I can't be the only person who's totally sick of zombies. Our media is absolutely saturated with them. When zombies start showing up in Call of Duty, you know they're played out. Faced with this dilemma, Developers Game Whizzes decided to move one spot down on the list of "things that go bump in the night," and employ vampires in their side-scrolling action game, Fangz [$1.99 / $1.99]. It's this one little twist on the genre that gives Fangz just enough legs to save it from being a carbon copy of the Zombieville USA series.
Fangz definitely owes much to the excellent Zombieville USA 2 [$0.99]. Fans of the Zombieville series will feel instantly at home in this hack 'n' slash gorefest. In Fangz you take control of an Everyman named Frank as he cuts a bloody path through undead hordes to rescue his family. Toting a shotgun and a few extra pounds, and clad in business casual attire, Frank calls to mind Michael Douglas' character in the cynically comedic 1993 drama, "Falling Down."
Oh, to be a ninja. With rooftops to run along, shurikens to chuck, and warlords to be dispatched, what's not to like? This was my thought process as I downloaded Ninja Wrath [$1.99]. As it turns out I would have plenty of time to consider this question. My conclusion? Being a ninja isn't all it's cracked up to be; at least, not in the world of Ninja Wrath, where the steepest castle walls have nothing on even steeper paywalls.
Though the true existence of ninjas is disputed, they were supposed to be unparalleled in martial arts and to have demonstrated immense patience when hunting down their target. As the story goes, one ninja waited in the cesspool beneath an outhouse for days before a particular warlord placed his keister on the throne. With his target overhead, all it took was an upward thrust of the ninja's sword to dispatch the warlord.
I don't know about you, but I think Disney's foray into mobile games might have yielded some of the most creative work of its recent years. Ignoring of course the companies they own, the Mouse House has been seen as lagging in both the movie and videogame departments for quite some time. As anyone not living in a sewer themselves knows, that all changed with the release of Where's My Water? [$0.99] For the first time in...well...ever, a new Disney icon had been created at the videogame level first, and the company seemed to be using mobile to kick off an upswing in the quality department. So naturally, with an alligator as their new face of gaming, they'd follow things up with...a fluffy kitten. Wait, what?
If Mittens [$0.99] - from its seemingly detached concept to its unexpected existence - has you skeptical, you're not alone. Heck, in our TA Plays for the game, Brad drew some early conclusions about the way that the experience seemed like it was playing things disappointingly safe both from a mechanical and creative standpoint. Having now cleared through all of the game's levels and its available bonus pack, it seems that like its in-game collectibles, this one might just be a gem after all. As with the title's titular feline, though, players may go through ups and downs along the way.
The thing is, where Swampy brought with him not only a novel concept but a slew of memorable levels - each of which felt like it had a distinct theme and purpose - Mittens meanders much more on its way to eventual greatness. As with any physics puzzler, the basics are covered in the first few levels of each zone, with the core concept revolving around the need to swipe and tap our brave kitty to safety on a quest to impress his true love. Unfortunately, this introductory mindset seems to bleed into a large portion of the game's first fifty levels, with many of them feeling like indistinct, unmemorable versions of one another.
You know that sense you get when a new level in a three-star puzzler feels vaguely like a rearranged version of the one you played just far enough back that the game thinks you forgot it? Yeah, it's that. All the trademark elements are in place, including sliced ropes, last minute drops onto bouncy objects, and risky collectible snagging - painted with a Disney polish that ensures everything feels smooth and precise. Yet for all its emphatic not-badness, there's a lingering feeling of ho-hum in the first two zones that's hard to shake. A sense that Disney might be trading in slightly on its newly minted supremacy in the genre, doing far less than they could to justify a purchase.
