I think we've got our plate cleared of GDC stories. Yesterday's Sega event was the last embargoed piece of news from the event for us to post about, closing the books on what might have been the busiest convention in TouchArcade history. Also, we got eight folks from the TouchArcade team together, and the best we could muster was a series of blurry iPhone photos. C'est la vie!

It goes without saying, but it was amazing seeing everyone at the event last week. Whether you were lucky enough to slide into an appointment slot with us or if you just had a few beers on us at the party, thanks to everyone involved. The massive community of awesome developers is what makes GDC my favorite event of the year.

For our readers who might have missed anything during the onslaught of GDC coverage, we've got all of our stories archived under the GDC 2012 category so, give that a look.

Our party this year was crazy, and I think we're going to have to explore a different venue for next year if GDC 2013 is anything like GDC 2012. Here's a few photos of the madness, courtesy of @sargonas:

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Last week at GDC Sega held a gathering of the press to showcase some of their new upcoming titles with demos and hands-on time. As is usually the case, their iconic blue mascot kind of stole the show with Sonic 4: Episode II, but there were several other strong titles that are heading to the App Store which are also worth keeping an eye out for.

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Last week we had a chance to sit down with Kathy Fung, founder of SiuYiu, the studio behind tower-builder Vegas Towers HD [Free]. She showed us two games that should be coming out in the next few months, and we have to say, they're pretty charming.

First up is Pocket Minions. This is a tower builder of a different sort, and it's pretty adorable. It's also strategically complex in a way that some similar tower games don't quite pull off.

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Out at GDC 2012 I sat down with publisher Ayopa Games and, in the time of an hour, ran through seven different titles in a sort of marathon session. It was a lot to take in, but there are some real stand-outs here.

Some are new, some are updates. Let's have a look.

MacGuffin's Curse

Created by Brawsome and Green Stripe Snake, MacGuffin's Curse is a game that falls under the category of Werewolf Comedy Puzzle Adventures. It is the tale of out-of-work magician and (hence) not-so-cunning thief Lucas MacGuffin who attempts to rob a museum to pay the rent, and finds himself bound to a magical amulet with the power to turn him into a werewolf (and back again).

The game consists of 150 different rooms across 11 different environments, such as junkyards, parks, mansions, museums, etc. Each room is its own grid-based puzzle that must be solved using Lucas in either human or werewolf form -- or both (walking into a beam of moonlight triggers the transformation). In addition to the 150 core puzzles are around 100 secondary features / quests that serve to add variety and keep Lucas especially busy at all times. In the end, the ultimate goal is just to get the cursed amulet off of poor Lucas.

In a nice touch that retro gamers will enjoy, the soundtrack is available in chiptune format, sampled from a real SID-based C64, and can be accessed via an in-game home computer setup.

MacGuffin's Curse won the Best Writing award at the 2012 Freeplay Independent Games Festival and will be available on April 19th as a universal iOS app as well as on Mac and PC.

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At GDC 2012 we got a preview of two upcoming titles from Scottish game studio Digital Goldfish, the guys behind Bloons.

Chip Trippington and the Kwiff Frizz Quiz

One of the most unique and perhaps even bizarre titles I saw at GDC this year was the upcoming point-and-click adventure Chip Trippington and the Kwiff Frizz Quiz for iPad and iPhone.

The game is the story of poor Chip, the office Liquid Rejuvenation Manager, who has a big heart but is more often than not the butt of his officemates' gaffs. Chip just wants to be one of the guys, and so joy it was when he got an invite to the company party. Sadly, when he went to get ready for the big night out, Chip discovered he was out of Kwiff Frizz, the structural component that holds his mighty hair aloft. Out to the shop then, goes Chip. But, little does he know that the quick run to the corner store is about send him through a series of unimaginable events that just might put the fate of the world in his big, clammy hands.

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Earlier this week at GDC 2012, we sat down with members of three iOS game studios to discuss their upcoming collaborative project, Zombie Track Meat (do you see what they did there?), which will see a release to coincide with the 2012 Summer Olympics in July.

Studios Pixelocity Software, Fuzzycube Software, and Streaming Colour Studios came together to create a zombie-themed, olympic style sports game that adds a little bit of the undead into the mix.

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As you can hear on our special GDC edition of The TouchArcade Show this week, Ravensword 2 from Crescent Moon Games was the one game out of the dozens that I saw this week that blew me away the most. The original Ravensword redefined what one could expect from a 3D action RPG on the iOS platform back in 2009, and the sequel feels incredibly similar to the first but is bigger and better in every way. The most immediately noticeable improvement in Ravensword 2 is its absolutely fantastic visuals, which you can see in the screens below.

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One of my favorite things about GDC is how really interesting games can sometimes pop up out of the woodwork. Such is the case with Froggle, a new endless high score game from developer Michel Courtine. Froggle is an endless running game where you play as a frog hopping along a string of lily pads for as long as you can.

The level design and landscapes are procedurally generated each time you play, and there is a mission structure similar to Jetpack Joyride that ensures you've always got something to shoot for. You collect "glow bugs" on your journey which can then be spent in an in-game store on power-ups, new frog types, and possibly some other fun stuff. Check out the trailer, which features fantastic music but unfortunately it isn't actual in-game soundtrack, but fits the game incredibly well.

