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‘Upcoming Games’ Category Articles

I'm Digging 'Dig!', the Latest Game from Tasty Poison and Crescent Moon

Wednesday, May 8th, 2013

mzl.juimudvq.320x480-75Among the games coming out tonight is a new title from the creators (and publisher) of Pocket RPG [$4.99 / Free], which was a neat spin on the dual stick shooter formula while adding in elements of both roguelikes and dungeon crawlers. Seriously, take a look at our review- It's a great game. Anyway, the new Tasty Poison and Crescent Moon joint is called Dig!, and from the title alone I bet you can guess what you do in the game.

Snark aside, you play as an aspiring archeologist in a fast-paced puzzle game with a strong nod back to games like Qix as the way you both dig up new artifacts and deal with enemies in the field is by controlling your guy to draw boundaries for the areas you're digging in. Completing levels involves managing bad guys, collecting treasure, then digging deeper. Check out the trailer:

I've played a bit of the early part of the game, and am really digging it so far. The tutorial makes the game seem way more basic than it actually is, as once you're a good 10 or 15 minutes in you're actively playing a much deeper set of mini-games between deciding which hats (the game's power-ups) you'll have available as well as managing your own museum where all your artifacts end up which serves as a persistent nearly tycoon-like money making system.

I'm excited to get deeper into the game, but, in the meantime, if you want to be alerted when it's available in the US tonight be sure to add it to your TouchArcade app [Free] watch list.

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Cheating Is Fun: 'Impossible Road' Invites Players To Break It

Wednesday, May 8th, 2013

mzl.azchqnyc.175x175-75Kevin Ng's upcoming Impossible Road has the look and feel of an everyday mobile arcade game, but it's definitely not. In it, you guide a ball down an infinitely winding neon stretch of track, collecting points as you rocket through the numbered gates that line it. It's a simple, breezy task where death comes fast because the track twists, turns, and falls into itself. As you play, though, you start noticing gaps in the system. For instance, the ball doesn't need to follow the track linearly. You can let it fall off and land onto a stretch that's deeper down. You can also skip gates, too, and earn the same amount of points that a person that managed to hit them all would. Also, the ball doesn't even need to roll down. If you're a bad enough dude, you can just keep throwing it off the track and controlling its ricochet off of the curves.

I thought I was a crazy person when I started noticing this, but sure enough, Ng notes in the app description that this is a game about exploitation. "And when you learn how to cheat the game and you discover that it is rewarded not punished," the description reads, " the leaderboards will belong to you."

As far as physics and feel go, Impossible Road is hard to measure. I mean, as an arcade line game it feels OK. I mean, you can keep the ball on the track and it has a decent amount of weight and predictability behind it. But, the point seems to reside in breaking the game part, letting the ball tumble and roll and bounce off lower swathes of track -- you know, stuff that you're typically not supposed to be doing. Does it feel a little funky as a result? Sure, a little.

Strangely, Road also has that one-more-time thing going for it. I'd still be playing if I didn't NEED to stop and let you guys know about it. Does this say something about how much fun subversive play can be? I don't know! But since I plan to go back and keep racking up my sick scores that I totally broke the game for, may it does.

Impossible Road will be out tonight at around 11PM EST. You can add the game to your Watch List on our app [Free] and get a notification whenever it makes it over alongside the rest of tonight's releases.

International App Store Link: Impossible Road, $1.99

Hands-On With 'Warhammer Quest' - I am Rocking a +10 Excitement Modifier for This Game

Tuesday, May 7th, 2013

warhammer_logoI don't have any history with Warhammer Quest. I didn't catch it in 1995 when it started hitting shelves. Heck, I didn't even know it existed until Rodeo Games announced that it was bringing the game to iPad. Usually, this kind of obliviousness is a Big Problem when it comes to playing board game ports. Studios tend to double-down on what made the board game great instead of focusing on making a good video game, leaving players with a super sluggish, systems-heavy title that kinda just makes you want to play the physical version instead of even bothering with the digital port. Credit goes to Rodeo for not doing this with Quest. It's a video game first, and to a guy as clueless about the board game as I am, it basically just feels like a modern strategy RPG. That's kinda wild.