The yin to this more reserved yang, however, comes in the form of the levels that appear towards the end of each zone, as well as almost the entirety of the game's third area. Reassuringly, Mittens does eventually step out of the genre's comfort zone to deliver a much fresher take on a well-trod play style. First appearing as five bonus levels that are unlocked as you collect gems, these more complicated stages feel like a wonderful mix between Amazing Alex [$0.99] and Cut the Rope [$0.99]. Each one departs from the "tap here, swipe this" feeling, instead forcing you to navigate landscapes already full of motion, and piece together the perfect timing needed to play your role as the little furry cog in a miniature machine. Better still? They tie together wonderfully and make up for the feeling of detachment prevalent throughout earlier levels. My particular favorites are the five final circus big-tops of the second zone, that culminate in a brilliant level full of tightropes, cannons, and miniature cars.
And while the last zone and the game's much tougher (and more imaginative) harbor zone continue this trend, I can't help but wonder why it feels like it takes almost half the game to get there. Drawing further attention to the game's design foibles is a seeming lack of effort in - of all areas - production values. Mittens' is completely without stage music save for a repetitive chime at the end of a level, and the cut scenes that exist to punctuate play pale in comparison to the subtle, endearing storytelling achieved in Where's My Water? Except for grating meows when you fall into blackness or foul up, the titular kitty lacks all semblance of a personality, and it proves nigh-impossible to invest in the game beyond the compulsive desire to beat its levels.
This, perhaps, is the predicament I'm having with Mittens. You'd be hard pressed to call it bad by any stretch, and about half way through, it manages to take off in ways not hinted at in our TA Plays video to become a pretty wonderful take on the physics puzzler. At a dollar, and with a future that will doubtless be filled with more content, fans of the genre would be hard pressed not to pick this one up. At the same time, however, it's more than a little disheartening that Disney seems to have followed up their return to form with a return to safety, and I don't think it's unreasonable to expect more than a competent time-killer from a studio of their pedigree.
Like a top notch student handing in a rush job, Mittens sags not under the weight of what it does wrong, but all that it could have done much better.
Hunted Cow's Battle Dungeon may go down as one of the great iOS games that almost was. Or, rather, actually was, but for less than a week.
Battle Dungeon offered up gameplay in the vein of Outwitters [Free] and Hero Academy [Free], with a 3D environment, XCOM style action points and an RPG twist. The ability to level up characters and buy better equipment was balanced against a point-cost system in which having more powerful champions meant playing with fewer of them. It was an appealing package for anyone who wanted more "crunch" and micromangement out of their async strategy games.
Now it's gone.
Today, Hunted Cow shut down the games servers, putting an end to single as well as multiplayer (AI was on the server). In a press release that appeared on player's screens and is available on their website, they said that the shutdown was "due to high levels of server load created by large numbers of pirated copies of the game." That's right, so many pirates were using server cycles that they couldn't keep up with legitimate demand.
If you're anything like us, you've been treating your iPhone 5 like a jewel. You scrub the screen with only the softest of cloths. You put it to rest in its box instead of on a harsh surface like a bedside table or, gasp, desk. You look at it too much, admire its lines and curves maybe too often. Also, your friends think you're wicked weird.
New hardware does funny things to enthusiasts. It makes us protective. It also makes us want more things that'll work with it, that'll show it off in all of its glory. On that front, it's been slow going, but more games have been getting updated since the phone's arrival. Here's some of the growing list of old games made new again, courtesy iPhone 5 support.
Below, we've also included comparison shots of the new widescreen versions versus their old, standard 4:3 versions. Click any image to see it full size.
Slingshot Racing, $0.99 - [Review] - Slingshot Racing is one of the cooler racing games we've seen on touch devices because it doesn't try to be shoehorn console-like controls into the experience. With a single touch, you "sling" the game's cars around a track. This is preferable to acceleration and break buttons, which on a phone, usually look and feel kinda silly to the user.
Slingshot also features multiple modes of play, and obviously, it has a creator willing to keep updating the game. This iPhone 5 update sees a larger screen area to mess around with, though you probably won't feel much of a difference.
Death Worm, $0.99 - [Review] - Deathworm is the "original" worm game about a giant worm that eats stuff. In the game, you'll control a gigantic, face-sucking worm on a quest to obliterate everything from UFOs to helicopters. Deathworm rocks over 50 levels, and has a mini-mode for those who want to consume on the go.
