While out at WWDC 2011, I sat down with Limbic Software and Hidden Elephant to have a look at an upcoming game developed in conjunction with Digital Cavemen. Zombie Gunship is, I believe, the most promising title of the aerial zombie shooter genre. Ok, and maybe also the only member of that genre. But, I'm happy it will soon be out there, because sniping zombies from on high is a pretty sweet experience.
The game puts you in control of the turrets of a Lockheed AC-130 heavily-armored ground attack gunship. But, it's not merely enemy troops you're trying to wipe out. It's zombies. Hordes of zombies. And gigantic, hard-to-kill boss zombies. (It's grizzly.)
Your mission is to defend an allied army bunker at Cheyenne Mountain from the encroaching armies of the dead while, at the same time, keeping the unholy beasts from ravenously consuming a number of scattered and highly unfortunate ground troops caught outside said bunker -- all from the belly of a soaring death machine. You have several types of ordnance with which to rain destruction upon the zombies, and the ability to zoom in for a surgical shot that can save a troop from an in-progress zombie attack.
It's an endless experience -- the zombies just won't stop. The longer you fend off the horde, the higher your score. But, eventually, a zombie is going to get into the bunker or you'll inadvertently kill more than two humans with your fire, and that's when the story ends.
Zombie Gunship features Game Center integration, and an update to come will bring more types of zombies, more weapons, and more locales. Limbic recently partnered with a new art studio and a new sounds team that was responsible for the Gears of War audio effects. Zombie Gunship showcases these new talents nicely. The game should be available for download within the next two weeks. Price has not been announced.
I wanted to share a related anecdote that underscores the value of WWDC to iOS and Mac OS X developers everywhere. On my first night at WWDC Arash Keshmirian, CEO of Limbic, gave me a quick demo of the game, which definitely piqued my interest. Our actual sit-down with the AC-130 crew took place late in the week, on Thursday. Between my first glimpse of the game and our scheduled meeting, the developers were able to implement code optimizations with help from Apple engineers that allowed for three times as many zombies to wander the battlefield as before. And this is just one of many such WWDC success stories I've heard from developers we're close to. A valuable week, indeed.
While we were gathered, we also spent some time with Nuts! [App Store], Limbic's new climb-and-dodge title that launched on May 23rd and jumped high in the paid rankings shortly thereafter. The game challenges you, a squirrel, to make it as high as possible up a frustratingly branchy tree in an effort to gain ranking on the leaderboards. There are several different tree environments or stats (normal, icy, ashy, etc.). It's a fun little title that kept me well entertained on the late-night flight back home.
A Nuts! update coming this month will bring additional story and characters, with more environments coming later.
Last week at WWDC, I met up with the guys from Get Set Games to talk about the success they’ve had with their game Mega Jump [Free] as well as what the future holds for them on the App Store. First of all, they revealed that Mega Jump has just passed the 15 million download mark, which is an impressive milestone to say the least. You might remember that just over a year ago, Mega Jump launched as a 99¢ paid app. It saw a brief sale period at one point, but last August the team decided to make the game permanently free and try to make their money by selling a huge selection of IAP goodies from within the game.
Love it or hate it, this freemium pay model has done extremely well for them in the past 10 months, and they have no plans to revert to a paid app anytime soon. Mega Jump has also received a steady stream of updates during its lifespan, and the newest one that is set to hit any day now will be the game’s 15th. It adds a huge new feature to the back end of the game which will allow the developers to send new content to the game through OpenFeint without actually submitting it as an official update. This means that things like new level skins and coin patterns can be pushed out to the game even more frequently and with less hassle. If you’re a Mega Jump fan, expect new content to be hitting the game at an even faster pace from update 15 on.
Next, they filled me in on one of their upcoming new games which will be starring the main character from Mega Jump, who I’ve come to learn is named Redford. Called Mega Run, it will be an endless running style of game using a similar art style from Mega Jump. The version of Mega Run I was able to try is currently just a functioning prototype, but already felt pretty good. The developers are planning to utilize a similar freemium pay structure and update schedule for Mega Run as they have with Mega Jump. It will also include the new back end feature that lets new assets be pushed to the game without an update, so they assured me that there will be plenty of fresh content coming to that title after it launches as well.