Set in a universe bursting with crypts, wizards, orcs, spiders, and at least one magical lute, Quest revolves around an old-school premise: earn fame and fortune by plumbing the depths of the nastiest, monster-filled places in a cold, unforgiving fantasy land. You're given control of a couple of axe-wielding bruisers, as well as an archer and mage at the start.

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Steph Thirion's 'Faraway' is Still Coming per The New Yorker

Tuesday, May 7th, 2013

fwy_teaser-300x200If you get the feeling that you've been reading about Steph Thirion's 'Faraway' for years now, you'd actually be totally correct in that notion as we first posted about the game all the way back in 2010 when we first saw it at GDC. In a nutshell, the game as we saw it then involved flying around the universe and hooking on to stars via a familiar gravity mechanic that (most recently) appeared in games like Astro Shark [$0.99] and many others. Faraway's unique hook is that it combines this style of gameplay with actually drawing star constellations depending on which stars you hook on to.

You can see how this all shakes out in our video from GDC 2010:

We caught up with Thirion a year later at GDC 2011, where we got a look at a slightly more complete version of the game along with the explanation that he had been delayed by other projects that had prevented him from working on Faraway. We shot another video, and it seems the most notable change is tweaked progression to make it easier for players of all skill levels.

The following August we got word that the game was going to be released in the fall of 2011, and there even was a pre-release teaser trailer that hit Vimeo. It's a good trailer, and we found ourselves justifiably stoked that Faraway was (then) just around the corner.

After that, things went totally dark and updates on the game's progress were limited to the Faraway thread getting bumped every now and again as someone found a new vague tidbit or just stopped by to ask if anyone knew where the game was.

The most promising sign that the game is still in the works came from The New Yorker of all places, where Rob Dubbin, a writer for The Colbert Report actually managed to get his hands on a copy of the game. The story touches on its epic development cycle, as well as areas of the game that Steph Thirion has reworked after being inspired by recent indie darlings like Journey and Fez.

Overall though, this is just a promising sign that Faraway isn't a dead project, and that it exists somewhere, and might eventually be released some day. If you've been following this title for years now like us, be sure to add it to your TouchArcade App [Free] watch list.

'Plants vs. Zombies 2' Releasing in July, and "It's About Time"

Monday, May 6th, 2013

Back in late March, PopCap announced a beta for a Facebook version of their classic tower defense game Plants vs. Zombies, and during that announcement they casually hinted that the long-awaited sequel would be coming sometime in early summer.

Today PopCap has narrowed that release window down to just July, and they've released a humorous new teaser showing just how long-awaited this sequel really is and how it can drive some fans and industry folks alike just a little batty.

Tying into the huge wait for this sequel, it appears the game has an official name poking fun of that very thing: Plants vs. Zombies 2: It's About Time. It's about time indeed, PopCap. The possible bummer of all this is that no specific platforms have been officially announced, but the original game is on… pretty much everything and I'd expect the sequel to be too.

However, the July release date may just coincide with PC or something, so stay tuned and as soon as we have official word on an iOS release we'll be sure to let you know. Also, as always, add Plants vs. Zombies 2 to your TouchArcade [Free] app Watch List to be notified of new stories when they hit.

New Trailer for Snoop Dogg-slash-Lion's Rhythm Fighter 'Way of the Dogg' Released

Monday, May 6th, 2013

Hey, remember back in March when we told you that a new rhythm fighting game starring Snoop Dogg would be coming to iOS? Yeah, I sort of thought that was just a really weird dream, but it actually happened. Over the weekend, a new trailer surfaced for that game, called Way of the Dogg, which shows its brand of rhythm fighting in motion. And actually, it doesn't look half bad.

Way of the Dogg is out now on the Xbox Live Marketplace, and should be coming soon to PlayStation Network, Android and of course iOS sometime in the near future, though no specific date has been announced just yet. If you'd like to follow the path of Way of the Dogg then be sure to add it to your TouchArcade [Free] app Watch List and we'll alert you when more news becomes available.