The iPhone 5 version of the game, strangely, feels much the same. While we were playing, we didn't notice a huge difference, though we suppose the virtual buttons now have a teeny tiny bit more breathing room.
Ring Fling, $1.99 - Ring Fling is one of those super simple casual games we find ourselves falling in love with over and over again. It's a little like air hockey, except with tons of eye candy. New modes are consistently being introduced and the game itself is seeing more polish via updates as its creator rakes in feedback
The iPhone 5 update sees the game space expanded. In this case, we noticed a little difference. It might just be in our heads, but Ring Fling on iPhone 5 just seems more... pyrotechnic than it is on iPhone 4S or below.
The Bard's Tale, $2.99 - [Review] - The Bard's Tale is a classic ported to iPad and iPhone. At its core, it's an RPG, but it's also a parody starring a protagonist that just... doesn't want to save the world as much as he wants money.
Bard's Tale is a top-down game that already played pretty well on touch devices, but the increased screen space is definitely a good thing. You'll notice you've got more play area to mess around in and better virtual button spacing. The thumb-over-action problem is certainly less pronounced.
Ancient Frog, $2.99 - [Review] - Ancient Frog is an ancient game on the App Store, so it's kind of a surprise to see it receive iPhone 5 support. But, hey, it happened. This is a puzzle game, by the way, in which you'll be tasked with moving a frog from the top to bottom of the screen so it can catch a juicy bit of food. It's frustrating sometimes, but can also be oddly soothing.
Not much going on with this update, as Ancient Frog continues to feel the same.
Anyway, we're expecting a lot more games to be updated in the coming weeks as developers get their hands on iPhone 5. We've got your back if you want to stay in the loop. Expect regular updates and a few round-ups of new iPhone 5 supported games as the adoption rate ramps up.
Rayman Jungle Run [$2.99] is now my favorite iOS auto-runner. Granted, I wasn't the biggest fan of the genre, especially those with procedural, unending levels. Luckily, Rayman Jungle Run offers 40 distinct levels that require players to jump, hair-copter float, wall run, and punch or kick their way to the goal.
Each of these four overarching worlds tacks on an ability, and three of these worlds play out with tap-anywhere controls. However, the punch mechanic, used only in the final world, is relegated to a virtual button on the lower right.
Getting to the 40 goals is the easy part and adds up to less than an hour of pure gameplay. Getting 100 Lums per level, though, requires hours of practice. Each perfect level earns players a red gem-tooth, and five teeth unlock one crazy-hard race per chapter.
No Lums are in these Land of the Dead levels; it's all about reaching the end for the final tooth and getting the fastest time to place on the leaderboard. Speaking of leaderboards, none of the other stages are timed for online racing, which almost seems like a missed opportunity.
Other than meeting achievement goals, going for 100 Lums in stages unlocks an image gallery full of characters from Rayman Origins. This feels rather bittersweet, as seeing the characters creates nostalgia but serves to remind players what's missing from the Origins universe. How would this auto-runner incorporate bosses? I don't know, but I think the brilliant minds behind Rayman could have found an innovative way.
A few extra music tracks also wouldn't hurt, as they played randomly and grew a little stale after the first hour of playing. These tracks are probably enough for casual plays, but not for those who play over and over to perfect every level. That said, the overall lack of new assets made more sense when I realized Pix'n Love Rush creator Pastagames actually developed Rayman Jungle Run and not the original Ubisoft team.
Fanboy-like complaints aside, Rayman Jungle Run is the most thrilling, gorgeous, charming, and responsive auto-runner I've ever experienced. The stages whip and zip like a rollercoaster set at a perfect speed, which allowed me to take in each colorful character and background.
Each level, while less than a minute long, felt large. In whatever direction Rayman was running, jumping, or floating, I felt like I was exploring nearly every inch.
I don't believe collecting all 3,600 Lums in one play without dying is reasonable replayability, but I will happily pay for more levels to explore. Sadly, the title screen lacks a DLC button to hint of any forthcoming content.
