This is huge: Beamdog has revealed plans to bring Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition to iPad this summer. Enhanced Edition is a revitalization of the long lauded BioWare RPG. Expect new code, new content, and new, and presumably more modern, assets when it hits both PC and now iPad in the coming months. Talk about a surprise, right?
IGN Wireless has the first hands-on with a build, which apparently is fairly complete. Highlights from that write-up include points about a friendlier camera specifically for iPad, and its lack of technical oddities. Check it out.
Work with me for a second. Forget that The Hunger Games: Girl on Fire has a connection to the Hunger Games fiction. Instead, let's just look at is as if it is a normal, everyday product that isn't being bankrolled by a major movie studio. Let's do this because, even in this vacuum, it impresses. Provided the final build is as good as the one we've been paying, it's the kind of game we'd recommend without pause: it's conceptually solid, it has a fantastic look, and it brings some new ideas to a genre that's hopelessly clotted.
You could argue that Girl on Fire is a spiritual successor to Canabalt [$2.99]. It's an endless runner that revolves around a daring escape, but it boasts some key points of iteration that change up the play in strong ways. For one, Girl on Fire boasts a regenerating health system. If you take a hit, you lose your momentum, but not the game. As a result, you get get married to sessions, and the overall runner experience doesn't feel as hollow as it usually does.
The Walking Dead season two finale put a big, fat dent in our love of the property in all of its forms, but just like that, Telltale restored our faith. Late this afternoon, the studio posted the first teaser trailer for its series based on the grim and violent world Robert Kirkman has built, and boy, is it awesome.
There's still a lot of stuff we don't know about the games, like, say, how they'll play or when the iPad or iPhone versions are due out. Word on the street is that we should be expecting the games to release across iOS in April, perhaps a little after the XBLA, PC, PSN, and Macintosh versions launch. Fingers are crossed on that, for sure. Stay tuned to us as this stuff gets hashed out.
Nowadays there is a veritable smorgasbord of excellent iOS platformers, but it wasn't always this way. Virtual controls have always been a sticking point with platformers on a touch screen, rarely offering the type of precision needed in such a game. One of the games that managed to nail the control problem early on, back in October of 2009 to be exact, was Touch Foo's Soosiz [$1.99/HD].
Soosiz was a bright and colorful 2D platformer built around an interesting gravity mechanic and levels made up of tiny planet-like platforms not totally dissimilar from the Super Mario Galaxy titles. Soosiz was pretty well-loved by gamers and critics alike, and served as an early benchmark for how virtual controls should work in a platformer.
Since Soosiz, however, Touch Foo has been quiet on the App Store front, and I've caught myself wondering just what the team might be up to for their follow-up release. Last week, they announced in our forums what that follow-up title is, and they've sent word today that we won't be waiting long to try out the game for ourselves as it will be launching this Thursday.
The game is called Swordigo, and it's another platforming game but looks to be quite a departure from Soosiz. It's a 2.5D game, meaning the visuals are made of 3D graphics but the gameplay itself is strictly classic 2D. There is a bigger focus on action and battling enemies this time around, and there will be RPG elements that let you level up your character, weapons, spells, and items.
Check out the awesome trailer below to get a good idea of what's in store for Swordigo:
Swing back by later this week when we do our weekly roundup of new releases to get your own hands on the game, which will be launching as a Universal app at the $1.99 price point, and we'll put Swordigo through its paces once it's released and bring you a full review soon too.
In another world during another time, roving bands of mercenaries die with staffs and swords clutched in grimy, blood-stained hands on epic quests to seek out fame, fortune, glory and honor. Also, tax relief -- precious, precious tax relief. Kameloot's king has pumped up the tax on gold to unbelievable levels, but he's offering a way for cities to opt-out. It's called the "Grand Gossip Notoriety Prize," and the competition in the kingdom is getting stiff as heroes of all shapes and sizes, as well as bandits, monsters, and other various bump-in-the-night stuff, vie for the break.
It's this not-so-subtle lighthearted edge that gives Digital Tales' Battleloot Adventure its legs. It has all the usual tropes, including the classes, items, and structure, of a 16-bit era RPG, but it put a lot of weight behind them. It knows that swords, zombies, wolves, claymores, and magic are as tired as the M4 is becoming, so it focuses on the fun inherent in playing a fantasy game instead. Things like loot, combat mechanics, and art design are what it leverages.
One of the best and brightest, and unreleased, games we saw at GDC now has two clones on the App Store, according to the game's creator. A false version of IGF-nominated student project, One and One Story, popped up earlier this afternoon to an appropriate amount of Twitter backlash. Its source code presumably draws from the Flash version of the game.
One and One Story's actual creator, Mattia Traverso, has since contacted Apple and filed a DMCA complaint. "Yep, but these are clones," Traverso said on Twitter. "They are other games. This is my game, without even a single change!"