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A portion of the wacky crew from Battle Bears developer SkyVu is here at GDC this week talking about some of their upcoming projects. First off is a couple of upcoming updates for the online multiplayer class-based 3rd-person shooter Battle Bears Royale [Free]. A version 1.3 update should be hitting within the next month and adds a brand new player class, a capture the flag/bomb the base style new mode, and improved controls that feature a floating joystick and a dedicated fire button.

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Today at GDC I spent some time with retro strongman Dan Bliss of BinarySquare, who showed us his latest creation, Puzzle Bebop.

Puzzle Bebop is wonderfully pixellated falling block, match-four puzzle game wrapped in virtual CRT scan-lines, with chippy 8-bit audio to boot. As falling block games go, the core game mission is nothing too new. It's in the control system where the real innovation of this game lies.

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On this very special episode of The TouchArcade Show, we not only are recording together in person at GDC but we're also joined by Nissa…! Audio quality is a little rough, and the crazy nature of this week has made the show a little shorter than you may be used to.

BUT, it'll be fun all the same. We'll probably do a jumbo episode next week as we all get back and actually have time to play proper games again.

Here's some links:

iTunes Link: The TouchArcade Show
Zune Marketplace: TouchArcade.com Podcasts
RSS Feed: The TouchArcade Show
Direct Link: TouchArcadeShow-042.mp3, 22.2MB

Be-Rad Entertainment gained notoriety on the App Store with Lame Castle [99¢/UHD/Lite], a game inspired by Sony’s advertising jab at iOS gaming, and more recently with the well-received Serious Sam: Kamikaze Attack [$1.99/Lite]. At GDC this week, they were showing off their newest iOS title, a strategic matching game based on the movie 'WarGames'.

'WarGames', if you aren’t aware, is a classic early 80s hacking tale where a young computer enthusiast inadvertently hacks into a military missile strike system. He thinks he’s merely playing a game, but in reality, he is setting off a series of events that will eventually lead to World War III. When he realizes what has happened, it’s a mad scramble to reverse what he has done. Here's a short teaser featuring clips from the 'WarGames' movie itself:

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Conceptually, it's hard not to fall in love with this one. Graeme Devine, and his studio GRL Games, are working on a... spiritual successor of sorts to dance game Space Channel 5. It's called Dance City, and it's looking to leverage story, attitude, and dancing. In our meeting with Graeme today, he expressed his extreme love for narrative-led games, as well as quick-to-play titles with "one more time" hooks. Extrapolating, we're guessing Dance City is going to try to have all of these things.

It's early, so we don't know much. On the other hand, we do have the following image, which clearly reveals that Dance City will feature a strong protagonist, and a dance-for-followers mechanic, which should be pretty radical:

We'll keep our eyes on this as it hurdles to release and bring you much more as soon as possible.

We had a chance to sit down with the folks from 99Games (creators of WordsWorth [$1.99 / Free] and The Jim and Frank Mysteries [$0.99 / HD], among other apps) and took a look at the games they have coming up in the next few months.

First up, WordsWorth HD [$2.99] has a big update incoming. The main thing to expect is a new single-device multiplayer mode. Where the game's online multiplayer is a strategic asynchronous affair, the head-to-head (or side-by-side) single device mode is frantic. Both players have their own copies of a shared board, and letters disappear as your opponent uses them. Looks like it's going to be a really great time.

Up next is Night Club Mayhem. 99Games has played with the time management concept before with Prison Mayhem [Free]. Night Club Mayhem brings those lessons back to a setting that might have slightly more crowd appeal. It's nice to see a solid time management title that doesn't run on IAP currency. The cool thing here is that the developer has put a lot of love into the accompanying mini-games, with a rhythm-style DJing game and a surprisingly complicated bartending simulation in the mix.

Night Club Mayhem should be out soon— 99Games expects it to be one of the first new games to fully support the Retina iPad, and it will hit Mac and PC at some point too.

A little further down the road iPhone users should be seeing the adorable physics puzzler Tito's Shell. The version we took a look at was still under heavy development, but it's looking good so far. Each timed level separates Tito the turtle from his shell, and the player has to use the environment to put them back together. Just about any part of the level can be connected to anything else within a tight range, so the solutions get increasingly experimental in a sort of Rube Goldberg machine way. It looks like it's coming along well, and will certainly make a place for itself in the world of cute animal physics puzzlers.

There's one more game up on 99Games' slate: Dream Star. If you're into the idea of a IAP-currency supported movie star simulator, keep your eyes open for this one when it comes out later in spring.

Yesterday afternoon, we were introduced to Graveck's Jump Dewds. In brief, it's a side-scrolling jumping game where you collect coins infinitely while attempting to avoid the world's most dangerous pitfall – lava. Your character, one of the many titular dudes, have various jumping abilities. All of which have been specifically tailored to conform to different styles of play and the particular traits of each character. Dewd Vicious, for example, carries a guitar and floats in the air by the virtue of his guitar solos.

The thing that specifically caught our eye are its terrain effects. Each level is as endless as the next, and as you play, the borders between you and the lava evolves. You can build temporary bridges with power-ups for example or catch land as it falls alongside coins.

Jump Dewds is due at some point in April. It's set to be a Universal app.