For people who've never experienced Rayman or those who have strayed from the series, this is an excellent (re)introduction. For those who've played Origins, this may feel a bit mechanically and aesthetically familiar. In the case of Rayman Jungle Run, familiarity isn't a bad thing, especially when it stems from creator Michel Ancel.
A few weeks back, we found out that Illusion Labs had a new iOS project in the works called Blast-A-Way [$4.99]. At first we weren’t really sure what it was all about, but a trailer released a couple of days later revealed it to be a physics puzzle game that used various types of explosives to blast apart a level and reach the end goal.
So, a physics puzzler. Is my excitement not showing? It's not that I haven’t enjoyed that genre immensely over the years, because I have. It’s just that the overabundance of them on the App Store has sapped my enthusiasm for more, even though great new ones are being released all the time. I mean, why don’t you just make a match-3 while you’re at it?
Then, about 10 minutes after diving into an advanced copy of Blast-A-Way, it hit me: this is Illusion Labs, you idiot. These folks made Touchgrind BMX [$4.99], Sway [$4.99 / Free], and Labyrinth 2 [$4.99 / Free]. Everything they do exudes quality, they don’t play silly App Store pricing games, and they only release new products when they’re fully ready. They’re like a little iOS Valve.
The latest update to Offworld Games' Legion of the Damned [$2.99] adds a friends list and invite-only games to multiplayer, as incorporates a cut-scene viewer into the game's campaign mode.
These additions help fix two of the flaws in this otherwise outstanding game. Legion is a game that appeals to a relatively hard-core TBS audience, and also sits at a higher-than average price point, so getting the details right is crucial.
The new friends list and invite systems work well, but online play is not Game Center (or OpenFeint) integrated, so you'll have to add your wargaming buddies individually.
Legion also suffered from imperfect integration of story with gameplay. In the beginning of the Campaign, it's not always clear how the game's well-executed cut-scenes relate to the battle you just fought, or the one you'll be fighting next. The new cut-scene viewer make it easy to refresh your memory.
Legion of the Damned was already a great strategy title, but this latest update does add some welcome features. We look forward to promised future updates that will include easier sharing and ranking of user-created maps.
Indie studios big and small are celebrating the upcoming holiday with their own sales, too. Below, we have a listing of the best games we've spotted on sale so far. There's undoubtedly more to come, though, so keep your eyes on our Deals sub-forum or consider giving the AppShopper app a download if you really want a comprehensive and up-to-the-minute look at the latest and hottest price cuts.
Our message board seems to really dig Oscura, by the way. It's a little-known platformer with gorgeous art, devilish traps, and some neat mechanics. We recommend it, too.
The next iteration in the Skylanders franchise, Skylanders Giants, is coming to mobile platforms in addition to the Nintendo 3DS, Xbox 360, and Wii, publisher Activision has confirmed at E3, according to a Pocket Gamer post.
Giants is a pure follow-up to its groundbreaking predecessor, offering similar play with one ... big twist. Eight of its twenty new figures will be larger than the others, which explains whole "giant" part of the game's name. New modes and challenges are also being promised, in addition to light-up figures.
This console generation's second Need for Speed: Most Wanted was shown off at EA's E3 press conference in Los Angeles this afternoon. Ports of the game for iPad, iPhone, and Android were confirmed after the event via press release.
Need for Speed: Most Wanted, on consoles at least, is being developed by Criterion. It will feature an open world, licensed vehicles, and of course, races, chases and dramatic crashes. We've included its debut trailer below.
You see a form of this question in almost every high profile game's review: why doesn't this have iCloud support? Apple's remote storage service is a tremendous offering that lets us resume any supported game from any connected Apple device. During our commutes, we can bang out a couple of minutes in Infinity Blade 2 on our iPhones. Later, at home, we can finish the section we were exploring on our iPads. When the service works, it's awesome, but we don't see a lot of games using it. It's a surprise when one does.
