If you're the kind of person who has spent a ridiculous amount of time building scale Minecraft replicas of things you wish you had in the real world, Minecraft Reality [$1.99] is going to be right up your alley. Created by 13th Lab, and officially supported by Mojang, using the app is as simple as uploading your .mca files to the Minecraft Reality site, waiting for them to process, then using the camera on your iOS device to plug things into the real world via augmented reality.
Check out the video:
Minecraft Reality seems pretty cool, although the actual web uploader does seem a little clunky right now. The good news is, said uploader is loaded with messages about a new significantly more user-friendly version coming soon.
In January of last year, Liv Games released their inaugural iOS title Legendary Wars [$0.99 / $1.99], and changed what we should expect from a castle defense style game. We really enjoyed the game in our review, as it offered a fantastic visual style, heaps of content, and a variety of different types of gameplay. Legendary Wars proved popular with gamer, too, and since release it has seen a ton of update love as well as an excellent pseudo-sequel called Monster Wars [$0.99].
Last week, in celebration of the success of Legendary Wars and its impending 2-year anniversary in January, Liv Games released an absolutely massive version 2.0 update to the game. It's something that's been in the works since Monster Wars came out more than 10 months ago, and includes just about every fan request the developer has received since the game initially came out.
Back in late September we told you that Matmi's whacky, fast-paced pinball title Monster Pinball was getting a well-deserved HD makeover and Universal support in the form of a new app called Monster Pinball HD [$1.99], and that game is now available on the App Store.
The original Monster Pinball launched way back in May of 2009, and was among my favorite games of the time. It's ultra-fast physics and absolutely insane table designs (there is one that's literally a concave bowl) would make the hardcore pinball simulation enthusiast shudder, but that's also what made it so unique and fun. Monster Pinball was also noteworthy for its fantastic art direction, which to me always felt like the cheery world of Pixar met with the dark tones of Tim Burton.
All of this translates quite well to the new Monster Pinball HD. It looks fantastic on widescreen displays like the iPhone 5, and feels even more at home on the larger screens of the iPad mini and full-sized model, though it doesn't appear to be running at full Retina resolution on the iPad. You'd be pretty hard-pressed to tell though, as it still looks fantastic. Another neat addition is the ability to play in landscape orientation on the iPad, which feels much more comfortable to me.
Other big new features in Monster Pinball HD include Game Center integration for leaderboards and achievements, and the ability to unlock each of its 6 tables for individual play. Monster Pinball was always really unique for having 6 different tables that were interconnected, and it's a whole different experience playing them as individual tables. You'll need to complete a table unlocking mission for each of them before you can play them individually though, which isn't always so easy.
I'm having a total blast reliving my love for Monster Pinball in a modern package, and just hearing all the zany sound effects and music is taking me back to a time when I poured countless hours into this game. I'm already on pace to do so again, and I'm loving it. If you like pinball games, and aren't necessarily worried about realistic physics, then Monster Pinball HD will make your head spin… in a good way. Definitely give it a look, and stop by our forums to leave your thoughts.
If you are not currently an iPad owner but have an iPhone or iPod touch, developers want you to know that your smaller screen is nothing to be ashamed of. Similar to how the previously iPad-only Bastion [$0.99] came to the smaller iOS devices last week, Fluttermind's haunting puzzle platforming adventure Incoboto [$3.99 (HD)] now has a small-screened counterpart on the App Store called Incoboto Mini [$1.99].
Incoboto originally launched for iPad back in February this year, and we thought it was simply excellent in our review. At its core it's a platforming game set in fiendishly designed puzzle-like levels, but like most great games there's so much more than what you see on the surface. Incoboto tells a particularly engaging and emotional tale, with dark undertones and some heavy subject matter despite its cheery visual look. Taking in the atmosphere of the Incoboto world is just as important as wrapping your head around and completing its levels.
While Fluttermind previously thought that this sort of "big screen" experience wouldn't translate well to iPhone, it turns out that everything that made Incoboto great on the iPad has successfully transitioned to the smaller screen after all. Unfortunately, a crash bug slipped in there as well which seems to be affecting a small portion of players. As Fluttermind notes in our forums and right in the App Store description, a fix has already been submitted and should be out soon.
I wouldn't let that scare you off, though, as Incoboto is one of the most unique and beautiful experiences you can have with an iOS game, and if you aren't equipped with an iPad then now is your chance to experience it for yourself. Or, if you're like me and loved the iPad version, this is your chance to re-experience it all over again on the smaller screen.
We've been keepingtabs on Foursaken Media's zombie sequel since we heard that one was in the works earlier this year. Considering the large cult following that N.Y.Zombies [$0.99]Â garnered in our own community, there was certainly some excitement to see if Foursaken could repeat and expand upon its successes. N.Y.Zombies 2 [$0.99] certainly accomplishes those goals. With great visuals, an expanded skill set, online co-op and well done presentation and theatrics N.Y.Zombies 2 is a great sequel and worth the wait.
