One of the first must-have iPhone games to appear in the App Store was PapiJump.  Not long after, Doodle Jump took the simple, accelerometer-controlled concept of ascending a wall of platforms to the next level.  Since then, many other takes on this addictive play mechanic have appeared in the App Store, the vast majority of which are really not worth your time.  Happily for fans of these games, another such title has just appeared in the App Store, and this one brings a twist.

GTProduction's Spring Fling [App Store] is a jump-up-the-platform-wall game where you take on the role of a spring.  Being a spring, it's not just a matter of tap to jump straight upward — you can compress the string and set the angle of your jump by way of a tap and drag mechanic.  And the integrated PhysX engine makes the experience rather convincing.  Choose an angle to shallow or severe and it's a platform miss with a plummet to your end.

Each jump uses up a supply of Power that doesn't get recharged until the next checkpoint. So, the game is a more deliberate physics/power management game than the fast paced action of other platform jumping titles.

Along the way rockets, balloons, parachutes, and pogo sticks help you scale the wall. The game includes five different worlds, some static and some downward scrolling. And achievements, online leaderboards, and Facebook / Twitter integration provide incentive to reach the highest height.

See the developer's gameplay trailer for a look at the action.

App Store Link: SpringFling, $0.99

Namco's Garters & Ghouls made its way into the App Store last night and is the latest twin stick shooter to arrive on the scene. You play as the freshly reanimated Marie Dupois fighting against an evil force known as "Thrum" who has caused the dead to rise under its control. It's your task to close the portals of the underworld that spawn the various zombies, werewolves, and demons that are rampaging across the countryside.

The game plays a lot like iDracula and other similar games, with two virtual joysticks that control your movement and shooting. Along the way you come across different weapons and powerups, and throughout the land are shops run by the "Steam Queens" where you can buy upgrades for your character's health, movement, weapon damage, and other things.

The main content difference between Garters & Ghouls and similar iPhone games is that the gameplay is structured around 25 distinct and large levels and framed in a slowly revealing storyline.

The task for each level, however, remains the same throughout: you must destroy the enemy-spawing portals strewn across the map. Still, going into a level with a specific number of portals to destroy gave me a greater sense of purpose than other pure survival shooters. There is some very light planning involved in avoiding getting caught in the crossfire between demon-spawing portals, and there are a variety of enemies which do get more difficult as well as a number of weapon upgrades.

The game's difficulty, however, ramps up slowly, so it can feel like you are just grinding your way through the game. And if you listened to our last podcast, you would have heard that Eli Hodapp's issue with the game was the repetitive and lengthy nature of the levels. While I don't believe its any more repetitive than many of the existing survival shooters we've played before, I had also hoped the levels would provide more variety in gameplay.

Meanwhile, a number of other factors keeps the game squarely in the "good, but not great" category. The controls and animations are adequate, though not especially smooth, and the targeting of the enemies and portals requires you hitting just the right spot. This gives the enemies a 2 dimensional feel. The 1.0 version also suffers from some occasional crashes, though if this occurs only your in-level progress is lost and you can resume at the beginning of the level.

Further discussion and opinions of the game can be found in our forums

App Store Link: Garters & Ghouls, $4.99

What do you get when you combine a creative lead from Spore and an artist that just finished working on Brütal Legend with the indie spirit of the App Store? Apparently, a dragon with an insatiable desire to stomp on castles while raining fire down upon unsuspecting victims and doing other things dragons do. Or at least, that's the premise of their game Earth Dragon [App Store].

The game features a mixture of tilt and touch controls to maneuver your dragon and spew fire across 15 different levels of increasing difficulty. The recently released trailer shows a bit of the gameplay as well as expanding on your duties as a dragon-

Developer Chaim Gingold has an impressive resume revolving around his involvement in Spore (along with his own Wikipedia page) and artist Jane Ng has spent time as a Senior Artist at both Double Fine Productions and Electronic Arts. It's interesting to see what the two have come up with on the iPhone, and while Earth Dragon doesn't really provide anything revolutionary to the platform, it's still a fun game to play.

