There's no doubt that Mojang's Minecraft has become a nearly unfathomable success over the past few years, and as with anything that becomes popular there's a seemingly unending line of people that rush to ride the coattails of that success.
Not that I'm saying there's anything wrong with taking heavy inspiration from a game. I mean heck, even Minecraft was inspired by similar games that came before it. But in the mobile space especially, 99% of anything that gets released that's reminiscent of Minecraft is just a crappy knock-off and cash-in attempt that's of little value to anyone. "Minecraft" is the new "Angry" or "Temple" in terms of latest SEO hotness, I guess you could say.
I can tell you from personal experience working at TouchArcade that with dozens of these kinds of games coming out every week it gets very hard to decide which ones are worth exploring and which ones should just be written off as the cheap clones that they are. It gets very easy to dismiss these games when so many bad ones are churned out at such an incredible pace.
With that said, a new Minecraft-y game has been ripping up the charts lately and even jockeying for position with Mojang's official Minecraft - Pocket Edition [$6.99]. That game is called Survivalcraft [$3.99], and despite being made by just a single person it bests even Mojang's official mobile offering and even does some unique things to set itself apart from the pack. And, despite our initial hesitations, this is anything but a cheap knock-off attempting to cash in on the Minecraft craze, and is in fact the best mobile sandbox game of its kind that you can get at this time.
The introduction of airplanes changed the face of warfare. The same could be said of Firaxis' entry to the iOS gaming scene: when a Triple-A studio headed by the cherished game designer Sid Meier starts putting out iOS exclusives, you just know things are never going to be the same. Only, instead of bringing about unparalleled death and destruction, this watershed moment marks a new era of quality mobile gaming.
Firaxis has stormed on to the mobile scene: first came last week's spooky strategy game, Haunted Hollow [Free] (see our review here), and later this summer should see the release of the much-anticipated iOS port of XCOM: Enemy Unknown. Sid Meier's Ace Patrol [Free] completes this strategy trifecta, and is the first iOS exclusive to bear the legendary designer's name. His involvement shows: Ace Patrol is a fantastic, meaty title well-deserving of your time and gaming dollar.
Ace Patrol sees the player leading a squadron of pilots in World War I, witnessing the infancy of aerial combat. Ace Patrol is a premium game masquerading as a freemium title: the free download serves as a demo and gives you a portion of the British campaign to play. The full British, French, German and American campaigns are unlocked as IAP for $0.99 a piece.
The term “4X game” is either scary or foreign to you if you are not a strategy gamer. Even if you are one, like myself, they can still be daunting. With Eclipse: New Dawn for the Galaxy [$6.99 (HD)], Big Daddy’s Creations has attempted to make this genre more accessible. Based on a complex board game of the same name, Eclipse simplifies the the 4X genre by providing guided, limited options and a set game length. That is not to say it is simple, but it has elegant European design; imagine Masters of Orion and Settlers of Catan had a baby.
What is a 4X game you ask? It stands for the four basic actions you can take in this type of game: eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, and eXterminate. Examples include Starbase Orion on iOS and Heroes of Might and Magic on PC. In Eclipse you take on the role of one of several alien or human races with the goal of building your empire over 9 rounds. By exploring and claiming sectors of space, researching technologies, and engaging in combat with other players you will earn points which will contribute to your empire’s overall reputation. There are also other actions to take like engaging in diplomacy, building new ships, and upgrading those ships that round out the experience.
It does seem like there is a lot going on (and there is) but Eclipse is focused in its approach. Each round you have a limited number of resources to work with based on planets you have colonized. Materials allow you to build spaceships, fighters, and other constructs. Out of materials? Ok, then those options are gone. Science allows you to research new technology which can help you colonize new sectors of space or outfit your ships. Do you have enough science to research this round? Maybe only once, ok that’s easy to plan out.
