We recently brought news of the BulkyPix announcement that the much anticipated iOS port of Eric Chahi's Another World will be landing in the App Store on September 22nd. Xavier Liard of DotEmu, the studio developing the iOS version, put us in touch with the game's renowned author to discuss details of the upcoming release.
As we indicated yesterday, Another World for iOS will feature both the graphics of the original game as well as re-mastered "HD" graphics done specifically for this release. (A two-fingered swipe up the screen will toggle the visuals at any time.) In speaking with Chahi, I learned that this 20th Anniversary Edition of the game is running a tweaked version of the core script from acclaimed 15th Anniversary Edition, as executed by Chahi's own custom script interpreter that has been converted from 68000 assembly to C++. All of the sounds in the game have been re-mastered as well, to deliver an enhanced audio experience as compared to the original. (more...)
We've made severalposts covering the games that we were shown at the EA Mobile / Chillingo media event that took place during GDC 2011. The last title we've got to share from that event is an ambitious twist on the tower defense formula called Anomaly Warzone Earth, coming from Polish group 11 Bit Studios, to be published by Chillingo for both iPhone and iPad
In 2018, the world stood in terror and watched as a giant comet flung from the heavens entered our atmosphere and slammed into the Earth. Impact point: Baghdad. Only, it wasn't a comet. Upon impact, the alien craft erected a gigantic dome, concealing the invaders' activities from all the world. It's up to you to command waves of Earth forces in order to penetrate the alien defenses and confront the otherworldly intruders.
"The alien forces have arrived, but why are they dancing?"
It's to do with all the pixellated collaborative gaming goodness they're bringing to iOS gamers, I'm guessing.
During the mid-week TouchArcade party we hosted out at GDC 2011, Cole Krumbholz of Koduco Games walked up with his iPad and challenged me to a match of his then-upcoming PongVadersMax [App Store], a follow-up to PongVaders: Episode One, his studio's two-player, face-to-face, collaborative mashup of Pong and Space Invaders that sports a lovely retro aesthetic for both the eye and ear. The sad thing is, for one reason or another, we never covered the game. It was released back in August -- and it's awesome.
The game presents a playfield filled with Space Invaders-style aliens bent on pummeling the cities that you and your playmate are defending with swipe-controlled Pong-style paddles at the far edges of the screen. Said playmate is ideally a human friend, but in-game AI can take on the task for the lonely gamer. But whatever the case, it's cooperative play -- both players try to help each other destroy the alien horde.
The field of invaders in the center of the screen fire outwards, towards both players, and those shots can be repelled back upon them to turn their attacks into yours. Asteroid obstacles here and there make things especially challenging. An alien bolt deflected directly to the other player's paddle supercharges the volley and, along the way, various power-ups can be collected to gain special abilities. When the aliens dwindle, shots can be directed in slow-motion by tilting the device, making for some wonderfully animated (in the physical sense) two-player fun.
As mentioned earlier, the original PongVaders: Episode One [$.99] is an iPad-only release that hit the App Store back in August. The big news from Koduco is the release of PongVaders Max [App Store], which landed since our demo at GDC.
The original PongVaders: Episode One featured 10 levels plus a boss fight. After listening to feedback from users, Koduco created a remastered Universal version of the game that runs natively on both the iPhone and iPad, available for free with 10 bundled levels, with 20 more available as an in-app purchase (for $.99). PongVaders Max features tuned physics, power-ups, sound, and visual effects -- still retro -- along with rebalanced levels and a tutorial for beginners. The game includes new invaders, two more boss fights, and new music from Nullsleep.
If all we were talking about here was the original release, we'd be talking about an awesome game. But the new PongVaders Max takes it to the next level. As a free download with 10 included levels, there's no excuse for not grabbing this one for your iPhone or iPad right now -- even if you have no friends.
