This past February I was very pleasantly surprised with the quirky title The Hacker [Free], a story-driven collection of puzzle mini-games that put you in the role as a member of an international computer hacking ring. The storyline itself was interesting if not a bit cliche, and the mini-games that served as the “hacking” in the game were both clever and challenging.

But where The Hacker really won me over in our review was in its level of immersion and attention to detail. It did a fantastic job of making you feel like you’re really the protagonist programmer in the story who must utilize an 80s-era computer and unravel an evil plot surrounding your former employer, the sinister Glider Corporation. It's really an entertaining little escape from reality.

Currently, you can grab all this hackery goodness for the very affordable price of zero dollars. You should get at least a few solid hours of entertainment from the main campaign, not to mention the inclusion of fictional arcade games that are “emulated” on your system and come equipped with Game Center integration. Additional content packs are available as IAP if you crave more puzzle solving, but aren't necessary to enjoy the main story.

The Hacker is a surprisingly fun experience that feels right at home on iOS, and everybody should make sure to check it out while it’s free.

Being called a “Child of the 80s” has made me more aware of my mortality recently, than it has conjured memories of the actual time period.

The USSR? Gone.
Hair Metal? Mostly gone. (Thanks for this.)
Reaganomics? Relegated to post-punk indie hardcore band names.

These days you will be lucky to find any kind of media that doesn’t have 1 or 2 glassy-eyed teenagers waiting anxiously for “The Drop.”

Thankfully, the Wonder-Twin powers of Mighty Rabbit and Joystick Labs has manifested a game that absolutely drips 80s nostalgia and helps me forget that the twilight years are quickly approaching. Saturday Morning RPG [ Free ] is as close to a physical manifestation of my childhood as I am going to find, without a truckload of Pixiesticks.

Inspired by the JRPGS of the 80s and 90s, Saturday Morning RPG is nothing special on the surface. Its battle system, littered with quicktime events that modify damage done and taken, is straight forward and pedestrian. In fact, the game’s story (the supposed hallmark of the RPG genre) has the literary alacrity of an R.L. Stine novel. Luckily, none of this matters. One would argue that that is exactly the point.

Episode 1 of Saturday Morning RPG (which comes free of charge) has the game’s hero, Marty, fast asleep on his bed. In his dream, he is spending the day with his sweetheart Samantha, when she is kidnapped by Cobra Commander Hood. Hood intends to wed Samantha, whether she wants it or not. After being beaten down by Hood and his minions, The Wizard (and his powerful glove - which is (so) bad) appears before Marty to offer help. He gives Marty his Trapper Keeper, the spell book Marty can use to defeat Hood’s Army and rescue Samantha. And that is what Marty (and you) set off to do.

The Trapper Keeper enhances the vanilla battle system by throwing in spells and other wild cards. It’s first feature is customizable scratch and sniff stickers. Using up to five, the stickers provide benefits like +15 health or -2 Enemy strength for the length of the battle. The trick is that you have to scratch them to release their bonus, and you are only given a small amount of time at the start of the battle to do so.

Once the battle begins, your Trapper Keeper functions as your spell book. Spells vary from the mundane (a flaming basketball) to the awesome (a glittery-glove-clothed punch, delivered via Moonwalk). There are some balance issues that become apparent, such as getting more bang for your buck via spells and, therefore, not focusing on leveling up melee attacks, but I’m not sure the developers care. The actual gameplay is the plain cracker on which the aged nostalgia cheese is served. No one should complain about the cracker.

When you aren’t battling Lizards or Hood Soldiers, you walk 8-bit Marty around the episode’s environment (they are different in each episode) talking to people and, occasionally, collecting a quest or two. The quests don’t do much to flesh out the universe, instead trading lore for laughs. They vary from the eye-rolling “stop all the downloadin”, to the morbid task of setting animals free by flushing them down the toilet. Completed quests offer you either XP, Spells, or stickers, so they are worth doing when you find them.

