RetroVenture has released a port of the old 1982 Apple II game Transylvania. Originally developer by Antonio Antiochia, RetroVenture has collaborated with the original author to bring this classic game to the iPhone.
In Fall 2009, Roe Mobile Development will release Transylvania for the iPhone. Transylvania is an adventure game that was originally released for the Apple ][ in 1982. Back then it was quite successful and spawned two sequels (Crimson Crown and Vanquish the Night: Return to Transylvania). The iPhone version is a joint work between Kenneth Roe and Antonio Antiochia who is the original author. The iPhone version will add a new touch interface and sounds.
If you ever played the original version, here's your chance to get it again for free. Even if you miss the Halloween sale, the game will be available for only $0.99.
While we announced the release of the classic point and click adventure Beneath a Steel Sky for the iPhone, we never took a closer look at the release.
Originally released for the Amiga and DOS in 1994, Beneath a Steel Sky is a graphical adventure set in Australia in a dystopian future. The original game received very high praise at the time of its release and is widely considered to be one of the best adventure games ever created.
The iPhone port of the game has since received rave reviews in our forums. Unlike, LucasArts' Secret of Monkey Island, Beneath a Steel Sky has not been completely re-rendered for the iPhone version, but that's not to say it doesn't have its share of notable improvements.
The iPhone game offers new animated cut scenes, re-sampled voice work and higher quality music. As well, an extensive hint system that will prevent you from getting stuck. Most importantly is that the traditional point-and-click interface has been revamped to the iPhone's touch screen. Rather than controlling a virtual pointer, you can touch and drag your finger across the screen. Items of interest light up with a small blue circle. Tapping on that circle then brings up contextual icons that let you act on that item. An eye, for example. lets you look at the item, while gears allow you to manipulate an item. Meanwhile, inventory items can simply be dragged over to items of interest to activate them. In this regard, the game is a notable improvement over Secret of Monkey Island, and plays much more like a natural iPhone game.
We've recorded some of the animated intro scene as well as basic gameplay elements in this video:
The game's story and dialog remains enjoyable and immersive and the iPhone port does justice to the classic title. While the PC version game has been available for free over the years, the iPhone version is a worthy conversion for fans and newcomers to the series.
Pang (or Buster Bros.) was a popular 1989 arcade game that was subsequently ported to a number of home computer platforms. The basic gameplay has already spawned a number of App Store clones including Chippy [$1.99], Buster Boy [$0.99], LaserBug [$1.99], Bubble Pang Free [Free].
Player X, however, has brought an official Pang port to the iPhone with Pang Mobile [$2.99]. The gameplay is rather simple by today's standards, and also pretty unforgiving. The game involves popping balloons bouncing on the screen with one of several possible weapons. The standard weapon is a harpoon that fires upward. If a balloon contacts the harpoon, it splits into smaller pieces. This repeats until your eliminate all the bouncing balloons. Smaller balloons, however, bounce at lower heights, making them harder to hit. Power-ups allow for a double shot, machine gun, and shield, while in-level obstacles can help or hurt your chances.
For long time fans, the mobile version seems to deliver on the Pang experience. Pang Mobile offers two modes: World Tour and Infinite Challenge. The game is controlled using a "touch area" that allows you to slide back and forth to move left/right. This avoids the imprecision of virtual buttons. Options include adjustments for difficulty and control sensitivity.
Video shows the game in World Tour and Infinite modes:
The game offers a local high score board only and only single player mode.
Not being a Pang player back in the day, it's hard to speak as to how accurate a port this is, but early adopters seem to be enjoying it. Any fans of classic arcade action may also want to consider it.
The Iconfactory has released two new DLC packs available for their nostalgic ball rolling game, Ramp Champ [App Store]. We had a great time with the game in our review, and these two new packs provide even more of the same great gameplay.
Each of the packs will get you two new ramps, along with eighteen new prizes matching the themes of the ramps, six new challenges, and new trophies. Like the other Ramp Champ DLC, both of these packs are 99¢, and extend the original game content with new things to aim for, more great Iconfactory style art, and matching music.
The first DLC is the Voyage Pack, which includes Star Struck, a space themed ramp and Plunderin' Pirates, which obviously (eventually) has pirates as targets.
The other DLC pack has a Halloween theme. Trick or Treat will have you rolling balls at kids in costumes and candy. Grave Danger takes place in a grave yard, and hitting the tombstones make ghosts and zombie hands appear.