App Store Link: Earth Dragon, $2.99

And now for a change of pace.

If your first reaction to this app is "Why would you let your toddler play with your $300 iPhone?", well, it's pretty clear you don't have kids, so you can skip this story.

For those who do have children in the 2-5 year old range, Whizzit 123 seems to be the functional equivalent of Doodle Jump that has them coming back again and again. The game simply consists of different objects that are presented in quantities of up to 10 or 20 based on a user selectable option, and the child simply taps on each one as they are counted out loud. Each item displays a brief animated flourish as they are counted. Each tap offers a small animation and the final tally is repeated out loud at the end. That's pretty much it.

It's fun, educational, and strangely rewarding. My daughter rates it as "Yay!"

App Store Link: Whizzit 123, $0.99

Tap Fu offers a fun casual fighting game that can be played in short spurts or in more prolonged sessions when you’re looking for a little more action. While it isn’t a particularly deep game, Tap Fu provides an enjoyable enough gameplay experience that makes it worth considering.

The game has 4 modes: Story, Survival, 100 Rounds and Training. In Story mode, you play the role of a Tap Fu Trainee out on a mission to recover candy that the Sweet Tooth Clan has stolen from your village. Under the tutelage of the Elder Tap Fu Master, you gradually learn new skills. The story is told through cut scenes, dialogue boxes and muffled dialog. One of the things to keep in mind is that Tap Fu’s Story mode is a work in progress that currently only includes Chapter 1: Ninjas (7 levels). While additional chapters are planned in later updates, the content that is there right now offers just a glimpse into future installments.

Meanwhile, Survival mode offers high-scoring opportunities by battling a continual onslaught of enemies. A variation can be found in the other mode 100 Rounds where you must defeat the entire wave of enemies to move to the next round. Both modes provide the option of playing in two different locations: Mount Fuji and Sakaki Forest. Whether in the village or on the mountaintop, the colorful backgrounds look terrific even though they are limited in variety.

The big selling point for Tap Fu comes in your Tap Fu Trainee’s fighting abilities. These abilities—blocking, quick attack, jumping, spin kick, back kick, roll, and fireball—visually look great and the entire combat system is intuitive and well implemented.

Using either the virtual d-pad or specific finger gestures, these various moves can be performed. The easier of the two control options is the d-pad with specific action buttons that appear when available. The gesture-based controls require a bit of practice, but are also well implemented. Jumping for example can be accomplished by swiping upwards, while swiping downwards will result in a roll. In general, the quick punch/kick attack is activated by tapping the screen and will be your primary method of attack against ninjas.

Tap Fu includes a local and online scoring system which awards points for combo moves and style. The game also incorporates an achievement system for points scored, battle combos, damage inflicted, and length of survival.

In both Story and Survival modes, Ninjas do become more difficult to slay as you progress, as well as gain the ability to cloak their appearance and teleport from one place to another. While the gameplay can get intense, it is also becomes rather repetitious as there is a limited variety in the enemies. We also found the difficulty ramp up in survival modes to be very slow, making an average session drag out into more of a grinding experience than we wanted.

While the game's art and core fighting mechanics are wonderfully executed, the current version of the game noticeably suffers from the inclusion of only an abbreviated story mode. Tap Fu can still be fun a game for those looking for a casual fighting experience, but we expect that it will quickly grow old those hoping for a deeper game.

App Store Link: Tap Fu, $3.99

We first heard of Gameloft's plans to produce a game targeted towards casual gamers based on topical humor back in the beginning of August, and if you somehow found yourself waiting for this game, you will be happy to find out that Bailout Wars [App Store] is now available for download.