If there were any complaints to be leveled against Saturday Morning RPG, they would be the ones I’ve already mentioned. The game is a very basic RPG. Encounters are not random (your character and my character are probably going to be pretty similar by game’s end), quests and quest completions are very linear, and the story lines are pretty dumb. There just isn’t much substance here...much like a Saturday Morning Cartoon.

In that respect, one could argue that this game captures the spirit of the Saturday Morning Cartoon perfectly. And, in the process, litters the game with wonderful nuggets of 80s nostalgia. To play Devil’s Advocate a bit, if the game is called Saturday Morning RPG, and playing it perfectly recreates the spirit and feeling of an 80s Saturday Morning cartoon, doesn’t that make it the perfect game?

You and I could argue about this all day, but I don’t think we could argue as to whether or not you should give this game a shot. The first Episode, which took me 2 hours to complete (I try to be thorough), is completely free. If you like it, you can unlock Episode 2 for a measly 2 bucks. That, to me, seems like an awesome way to sell your game. More Episodes are in the pipeline of course, with Mighty Rabbit shooting for a May/June release for Episode 3.

All in all, Saturday Morning RPG is exactly what it promised. A fun, easy going, RPG with a heavy coating of 80s nostalgia. With an upfront cost of “free”, it’s hard not to recommend it.

When you're looking for a simple, compulsive time waster, do you look for something that lets you grind to your heart's content, or a game where you can dominate a high score board with skill alone? This is an honest question. DogByte Games' 8bit Ninja [Free] has a free-to-play model that doesn't get in the way of simple good times, but it pretty much throws the whole leaderboard thing out the window if you don't want to pay. Other than that little problem it's a great way to lose a few hours to that good ol' craving for just one more game.

Consider 8bit Ninja a companion piece to Halfbrick's Fruit Ninja. In that game, you are a bodiless ninja with a sword and a penchant for murdering fruit. In this game, you're a nearly unarmed ninja with a good reason to fear bouncing produce. One's about the thrill of the attack, the other's all about avoidance. They make a great pair, but where Fruit Ninja is a one-and-done sorta game that focuses on hitting peak performance, 8bit Ninja holds its big rewards back for the patient player who puts time into its substantial upgrade system.

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I am undoubtedly a cat person. Although I only own one, I have some close friends that own six, and going over to their house is always like a peek into some magical wonderland I wish I lived in. Suffice to say that any game featuring cats is bound to catch my eye, so when a colleague poked me and said, "There's a new puzzler called Kitten Sanctuary [$1.99/Lite], and you need it!", I figured I could be in for something good.

At a peek, it looked like a cute match three puzzler, but after spending some time with the game, you get to see that while the game is simple, it's really got quite a bit more to it than your average match three game.

Rather than go with the bare bones approach that many iOS puzzlers seem to favor, developers Clockwork Pixels decided to go with a different type of experience, and I really like it. Of course, the heart of Kitten Sanctuary is still a match three. But imagine that cloaked in something like a Nintendogs lite, and you'll start to get an idea of what to expect here.

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If you've been following along with TouchArcade for a while, then you should know that one of our favorite pastimes is playing the asynchronous multiplayer racing game Disc Drivin' [$1.99/Lite/HD]. Ah yes, Disc Drivin'. It first released in December of 2010, and there honestly aren't any other games that have been out for that long that I consistently play on a daily basis. Granted, it hasn't quite grabbed everybody like it has me (but bless your heart for trying, Eli), but for those who love the gameplay Disc Drivin' has simply incredible staying power.

Disc Drivin' developer Pixelocity is trying to ensure that myself and those like me will continue our daily racing obsession, and have just released the biggest update for the game to date. There are five(!) brand new tracks to compete on, all taking place in a brand new snow-themed environment. In this new environment you'll (literally) run into two new kinds of obstacles: one is a giant snowball that will explode on impact and slow you down a bit, and the other is an ice block which will block your path before finally breaking and disappearing after it's been run into a few times.