Lastly you have money which determines how many actions you can take that round and how many sectors of space you can control. Clearly knowing how much you can do each round keeps you focused. This is the secret sauce that makes Eclipse so palatable as a grand strategy game. Rather than giving you freedom to control every unit you have in play each round, you are funneled into taking whatever actions you can fit in.
Of course, this is not solely an economic game, there is also deep space combat. As you explore the galaxy you may encounter “Ancients” which are a remnant of the former controllers of the galaxy. You also may spar against other players as you attempt to invade their territory. Combat in Eclipse is basically done by a roll of a die, but smartly the designers don’t show you some cheesy dice rolling animation. Instead there is an interesting combat animation as ship goes against ship.
Eclipse also features a very cool ship customization system that is as easy as dragging and dropping. As you research new techs you will get things like bigger guns, better armor, and faster engines. You can upgrade your ships by adding these different techs to what is already on the ship. It has become apparent after playing this game for the past week that ship construction is a key strategy in winning the game.
The sleek UI design given to both upgrading and combat is carried throughout the app. There is a lot of information to process and access, and it could have been a nightmare to access it all. Luckily, this is some of the best UI design I have ever seen. You always have a view of the galaxy at large and can quickly access trays that contain the other information you need to know. For what is at its heart a port of a board game with about a gazillion pieces, Eclipse is designed so well I am not sure you would have known it was based on a board game if I had not told you.
Staying true to the goal of a grand space opera, Eclipse can handle up to 6 players. This can be all human players gathered around your iPad as you pass it around like some sort of deep strategy peace pipe. Of course, finding five friends that can all be together at the same time can be challenging. The game features AI opponents which may be the main way to play the game. They are challenging at each level and play differently to help you perfect your skills.
For example, the peaceful AI will never invade your territory allowing you to learn the game without having to defend yourself. This builds up to the hardest AI which starts with an advanced spaceship and is very aggressive. For the brave at heart there is also asynchronous online play. So far there has always been a healthy crop of opponents from around the world to choose from. The system even allows for private games and features in-game chat. There is even a public chat lobby which has a very early StarCraft vibe. Our forum community has been loving Eclipse since its release as well.
Eclipse is an accessible and polished strategy game that feels at home on iOS. This is not a casual game, but if you have been interested in the 4X genre or strategy gaming in general, this is a great place to dip a toe in. Even with the game's excellent tutorial, it requires some repeated play to really master. If you are ready for a grand space strategy epic, this an amazing specimen on iOS.
In recent years, Minecraft has become the common ancestor of an entire sandbox subgenre. While it boasts a player base bursting with creativity, this is a subgenre that often suffers at the hands of less ambitious developers. Uninspired Minecraft imitations continue to pour into the iOS market, each trying to capture and cash in on a piece of Mojang's magic formula. Cast adrift on an ocean of Cavern Clones, Block Knock-offs, and Tryin'crafts, I sometimes catch myself wondering if it's all been done; if we've already seen the best Minecraft's successors have to offer. But then, inevitably, a new diamond emerges from the coal pile to disabuse me of that notion. The Blockheads [Free] is the latest game to set me straight.
So... what's its gimmick? What exactly makes The Blockheads stand out? Normally, the Minecraft-inspired iOS games that grab my attention are titles that take the original's block-sandbox premise and spin it in some wild new direction. Block Fortress, for example, created a fresh, intense experience by combining elements of Minecraft and the tower defense genre. Another of my recent favorites, Junk Jack, rebooted the block-sandbox aesthetic, resulting in a charming game with a look and feel so distinct that I occasionally forgot about its Minecraft roots altogether.
Pocket Frogs [Free], Tiny Tower [Free], Pocket Planes [Free]… Nimblebit’s gotten pretty good at keeping us enraptured on our devices with cute graphics and pixelated timers. With Nimble Quest [$0.99], the team takes a turn towards improving upon and deepening a classic arcade experience. Less of a time-management title and more of an action-oriented experience Nimble Quest is an excellent title that continues the trend of high quality games coming out of Nimblebit.