It's always great seeing continued support for games on the App Store, either with fresh content delivered via DLC or through free updates. If you enjoyed Ramp Champ, picking up these two DLC packs is a must. If you don't own Ramp Champ yet, it's worth a look. Meanwhile, if you're looking for a more traditional skee-ball type game, Freeverse's recently released Skee-Ball [99¢] offers similar game play utilizing a officially licensed virtual Skee-Ball machine.
In a surprise release, Namco has released BurgerTime Deluxe for the iPhone.
Join Chef Peter Pepper as he attempts to help his uncle thwart the dastardly Vinnie Vinegar. Scale the platforms and assemble the burgers to clear the levels, then speed through the exciting minigames.
This retro refresh of the 1982 classic was originally written for other platforms including the Mac and PC before being ported to the iPhone. The game contains 60 levels and a story mode.
Namco appears to have previously obtained the rights to the BurgerTime franchise remains with G-Mode who we reported acquired many of the rights to Data East's old intellectual properties.
Here's a video from Namco:
The game only offers a somewhat strange floating virtual d-pad controls for movement that appears where you tap down. If you lift your finger off the screen for a while the d-pad disappears and can be placed at will. Once in place, it acts much like a standard virtual d-pad, with the typical precision issues. There is no retro/original mode or even arcade mode. The game seems set entirely in the 60-level story mode.
A downloadable PC version is available to try, but appears to be formatted somewhat differently with a larger view area. Like with most of these retro refreshes, we suspect the primary target audience will be limited to big fans of the original title, but we will spend some time playing through.
This is turning out to be a great weekend for retro gamers. Hot on the heels of C64, comes Taito's classic Arkanoid [$4.99] game for the iPhone and iPod Touch.
Arkanoid for iPhone brings back the 1986 brick-breaker with some additional enhancements.
Over 100 stages
Branching level progression
Many boss battles
VS two player mode
Arkanoid is the 1986 brick breaker that modernized Breakout. Arkanoid introduced special bricks, enemy ships, power ups and more to the classic brick breaking formula.
Here's a hands on video from AppBank with the Japanese language iPhone version. The U.S. version is otherwise identical.
The game certainly brings Arkanoid back with proportionally the same levels scales as the original arcade game. This means that everything will seem a bit small on your iPhone screen compared to other brick breakers we've seen. The size and color of the ball can cause it to get lost in some of the backgrounds of the game, but those can be turned "off" to give you a clearer view. The sliding touch control worked well and accurately, and the game played well. The game comes with 3 levels of difficulty.
Fans of the original will get a blast from the past as the sound effects are identical. Taito also promises big boss battles later in the game:
We obviously haven't played it far enough yet to encounter the bosses. The game also teases you with two unlockable menu options and also offers a head-to-head two player mode in which each player gets a paddle on opposite sides of the screen. Power-up pills picked up can negatively impact your opponent (shrinking paddle, for example).
Manomio's Commodore 64 emulator [$4.99] has finally been approved by Apple. We first reported on the project back in June, after Manomio had received their first rejection from Apple. The rejection was particularly disappointing considering the efforts that Manomio had made in making sure their emulator fully licensed and legal.
We posted an extensive hands on with the emulator shortly after rejection. The final Apple approved version appears to be the same but with BASIC disabled. Note that some of the games demonstrated in the video aren't actually available yet. See below for the launch list.
It's important to note that Manomio's C64 emulator will not run arbitrary disk images, and only supports fully licensed disk images that are offered through Manomio.
It works like this: the emulator comes bundled with several C64 games (Artic Shipwreck, Dragon's Den, Jack Attack, Jupiter Lander and Lemans) along with standard Commodore BASIC 2.0 interpreter. Users can purchase separately sold program packs (early prices appear to be $0.99-$1.99 each and are determined by original IP holders) from the App Store that, when launched, install a game (or games) into the main application, adding them to the bookcase-like program launcher.
The $4.99 C64 emulator costs $4.99 and includes 5 games: Dragons Den, Le Mans, Jupiter Lander, Arctic Shipwreck, and Jack Attack. Additional separately sold game packs will be coming soon. With the C64 emulator approved, Manomio is also clear to pursue further licensing deals and they have said they are actively working on adding new titles.
The Iconfactory was launched back in 1996 as a repository for icon packs as well as software for creating and using icons. Since then, they've been responsible for the creation of two great iPhone apps, Frenzic [$2.99], a fast-paced puzzle game and Twitteriffic [$3.99 / Free], one of the original premium Twitter clients available on the App Store.
