Heads up: NimbleQuest is hitting this coming March 28 across iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, and even the Mac App Store, creator NimbleBit told to us this afternoon. A new teaser trailer has been released in celebration of this news, showing off all the cool stuff you can do in the Snake meets RPG game. Make sure to check the vid out -- especially if you managed to miss our exclusive web preview of the game over the weekend.
We've been playing NimbleQuest for quite awhile, and while it's definitely a different kind of game from the creators of Pocket Planes and Tiny Tower, it's still an awesome one. The action-y mechanics feel great, the skill progression system is fair, and the characters have ton of charm. You'll probably dig it.
Of course, NimbleQuest will release as a free app. An Android version of the game is slated to hit later this April.
This is neat: Pocket Planes [Free] is coming to the Mac App Store this Thursday, NimbleBit just announced, and it'll launch with cross-platform syncing. So, no matter what platform you play the game on, you'll always be able to resume right where you left off.
If you're into bonuses, there's at least one in the upcoming desktop version of Pocket Planes. NimbleBit tells us that the Mac version rocks an exclusive plane called the X10 Mapple Pro. It's a class 1 plane that can carry two passengers and two cargo. NimbleBit says it's a bit faster and has a little bit more range than the Mohawk.
In celebration, NimbeBit is launching a video series called "Pocket Planes Shorts," the first of which we've included below. A Tiny Tower series is planned as well.
Galaxy on Fire creator Fish Labs just shot us a note: Galaxy on Fire 2 - Supernova, the follow-up to the game's last expansion Valkyrie, has been delayed into September. Turns out that launching cross-compatibility across three different versions -- SD, HD, Full HD for OSX -- and three different platforms is tough. Fish Labs explains:
"As we will launch SD, HD and Full HD (OSX) simultaneously and a whole play through of GOF2, Valkyrie and Supernova takes 20 hrs. Our testing scenario with various update stages on several devices and cross-platform compatible save games became very complex, and we have to postpone the release slightly to someday in September," the note says.
It's a piece of bummer news for the game's fans, for sure, but this seems like a pretty solid reason for a delay. Making games, we hear, is pretty hard -- and doing something like this is even harder.
In better news, we've got a first-look at a new trailer for the game. As you'll see, it is definitely a looker, and it's definitely a continuation of the series.
Whoa! World of Goo [$2.99 / UHD], a game that we're always stoked to talk about, has hit one of those benchmark download numbers. According to developer 2D Boy, the physics-puzzler has hit one million downloads across the App Store and the Mac App Store. That's a lot of loving for an indie game that doesn't have a toy line.
2D Boy, as it usually does in its sales post, highlighted some interesting facts. Like, these, for example: about 69 percent of this million have come from the more expensive Universal version of the game, while 29 percent came from its regular version. The rest come from the Mac version, which in our experience, is every bit as delightful as the touch ones.
Sierra On-Line’s edgier point-and-click adventure franchise, Leisure Suit Larry, will live a new life in this fascinating age of revivals and downloadable games. Replay Games, an outfit headed up by an old Sierra employee, has managed to grab the ancient IP and plans to release an HD version of Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of the Lounge Lizards in Q4 2012. This will be followed by several other re-makes and maybe even a new game or two if things pan out.
We wouldn’t be feeding you this information if the games weren’t slated for the iPad and the iPhone, but in case you’re curious, Lounge Lizards HD is also slated for every other platform under the sun, including PC, Mac, XBLA, PSN, Android, On-Live, and Gaikai. Original creator Al Lowe is “working closely” with Replay Games on the re-makes, which should help these games realize their new potential on touch devices and other mediums.
“I’m overjoyed to see Larry released from his digital dungeon after all this time, and be placed in the hands of someone who understands him and wants to see him, brought back to the forefront by people who love him and understand him,” Lowe told EGM exclusively.
Leisure Suit Larry first debuted in 1987, and even though it saw a re-release in 1991, it’s still a crazy old property. Here’s to hoping that the formula that made the games so great back in the day still holds up.
Gameprom, one of the leading developers of iOS and Mac pinball games, have just revealed their latest upcoming table: Da Vinci Pinball. They’ve released a bunch of new screenshots for the game on the Da Vinci Pinball website, several of which you can see above as well as in the gallery below (click to enlarge). Here’s a quick blurb from Gameprom about the direction they’re going with Da Vinci Pinball: (more...)
