Back in 2008, Adam Atomic and Danny Baranowsky, two of the three masterminds behind Canabalt created a flash game called Gravity Hook originally based on a typing-tutor game called Gravity Key by Arne Niklas Jansson. After securing permission to develop an endless mouse-based version of the game, the original Gravity Hook was created in five days utilizing the beginnings of what is now the flixel framework.
A year later, Danny and Adam revisited their game and added new graphics, sound, controls, and gameplay to create Gravity Hook HD. Much like Canabalt, a free flash version is available that allows players to experience the game in its entirety, with global leaderboards reserved for the upcoming iPhone version.
If you have flash installed, you can try out Gravity Hook HD by clicking below. The game has sound, so make sure you mute your speakers before clicking if you're playing somewhere that epic soundtracks are frowned upon.
The developers aren't ready to discuss specific release dates, but hope to have Gravity Hook HD on the App Store sometime this month. We plan on spending some time at GDC with the entire Semi Secret Software crew, and might have more information on Gravity Hook HD then.
Eurocenter, who brought us the popular Cocoto Kart Online, has given us an exclusive preview of their upcoming iPhone shooting gallery game Cocoto Magic Circus, a conversion of the Wii original.
In Cocoto Magic Circus, you take on the role of Cocoto, Shiny, Neuro, or Baggy on a mission to save poor Fairy, the pixie, who has been kidnapped by a sinister and disturbing clown. In order to save her, you must progress through five different creepy carnival settings, wielding your dart-gun like a champ, tapping true on the clown's various minions to knock them into oblivion. There are seven shooting gallery-style mini-games in each of the settings, making for 35 challenges in all.
While it's true that shooting gallery titles are generally rather simplistic affairs — and there's certainly no lack of such games in the App Store — Cocoto Magic Circus is a surprisingly enjoyable little game. The visuals are very well done — cartoonish, cute, and atmospheric with a nice parallax effect to the scenes that adds a sense of depth to the game. Complexity is added to the title's tap-to-shoot dynamic by way of line-of-fire obstacles as well as floating bonuses and special effects that, when shot, trigger things both good and bad: double shot score, free hits, lights out, gun jams, flip screen, etc. It's a nice touch.
The game offers an Arcade mode, which is progressive play through the various settings and challenges, as well as a Training mode that allows you to jump in and play any challenge in the game. Online multiplayer is also included, allowing you to engage in real-time matches with players around the world. (Unfortunately I was unable to test this component as there is no community at present, since the game has not yet been released.)
I've enjoyed my time with the game, learning its ins and outs for this post. Getting through it requires some fast reflexes, especially in the later challenges, which ramp up the difficulty and pacing — it's no cakewalk. One thing to note is that it's not a particularly lengthy affair; most users could get through it in an hour or two, but that's helped a bit from a replay perspective by the three available levels of difficulty, with Normal presenting a decent challenge.
Cocoto Magic Circus is a shooting gallery title that delivers a good deal more than most games of its sort. It's a cute little game that's fun to play and, as IGN called it, "a surprisingly fresh breath of air." I'd wager most gamers out there would enjoy it more than they think.
Have a look at the gameplay video to help you decide for yourself.
Cocoto Magic Circus is set to debut in the App Store on Thursday, March 4th at a price of $0.99.
It looks like Chillingo's on a bit of a shooter roll, here lately. They've just given the heads up on the upcoming fast-pace 2D scrolling shooter Assault Squadron, developed by The Binary Mill.
The Global Defense Force (GDF) reports that Earth is under attack by a hostile, unidentified vessel containing thousands of enemy craft. Striking with unwavering precision, the invasion destroys key defensive facilities to leave Earth and its inhabitants at the mercy of fearsome alien attackers.
You are a part of the Assault Squadron, an elite tactical space combat force dispatched by the Federal Alliance to defeat the alien enemy. Assault Squadron’s explosive sci-fi missions and in-depth storyline will thrill shoot-‘em-up fans and casual players as they battle to save the Earth.
The game offers a choice of four different ships, each with its own set of abilities and weapons systems that can be upgraded to dish out the kill with an arsenal including vulcan cannons, torpedo missiles, spiral grenades, and tri-vortex bombs, with attacks that can be chained together to deliver devastating, high-scoring combo attacks.