The best way to describe Nimble Quest is like a game of Snake, except way better (to paraphrase the title of our TA Plays). Similar to what Call of Snakes [$0.99] did last year, Nimble Quest takes the simplicity of Snake's mechanics and adds layers of variety to turn it into something more. The game centers around guiding a group of heroes around a bordered plane with simple swiping controls turning your heroes left or right. Movement and attacks are both on auto-pilot and the goal is to dispatch enemies that randomly appear in the environment. Take out a certain number of baddies, and you move on to the next level.
Hello everyone. My name is Eli, and...I can't say no to the retro aesthetic. Wow! It feels good to get that one off my chest. In all seriousness, though, the resurgence of 8 and 16-bit era visuals on iOS has done a number on my wallet over the past few years, and that's been somewhat of a double-edged sword.
On one hand, I've discovered some fantastic experiences steeped in nostalgia: everything from Velocispider [$1.99 / Free] to Mikey Shorts [$0.99 / Free]. Yet for every gem that's still on my device, there's at least three lame ducks that have suckered me in with the power of childhood fan service.
So when I discovered Pixel Licker Games' Slayin [$0.99] as the result of a friend's tweet - complete with an icon that looked like a cartridge and an in-game controller skin - I knew I was powerless. The only question that remained was: would it be a wonderful walk down memory lane, or end up collecting virtual dust with all the other deleted duds?
Like many gamers, my three best friends and I have a long-standing gaming tradition. Every holiday, we gather for our perennial New Year's Eve LAN party. In an ideal world, we tear down our gaming rigs on New Year's Eve, drop them off at one friend's house with plenty of space, go to dinner at our favorite Tex-Mex place, and then ring in the New Year over a good 8 to 10 hours of gaming nirvana fueled by salty snacks and sugary drinks.
The reality usually played out differently. After several years of frustration caused by out-of-date drivers, lost game discs, forgotten Steam passwords, and bizarre network anomalies (what exactly is a network bridge, and why did it only appear on my Win98 machine?), we threw up our hands and downsized to Nintendo DSes and Mario Kart. This past weekend, the gang got together ahead of schedule and downsized even further.
Armed with our iPhones, we listened to the ranting of one friend who insisted we play some iOS game called Spaceteam [Free]. In preparation for the meet-up, I downloaded the game and perused the list of features. They included teamwork, shouting, confusion, and four-stroke pluckers. Being a big fan of three-stroke pluckers, I could only imagine what fun it would be to tinker with four. I was not disappointed.
If you were around in the early 90's, surely you remember the Dream Team. If not, imagine a time when the sport of basketball was flooded with incredible players, and an Olympic team was assembled of among the best men to ever play the sport playing their respective positions. Unsurprisingly, they took home the gold. If an iOS equivalent exists, it has to be the team of guys behind the recently released Ridiculous Fishing. Vlambeer, responsible for Super Crate Box [$1.99], Zach Gage, the man behind our 2012 Game of the Year Runner-Up, SpellTower [$1.99], Greg Wohlwend who have made too many amazing games to list, and Eirik Suhrke, the maestro behind both Spelunky and Hotline Miami responsible for the soundtrack. Put those guys together in a room, and similarly, they're going to produce gold. What started as the Flash game Radical Fishing has since been endlessly refined into a game that I've been unable to put down.
The premise of Ridiculous Fishing [$2.99] is identical to that of its Radical predecessor: You start the game by casting your line into the water, then you tilt your device to control where your lure is in the water. Ideally, you want to get as deep as possible, avoiding all forms of aquatic life. The first time you collide with something, the music gets reversed and you start reeling in your line.
At this point, the goal is reversed in that you want to collect as many fish as possible, similarly by tilting. Anything that hits your lure gets picked up, and once you break the surface of the water things get really crazy- You actually catch fish by shooting them with whatever firearm you have equipped at the time. Each of them behave a little differently, so you might be tapping or sliding your finger around to kill fish.