This past June at WWDC, we sat down with the folks from Illusion Labs to dish on all things Touchgrind [$4.99] related, and the team revealed to me that their original iOS mega hit would be coming to the Mac App Store this Summer. Illusion Labs showcased a proof-of-concept video in January of 2010 showing Touchgrind being played on a MacBook Pro using the multi-touch trackpad, which led to our speculation that the game would come to the Mac with the announcement of the Mac App Store last October.
It may have taken a while, but Touchgrind has indeed launched in the Mac App Store, and it’s currently completely free. The game controls well with the multi-touch trackpad, though it definitely feels different than the iOS touch screen and does take some getting used to. The view is nice and zoomed out, similar to the iPad version Touchgrind HD [$7.99], which makes it a whole lot easier to tell where you are going while cruising around the skatepark.
If you’re a trackpad-equipped Mac owner, there’s really no reason not to head on over to the Mac App Store and grab Touchgrind while it’s free.
In celebration of the July release of Battle Slugs [$.99], a hexagonal strategy game that has you, as a storm of slugs, claiming territory, German creator GameProm has slashed the price of one of its key releases to pennies, while also cutting cost of a select group of games to $0, which is always a great price.
Think of the money you’ll save as you devour the following free offerings. Now you’ll finally be able to afford Netflix! Or detergent! Or cat food! I’m screaming!
I'm currently checking out Wild West Pinball. The other night, actually, I started thinking about how badly I wanted to see "Young Guns" again. Hopefully, this'll sate my grit and sand desires until the work day is over. If not... well, there's always Thunder Ball Pinball, which is alright but has nothing to do with cowboys.
A lot of great games explore the idea of loss and the tragedy that can come as a result of losing something. The world’s greatest shooter, Crysis, for example, is directionless title with a limp narrative. Its design forces users to experience regret and grief as they travel around a lifeless open-world devoid of contextual clues or activities. Playing the game is experiencing loss first hand, since when compared to other shooters, Crysis lacks brick-and-mortar, taken-for-granted elements like goals, end points, or basic level design.
But how many games deal with finding -- finding that thing that is lost? I can’t think of a single one except Find the Rabbit [$1.99] for the iPad, iPod Touch, and Mac App Store. Alas, it’s not a good game.
If you're a thrifty gamer looking for a great deal, then Hemisphere Games has got you covered for today. One of the finest games available, Osmos, is now just 99¢ whether you own an iPhone, iPod touch, iPad, or Mac computer. Osmos was originally released as a PC game back in 2009, and went on to win a crazy amount of awards from all four corners of the media.
It was definitely a heartwarming indie developer success story, but when the game was ported to the iPad last Summer, things got even more interesting as Osmos felt like it was meant for the large touch screen and an already great game was suddenly even better. Then just a couple of months later, Osmos surprised us again by making its way to the smaller screen of the iPhone and iPod touch. Despite less screen real estate, Hemisphere did a fabulous job retaining the awesome gameplay experience of Osmos. Finally, when the Mac App Store launched this past January, Osmos returned to its roots as a personal computer game and played just as well as it ever had.
If you need some more convincing, you can check out our full review of the iPad version of Osmos, as well as our initial impressions on how it played when it released for iPhone and iPod touch. Honestly though, for 99¢ each, they just don't get much better than Osmos. It has a relaxing, puzzle-like aspect to it, but it still remains a challenging game. The audio and visuals make for a unique experience, and it's the type of game that you can just get lost in while playing. It might be too slow going for some gamers, but for myself and plenty of other players around the world Osmos is a must have title.
Just a quick heads up here on a major weekend sale that's underway on the highly popular Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness, Episodes One [$0.99] and Two [$1.99], both down from $7.99 for 87% and 75% price reductions, respectively. Both titles are also available on XBLA, PSN, and Windows, but these are the lowest prices we've seen for them on any platform.
As described by creators Penny Arcade and Hothead Games,
On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness is an RPG-Adventure game set in the comic-book-meets-pulp-horror-meets-H.P. Lovecraft deranged 1920s universe of New Arcadia, delivering mature and compelling entertainment to gamers via accessible episodic delivery. The creative collaboration between Penny Arcade creators Mike ‘Gabe’ Krahulik and Jerry ‘Tycho’ Holkins, legendary game designer Ron Gilbert and veteran producers Hothead Games results in a 100% authentic Penny Arcade experience that pushes bizarre characters, outrageous combat, and adult humor to the precipices of darkness.