On-screen action runs at a smooth 60 frames-per-second across both a Campaign Mode and a quick-play Arcade mode, each offering three difficulty settings and set against a licensed trance soundtrack. Ship control is handled via four different modes: Touch 1:1, Touch 2,5:1, Tilt Control, and Virtual Joystick. The whole thing is tied together with Chillingo's Crystal leaderboards and achievements system.
Let's hope this one is as nice as it sounds. We'll bring further details on Assault Squadron as we get them. Stay tuned.
Chillingo has just provided us with a new gameplay video of the upcoming musical shooter Radio Flare Redux by Studio Radiolaris, a sequel to the late-2008 iPhone original which was a finalist in the 2009 IGF Mobile and IndieCade competitions.
As with the original, Radio Flare Redux challenges you to battle extraterrestrial enemies while jamming to pumping background beats in a gaming experience that's more or less Rez meets the side-scrolling shooter. The developer suggests adding a few words to your vocabulary to prepare for the experience.
Hyperjump [hī'pər] – noun: Takes as long as the blink of an eye. The split-second of traveling through hyperspace, where the brain experiences a unique audio-visual sensation à Synchronicity.
Synesthetic [sĭn'ĭs-thē'zhə] – noun: A unity of the senses such as hearing colors and seeing music. à Players receive a synesthetic experience with Radio Flare REDUX’s tightly connected melodies and stimulating game visuals.
Everything in the game, from the movement of the enemies to the firing of your ship, is synched to the beat of the licensed techno, club, and house tracks. The game features fast-paced shooter action and "club style" visuals across 33 unlockable levels that, the developer assures us, combine to deliver a truly "synesthetic" experience.
Radio Flare Redux features both drag and virtual stick controls for negotiating the side-scrolling battlefields. Online leaderboards through Chillingo's social network let you compete with friends. And, in a zen / psychedelic twist, there's an unlockable Musical Toy sequencer that allows you to arrange sound effects, create rhythms, and experience a Visualizer mode that takes you through an enemy-free level where it's all about the eye candy.
Radio Flare Redux is expected to appear in the App Store sometime in the next few days.
Early this morning Vimov provided us a sneak peek at their iPhone port of Hexen II. It's a work in progress, as currently there's no music yet, the menu system hasn't been implemented, the controls are basic and nowhere near final, and they've got a bunch of performance tweaks to implement to make it run across the whole iPhone and iPod touch device family. But other than that, it's all there.
Hexen II is, obviously, the sequel to Hexen (which was the sequel to Heretic) and was developed by Raven Software and published by Id for the PC in 1997. This first person shooter utilizes a modified version of the Quake engine to add a roleplaying element to the game where players could choose from multiple classes, and increase statistics by earning experience throughout the adventure.
Like the other games in the series, Raven eventually released the source code for Hexen II, which is what is powering the following gameplay video:
The sticky situation that the developers of this Hexen II port face is that, while the actual game source itself has been made open source, the data files that make Hexen II more than just a modded Quake engine are not open source. The preview version we were given is utilizing assets from the free Hexen II demo, but the game itself can't hit the App Store until the developers work our some kind of licensing agreement with Activision.
First Driver, now Rayman 2: The Great Escape. Gameloft seems to be on a roll with porting old PC / console games to the iPhone platform.
Rayman 2 is a 3D platformer released in late 1999 that takes place in a world known as the "Glade of Dreams" that happens to be infested by robot pirates who, lamentably, invaded and destroyed the "Heart of the World". Now it's up to Rayman to seek out the four magic masks needed to awaken Polokus, the spirit of the world, and set things right.
The game will be available on the App Store on March 1st, and Gameloft released the following trailer which shows quite a bit of gameplay:
When Rayman 2 was first released, it saw a positive reception both from gamers and the gaming media, but the recent Nintendo DS port tarnished much of the magic due to an extremely problematic camera system that made traversing the various 3D obstacles much harder than it should have been. While the original 2D Rayman may have been a better fit for the iPhone, as fans of the Rayman series, we're excited to see this game on the iPhone and hope Gameloft continues porting these classic games of the 90's.
Earlier this month we posted an update on Peter Hirschberg and his glowy bit of retro vector goodness known as Vector Tanks. As we indicated in that post, Peter has recently setup his own studio, BlipTime Studios, and through it has released an update to Vector Tanks known as Vector Tanks (Classic Version) [App Store]at $0.99. As one might suspect, denoting the current game as "classic" indeed betokened the near-term arrival of a rather revamped take on the original.
