle game which shares a lot of gameplay elements with the various games on the App Store that utilize the gravity of objects to change the path of other objects on screen. Instead of guiding rockets or spacemen around the screen as in G [
I've been slowly playing through Dr. Fun Fun's Hi, How Are You [