Players join Gabe and Tycho, the crime-solving team of the Startling Developments Detective Agency, to combat savage enemies and solve mysteries hidden deep in the sinister heart of New Arcadia. The ominous 1920s landscape features distinct artwork and characters designed exclusively by Krahulik and brought to life by the Hothead team.
Gamespot called the adventures well worth the initial XBLA price of $20 USD for any Penny Arcade-loving gamer. Any Mac user who meets that description should find this weekend sale an absolute steal.
When the iOS App Store launched in early July of 2008, I'm not sure anyone would have thought it was going to grow to the gargantuan beast it is today. Hundreds of thousands of apps later the iPad was introduced which complicated things further with 2x scaling for legacy app support, iPad-exclusive apps, and in some cases, universal compatibility. Last week Apple expanded the App Store ecosystem even further with the Mac App Store, allowing for iOS-style app purchasing in a desktop environment.
We've been covering the Mac App Store, because even though (currently) no Mac App Store purchases can be played on iOS devices, the two App Stores are much closer related than you might initially think. This morning I chatted with both Craig Kemper of Little White Bear Studios and Graeme Devine of GRL Games about just how much can be shared between both iOS and OS X games, and the work that has gone in to creating games on both platforms.
It's easy to forget sometimes, but behind the scenes of the game you're playing is a surprising amount of code that handles everything from the graphical output to the core logic that makes the game play. In the case of Compression [iPhone / iPad / Mac], Little White Bear Studios is topping 25,000 lines of code to make their game work. According to both Kemper and Devine, a surprising amount of code can be used between the Mac and the iPhone, even though they are completely different devices.
How portable a game's code is depends heavily on the the graphics technology used. For instance, if a game leverages something like Unity or cocos2D, the porting process between OS X and iOS platforms could potentially be as simple as retooling the interface to be touch-based or keyboard and mouse-based. Of course this is an oversimplification of the work involved, but Graeme was able to port the upcoming iOS version of Clandestiny [Mac App Store] to be ready for the Mac App Store in a single day.
In the future, Kemper suggests that developers are going to need to consider the Mac, the iPad, and the iPhone as the three target platforms for their games. The way he sees a potential development cycle going could involve planning a solid game for all three devices targeting the Mac first, because developing for a keyboard and mouse is generally more straight forward. Also, both performance and memory issues likely won't be a problem on a desktop platform compared to the somewhat limited resource pool of iOS devices.
From there, the developer could switch gears to work on a solid touch-driven interface and address any potential performance and memory optimizations that need to be made to make the game run on portables. If developers adopt a workflow like this, the Mac App Store could serve as an excellent crystal ball to gaze in to the future of the iOS App Store, much like how the New Zealand App Store gives us an early glimpse of what's coming to the US App Store.
As a part of this discussion, Graeme brought up an interesting point in that targeting all three of these platforms could potentially lead to mediocrity if the project doesn't lend itself to be a great game on every platform. We're already seeing a bit of this, as excellent games on iOS devices such as Angry Birds and Flight Control feel like quite a bit has been lost in translation when you replace their fantastic touch-based controls with a mouse pointer. This could potentially be an even larger issue in the future as the performance gap closes between both portable and desktop devices, ending in the game's interface being the only thing in need of changing.
Several games already exist on the Mac App Store that would seem to fit well on iOS devices in the future. Bejeweled 3, and And Yet It Moves seem to be perfect for all iOS devices. Precipice of Darkness (Episode 1, Episode 2) and Gratuitous Space Battles would be awesome on the iPad. If it wasn't for the Mac App Store, we wouldn't have had any idea that these games could have even potentially been coming to the iOS platform.
We're going to keep a close eye on both the Mac App Store and the iOS App Store in the future to follow how developers actually end up using both of these virtual storefronts together. Taking in to account how trivial it is to port between both platforms, it wouldn't surprise me at all to see developers targeting the Mac App Store first, giving iOS gamers a sneak peek of what's to come on their portable devices, making the Mac App store very interesting regardless of whether or not you even own a Mac.
Ever heard of Steam? It’s a digital distribution platform created by the ever-clever minds at Valve. When it launched, it was PC-exclusive. Now, it supports the Mac and Valve has even created tools for developers to port their games over.