That game is Vector Tanks Extreme, and Peter has given us an exclusive look at the release version of the title before it makes its App Store debut.
The game has been split into two versions to provide, as Peter tells it, a version that delivers the "retro-simplicity" of the original, along with a version that's "a Vector Tanks experience WAY over the top for those seeking a bit more of a challenge."
Vector Tanks Extreme offers everything the original did, plus more tank types, more weapon types (my personal favorite is the Rail Gun), airborne enemies (helicopters), and downright frenzied action. The standard play mode is Combat, which is a desperate bid to wipe out as many enemies as possible before losing all your lives, while Rage mode gives you unlimited lives and ammunition with the goal of wiping out as many enemies as possible before a two-minute timer runs out. Both modes are brutal, let me assure you. An integrated online scoreboard shows the world your strength (or weakness) and network play support is a planned addition, to arrive in a future update.
I've had the final build of Vector Tanks Extreme on my iPhone for the past few days and have spent considerable time scoping down enemy tanks, jeeps, and copters. Having become quite familiar with the title, I can definitely say that "WAY over the top" is in no way an overstated description. This is perhaps the most intense iPhone shooter I've ever encountered. If you enjoy Vector Tanks and feel it's a little on the difficult side — stay away from Vector Tanks Extreme. You don't have the stuff.
As we mentioned in our earlier piece, in moving from Chillingo to his own BlimpTime Studios for the original Vector Tanks, now known as Vector Tanks (Classic Version), Peter was unable to make the latest version of the game (v1.3.2, posted earlier this month) a free upgrade. But, to help get every owner of the original up to speed on the latest version, he will be offering Vector Tanks (Classic Version) as a free download during the week following the launch of Vector Tanks Extreme. Thanks Peter!
Have a look at the Vector Tanks Extremetrailer to get a taste of the action.
Vector Tanks Extreme has been submitted to the App Store and should be available for download sometime in the next few days at a price of $1.99.
Shaun Inman has posted a video of his upcoming iPhone platformer that was created with partial assistance from a Makework Grant which funds artists to work on their "someday-I’d-love-to” projects.
Inman's proposal involved creating a faux 16-bit game engine which aspired to create multiple worlds, various unqiue powerups and hand crafted pixel graphics. Inman explains his appreciation of pixel art:
Good pixel art strikes the perfect balance between appreciable craftsmanship and the gestalt. A single pixel out of place, one too few or too many, ruins the illusion. There’s an unmuddied, economy of expression, the thankless result of the limitations of cartridge-based consoles.
The premise of Mimeo is that of a Mario clone but where power-ups affect the entire game world, not just the player itself. Powerups will take you from a 2-bit world to a 4-bit, then 8-bit and ultimately 16-bit scene. Enemy behavior and level behavior changes between the modes so there is an element of puzzle-platforming involved.
Inman's video explains and demos it well (Vimeo link):
The developer hopes to have the game released in time for the 2010 holiday season.
IGN posted some video and impressions of the upcoming Street Fighter IV for the iPhone. The game is expected for release in March.
The iPhone version of the game allows you to play as Ryu, Ken, Chun-Li, Blanka, M. Bison, Abel, Guile, and Dhalsim. According to IGN the move set is "roughly the same" as the console version and includes local multiplayer as well as AI battles. Gameplay, of course, is controlled by on screen joystick and virtual buttons as shown here:
A second video shows the on screen menus. Street Fighter IV is coming out in March for $9.99.
Ngmoco's acquisition of Freeverse was the big surprise news tonight. The move has generated a lot of questions and concerns regarding the direction of both companies. We have interviews set up with Freeverse's VP Colin Smith tomorrow and Ngmoco's Neil Young tonight.
In the meanwhile, Freeverse Senior Producer Bruce Morrison assured us that they are not making any major changes to their existing games or their much anticipated game Warpgate.
We are not making changes to our current titles (well adding Plus+ awards and leader boards to a lot that need them). The current titles you know about, the stuff about to come out (Zombie Cannon Carnage and Warpgate) are not changing and are going to be the games we promised.
We'll have more news and information to come soon.
Back in 2008, Adam Atomic and Danny Baranowsky, two of the three masterminds behind Canabalt created a flash game called Gravity Hook originally based on a typing-tutor game called Gravity Key by Arne Niklas Jansson. After securing permission to develop an endless mouse-based version of the game, the original Gravity Hook was created in five days utilizing the beginnings of what is now the flixel framework.
Early this morning 
First 