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It's great that there's so many games on the App Store that cost just a dollar or two, but as any avid iOS gamer can tell you, those little impulse buys can sure add up. And even when you do grab a game on the cheap, if it turns out to be a disappointment it can still sting no matter what the price was that you paid. As such, even when you're faced with making a purchase decision that amounts to less than you'd spend on lunch on any given day, it's nice to know that the game you're ponying up the dough for will be something that you end up enjoying.

And that's where lite versions come in. They can give you a no risk way to check out a game before you fully commit, and possibly save you from wasting your hard-earned cash. Here's a list of some newer lite versions for some popular games that you might have been on the fence about, and now you can try them out for yourself.

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By now, I think we’ve all become pretty accustomed to the weekly Thursday (or rather, Wednesday night due to time zones) release schedule. The line of thinking is that you get your game out there right before the weekend is about to begin, when potential customers’ fingers are more apt to be hitting the Buy button, and you also are trying to get on Apple’s radar for the all-important App Store featuring, which refreshes on Thursdays.

The flip side to all this is that by setting a release date to a Thursday, you can end up having quite a lot of competition as everybody else with a new game is also jumping into the pool at the same time as you. As such, some developers will ignore the Thursday cycle and instead opt to release their games earlier in the week. This is one of those weeks where it seems several big games have hit earlier than suspected, so in light of this here’s a quick rundown of some new titles that are already available.

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Late last year Wild Chords [ $9.99 (HD)] knocked my socks off. In a nutshell, it's an edu-tainment game that utilizes the microphone on the iPad to pick up the chords being played on a guitar. It works great, too. I was more than a little surprised that in a few hours of playing the game I went from never having touched a guitar before to actually being able to play a few (admittedly very basic) tunes.

Piano Dust Buster [ Free (HD)] seems to accomplish the same thing, with two significant differences: Obviously, per the name, the focus is on the piano instead of the guitar. Additionally, the game features a virtual keyboard of sorts, so unlike Wild Chords where you need a guitar to play, you don't really need a piano to jump into Piano Dust Buster.

I think these music-centric edu-tainment games are seriously just fantastic, and really wish they would've been around when I was a kid. I couldn't even guess how much money my poor parents dumped into sending me to piano lessons when all I wanted to do was slam my head (and heinously under leveled party) against Gurgu Volcano in Final Fantasy. Had there been some piano gamification to be found in the 80's, well, I could potentially be a world famous concert pianist right now.

Piano Dust Buster is free, and I'm really curious to hear back from anyone out there with young kids and a piano to see how they take to the game.

Earlier this month we caught wind that Phosphor Games was planning to give the paid version of Dark Meadow [ $5.99 ] a free to play extreme makeover. Our community caught wind, formed up the all too predictable angry mob, and the next day Phosphor decided that the free to play version would come as a separate app instead of updating the existing paid version.

Last night, two things happened. First off, Dark Meadow: The Pact [ Free ] hit the App Store, offering players who never tried the original game a free opportunity to dip their toes into the Dark Meadow universe. Secondly, Dark Meadow was updated to have all the improvements of the free version. This includes Retina Display support for the new iPad and some new content which comprises both new areas and enemies as well as weapons. Getting around in the game is also easier, as they've not only added an in-game map, but also the ability to warp around so you don't have to totally start over when you die.

Regardless, I'd still back up your original Dark Meadow .ipa file before updating in case you ever want to go back, especially if you're the kind of person who hates shoehorned IAP currency. The way I (and a lot of our community it'd seem) read the original explanation from Phosphor on how they were going to split the free and paid versions was more along the lines of "We're going to add the tweaks and new content from the free to play version to the existing paid version, leaving all the wacky micro transaction stuff to the free version."

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Simon Oliver of Rolando fame is coming back to mobile with a new Okabu game, The Guardian is reporting. Oliver released the original Okabu on PS3 back in 2011. It took a slugging from critics for its overly dry and simplistic design, but Oliver and his studio Handcircus Games has since been working on a free-to-play take in preparation for a release this year across iOS and Android. He didn't comment on what this one will do differently.

He did, however, describe the original Okabu as a first step. He and his studio built a universe, and they'll continue to work within it. "We wanted to retain ownership of the IP so we could build something that we knew would work across different platforms," Oliver said. "That's been our focus since October, working on a prototype for a new free-to-play game set in the Okabu universe, for iOS and Android," he continued, hopefully with a flourish.