On our last day out at GDC, I spent some time browsing the many indie titles on display in the Independent Games Festival (IGF) area of the show floor. One of the iOS titles I saw on display is the excellent rhythm puzzler Halcyon for iPad [link] that we reviewed back in December. I spoke with Kurt Bieg at the Halcyon booth who showed me a new title that he and Halcyon's developer Zach Gage will shortly be bringing to the App Store, the platform color-matching game Monster Jam, from Simple Machine.
In the world of Monster Jam, the king loves jam so much that he's eaten up every last piece of fruit in his kingdom. As chancellor, it's your job to put a smile on the king's face and get him his jam. Luckily, you've got a machine that can turn anything into jam. And, it turns out, the king's favorite jam of all is jam made out of monsters. Monster jam, if you will.
And, so, the task at hand is to collect monsters for jamification. The game presents a series of platform screens full of monsters of various types and colors wandering about, across a series of different environments. In order to collect a group of monsters to put through the process, they must be separated out so that each platform only holds monsters of like color. Once all monsters of a certain color have been herded onto a given platform, off they go. Kurt, who walked me through the game, explains the gameplay during the following video demonstration.
Kurt and Zach are working on Monster Jam with Ramsey Nasser and Chris Driscoll, who did the graphics.
Just a quick heads-up to let folks know that Liqua Pop [link], which we saw demonstrated at the EA Mobile press event while out at GDC 2011, has recently gone live in the App Store.
A game that looks quite lickable (well, aside from the bugs…), EA Mobile's upcoming Liqua Pop is a color-matching puzzle game with lovely, fluid graphics and animation. Your task is to match like-color droplets by dragging and merging them together to form a large enough droplet to kick off its elimination timer. A shake to the iPhone will get that done earlier, but sometimes it's best to wait, as the larger a droplet the more points are awarded as it blinks out. Don't clear the droplets fast enough and the screen fills up and it's game over.
The real object of the game is to get your friend Toadie, who lives on the left side of the screen, to the top of his leaf by releasing bugs (seven types in all) from within certain of the aforementioned droplets. With the release of most bugs, Toadie inches upwards, but certain bugs leave behind obstacles that slow down your progress. When Toadie reaches the top, it's on to the next level.
Liqua Pop is certainly one of the most polished color-matching titles I've seen, with its colorful Retina-supporting visuals and convincing animation. Facebook integration allows scores to be shared with friends.
While we were out in San Francisco at GDC 2011, I had a chance to sit down with Xavier Liard of DotEmu to catch up on the latest from their studio. Part of the news gathered in that meeting we passed along last week in our story covering the upcoming arrival of Another World for iOS -- DotEmu is the developer on that project. But there's more to tell from this retro revival studio.
The third release in DotEmu's Jaleco arcade series, an iPhone port of 64th Street: A Detective Story[link], has recently gone live in the App Store. The game is a Double Dragon-style beat 'em up arcade fighter that was originally released back in 1991. The iOS version of 64th Street is wrapped in an emulator, providing the original graphics and an authentic game experience as compared to the arcade release, but with customizations that make it appropriate for the iOS platform.
The next title slated for release as part of the Jaleco series is P47: The Freedom Fighter, an arcade side shooter released in 1988 that also saw release on the Amiga, C64 and various other platforms. The coming iOS version of P47 is delivered via emulation of the original arcade version.
Another item worth mentioning from DotEmu is the v2.0 update to their iPhone port of the MSX / Sega Master System RPG Golvellius - The Valley of Doom [link]. New in this release are a redone interface, adjustments to the control system, Game Center intregration bringing around 30 achievements, as well as optimizations to the code for smoother gameplay.
During GDC, EA Mobile held a press event to display a number of coming titles under their label as well as from Chillingo. In fact, Chillingo co-founder Chris Byatte was on hand, chatting with folks and spreading a bit of wit during demos of the various games.