One bit of interesting news that came up during my meeting was finding out that Rob Segal of Get Set Games is one of the brains behind the Toronto Game Jam, or TOJam, and that the entire development team participates in this 3 day game jam every year. During the latest TOJam this past May, members of Get Set Games created a game called Seven Jamurai under their pseudonym Team Awesomo. Seven Jamurai was easily one of the most talked about games at the jam, and it’s pretty incredible to think that such a high quality effort can be created in just a few short days.
The exciting part of all this is that the team was so happy with how Seven Jamurai turned out that they are in the process of readying the game for an iOS release. Gameplay could be described as Castle Crashers meets Smash TV, as Seven Jamurai is a frantic dual-stick shooter that relies heavily on cooperative play with up to 4 players. They are really fine tuning how all of this will work out in the iOS version, but you can check out this early video of Seven Jamurai from the game jam to get an idea of what it will be like:
Both Mega Run and Seven Jamurai are being developed at the same time, and the developers hope to have them both out on the App Store “in a few months”. My big takeaway from my meeting with Get Set Games is that this is a crew of video game-loving friends who have all defined their own roles in the company, which allows them to work together really well. They also have a near endless supply of amazing game ideas, and I could easily write twice as much about their previous game jam titles which were never fully realized but all have immense potential.
I’ll keep my fingers crossed that will see these games materialize in some form someday, but for now I’ll be looking forward to plenty of new Mega Jump content and both Mega Run and Seven Jamurai hitting the App Store sometime this year.
Back in February, my jet-setting TouchArcade cohort Eli Hodapp found himself wanting to play some video games on his laptop while on the road. Not one to carry around a bulky Bluetooth controller just for that specific purpose, he came across a novel little app called Joypad [Free] which was a suitable alternative. Basically, the Joypad app runs on your iPhone or iPod touch and turns the device into a wireless controller for your computer with a highly configurable set of virtual buttons.
The Joypad app syncs up with a desktop client which allows it to be used to play any game by remapping the keyboard controls to the virtual buttons on the device. It works really well, is fairly easy to setup and get running, and is a great companion for the traveling gamer, as we noted in our review of the Joypad.
So since that time, the two man operation Zell Interactive who are responsible for the Joypad have been quite busy. First of all, the formerly limited free version of the Joypad has been updated to include all the same functionality of the paid version. Basically, this means you can download the Joypad and the desktop client and have your very own virtual controller on your iOS device at no cost at all. As the developers do enjoy putting food on their tables, the way they will monetize the Joypad from here on out is by offering additional skins as in-app purchases.
The first set of skins will be a retro pack that will offer skins from the NES, Game Boy, Genesis, and many other classic consoles. The skins are purely visual and don’t alter the functionality of the app, but if you use the Joypad for playing classic console emulators then the appropriate skin can add a bit of fun to the experience. The skins will be available individually for 99¢ each or together as a complete pack at a discounted price. The original paid version of Joypad has been renamed Joypad Elite [$11.99], and will always receive all the new content as free updates rather than IAP. If you don’t already have Joypad then the free version is the way to go, but this way they can still say thank you to their previous customers who supported them by buying the app initially.
While the skins are a neat feature, the really big news about the Joypad is that the developers have recently released a free SDK that will allow other developers to easily integrate native Joypad support into their desktop or iOS games. On your computer, this means that if a developer integrates the SDK into their game you’ll be able to play that game using the Joypad without the need of syncing with the Joypad Connect desktop client.
It all works incredibly simply. Just fire up a game with Joypad support on your computer or iOS device and then fire up Joypad on an iPhone or iPod touch. The game will automatically detect the Joypad running and send the appropriate controller configuration to the device. There can be a mixture of various types of buttons, d-pads, or analog sticks on the Joypad that suit each individual game. Shortly down the road, the ability to add custom controller skins for a particular game will be added into the SDK for an even more cohesive experience.
The Joypad developers have added in Joypad support to an open source version of Wolfenstein 3D [$1.99/Lite] just to demonstrate how easily it works:
Another recent addition to the Joypad app is mouse movement and clicking support when playing games on a computer. This means you can control the cursor in a game that normally needs a mouse just using the accelerometer of your iOS device. They demonstrated this feature to me by playing Minecraft using just an iPhone and the Joypad app, and I was pretty blown away with how well it works:
The Joypad app comes with pre-configured settings for both Minecraft and Portal 2, but the controls can be configured pretty much however you want to make them work with a ton of desktop games. They’ve also added support for connecting via Bluetooth in addition to a local WiFi connection, which takes care of some of the connection issues that were present when trying to use the Joypad on a crowded WiFi network.