Foursaken Media Announces 'Monster Adventures' Coming this Summer

Friday, May 3rd, 2013

The brothers of Foursaken Media might just be the hardest working indie developers in the business. Six months ago they launched N.Y.Zombies 2 [$0.99], a well-received sequel to the 2010 original. Then in January, they dropped Heroes and Castles [$1.99 / Free] on us, a castle defense style game that literally threw you into the thick of things from a 3rd-person perspective. Most recently, Foursaken released Block Fortress [$0.99] in March, and it expertly blended Minecraft-like fortress building, tower-defense, and first-person shooter action into one cohesive package.

Just a couple of months later and the team is already back to announce their next upcoming title which is slated for this summer. It's called Monster Adventures, and it's a mixture of monster collecting, RPG-like character progression, randomly generated environments, and online battling pitting your own team of monsters against those around the world.

In Monster Adventures your character has a special connection to a Nature Spirit which allows you to take on the essence of monsters. You'll be able to mix and match these monster essences, which each offer unique abilities or attributes, in order to create monsters that are tailored towards whatever specific styles you choose.

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In addition there are Elements you can toss into the mix which further augment your character in various ways. With more than 50 monster essences and 5 Elements to play around with, the sheer number of combinations and amount of customization you can offer your character sounds just insane.

Monster Adventures also does something interesting with its randomly generated environments. The team wanted to add a rogue-like aspect that wasn't quite as harsh as perma-death but still offered a similar risk vs. reward aspect that would tempt you to test your limits in hopes of being rewarded but would also give you a real sense of loss if you failed.

They accomplish this by scaling the loot and experience you earn, as well as monster difficulty, with how extensively you explore an environment. You'll be able to warp back to a Town hub at certain points while you're out adventuring, but if you choose to forge on instead you might come across some pretty rare or unique stuff. The catch is that if you die, you lose everything you've collected during your time in that particular environment. So, do you warp back to Town when you have the chance and make sure you get to keep all your stuff? Or do you keep going and face greater dangers in hopes of scoring something really cool and earning more experience for your character?

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There's sure to be plenty more details revealed about Monster Adventures in the near future, and the thread in our forums is a good place to hang out to catch news straight from Foursaken as well as discuss the game with your fellow gamers. They peg Monster Adventures at about 75% complete right now, and are hoping to release this summer, so be sure to throw this bad boy on your TouchArcade [Free] app Watch List to be notified when more news on this upcoming title hits.

Gameloft Reveals New 'Gangstar Vegas' Teaser

Friday, May 3rd, 2013

If you fancy yourself an open world crime game aficionado, this week is just filled with good news for you. First, Grand Theft Auto Vice City went on sale for $1.99, and now Gameloft is revealing a new teaser for the upcoming Gangstar Vegas. Give it a look:

If you've been in the iOS scene for a while, you know how this dog and pony show plays out in that Gameloft posts a vague trailer, everyone speculates what the game is going to be like, and after a few more tidbits get drizzled out the game appears for download anywhere from a few weeks to a month-ish later. Regardless, given how Gameloft's last two games (Dungeon Hunter 4 [Free] and Iron Man 3 [Free]) have had their IAP implemented, I'm curious to see how this new version of Gangstar shakes out.

2K Announces New Sid Meier-Developed Game, 'Sid Meier's Ace Patrol,' Set For Release On May 9th

Thursday, May 2nd, 2013

My brain just collapsed on itself. Legendary game designer Sid Meier is back at it, and his latest project, a WWI-era aerial combat strategy game called Ace Patrol, is coming to iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch this May 9.

According to publisher 2K Games, it'll be a free-to-play title that'll tasks users with piloting a selection of "30 vintage and historical WWI aircrafts" through 120 single-player missions, apparently split across four campaigns. It'll also pack in a two-player competitive mode via Game Center or hot-swapping on the same device.

acepatrol-3

acepatrol-1 acepatrol-2

Basically, anything Sid Meier or his studio Firaxis makes is awesome, thoughtful and deep, so I'm pretty stoked to give this a shot. May 9th is pretty soon, so the wait won't be too long.