At the event, I took part in demonstrations of several iOS titles that will shortly be landing in the App Store, from both studios. The following is a brief run-down of the various games from EA Mobile that I spent time with.
Without further ado...
Battleship for iPad
In late 2009, EA Mobile released an iPhone version of the classic naval strategy game Battleship [link] for the iPhone. Next month, a native iPad version of the game will set sail, bringing with it enhanced visuals, detailed cutscene animations, iPhone to iPad WiFi / Bluetooth multiplayer and an exclusive (to iPad) two-player side by side game mode.
Shortly after the April release of Battleship for iPad, an update to the iPhone version will be hitting the App Store.
Max & The Magic Marker
EA Mobile's Max & The Magic Marker, winner of the IGF 2010 D2D Division Award, is a line-drawing puzzle platformer due later this month for both the iPhone and iPad. The game puts you in control of Max, who must avoid obstacles, contend with enemies, and solve puzzles in an effort to get through 58 levels across three different game worlds to defeat the evil monster bent on wiping out Max's drawings.
The core mechanic of the game is Max's magic marker, which allows you to draw objects on the screen that come to life and fully interact with the game world. From simple single-line bridges to more complex shapes used to crush enemies, the marker's drawings take on full physics properties and allow Max to avoid various roadblocks and get to the collectible golden spheres spread throughout the levels. Ink can be collected along the way to keep the marker flowing, and shapes drawn, once having served their purpose, can be reclaimed for the reuse of their ink.
Max & The Magic Marker was originally a 15-level WiiWare title. The iOS release has split these levels into a larger number of shorter levels that are better suited to gaming on the go.
Liqua Pop
A game that looks quite lickable (well, aside from the bugs...), EA Mobile's upcoming Liqua Pop is a color-matching puzzle game with lovely, fluid graphics and animation. Your task is to match like-color droplets by dragging and merging them together to form a large enough droplet to kick off its elimination timer. A shake to the iPhone will get that done earlier, but sometimes it's best to wait, as the larger a droplet the more points are awarded as it blinks out. Don't clear the droplets fast enough and the screen fills up and it's game over.
The real object of the game is to get your friend Toadie, who lives on the left side of the screen, to the top of his leaf by releasing bugs (seven types in all) from within certain of the aforementioned droplets. With the release of most bugs, Toadie inches upwards, but certain bugs leave behind obstacles that slow down your progress. When Toadie reaches the top, it's on to the next level.
Liqua Pop is certainly one of the most polished color-matching titles I've seen, with its colorful Retina-supporting visuals and convincing animation. Facebook integration allows scores to be shared with friends.
Liqua Pop is set to land in the App Store sometime later this month.
Draw Jump
Draw Jump is a sketch-stylized game of how-high-can-you-go, where you keep little rocket man Cosmo bouncing upward by drawing strategically placed trampolines below him. Cosmo starts out on Earth but, with a bit of savvy sketching, it's out into the cosmos with him, moving upwards through six different environments across 11 levels. There are trees, planets, stars and suns to be seen along the way, as well as sunflower fuel cells to be collected for an energy boost.
The game's visuals are based on Japanese "pop" inspired artwork. Leaderboards along with Facebook and Twitter integration keep you striving for the highest altitude.
Draw Jump will bounce into the App Store in late March or early April for both the iPhone and iPad.
Coconut Dodge
Coming in late March or early April for both iPhone and iPad, the aptly titled Coconut Dodge for iOS is a conversion of the popular PSP / PS3 game to which PSNstores gave a 10/10 rating. The game puts you in touch control of Clawrence the crab who must meander his way through 30 levels of tropical-themed airborne coconut mazes, bouts of beach ball bouncing, and treasure grabbing.
The game features an Arcade mode where score is king, as well as a Maze Master mode that challenges you to intricately maneuver a gauntlet of oncoming obstacles. Leaderboards and Facebook integration are rolled in.