There have been a few games that utilize playing on the iPad using an iPhone or iPod touch, and EA Mobile is dabbling in this area as well, but the release of the Joypad SDK means that there is the potential for any game to use this functionality, and it can be an attractive extra feature to add to any iOS or desktop game. Couple Joypad support with the display mirroring capabilities of the iPad 2, and suddenly your mobile devices have taken on the traits of a home console. While the Joypad isn’t a total substitute for a physical controller, it still works really well and is a lot of fun to use. Hopefully developers will check out the free Joypad SDK and we will see support for it in many more games in the future.
At WWDC this year, I sat down with Dave Castelnuovo from Bolt Creative to talk about what’s upcoming in the various entries in the Pocket God series. We’ve always been fans of Pocket God [99¢] around TouchArcade, but admittedly hadn’t quite stayed up to date with the series as of late. After Dave showed me some of the recent new features added into the games, I was really surprised by just how much they’ve evolved since I’ve been on Pocket God hiatus.
The biggest bit of news is that the previously iPad-only Pocket God: Journey To Uranus [99¢] is now a universal app and is currently on sale for 99¢, down from $4.99. This version of Pocket God lets you take your pygmies into space to various planets, each with their own unique features. You can also discover mini-games which are based on classic arcade games, like Bump ‘n’ Jump, Joust, and Tempest 2000.
These mini-games are so incredibly well done that they could practically be standalone games on the App Store, and Bolt Creative has plans for many more in the future. Journey To Uranus plays just fine on the smaller screen of the iPhone and iPod touch, and it has really come a long way since first launching for the iPad back in December. The developers plan to adopt a rapid update schedule similar to the original Pocket God game, so expect a lot more from Journey To Uranus in the future.
Speaking of the original Pocket God, the most recent update added a neat Challenge of the Gods feature to the game. There is a new Challenge Menu which offers a few tasks to discover and complete for each of the 39 episodic updates the game has received during its lifetime. This gives a great reason to go back and fiddle around in all of the previous episodes, and once all tasks for an episode have been completed you’ll unlock a God idol for that episode.
This leads right into what will be in the forthcoming episode 40 which is titled Battle of the Gods. You’ll be able to take any of the 39 God idols that have been unlocked in Challenge Mode and then pit them against each other in a battle arena to see who comes out on top. It sounds like a pretty interesting idea, and I’m looking forward to checking out how it works when it launches in early July.
In other Pocket God news, the Pocket God Comics [99¢] app has just received issue #7 of the digital comic based on the game characters. They are also planning on streamlining the comic creation process so as to pump out new issues at a faster rate than they are currently running at. There are more than 20 new issues already in the pipeline, and support for Pocket God Comics is planned for at least the next few years. Also, the Pocket God Facebook game is up to episode 8 and will continue to evolve with new features and gameplay unique from the iOS games.
If you’re like me and haven’t checked in on what's up with Pocket God lately, you should definitely give both the original and Journey To Uranus another look as I'm fairly blown away with just how far the series has come in recent months.
At WWDC, I had a chance to sit down with David Whatley, who brought us GeoDefense and GeoDefense Swarm, to discuss what he's got in store for us iOS gamers.
Whatley's path-based tower defense title GeoDefense is unquestionably the iOS tower defense game I've spent the most time with. There's definite appeal in its minimal, neon glowing graphics and relentless action. During our meeting, the author showed me an in-progress build of sequel GeoDefense 2, which is a tower defense game -- with a twist.
In the simplest terms, GeoDefense 2 is a tower defense puzzle game. The game features a pre-laid track along which the encroaching enemies file through, but each level starts off with a number of towers already in place. Your task is to arrange the towers about the playfield in the most strategically sound fashion, but there's a catch: you can only move towers across straight track segments and empty space; towers can't be moved over each other or over track corner segments. This arrangement lends something of a sliding puzzle feel to the strategerie of the game. To make matters either better or worse (we'll see...), new turrets appear with each wave.
Tower defense is a now crowded genre in the App Store, and a notable variation on the formula is welcome. I was very much intrigued by what Whatley showed me of GeoDefense 2, and am anxious to give it a go in its final, release form.