On top of the basic mechanic(s) of the game rides a persistent upgrade system where you're earning money from your catches and then spending it on different upgrades ranging from new line to fish deeper, new weapons to kill more effectively and more. Of particular interest is the ability to add both a toaster and a hair dryer to your line to negate two accidental collisions to fish even deeper.
You eventually get a, err, chainsaw-type attachment to add to your lure, allowing you to dash through fish to get even further underwater. The way all of these upgrades build on top of each other feels great, as Ridiculous Fishing totally gives off almost Doodle Jump-like "I could play this forever" vibes while providing the whole "Aww man, I only need $1,000 more for this next item" to keep you playing even more. The combination is incredibly dangerous for your spare time.
I won't spoil it, but the game even has a plot of sorts told through a in-game faux Twitter feed called "Byrdr." There's even an ending to work towards, which then unlocks an endless mode where you can compete for high scores. Ridiculous Fishing is such a complete package that it's an effortless recommendation. It totally captures that gameplay niche of a game you can load up and play for a few minutes while providing a feel of progression that also makes the title suitable for substantially longer play sessions- Especially once you start to discover some of its secrets and other particularly effective techniques for maximizing your score.
There's no IAP to speak of, and the whole game feels like a cohesive whole. You need to download Ridiculous Fishing, that's really all there is to it.
The forest around me was changing, and I couldn't find my way back to my cottage: I was hoping to methodically explore the map, hoping to impose logic onto a shifting, supernatural landscape. It was dark, I was lost, and the Swedish snow was falling interminably -- my heart beat a little faster, I was sweating despite being in bed under a blanket, and I became upset enough to close Year Walk [$3.99] and browse Twitter for a while. It got in my head.
Granted, I was playing Simogo's latest horror-puzzle-exploration game in ideal conditions. It was dark, it was raining, I had was wearing headphones. But, Year Walk has an undeniable sense of place. It's a gripping, somber, atmospheric, and elegantly-designed game, and everyone should play it.
There's nothing better than a big, crackling fire, for ambiance, for warmth, for burning all your belongings. In the world of Little Inferno [$4.99], the best thing in life is getting a new toy or gizmo in the mail, tossing it in your Little Inferno Entertainment Fireplace, and setting it on fire. In fact, there may be nothing else. Nothing else at all.
This might seem like an exercise in futility—burning up every bit of progress you make—but it isn't. Not quite. There's something Tomorrow Corporation is trying to tell you in this game, something that isn't entirely comfortable to reflect upon. It's a message that can't be discussed without spoilers, so suffice it to say that it will resonate with mobile gamers—probably much more than any other audience. Just one of a few reasons Little Inferno feels right cozy on iPad.
The device also makes a pretty good window right into your Little Inferno Entertainment Fireplace. Dragging things into the fireplace feels natural; setting them on fire even more so. You can hold a fingertip near something that burns and watch as the heat from your flame lights it up. Or you can sweep your finger around haphazardly, lighting everything in bright flame. All Little Inferno is missing is some heat and the smell of burning fur and plastic.
For a while now, I've been worn out on free-to-play sims. Tiny Tower [Free] and Dragonvale [Free] devoured my waking hours (and my phone's battery), but then I grew listless. What's the point, I thought, in clicking stuff to earn coins that just let you click more stuff? Pixel People [Free] has reminded me of something fundamental: it's not the point that matters, it's the fun along the way. LambdaMu Games has distilled everything I love about the freemium sim formula into one incredibly potent brew.
It doesn't require an ounce of skill, but building a new society from the genetic matter of earth is a great way to pass the time. It's the joy of discovery, you see. You start with a couple of jobs for your clones—mechanic and mayor. You stick them together and a third option comes out: engineer. Your new engineer has a name (something punny), cute pixel art and a quip about his imposed career. Then you wonder, hmm, what would happen if I matched up my engineer with my mayor? That's when I knew they had me.
If that were all there were to Pixel People, we'd have ourselves a low-end Doodle God [$0.99]. It's not even a challenge, really, since the game shows you which jobs have viable combinations available. Poke through the list until you find something new and pow, a minute or two later and you'll be rewarded with an exciting new job revelation and a host of new combos.