Last week we met with the guys from Owlchemy Labs who are responsible for the highly controversial physics game Smuggle Truck. We've already posted about the controversy as well as the playable web demo, but this was the first time we actually saw it running on an iOS device.
Check out the game running on an iPad:
Owlchemy Labs plans on submitting Smuggle Truck to Apple for approval sometime around the 15th. They're using Unity for the game engine, which is allowing them to have a surprising amount of cross-platform compatibility. Once its all said and done, levels created in the level editor seen in the video will be playable across all platforms. What platforms are those? Well, Owlchemy is planning a release on the iPad, iPhone, Mac, PC, and potentially even distributing the game via Steam.
While we were out at GDC 2011, TouchArcade attended an EA Mobile media event where a number of titles from both EA Mobile and Chillingo were demonstrated. One of the titles demonstrated under the Chillingo banner was the upcoming Blobster for iPhone and iPad, developed by Divine Robot, who brought us the unusual shooter Eveningstar.
Blobster is a physics-intensive puzzle platformer that puts you in control of a cute little red blob on a mission to clean up the countryside after an unfortunate environmental disaster has littered mother nature with nasty, toxic blobules. It's your task to collect said blobules and solve various puzzles along the way to make it from start to finish and on to the next level.
The game features an impressive physics system, which you'll immediately notice thanks to the undulating fluid surface of your little blob as he moves about the levels by way of both tilt and a swipe-hold-and-release elastic jump mechanic. Actually, Blobster is not always little; the more blobules he absorbs, the larger -- and heavier -- he becomes, which comes in handy when interacting with certain structures found in the levels.
A number of power-ups can be collected along the way that bestow various enhanced abilities upon your undulating blob. These include the ability to float on water, shrink in size, super jump (10x higher than normal), go zero G, and experience reversed gravity.
Divine Robot's Creative Director Henrik Jonsson took us through the gameplay.
Blobster has a great feel that combines a heavy dose of cute with that satisfying feel of realistic physics to deliver a rather engaging game experience. In just my brief time with the title, I've already developed a craving to start sucking up blobules. I'll have to wait until late April to get started, however.
We'll have more on the rest of the titles we saw at the EA Mobile media event, shortly.
Well, GDC week is behind us, and what a week it was! Our full staff convened in San Francisco early in the week and, between the lot of us, saw some truly inspiring upcoming titles and spent time with a huge number of absolutely great people -- developers and non-developers, alike. And while, by now, we've all made our way back to our own corners of the United States, there are still plenty of GDC stories in the pipeline!
One bit of GDC recap goodness that I wanted to share with readers is a short video I captured at the Independent Games Festival (IGF) area on the GDC show floor on Friday. A piece of professional cinematography it is not, with plenty of elbow-nudges and excuse-me's, but it does provide a glimpse of some of the indie games honored by the IGF, for both iOS and other platforms.
TouchArcade has, so far, covered the Game Developer Conference for three years running, and every year's event has been an amazing experience and the most significant show of the year for iOS gaming. And, we can't wait for next year.
Back at Macworld in January, I met up with Lee Dotson of Zarksoft to check out their first iOS game Empire of the Eclipse. Zarksoft is comprised of 3 core members with a wealth of experience in the gaming industry, and Empire of the Eclipse is an ambitious undertaking for their first project. It’s a massively multiplayer online strategy game that’s really unlike anything available on the App Store thus far. At the time Lee wasn’t quite ready to show off Empire of the Eclipse on video, and due to the sheer scope and complexity of the game it would be difficult to really get a sense of it with just words and screenshots alone.
Last Friday at GDC, I met up with Zarksoft again to see how the development of Empire of the Eclipse has come along in the weeks since Macworld. The game is showing a lot of promise, and although it’s not really the type of game that appeals to a wide audience it should serve a niche group of gamers quite well with what it has to offer. Each game takes place in an entire galaxy, the size of which is determined by the amount of players which can be 1000+ per game. That galaxy is the broken down into sectors, and even further into solar systems comprised of multiple planets.