The “Games” section of the Mac App Store feels like Steam, with some benefits that Eli mentioned in his first impressions post such as being able to move games around in their own self-contained .app bundles instead of being tied to the Steam folder. Of course it all comes down to developer support, but currently the cost to developers to publish their games on both Steam and the Mac App Store are equal, although Steam offers benefits like cross-platform support, microtransactions, achievements and leaderboards -- all features that Apple could conceivably add to the Mac App Store in the future.
While we watch Valve and Apple battle it out, here are three games we've been spending some time on from the Mac App Store:
BEJEWELED 3 -- Fun As Ever
There’s been a lot of creative takes on Bejeweled since its last numbered sequel, but for my money, Bejeweled 3 [$19.99] is the best match-3 experience yet. It’s gorgeous, simple, and stylized and boasts several game modes that push the tempo or turn the core play on its head. I’m not much of a purist, so I’ve been spending the glut of my time with the standard mode of play, which has a few twists, too. For example, whenever you line up like-colored gems in an “L”-shaped pattern, you earn a special lightning gem that, when matched with other like-colored gems, annihilates rows of gems.
It’s these kinds of additions that make Bejeweled 3 so special, though of course, there is a standard Classic mode. This is a tired phrase, but if you like Bejeweled, you probably shouldn’t pass this one up.
The Mac App Store is upon us, or, those of us who own a Mac, I suppose. After spending the day fiddling with it, buying various games, and trying out other things, there's a lot of potential here but still room for improvement. What sticks out as one of the immediate best things about the Mac App Store is how wonderfully open it seems to be. Back when it was first announced, many DRM doomsday theorists proposed that this was going to lead to the Mac being just as locked down as the iOS platform. So far, this couldn't be further from the truth.
Setting up a Mac App Store account is easy, and using that account on multiple computer is as simple as logging in and verifying your billing information. For me, this meant filling in the CV2 code from my credit card and verifying my county for tax purposes. From there, both of my computers have had full access to the same Mac App Store account, which is made even easier thanks to the "purchases" tab on top.
I hope this "purchases" functionality makes its way over to the iOS App Store, as it is absolutely phenomenal to see all the things you own, and be given the option to re-download and install them. Currently on the iOS App Store, the only way to check if your account owns something is by attempting to leave a review and/or digging through convoluted receipt listings. It's also much nicer to have the Mac App Store as its own standalone application, as many of the features in functionality of iTunes feel like they have been shoehorned in over the years (to say the least).
Last month it was revealed that the Mac App Store, which was announced by Steve Jobs last October, would be opening for business on January 6th. A quick glance at your lock screen should tell you that that day is today. While it was rumored that the Mac App Store wouldn't officially become available until 12pm EST today, it appears that the folks at Apple just couldn't wait to let everyone through the front door. Mac owners running OS X Snow Leopard can check their Software Update option for the newest version 10.6.6 which will add the Mac App Store to their dock.
As of right now there only appears to be 74 apps available in the Games category, but here's a short list of some of those games which are also available on iOS, and a few games exclusive to the Mac App Store. If you're an iOS gamer, these new Mac games should be familiar:
There's quite a few others as well, and for iOS App Store faithfuls who are used to games costing just a dollar or two, be prepared for some sticker shock with some of these titles. Enigmo and Enigmo 2 are selling for $14.99 each, Peggle and Peggle Nights run $9.99 each, and Lego Harry Potter Years 1-4 clocks in at $49.99. In the cases of Chopper 2 and Compression, these appear to be limited introductory sale prices, and those titles should eventually fetch a greater amount too. It will be interesting to see if the Mac App Store will incorporate the same race to the bottom pricing techniques that have been so prevalent on iOS.
We're going to poke our noses around the brand new Mac App Store a bit more, and will likely bring you some impressions of how these games translate to full blown computers. Until then you can stop in at our brand new Mac App Store Games forum to discuss this experience with fellow forum members, and if you're a Mac owner make sure you grab the latest software update so you can check it out for yourself.
Heads up: NimbleQuest is hitting this coming March 28 across iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, and even the Mac App Store, creator NimbleBit told to us this afternoon. A new teaser trailer has been released in celebration of this news, showing off all the cool stuff you can do in the Snake meets RPG game. Make sure to check the vid out -- especially if you managed to miss our exclusive web preview of the game over the weekend.