Following the journey of a survivor of the zombie apocalypse, N.Y.Zombies 2 charges you with trying to stay alive in a world now ravaged with the undead. Story missions are separated by location, with the narrative being driven via journal pages that act as the story progression between levels. While a decent story isn't a particularly pressing prerequisite for a good survival based horror game on iOS, I still enjoyed the narrative techniques used by Foursaken in setting the tone for the rest of the game.
Take Canabalt [$2.99], flip its camera 90 degrees and replace jumping with shoving and that, ladies and germs, is Shove Pro [$4.99]. Sorta. That's it on the most basic element. Shove Pro is perhaps actually engineering a new genre, the parody-action title, and the fact that it also has an airtight plot makes it all the more ludicrious/amazing/shoving.
In Rad Dragon's latest, you play as Lars Speedwagon, a stunt actor from a bygone Hollywood era when those chase scenes where the good guy jets down a crowded road and shoves innocent bystanders onto boxes, food trucks, or cars to slow down the authorities. It's Speedwagon's calling. He lives to shove. And he'll stop shoving if the cops get their shove-hating hands on him. Your job is to put off the inevitable for as long as possible.
This is done by intentionally colliding head-on with people on the street, which triggers a bullet-time-like sequence where you can select and drag the innocent sucker's limbs and indicate what direction and with how much force you'd like to send them careening into the stratosphere with.
Beavertap Games launched their inaugural iOS game Mikey Shorts [$0.99 / Free] back in August, and we thought it was simply outstanding in our review. Its main focus was on speeding through levels as quickly and efficiently as possible, though it was also very welcoming to those who just liked to leisurely run and jump through each stage at their own pace. The levels in Mikey Shorts were incredibly well-designed, and the inclusion of Game Center leaderboards fired up the competitive nature of gamers in our forums as they battled it out for top times.
Mikey Shortswas updated about a month after release with new levels and disguises, and late last month a special Halloween-themed version appropriately called Mikey Shorts Halloween [Free] launched for free with several exclusive levels. Today, another new update has landed, and this one is especially neat. It features 15 new disguises, each one modeled after a different indie iOS game. Check out the full list of what games are included below, along with review and forum links where appropriate, and you can see the collection of disguises in the screen right under the list.
If you haven't given Mikey Shorts a try yet, download the lite version or Halloween version and take it for a free spin. I can also effortlessly recommend all of the games on the list above, and it's pretty cool to see Beavertap paying homage to so many games, many of which are platformers that are direct competitors to Mikey Shorts. That's the Indie Scene for you though, warm fuzzies all around, and all that.
If you have daydreams about spending your days at dig sites in distant parts of the world, carefully identifying, cataloging and preserving the history of long-dead civilizations, Choice of Games has your back. Their latest gamebook release, To the City of the Clouds [$1.99] is mostly about the nitty-gritty of archeological field work.
One gets the impression that author Catherine Bailey has personal experience with grant proposal writing, local alcoholic brews, unscrupulous colleagues, regional poverty, and the risks posed by exhaustion, exposure, tropical diseases, and political instability.
I've been doing the pen and paper role-playing thing for over a decade now, and there's one problem I've seen over and over with new players: they're often uncomfortable committing to the absurdity. It's hard to take yourself seriously and pretend to be a half-elf assassin with a bounty on your head or the best damn wizard your wizarding school has ever produced. Behold Studios'Knights of Pen & Paper [$1.99] doesn't have this problem. It jumps into the absurdity with both feet, bringing players along whether they like it or not.
That's not to say it's a game I'd sit down to play every week, pulling out my dice bag and my character sheet and settling in for the long haul. It has a shallow story, an uninspired cast of characters and far, far too many collection quests for any pen-and-paper experience I'd enjoy. Good thing it's on my phone, where I don't mind a little grinding in my RPGs. Sit back, relax, and enjoy the constant stream of nerdy references: Knights of Pen & Paper is a game that knows its audience and it doesn't shy away from indulging us.
The game occupies an odd space in the gamers' pantheon. It inhabits the world of tabletop role-playing, with all the d20s and Doritos that entails. Structurally, though, it's an RPG, with the party, leveling and questing all in your control. Then there's the stuff that feels uncomfortably mobile-specific, like its unending focus on money—earning, spending and, yes, buying it.
The two easiest ways for folks on the iOS store to make money as quickly as possible: 1) Exploit people's profound love of nudity. 2) Exploit people's profound love of retro-style games. Polyroll [$1.99 / Free] only excels at one of these, which is terrible news for people who love nudity. (Sorry. Fortunately, I hear there are plenty of places online to see it for free, unless you count the sizable toll it takes on your soul and budding sexuality.)