We spent a few days asking a small pool of independent game developers why they aren't incorporating iCloud in their latest games. What we discovered isn't surprising: iCloud is always on a good studio's radar, but the pitfalls of indie development keep it there. It's too alien, and maybe even a little too wonky, for cash-strapped and low-bandwidth studios to take a chance on.
I'd Buy That For A Dollar
Time, cash, and bandwidth are the three most important resources to the production of any good game. If there's not enough of one or the other, something goes bad. In the age of $.99 download these resources are even more precious. Their effects on the creation of games are exaggerated to the point where even experimentation on things like iCloud, no matter how easy it might be to implement, becomes a liability. Vlambeer says it couldn't commit time and resources to iCloud with Super Crate Box because it didn't have the time or cash to spare.
"We think iCloud is a great technology and we can totally see why Apple is pushing it," Vlambeer's Rami Ismail tells TouchArcade via e-mail. "The thing is that while from the user side it's an easy thing to set up, as developers it's a new thing that we have to consider, learn to use, and then apply."
Super Crate Box is the first game Vlambeer has made for iPhone and iPad, so that put an unusual strain on the studio. By the time iCloud support could become an actual bit of functionality as opposed to just a desire, Vlambeer had decided its time would be better spent on tweaking the game's controls.
Ismail tells us about another wrinkle: now that Super Crate Box is out in the wild and its users have multiple saves across devices, there's a worry that throwing in iCloud at this point could cause something horrible to happen, like loss of progress or even high scores. It's happened before with other games.
Zombieville 2, for example, launched and included the service when it was new. Creator Mika Mobile learned something in the process: iCloud has a hard time when both local data and cloud data are in the picture. If it pulls the wrong set, it could potentially corrupt a save.
This sort of problem has branching consequences. If Vlambeer has to fix a broken Super Crate Box, that's a month spent on a finished game when it could be working on something else, draining resources that it just doesn't have. Ismail breaks down how close to the edge Vlambeer was when it started on Super Crate Box and explains why this informed its decision to not include iCloud.
"Like with basically everything in life, money is a consideration when making games," Ismail said. "Consider the following: Super Crate Box had five people working on it -- the two at us at Vlambeer and two guys at Halfbot. Since we felt the people that made the original art and music deserved a bonus for their work on the original, we decided to pay them out a little holiday money as well."
"We pay ourselves far below minimum wages because we hardly have any real-life costs at this point. However, the Halfbot guys both have families to support. Multiply the costs of two families and two students by the amount of months it took us to make the game. Then add a few thousand dollars for art and music -- AND then add the Apple developer license, iPads, iCades and all other stuff we used to test the game on... the costs simply start adding up and up." Ismail estimates that Super Crate Box on iOS cost his studio around $15,000.
"The shorter a project is and the fewer people work on it, the lower your costs are and the easier it is to create risky projects. This is essentially why a lot of indie studios remain small -- we want to make games we love to make and honestly, if we could avoid all business and just do that without any worries, we'd be doing that. However, there's always the economic realities, so we have to consider all that as well. In the end, we love making games, but we want to be able to keep making games."
"During development, at some point, you run out of time or money -- whatever you want to call it. If things went well, that's a point at which most improvements you could make to the core game make barely have any noticeable effect. With Super Crate Box, we chose to spend a lot of time on such tiny improvements, especially to the controls. Burning through spare money from our release of Serious Sam: The Random Encounter, we just kept going until the gameplay in Super Crate Box iOS was the best we could make it."
"That turned out to be six months later. Basically we found ourselves running out of everything. At that point, we considered adding iCloud, but obviously that was too late to do that. If we wanted to do that, we'd end up figuring out how to add it, where to add it to the code, how to make sure we don't damage player save games or even delete some save games -- basically, it'd add an additional month to development."
Ismael said at this point Vlambeer had two options: it could either gamble by adding content and support that might or might not work or require additional resources, or it could release a good game. "When we have to choose, we always go with releasing a fun and solid game. We'll usually pick a few technologies that we feel would benefit the game most, so in Super Crate Box's case that was Game Center, OpenFeint and iCade support." Vlambeer says it'll always pick the latter when it comes down to quality versus any form of external support.