'Sorcery!' is An Impressive Digital Conversion of Steve Jackson's Classic Gamebooks

Wednesday, May 1st, 2013

British game designer Steve Jackson is a cornerstone of the gaming world. He co-founded Games Workshop back in the '70s before co-creating the Fighting Fantasy gamebook series with Ian Livingstone in the early '80s. That might be enough for others to just call it a career and retire off into the sunset, but Jackson instead went on to co-found Lionhead Studios with Peter Molyneux in the '90s. Quite an accomplished fellow, that Jackson.

Tonight, Inkle Studios is releasing a digital iOS conversion of Jackson's Sorcery! gamebooks, which are a part of the Fighting Fantasy series. Not really being heavily into gamebooks myself, I've given Sorcery! about an hour of time so far and all I can say is that I'm incredibly impressed. The presentation, the flow, the visuals, and of course the writing in Sorcery! is nothing short of top-notch.

Sorcery! plays like a gamebook mixed with a board game. The actual chunks of text glide elegantly into view with the various options for you to choose presented at the bottom. As you make your choices, more of the story glides in with even more branches to choose from. In between the reading, you'll direct your character around a gorgeous 3D overworld map, again making choices on which path to take through the terrain.

The game does a great job at hinting towards what might await behind each choice you make, whether it's clueing you in on the demeanor of the intimidating stranger you meet in a tavern or what sort of perils (and possible rewards) await you if you choose a given path through the countryside. Being that I'm not exactly a gamebook aficionado, I've found Sorcery! completely approachable so far, and I'm hooked enough on my current adventure already that I can't wait to see it through.

There's plenty more to discuss about Sorcery!, like its battling and spellcasting systems which are equally as intuitive as the rest of the game has been so far. We'll continue to plug away at the game to bring you a more in-depth review in the near future, and you can search out more early impressions from players in our forums. My gut takeaway thus far though is that if you already enjoy gamebook adventures, or even if you're a newbie like me, Sorcery! should be a satisfying endeavor when it hits later tonight.

Sorcery! should hit the US App store tonight around 11pm EST, so if your interest is piqued then add it to your TouchArcade app [Free] Watch List and we'll send you a push notification when it's released.

International App Store Link: Sorcery!, $4.99 (Universal)

Blitz's Papercraft-Powered 'Paper Titans' is a Neat Looking Game that Lacks… Something

Wednesday, May 1st, 2013

Paper Titans just doesn't have enough to it. It's too small in scope and scale, for one, but it's also utterly unremarkable. The mechanics are stale, the amount of repetition it has you do is absolutely numbing, and the 3D puzzles are dull at best. You might want to look over this one tonight as you pick and choose releases. There's just no oomph here outside of the visuals.

To rewind, Paper Titans is a 3D puzzle platform game. In it, you "make" a bunch of odd-looking paper creatures and then search for stars and postcards across a host of same-y, or even recycled, levels. Each one has three stars that you can collect, but the card is the end goal for whatever reason. Monster movement is handled by a line-drawing mechanic similar to the one in, say, Spy Mouse. Just tap the monster and drag a line to where you want him.

Each monster has a special ability. The first one you build is a Collector. He collects things. The next one is a Thrower. He can throw Collectors to raised platforms. There's also a guy that uses a rocket pack, as well as a shaman that can raise platforms.

Once you start diving deeper into the game, you unlock the ability to spawn more and more of these dudes into a level at the same time, which allows you to move around a handful of paper dudes at once. Slow movement mechanics and too simple tasks keep this from being interesting, though. From the minute you load into a level you know exactly what you need to do, so it's just a matter of waiting for your monsters to waddle their way over to the obvious.

I wish I liked this one more. The art style is OK and the sound design is stellar, but the game part is ultimately just ... competent, if not straight-up flat at times. Some folks are probably disagreeing with me, though, so give the game's thread a look as you ponder a purchasing decision as the game hits tonight alongside the rest of the world's new releases.