During play you’ll be able to harvest resources and build several types of ships to amass an armada that is able to take control of solar systems, sectors, and eventually the galaxy. Of course there are many other players all trying to do the same thing, and tensions are sure to rise as you begin to encroach on each others’ territories. There’s a very deep combat and skill system in the game, and support for real time chat and an email-style player messaging system should you want to negotiate a collaboration with other players (at least temporarily) to facilitate your galaxy domination.
What I think really impresses me about Empire of the Eclipse is that for such a complex game Zarksoft has crafted a really friendly UI. Almost anything can be accessed from a top menu bar, and there’s several different ways to access and view the information pertaining to your game at any time. What could easily be a mess of menu screens and cumbersome solar system navigation has been streamlined and made intuitive, and a nice tutorial will ease players into the many facets of Empire of the Eclipse. You can see a bit of this in the brief introduction video that I shot at GDC, which really only scratches the surface of the game:
One interesting aspect to Empire of the Eclipse is that each game is finite and should take approximately 2 months to complete, rather than being an ongoing persistent game. You’ll be able to have multiple games going at once, each with a clearcut winner at the end. The gameplay is also geared towards mobile play, so you can pop in and play for a few minutes at a time without having to constantly babysit what’s going on. Also, unlike many MMO games on iOS that take a freemium approach and require a steep monetary commitment to be able to make any sort of meaningful progress, Empire of the Eclipse will launch for free as a complete game and utilize Apple’s recently introduced subscription service. It will cost $1.99 per month to play and can be cancelled at any time.
There’s definitely a lot of great ideas in Empire of the Eclipse, and it will be interesting to see how they all work out when the full version launches. Zarksoft is in the beta testing stage and is hoping to have the game out by the end of March, and we’ll take another look at the game when it launches.
Let’s talk about Rope Racket. It’s a physics-based puzzle game with adorable birds and long, brown lengths of rope. Instant hit, right? It might be, but not because of its inclusion of two of the hottest trends in iOS. Fact is, it’s a plain-old entertaining and unique game.
You’ll get a better sense of what Rope Racket is all about in the video below, but I’ll express what I can here. The goal is to wrap a wobbly bit of rope around a set number of rotating wheels. Then, you can free a bird with said rope at the end of a level.
Of course, there are hooks and interesting pieces of design. Rope is limited, however, the way you approach each wheel “puzzle” is not scripted. There are different solutions. But some of your more unconventional approaches might bring you too close to the Rope Racket’s diverse set of obstructions: vampire bats that relentlessly follow your bird around, cannons that fire flaming stones, and even darkness.
I want to note one mechanic that grabbed me. When you wrap the rope around a special wheel, the wheel then moves with the rope. In the short demo I watched at GDC in San Francisco, I saw Untame’s Itay Keren block those flaming cannons with the wheels. This is remarkable, to me at least, because you’re using the world to interact with the world.
We’ll be keeping our eyes on this one as it comes down the pipeline. It’s slated for a release on the iPad and iPhone 4 at some point in the next month.
Outdoorsy types should get ready as Mastiff Games is set to launch a port of their Wii and PC target shooting game Reload for the iPhone very soon. I had a chance to check out the iPhone version of Reload firsthand at GDC, and despite there being a ton of different gallery-type shooters available on the App Store I found Reload to be pretty compelling.
What I like about Reload is that it offers a lot of variety. There will be a number of different weapons to choose from, including authentic licensed models from the likes of Remington, and the gameplay will change depending on which weapon you use. A machine gun has you moving from room to room in an on-rails fashion and taking out bad guy targets that spring up while avoiding innocent people, police training style. A sniper rifle level puts you in a stationary position as you scan a landscape from afar looking for targets, and then zoom in to take them out. Another example is the shotgun which presents a fun skeet shooting level where you’re scored based on speed and accuracy.