Their latest game, Ramp Champ [App Store] takes the arcade game of skee ball, shrinks it down to the iPhone screen, and applies the same thick layer of highly stylized graphical work seen in all the other Iconfactory products. Included in the initial release of Ramp Champ are four different virtual skee ball machines. Clown Town has a carnival theme, Breakwater Bay is underwater, Space Swarm tips its hat at Space Invaders, and The Icon Garden pays homage to Iconfactory's roots in icon design.
Controls are simple and shares the same strangely compelling gameplay as Paper Toss [Free]. Flicking your finger up from the bottom of the screen rolls a ball, and depending on how fast you flick and which direction you swipe towards controls the power and aim of your shots. All of the targets award different amounts of points, and after rolling all your balls the game dispenses virtual tickets that you can buy virtual prizes for.
If you're old enough to have been around when arcades were popular, you likely have fond memories of dumping quarters in to skee ball machines, cramming your pockets full of tickets, and claiming some completely worthless reward from the prize counter. As the eventual owner of several of those terribly useless over-sized stuffed animals, Ramp Champ has provided an awesome amount of nostalgia. There's more to the game though as each of the four included machines also have their own sub-set of goals (achievements).
For instance, The Icon Garden's progressively harder goals are to plant all the pixel flowers, tip over the canine bovine, and score over 13,000 points. Planting the pixel flowers is as simple as hitting every target, I presume the canine bovine has something to do with Clarus the Dogcow, and scoring over 13,000 is self-explanatory. Completing all the goals requires a high amount of precision, and in my few days with the game I've been unable to complete more than a few of them. As a result, Ramp Champ has kept me coming back for more, since most goals seem simple at first (How hard can it be to hit 6 things with 10 balls?) but end up being much more difficult than they appear.
The Iconfactory is already offering two add-on packs that can be purchased for $0.99 a piece. Each pack contains 2 new ramps, 6 new goals, 18 new prizes, and shiny new trophies. . The videos below show the included levels on the left and the ones available via downloadable-content on the right:
If you loved Paper Toss [Free] or the included screenshots/videos are tickling your nostalgia bone, I recommend picking up Ramp Champ, as you will likely enjoy it as much as I have.
One of Konami's first App Store releases, Frogger [App Store] for the iPhone is available for more than 80% off August 20th (today) through the 22nd.
The game is an adaptation of the studio's 1981 arcade original featuring updated graphics, an updated soundtrack, and a choice of touchscreen or accelerometer controls–or both combined.
Like the 28-year-old original, the goal of the game is to direct five frogs, one by one, from the starting point at the bottom of the screen to their homes at the top before the timer runs out. It's a treaturous journey. The lower half of the screen consists of a busy roadway with five lanes of speeding traffic. The upper half contains a rushing river filled with logs, turtles, alligators and other such hazards. The challenge is getting the frog home safely without getting flattened, drowned (this was always puzzling…), or eaten. It sounds simple, but can be rather frustrating challenging.
Pole Position: Remix [App Store], Namco's iPhone adaptation of their classic 1982 arcade racer, is available for a limited time at 50% off.
As the title suggests, Pole Position: Remix is a (somewhat) modern adaptation of Namco's 27-year-old classic arcade racer. Retro gaming nuts will appreciate the fact that, although the title brings a graphical overhaul, the gameplay remains rather faithful to the original.
The game offers three methods of control: tilt (accelerometer-based), slider (swipe right and left), and steering wheel mode (radially control a steering wheel, capable of flick-spin, with your finger). A semi-translucent, on-screen pedal controls either braking or acceleration, depending on settings.
Back in June we reported the existence of a fully functional Commodore 64 emulator for the iPhone, written by Manomio, that was rejected from App Store approval by Apple.
It seems those holding out hope for the official release of this emulator have something to look forward to, based on a recent tweet from the developer.
C64 for iPhone UPDATE: Contacted by senior director at Apple today and we have BIG news coming. Thank you to EVERYONE for the support
Stay tuned everybody. It seems some retro goodness may just be around the corner….
In the meantime, see our hands on look (with video) at Commodore 64 for iPhone.
The Iconfactory has released two new DLC packs available for their nostalgic ball rolling game, Ramp Champ [
One of Konami's first App Store releases, Frogger [
Pole Position: Remix [