When Traverso showed us the legitimate iOS version at GDC, it was very much a work in progress. He was in the process of tightening the controls and figuring out if he wanted to go with a different visual style that featured actual characters instead of silhouettes. Obviously, we don't advise that you download this version.
One and One Story, by the way, looks to be a gripping platformer, as it tries to combine the Limbo look with Braid-like puzzles. The premise revolves around the relationship of the game's two protagonists, and you need to control both interchangeably in a multitude of fascinating ways.
We look forward to digging in when it's actually released.
Jordan Mechner and Smoking Car Productions' adventure game, The Last Express, has been slated for an iPad and iPhone release. Mechner just announced the port over on his blog, and carefully avoiding the kind of details we want to know, like, say, what new features it will support. He did, however, reveal that the folks over at DotEmu are behind the port. DotEmu recently handled the iOS version of Another World [$4.99], and did a masterful job.
The Last ExpressFacebook page appears to be the place to look for new drips of information at this point in the marketing cycle. It's sporting a few nifty pieces of art, as well as some production-phase images, all of which may or may not be from the original version of the game. We're investigating.
We'll definitely be keeping our eyes on this, so stay aboard. We're like a train. With seats that you, the reader, can sit in. This joke totally made sense at one point.
About a month ago, Double Fine asked video game fans to fund a $400,000 adventure game that'll see a release across PC and iOS. That campaign closed yesterday. In the end, it gathered over three million dollars from 87,142 backers. It also smashed records, and gave the independent studio some decent mainstream coverage in the process.
Basically, it worked. Fans will get their adventure game. On a Ustream feed that Double Fine led alongside the countdown until the end of the crowd-funded project, Tim Schafer said that this has been "an amazing experience," and acknowledged the outpour of love it has received from its fans.
Now the hard part starts. From what we understand, this is a from-scratch project; you won't see a game anytime soon, and we think it's doubtful that the mobile version will see the light of day until after the release of the game on PC. If you're a backer, on the other hand, you get access to behind-the-scenes commentary as the game is created. That'll ease the pain. Probably.
Double Fine has a lot of people to make happy with this one since this project will be made with fan money, but the pressure is on the backers, too. They'll be a part of the decision-making process as pre-production ramps up. Now, get to work!
On the Wind is an eye-catching game. The interplay between the light, floral art and the chunky pixelized interfaces just begs for attention. t's hard to tell exactly how it plays from the trailer, but the gist is this: the screen scrolls by, getting faster and faster as you progress through the seasons. You control the gust of leaves with your fingertip, moving it around obstacles and through other leaves that scatter across the field. It feels a bit like a wire loop game with added speed and less sadism.
At first glance it's easy to assume that thatgamecompany's Flower is the obvious source of inspiration, but developer David Buttress says it didn't much factor into his design. Instead, he looked to The Helicopter Game, a classic Flash-based cave flier with simple, one-touch controls and a rather brutal difficulty curve. The idea for the leaves and flowing motion came from a more esoteric source: a in-depth look into Boids, an early artificial life program that models flocking behavior. He was particularly fascinated by the idea that such complex and beautiful motion could be created from a few simple rules, and he is bringing that organic motion into play in On the Wind.
Buttress is new to the iOS development world, having just recently launched his one-man studio, Don't Step On The Cracks. But he's coming from a long background in game development at Rare. Working with the other creative-types at the studio was often inspiring, but he had few chances to work on the small, creative ideas that cropped up. As with so many other developers moving from the console space, he found that iOS offers a great opportunity to play around with the concepts that had been building up while he put his time into larger projects like Conker: Live and Reloaded and Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts.
Buttress reached far and wide for inspiration while developing On the Wind. The silhouettes that make up the environment were initially inspired by Limbo. Rather than taking a similarly dark and pensive approach, he built on the idea, letting in riotous color for the leaves, flowers and backdrops. The sparseness of the sound is another carefully considered choice, like the auditory atmosphere in Shadow of the Colossus, which was usually formed only by the sound of the wind and the hooves of your horse.
For now, On the Wind is a concise experience meant for on-the-go play, one that runs through the seasons in short order before ending. Buttress is considering an update with an endless mode and powerups in the future, but for now he's happy to launch with a still-pure experience. Between the procedurally generated world, leaderboards and a series of clever achievements, though, fans should find plenty of reasons to keep going. We're certainly looking forward to playing more, having had a taste of the game. We'll be sure to let you know when it lands, hopefully in a handful of weeks.
Way back in 1984, English teacher-turned-game developer Mike Singleton released a vast and innovative adventure gamed for the ZX Spectrum home computer called The Lords of Midnight. The game was extremely well received and garnered high praise for its gameplay, the expansive world in which it is set, and its use of a clever graphical technique known as "landscaping" to render the scene with pre-scaled sprites. The Lords of Midnight turned out to be Singleton's most well respected title and is considered by many to be one of the best video games ever created.