These different gameplay types will be experienced in a single player career mode that has you playing through each type of weapon, and levels can be replayed once unlocked. There will also be a local hot seat multiplayer where you and up to 3 other buddies can take turns passing around a single device trying for top scores. While Reload doesn’t really reinvent the arcade-style shooting game, it seems to offer a decent amount of variety and fun for some on-the-go gunplay. The visuals look nice, it controls well, and it has a nice air of authenticity to it too. Keep your eyes out for Reload which Mastiff is hoping to have out sometime before the end of March.
One item on my follow-up todo list for GDC 2011 was to find out what happened to Steph Thirion's Faraway game we previewed back at GDC 2010. Thirion was the developer responsible for Eliss, a favorite of ours.
Well, we caught up with Thirion who was showing off Faraway at GDC 2011. Thirion reports that game is still in the works but had been delayed by other projects that took him off task for a number of months, so work on Faraway has been on hold. He can't commit to a release date yet, but he's working on it again and hoping the release will be soon.
The gameplay mechanics are pretty much the same as in our 2010 preview.
In Faraway, you control a comet by activating a gravitational pull by simply pressing a single button. Each time, it activates a gravitational pull to the nearest star. Using well timed presses, you can slingshot your comet into the right direction. The goal is to create as many complex constellations in the time allotted. Powerups include speed-ups as well as time-extenders. Creating large and looped constellations add to your high score (which will be recording on a global leaderboard). Once time runs out, you are treated with a panning view of the constellations you've created.
Thirion has been tweaking some of the progression so that both skilled and unskilled players can have an enjoyable experience playing the game.
We've got some updated screenshots for the game and have captured a bit of footage of the game being played on a Mac from the IGF display on the GDC floor. We will let you know as soon as it's been submitted to Apple.
Here at GDC we had a chance to sit down with retro savvy Dan Bliss from BinarySquare and preview his upcoming iPad / iPhone (Universal) game Flick Rocket. With this one, I think Dan has outdone himself on delivering the retro aesthetic goodness; the game's visuals pretty much jump off the screen and smack you in the face.
Flick Rocket is something of a mash-up of Missile Command, Space Invaders, Centipede, and Asteroids -- and that's quite a combination. As in Missile Command, you control a defense turret with the goal of defending a city from attack. But this time around, your missiles are much more obviously missiles, rendered out in glowing pixellated goodness. They are dispatched with a swipe mechanic that sends them off at any trajectory you choose. So, who are you shooting at? That's where things get interesting.
The first type of enemy you must defend against is a horde of Space Invaders-style alien baddies that slowly march across the screen while dropping bombs upon Tokyo. The second assault comes in the form of a pixellated space centipede that meanders about the screen in an effort to flatten Paris. The third and final type of onslaught comes in the form of a brutal hale of asteroids that, unchecked, may spell the end of Los Angeles.
There are a number of power-ups that appear when certain enemies are destroyed, including a driller shot which lets your rockets cut through a swath of enemies and bounce off the walls; a bounce shot which causes your rocket to bounce about the advancing enemies, taking out several before exploding; a blaster shot that unleashes multiple warheads from your rocket upon detonation, and a confusion power-up that causes your rockets to fly all willy nilly. And, while firing rockets is a core mechanic, don't do so with too great an abandon, as there is a rocket damage multiplier that rewards you for judicious use of your weapons.
Flick Rocket features online leaderboard and achievement tracking, a Campaign and a quick-play Arcade mode, and requires a bit of strategy to rank well. It's a clever title with a great look that I'm anxious to spend more than those few minutes in the Marriott lobby with.
We recently brought news of the BulkyPix announcement that the much anticipated iOS port of Eric Chahi's Another World will be landing in the App Store on September 22nd. Xavier Liard of DotEmu, the studio developing the iOS version, put us in touch with the game's renowned author to discuss details of the upcoming release.