"Exploit" isn't quite the right word, but we've become conditioned to feel that retro-style graphics are basically a marketing gimmick in 2012. I mean, really, there is no real reason to make games look like old NES or SNES games today unless it's an aesthetic choice of some sort: You either are trying to evoke the feel those old games had or are simply trying to wrest a fistful of nickles and dimes from players because you know that they'll think, "Hey this looks like an old game ZOMG!"
All of this is to say: Until you play it, Polyroll might seem like another gold-rushing game trying to horn in on the 8-bit "revolution," but it isn't. It's doing something more deft: Actually filling in some gaps and introducing some new ideas to the classic platformers it's drawing inspiration from.
The iOS platform is a great place to test new ideas, and we've seen tons of quirky and inventive games because of it. Get ready to add another one onto the pile as I think Crossword Dungeon [$1.99] is one of those unique ideas that would only come around on something like the App Store. It employs one of our favorite tactics: slap some RPG elements on a tried-and-true mechanic.
In this case it's crossword puzzles mixed with roguelike dungeon crawling at the core of the aptly named Crossword Dungeon, and strangely enough it totally works. The dungeon rooms are in this case the actual letter tiles of various crossword answers, and your guess as to which letter belongs in each square acts as your offense against the enemies lurking about.
Back in May we got the first glimpse of Breach Entertainment's first iOS title Shardlands, a platforming/puzzle/adventure hybrid that had really impressive visuals, a moody soundtrack and a tremendous atmosphere. As of right now, ahead of the typical set of weekly releases, Shardlands [$1.99] is available in the App Store.
As you'll see from this newest game trailer, Shardlands is quite a looker. There are 20 levels to work your way through along with Game Center integration, as well as support for Retina Displays and the 4-inch screens. People seem to be loving Shardlands so far in our forums, and I'm rather excited to take it for a spin myself.
We'll have more on Shardlands soon, or if you think you've got a hankering for some puzzle-y adventures you can take the $2 gamble and grab it from the link below.
There's nothing quite like speed-based reactionary games on iOS. Smooth framerates combined with fast-reflexes and responsive controls usually make for a title well-suited for the touchscreen. Skyriders [$0.99], with its futuristic feel hits on all these points and then some. Add in great level design and some subtle RPG mechanics, and Skyriders rises above the rest as a great example of challenging and fast arcade fun.
From a basic gameplay perspective, Skyriders is relatively simple. Each level has the player racing from start to finish on a track filled with boosts, stars, barriers and chasms. Besides simply making it to the finish line (which isn't as easy as it may sound), players are also tasked with trying to get as high a score as possible, which is centered around earning and maintaining a high multiplier. Multipliers are gained by collecting stars and hitting boosts consistently (a meter at the top of the screen acts as a timer for how long you have to boost or collect a star before the multiplier dies). Meanwhile, hitting barriers (you can jump or dodge them) instantly kills your multiplier, while falling off the racetrack ends the run.
When a developer like True Axis, creators of the iOS classic Jet Car Stunts [$1.99 / Free], announces a new project, you take note. That's why when the studio announced back in February that they were working on a skateboarding simulation called True Skate, it shot right up into our most-anticipated games list. Well, it did in mine, anyway. I've been skateboarding for the majority of my life, and have really been waiting for a killer skating app to come to iOS.
Well, it's finally come, as True Skate [$1.99] is exactly the kind of skateboarding game that I've always wanted. Rather than being heavily mission- or story-based like the Tony Hawk's Pro Skater series or EA's Skate series, True Skate is more of a sandbox toy that lets you shred around a well-designed skatepark doing whatever you feel like. There's a short list of missions to complete, and there's plenty of potential to flesh out the entire experience further, but on release True Skate is simply an excellent physics-based skateboarding simulator that's only real limit is your imagination.
Last month one of the more pleasant surprises released to the App Store was Bitmonster's 3D adventure title Lili [$2.99]. The gameplay itself was fairly simple, but was bolstered by a lush environment to explore, believable characters, and well-written dialogue that wasn't scared to take on some darker tones to tell a story.
We really liked Lili a lot in our review, though we did note some minor issues in the form of temperamental controls and various minor glitches with the game. Thankfully those were mostly knocked out in an update earlier this week, and Lili is a better overall game for it.
Now, as a way to celebrate the release of the 5th generation iPod touch, Lili has been put on sale for $1.99 from its normal price of $4.99.
You might remember that Lili was briefly demoed during the iPhone 5 unveiling last month, and was among the first to really take advantage of the wider screen. Now with a whole new set of wide screen iPod touches hitting the masses, Lili remains a great way to test out and show off your shiny new widescreen device.
Even if you aren't equipped with an iPhone 5 or 5th generation iPod touch, Lili is still a fantastic game that's definitely worth considering while it's on sale for more then half off, and you can visit our forums for even more information and discussion.