Shenandoah Studios' The Battle of the Bulge [$6.99 (HD)] is to the iPad what SSG's fabled Panzer General was to PC gaming in the '90s. Its a game that will make historical strategy diehards swoon, while also being pretty enough, and easy enough to learn, to draw in people who never knew that this was the game they'd been waiting for.
It's even educational, with day-by-day summaries of the historical course of the Axis' last offense and additional materials about the battle presented in an incredibly appealing "magazine" format with historical photos. This is a game that could be taught in a military history class.
There are several things that Battle of the Bulge is not, by design. It's not real time, it's not a multi-mission campaign, it's not a game where you can see every soldier fight and die in 3D animated gore, thank the strategy gods.
As mobile hardware reaches the point of being comparable to consoles, we're seeing less and less "Game Boy" versions of popular gaming franchises. That is, it's no longer becoming necessary to dumb down or limit a version of a console or PC game just to create a mobile version. In fact we've seen plenty of straight up ports of console and PC games that sacrifice very little technically in order to work on the iOS platform.
That's all well and good, and I love taking carrying games likeGTA: Vice City [$4.99] and Bastion [$4.99] around in my pocket wherever I go, but there's almost always some sort of compromise you'll need to be willing to deal with when shoehorning virtual controls onto a game that wasn't meant for it. I'm fine with that for the most part, but it also makes me really appreciate those games that try to reinvent themselves with touchscreens in mind when transitioning to iOS.
One of the more recent and excellent examples of doing just that is Ubisoft's Rayman Jungle Run [$2.99]. It took the assets of Rayman Origins, a fantastic and critically acclaimed platforming game on traditional gaming systems, and repurposed them into an auto-running platformer built specifically for mobile touchscreen devices. We thought it was a hit because of how thoughtfully it was brought to iOS, and I'm pretty sure Apple liked it too. It definitely makes a difference when something is tailored for mobile.
Platforming games can be a finicky genre on iOS. It almost always comes down to the controls. I've played otherwise great games that were marred by terrible virtual controls, and on the flip side I've played some platformers that controlled beautifully but were bland and boring. To really shine, a platformer has to nail both the controls and the design to a high degree, and that's exactly what Renegade Kid's Mutant Mudds [$4.99] has accomplished.
The premise in Mutant Mudds is simple: brown, globulous, muddy aliens named Mudds have invaded Earth, and they've totally disrupted main character Max's day of watching TV with his grannie. Not cool, Mudds, not cool. Max isn't going to take this slighting lying down though, so he sets out to dispatch the alien menace using his trusty water cannon and a cool jetpack that allows him to briefly hover around. I wish I had one of those when I was a kid.
Hundreds [$4.99] could almost get away without an explanation. Here's how the first level plays: you put your finger down on a circle. It starts growing, and a number counts up. When it hits 100, you win. You will never need a tutorial—anyone can learn to play.
Audaciously simple, no? Of course, Adam Saltsman and Greg Wohlwend are both old hat at making amazing things from simple beginnings. Canabalt, anyone? Puzzlejuice? Don't go thinking Hundreds is just any old thing. The pair, along with composer Scott Morgan and developer Eric Johnson, have teased out every possible bit of complex fun one can have counting circles up to 100. For a hundred levels and beyond, Hundreds lives up to its pedigree.
The game never lets its players grow complacent. You master counting up with one circle, then more. You learn that if you're pressing on one circle when it hits anything else on screen, you'll fail. You then find variations—circles that need to be pressed in pairs, circles that shrink when you release them, spikes that kill your circles and ice-crystals that freeze them. There is never a time in those hundred levels that Hundreds feels low on ideas.
There's no doubt that Mojang's Minecraft has become a nearly unfathomable success over the past few years, and as with anything that becomes popular there's a seemingly unending line of people that rush to ride the coattails of that success.