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If you've been whining for an extra bits update in 1-Bit Ninja [$1.99 / Lite], you can stop now. DogByte Games has you covered on that front, as its new ninja game, creatively titled 8-Bit Ninja, has SEVEN MORE BITS. That's, like, a lot.

Seriously, though, you should check this out. Taking place in a world where ninjas have tournaments that don't involve men with metal plates stapled to their heads, you play as a variety of tiny ninjas tasked with evading fruit after a demonstration of ninja-ness goes sideways. We've got some footage just below:

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Just a quick heads up to let you know that Noodlecake Games has made two of their iOS titles free for a limited time. First up is Lunar Racer [Free], a side-scrolling 2D racer that feels like a mashup of Excitebike and Mario Kart. The physics are crazy, due to being on the Moon and all, and Lunar Racer is a frantic arcade experience due to just how easily the tides can turn during a race.

There's also a whole host of unlockable items to trick out your ride with, as well as 12 different lunar tracks to race on. Finally, there's a local multiplayer mode over Bluetooth or WiFi that is a total blast if you have a friend handy with another copy of the game. You can read about that and more in our review of Lunar Racer, but since it's free you might as well just go grab it anyway and find out how it is for yourself.

The other title Noodlecake is currently offering for free is the excellent Super Stickman Golf [Free]. It's been free a few times before, but that is definitely no reason not to grab it if you haven't already. Super Stickman Golf is what happens when you combine the trajectory-based mechanics of an artillery style game like Worms with the rules of golf. The results are spectacular. Super Stickman Golf offers a crazy amount of single player courses to play through, and a bunch of special "power-up" golf balls to use that give you unique abilities like sticking your ball to a surface or causing it to stop suddenly and drop right out of midair.

Despite all of this single player goodness, perhaps the biggest draw of Super Stickman Golf is its fantastic online multiplayer mode, which we covered when it first hit. It's a ridiculous amount of fun and is easily one of the finest real-time multiplayer experiences I've had on iOS. Needless to say, make sure to grab both Super Stickman Golf and Lunar Racer while they're currently free if you're a fan of not paying anything for good games.

Hey Daniel Johnston fans, there's another Johnston-centric game on the App Store. Daniel Johnston's Space Ducks [ Free (HD)] joins Hi, How Are You [$2.99 / Free ] with another look into his art and music. This time around, it's much less of a game when compared to the puzzle elements of Hi, How Are You, and instead could be described as an "interactive comic book experience."

Space Ducks is free, and as you play through it you slowly unlock all the songs from Johnston's upcoming album. If you've never heard of Daniel Johnston, Hi, How Are You is likely a much better gateway drug than Space Ducks (Check out our review of Hi, How Are You.), but, either way, I dig these sort of gamified comic book apps.

Getting access to new music early (and for free) is just icing on the cake.

Back in January, developer Spry Fox released Triple Town [Free], an iOS version of their immensely popular Kindle, Facebook, and Google+ matching game. Triple Town was widely loved by gamers and gaming critics, including our own 4.5 star review, and it was great to see a developer that was able to innovate so heavily in what has become a stagnant match-3 genre.

Since its release, Triple Town has received several updates, but they have mostly amounted to maintenance type stuff. Over the weekend, another new update was released, this time adding some very welcome new gameplay maps.

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The Game Bakers' fast-paced and creatively endowed strategy RPG, Squids [Free], is now available for the agreeable price of $0 from now until the end of the weekend. Grab it while you can -- not only because it's free, but because this new, lower price point makes Squids a better game.

In our review, we argued that its original pricing of ($.99 at launch, $1.99 after) was a problem. The game, for all of its awesomeness, seemed too reliant on its IAP model during the late game. Free-to-play mechanics work best when the offering is, you know, free. Squids at no cost sort of erases the trepidation you may or may not have about buying a fistful of pearls or any of the store's items, thus the problem just... disappears.