International App Store Link: Paper Titans, $2.99

Hey, It's Actually Happening: 'Star Command' Is Hitting Tonight

Wednesday, May 1st, 2013

It's happening: War Balloon's sci-fi ship tragedy simulator, Star Command, is available on the New Zealand App Store. Basically, this is the first stop on its automated global release tour that will see the game finally released everywhere. For realsies.

Back in April, I took a look at a build that's pretty representative of the one you'll be checking out tonight. In a nutshell, Star Command is good. It's hard. But it's good. Here's what I mean:

At the top level, Star Command is a sci-fi simulation game that focuses on the real guts of an interstellar ship -- you know, the people, the facilities, and the technology that makes travel and battle possible. As far as feel goes, it's something of sci-fi slugfest where you find yourself limping out of every battle in a charred ship that's being staffed by a skeleton crew because everyone either (a) got sucked out of the hull, (b) got incinerated by phasers, or (c) died in a fire. I'm not really sure that this is the feel that creator War Balloon was ultimately looking for, but this is how it came across to us for the first couple of hours. And, spoiler, this is a pretty cool thing.

If you'd like to see more of Star Command, we've got your back. We've got two TA Plays, and of course, that preview. We're working on a review at the moment, so stay tuned for that if you're on the fence.

Of course, if you want a reminder when Star Command hits, go ahead and add it to your Watch List on the TouchArcade app [Free]. You can also watch the game's thread on our forum.

International App Store Link, $2.99

'Space Hulk' Developers Post New Q&A Video

Tuesday, April 30th, 2013

This past December, Games Workshop announced that a new iteration of Space Hulk, a turn-based strategy game based in the Warhammer 40k universe, would be coming to PC, Mac, and iOS devices this year. We talked with the developers in a bonus podcast back in March, and our pals over at Board Game Geek got some time with the PC version at GDC, which should be comparable to the iPad version, and posted a hands-on video earlier this month. Today, Full Control, who are developing Space Hulk for Games Workshop, posted a developer Q&A video talking about some of the aspects of the upcoming title. Check it out.

It sounds like Full Control has more of these Q&A videos planned, so if you have a question you want to ask the developers head over to the Space Hulk Facebook page and ask away. We'll keep you in the loop as more information is released, including a firm launch date when there is one, as Space Hulk works its way towards the desktop and iOS platforms later this year.

PC Tower Defense Game 'Go Home Dinosaurs' Coming To iPad This May

Tuesday, April 30th, 2013

Firehose Games's PC tower defense game, Go Home Dinosaurs, is a game about protecting an army of gopher's midsummer stash of BBQ from a toothy, slow-walking horde of prehistoric foes. Let that sink in for a moment. In the upbeat, ridiculous world of Go Home, gophers and dinosaurs come together to fight over delicious meat after the dinosaurs try to take said meat from the gophers. It's a crazy conceit, but it works because Firehose embraces it totally and molds a uniquely irreverent look and feel for a tower defense game around it. Also, Go Home isn't slouch where it counts: mechanically, it's a solid TD game.

And now it's coming to iPad. Firehose Games has revealed to us that it's heading to iPad 2 and up later next month for $4.99. Neat!

If you've played a TD game, like, ever before, you'll feel pretty at home with this one in short order. In every level, a conga line of dinosaurs descend from a spawn and walk along a lane. Your job, as the gophers, is to put down turrets that'll stop them. Easy!

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Facebook Game 'Angry Birds Friends' Landing on iOS this Thursday

Monday, April 29th, 2013

Is five different Angry Birds games enough for you? If not, then Rovio has your back this coming Thursday as they've announced over Twitter one of the newer spinoff versions of the series, called Angry Birds Friends, is set for release on the App Store. Here's an accompanying teaser image.

We first caught wind earlier this month that Angry Birds Friends, which began life on Facebook about a year ago and has amassed more than 60 million downloads and 15 million daily users, would be heading to iOS, and now we have a set date for release. If flinging birds with your buddies sounds appealing, keep an eye out for it later this week.


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