There was a time when Bailout Wars may have been funny and relevant, but that time has long since passed, leaving a fairly decent castle defense style game with a highly questionable premise. The basic idea is you're defending the white house from five different types of bankers all intent on stuffing their pockets full of the bailout money which is somehow bursting out of the windows of the White House.

The game is controlled the same way as other castle defense games, you defend the White House using various flicking and swiping gestures. Different bankers require different tactics, while the standard banker can simply be flicked in the air, the stock broker will open his briefcase and use it to glide to the ground. To kill them, you'll need to slam them in to the ground with a swiping motion.

There's a banker with a vacuum that explodes when you tap him, high risk investors in helicopters that you need to make crash, and a giant CEO that can only be damaged utilizing the White House's weaponry and by flinging other bankers in to him.

As you progress through waves of bankers, you'll earn coins that can be used to buy upgrades to your defenses. Three upgrades are included– The tank and sniper fire at bankers, and Uncle Sam allows for the use of some kind of touch controlled orbital laser to fry the hordes of incoming bankers.

The animations in Bailout Wars are surprisingly well done, and despite the entirely dated subject matter, the bankers themselves do have a lot of cartoon character to them with detailed animations for each action. In fact, the amount of detail in the entire game is very high, making the questionable subject matter an even more puzzling design decision.

It is interesting to see Gameloft entering the 99¢ market with this game, but with the high production value of the art and sound in the game, you really have to wonder why they didn't pick a more universal theme. In comparison, Knights Onrush [99¢ / Free] offers similar gameplay experience for the same price, but without any attempts at stale humor or political overtones, which really is too bad because Bailout Wars is pretty fun for a castle defense game.

App Store Link: Bailout Wars, 99¢

Donuts Games' latest title, Titanic Rescue [App Store] was released tonight. Like their other games, Titanic Rescue is packed with pixel art, great music, and silly yet strangely charming gameplay.

The historically questionable premise of the game revolves around loading "gentlemen", as the game calls them, from the sinking Titanic in to the lifeboats below. These gentlemen eventually jump on their own, but a flicking motion on the screen also sends them flying skyward only to hopefully land in one of the boats or lifebuoys floating along side the ship. Sliding your finger along the bottom half of the screen controls the location of these life saving vessels, and for additional bonus points, gentlemen with matching suits can be loaded in sets of three in each life boat.

The longer you play, the more obstacles are introduced. For instance, fog obscures your view of the gentlemen on the ship and lifeboats loaded with three piece bands eventually are included in the series of boats on the bottom of the screen. Needless to say, gentlemen can't be loaded in to the boats with bands in them. The game continues until five gentlemen have splashed in to the ocean.

One extremely puzzling omission is the lack of any kind of scoreboard, either online or local. Inside of the options menu there is a button for your overall statistics, which list the number of gentlemen you've saved along with color matches, sunken boats, and total playtime. The only other stat that is saved is your all-time best, which I guess does the job, but I'd still rather see the top 10 scores.

Despite the lack of a more robust score recording system, Titanic Rescue is still a lot of fun. The simple gameplay gets challenging quick with the introduction of different obstacles, and it's hard to not enjoy a game based on such a silly concept.

App Store Link: Titanic Rescue, 99¢

While we don't often post about hidden object or time management games, both genres have been quite popular on the App Store, perhaps because they perfectly target the highly coveted casual gamer demographic. There are hidden object games that will have you searching for things in every locale imaginable, and time management games that will leave the fate of hair salons, sandwich shops, and even factory farms in your hands.

Alawar's Gourmania [App Store] bridges both the time management and hidden object genres with a culinary themed Frankenstein monster scientifically engineered to be the ideal casual game.

In Gourmania you play as a small-time chef with aspirations for greatness as you make your way through 8 different restaurants that make up the 60 levels in the game. Like most time management games, the goal is to keep your customers happy while turning a profit.

The gameplay twist in Gourmania is that the different items required to meet the time management goals aren't clearly laid out. Instead, you must search for them. This is easier said than done as the kitchens you work with in Gourmania consist of food haphazardly strewn about all over shelves, counters, and even on the floor.