End Of The Day
Other studios that we talked to for this story, including Simogo and Uppercut games, told us that their latest projects didn't launch with iCloud support because of similar reasons. Vlambeer isn't the only studio on the App Store deciding to hold out on iCloud support in an effort to stay nimble and put out the best game that it possibly can within a sustainable timeframe.
It's also obvious to us that iCloud and the implementation of it needs to be easier, and the service itself needs to be more reliable. Almost every studio we talked to had some trepidations or a horror story to share. Browse our message board, and you'll find even more from users receiving the bad end of an iCloud problem.
That's not to say iCloud isn't awesome. It is. Games that use it, like Infinity Blade 2, are better for the implementation. iCloud could also be used for stuff beyond saves, so there's promise of what's to come. We simply want to see more of it.
Studios like Vlambeer and most others know that you take gaming as seriously as they do, so iCloud support isn't ever going to just get thrown into the mix. Solid implementation takes time and money to pull off, though, and these are finite resources. Studios may want to roll in the support, but until they can afford to do it, iCloud will continue to be a staple of the cutting room floor.
This just in: people like Angry Birds. In a new blog post on developer Rovio's site, the studio announces that its latest Angry Birds jam, Angry Birds Space [$.99 / HD], has hit 50 million downloads within 35 days. Rovio says that this is the "fastest growing mobile game yet," and it is shattering all of the studio's previous records. No-one could have predicted this. No-one.
In all seriousness, though, Space is easily the best entry in the franchise so far, so we're guessing the download numbers are only going to get crazier as the game receives more support down the line. And speaking of that actually, Rovio teased something interesting in the post: a new "bigger" thing is on the way.
We didn’t have a lot of arcades in my hometown while I was growing up. Even worse, the few that did exist specialized in video games and air hockey, with nary a pinball machine in sight. Still, whenever I managed to get my hands on a one, it was always such a dazzling experience of light, sound and skill. Perhaps that’s why I can’t stop playing Pinball Arcade [$0.99 / Free], the inaugural iOS title from FarSight Studios. FarSight’s ability to create near-perfect replications of actual pinball machines leads to a game that is not only full of incredibly deep pinball machines, but also captures that feeling of fun and excitement in an iOS game.
As its name implies, Pinball Arcade features classic arcade machines from various eras with the simple goal of mastering each one to get the highest scores possible. Each table also includes 'Goals' (read: achievements) that can be solved which lead to more complicated objectives. The entry price includes one machine (‘Tales of the Arabian Nights’) with three more available for purchase within the game via IAP. Tables range from somewhat simple layouts with interesting twists (‘Black Hole’) to lengthy epics chock full of interactive items and objectives (‘Ripley’s Believe It Or Not’). Unlike most games with IAP, you can actually try each table before you buy, providing an opportunity for actual research before you even consider purchasing another table.
Numberlys [$5.99] is an interactive story from Moonbot Studios, which is promoted as a story, mystery and game. It started out as a short film, but when the iPad was announced they changed direction and eventually created this lovely visual experience for us to enjoy.
We don't usually review interactive stories or children's games, but Numberlys caught our eye due to it's stylish artistic quality ...and, for the record, it does include mini-games.
In a colorless world filled with numbers, five of the citizens wanted a change and set about inventing the alphabet. The story is told through beautiful black and white animated graphics which are clearly inspired by the classic sci-fi film Metropolis, but with a modern touch.
I can't be the only person who's totally sick of zombies. Our media is absolutely saturated with them. When zombies start showing up in Call of Duty, you know they're played out. Faced with this dilemma, Developers Game Whizzes decided to move one spot down on the list of "things that go bump in the night," and employ vampires in their side-scrolling action game, Fangz [$1.99 / $1.99]. It's this one little twist on the genre that gives Fangz just enough legs to save it from being a carbon copy of the Zombieville USA series.