Versions of The Lords of Midnight were soon released on a few other (mainly European) platforms of the day, and in 1991 DOS PC versions of the game and its sequel, Doomdark's Revenge, were released, originally developed as reverse engineered fan conversions by Christopher Wild. (Singleton gave his stamp of approval to Wild's conversions -- see Wild's 2004 Retro Gamer two-piece article / interview with Singleton.) Not long after, Wild began thinking about doing Windows versions of the games and thus began his work on The Midnight Engine, a system that would allow the Midnight games to run under modern operating systems and, thanks to data abstraction, would also allow new games to be created under the same framework.
Most studios shy away from announcing products months in advance, but Square Enix is not a company that seems to get the App Store all that well. Back in May, just days after it released Chaos Rings Omega, it announced the franchise's first, actual sequel: Chaos Rings II. We've seen a couple of Japanese-language teasers since, and well, here's another. But get this: the game is coming soon. Like, this Thursday soon, according to the footage below. See what they did there?
We don't know what exactly to expect from the sequel-sequel, but it seems like a safe bet that Chaos Rings II isn't set to rock the boat. Also, this song, guys. This song.
Last week at GDC Sega held a gathering of the press to showcase some of their new upcoming titles with demos and hands-on time. As is usually the case, their iconic blue mascot kind of stole the show with Sonic 4: Episode II, but there were several other strong titles that are heading to the App Store which are also worth keeping an eye out for.
Last week we had a chance to sit down with Kathy Fung, founder of SiuYiu, the studio behind tower-builder Vegas Towers HD [Free]. She showed us two games that should be coming out in the next few months, and we have to say, they're pretty charming.
First up is Pocket Minions. This is a tower builder of a different sort, and it's pretty adorable. It's also strategically complex in a way that some similar tower games don't quite pull off.
Out at GDC 2012 I sat down with publisher Ayopa Games and, in the time of an hour, ran through seven different titles in a sort of marathon session. It was a lot to take in, but there are some real stand-outs here.
Some are new, some are updates. Let's have a look.
MacGuffin's Curse
Created by Brawsome and Green Stripe Snake, MacGuffin's Curse is a game that falls under the category of Werewolf Comedy Puzzle Adventures. It is the tale of out-of-work magician and (hence) not-so-cunning thief Lucas MacGuffin who attempts to rob a museum to pay the rent, and finds himself bound to a magical amulet with the power to turn him into a werewolf (and back again).
The game consists of 150 different rooms across 11 different environments, such as junkyards, parks, mansions, museums, etc. Each room is its own grid-based puzzle that must be solved using Lucas in either human or werewolf form -- or both (walking into a beam of moonlight triggers the transformation). In addition to the 150 core puzzles are around 100 secondary features / quests that serve to add variety and keep Lucas especially busy at all times. In the end, the ultimate goal is just to get the cursed amulet off of poor Lucas.
In a nice touch that retro gamers will enjoy, the soundtrack is available in chiptune format, sampled from a real SID-based C64, and can be accessed via an in-game home computer setup.
MacGuffin's Curse won the Best Writing award at the 2012 Freeplay Independent Games Festival and will be available on April 19th as a universal iOS app as well as on Mac and PC.
Forget about feeding your cat. Soon, you'll be able to enrich its mind while simultaneously competing against the little guy in an app called "You vs. Cat" on iPad. Cat connoisseurs Friskies is behind the air-hockey-meets-interspecies-action title, and it's tuning the experience specifically to pit you versus your cat. In a small demonstration at SXSW, Buzz Feed played against an adorable little kitty named Buddy, and was beat an amazing three times in a row. In fact, cats are up on humans by around one thousand games at the time of this posting.
There's a lot of cat-specific apps out there. The vast majority aren't games, though, which is what makes this remarkable. No doubt, our own Bearded One Jared Nelson will put this game to the test whenever he can. He'll report his findings immediately, and with lots of gushy language because, cats.
In another world during another time, roving bands of mercenaries die with staffs and swords clutched in grimy, blood-stained hands on epic quests to seek out fame, fortune, glory and honor. Also, tax relief -- precious, precious tax relief. Kameloot's king has pumped up the tax on gold to unbelievable levels, but he's offering a way for cities to opt-out. It's called the "Grand Gossip Notoriety Prize," and the competition in the kingdom is getting stiff as heroes of all shapes and sizes, as well as bandits, monsters, and other various bump-in-the-night stuff, vie for the break.
One of the best and brightest, and unreleased, games we saw at GDC now has two clones on the App Store, 
About a month ago, Double Fine asked video game fans 
Out at GDC 2012 I sat down with publisher 