While you're working in the kitchen, orders will come in along the top of the screen that list certain ingredients that must be located. Once you've found all the ingredients of the order, you tap the order card at the top of the screen to prepare the food and collect your money. If you can't find an item you're looking for, the standard pinching and swiping gestures work to zoom in as well as pan around. If you're really stuck, there's a hint button that will lead you in the right direction.

The money you earn can be used to upgrade appliances which will increase your cooking performance. There are also various bonuses in game such as having all three orders cooking at once, or completing order combos. Once you've made it out of the early levels of the game, you experience the same time crunches found in other time management games. This is fun, but can be a little frustrating at first especially as you initially try to find objects that aren't as obvious as red tomato or bright green lettuce. Thankfully, the hint system helps out a ton and it doesn't take long to learn what the more ambiguous items look like.

The orders in Gourmania appear to be completely random, and sometime result in some pretty ridiculous combinations such as hot dogs with mayo or pizzas with lettuce. Despite the odd tastes of the diners in Gourmania, I've had a great time playing the game. Alawar seems to have succeeded in bringing out the strengths of both the time management and hidden object genres, and there's even a lite version available to try.

App Store Links: Gourmania, 99¢ – Gourmania Lite, Free

Viacheslav Klimov's Alien Glyphs [$0.99] is an interesting new perception/matching game that has you exercising your mind in a surprisingly pressure-filled scenario. This game definitely carries a "how hard could this be?" vibe that is quickly dismissed as you start playing.

The game begins with a board of symbols. At set intervals, a new symbol slides into the top of the screen and your job is to match it with one of the symbols found on the board. Tap off a symbol and the top symbol is eliminated. Another symbol takes its place and so on. If you take too long to match up the symbol, however, the timer will run out and another symbol will appear. Take even longer and the row of symbols will fill eventually up and you lose a life. Three levels of difficulty (Easy, Medium, and Hard) should provide plenty of challenge.

Alien Glyphs tries to spice it up with Power-Ups, Power-Downs, that can be triggered or deactivated by matching quickly enough. However, I found myself too busy looking for matches to really register their presence. The game also offers multiple different skins for the glyphs if the neon red isn't to your liking.

The developer video shows the game in action:

While the game does carry a global high score list, a few factors might affect the value of those scores. Through no real fault of the game, itself, it turns out that high-score cheating is quite easy. Even having just two people playing at once on the same iPhone would give you an enormous advantage.

The other factor is a design decision by the developer. The starting board for each game is not randomized by default. They found that randomly changing the board for each game made the game too difficult. As a result, they have 100 distinct starting sets that can be chosen either manually (or at random, if you prefer). This gives you a chance to keep practicing on the same set over time. This doesn't actually make the as easy as it sounds as different factors can affect the positions of the glyphs in the course of a game.

As a result, the real strength of the game is the individual mental challenge it presents in what is a seemingly simple task. The overall production value of the game and music also make it stand out.

App Store Link: Alien Glyphs, $0.99

BadBumble has dropped the price of their game Solitaire Siege to free for today (Sept 29th) only. The price drop is in celebration of the developer's 2nd wedding anniversary. The game is a clever take on Pyramid Solitaire that we've enjoyed, and today's sale has certainly brought it again to our attention.

The main gameplay of Solitaire Siege surrounds a siege mode where you must take out the enemy forces represented by cards. The game uses a standard 52 card deck and plays like Pyramid. You can only remove cards that are either one higher or one lower than the exposed card. If there are no cards available, you need to draw from the deck. In siege mode, you have to be sure you don't actually have a move before drawing from the deck or your army will take damage. The goal is to remove all the cards (enemy forces).

The game mixes up play with the use of special power-up cards that must be used correctly in order to complete the levels. Overall, a nice game that's certainly worth trying.

App Store Link: Solitaire Siege, Free today