In addition to his GeoDefense sequel, which will be published through his studio Critical Thought, Whatley gave us an exclusive look at his upcoming title, Tiny Heroes, to be published by the other studio with which he is involved, Simutronics. In short, it's Plants vs. Zombies meets Dungeon Keeper.
In Tiny Heroes, you play the dungeon. The objective of the game is to defend your treasures by placing the defenses you've chosen about your dungeon corridors. Waves of classic heroes of various sorts and abilities -- thieves, knights, clerics, wizards, rangers, etc. -- begin to invade your dungeons in an effort to make off with the booty.
The defenses available are a bit more varied than those of the typical tower defense game. There are crossbows, crush chambers, pop-up pikes, allied monsters, bombs, and the like. The incoming heroes vary in their ability to deal with the different defenses; the thieves can sometimes disarm bombs, for instance.
For the creative defense gamer, a forge area in the game allows players to craft their own custom towers. Tiny Heroes will take advantage of the Retina display where available and the graphics look sharp. The iPhone version is set for an August 1st submission to Apple, with an iPad version to follow, in time.
One of my favorite iOS games of all time is the dungeon crawler Rogue Touch from ChronoSoft. Here at WWDC 2011, I had a chance to sit down with the man behind the games, Kevin Hill, to discuss the latest on that great classic adaptation as well as some of his upcoming titles, including roguelike / RPG Dungeon Tactics: Spirit Hunter Mineko, which we first mentioned back in March of last year.
First off, Rogue Touch will be getting a major update sometime in July as it moves from v1.6, which arrived last summer, to version 2.0. Kevin worked am impressive series of updates to the game in its early days, but none of them have brought nearly as drastic a set of enhancements as the coming update.
Rogue Touch v2.0 will bring an entirely new set of tiles and monsters with much greater detail than those of the current release. What's more, the game will move to an OpenGL-based rendering engine (don't worry -- it's still a 2D game), improving the visuals in several respects as compared to its current CoreGraphics-based engine. Game Center integration is also in the mix, as well as various, smaller tweaks and enhancements. I took a look at the tile and character sheets for Rogue Touch v2.0, and I can't wait to make the upgrade.
The coming Rogue Touch update isn't all that fans of the game have to look forward to. Rogue Touch EX is still on track to inject the dungeon crawler formula with a dose of arcade action. The game will feature pseudo real-time exploration, something akin to what we've seen in Solomon's Keep. Rogue Touch EX is expected to arrive as a Universal application for both iPad and iPhone, with Retina display support on the latter.
The biggest news of all out of our meeting with ChronoSoft is the preview I was given of Hill's upcoming Dungeon Tactics: Spirit Hunter Mineko. The game marries elements of the roguelike dungeon crawler with those of the traditional Japanese RPG.
We detailed the backstory in our first look but, in short, the game is the adventure of Mineko, a teenage girl and Spirit Hunter who lives with her family in a remote, mountaintop village. One night during a magical and terrible storm, she and her fellow villagers see a menacing castle materialize out of nowhere. The village council decides that her brother should be sent to investigate this new evil and Mineko, never one to mope about the house, follows after him to help save her village.
Hill has made a number of design decisions aimed at keeping the game experience as accessible and uncluttered as possible. For example, movement is a simple swipe with two swipes for an action. Stairs are automatically ascended / descended when encountered. Tidy inventory and potion selection panes can be swiped in from above and below. The entire system feels rather streamlined.
The game features multiple environments including houses, sewers, cellars, caves, forests and castles as well as an active weather system and day and night modes. In addition to weapons and potions, there is a magic system handled via glyphs on a scroll that can slide in from the side of the screen. Additional side areas become available upon completion of the main mission, allowing some bonus post-victory dungeon crawling fun.
I had a chance to play an in-progress version of the game here at WWDC and it seems extremely well put together. Have a look at a brief video of the game in its current state.
We can expect Dungeon Tactics: Spirit Hunter Mineko to arrive sometime this fall. After that, it's on to work on the next title for Hill, an as-yet unnamed, futuristic strategy game in the vein of Advanced Wars and Super Robot Wars. I took a look at the character sheets and they look quite promising.
At WWDC this year we got a chance to one again catch up with Josh Presseisen of Crescent Moon Games who had an iPad 2 loaded with tons of games (some not even his) that he was eager to demonstrate for us. The first of which was Paper Monsters which wehaveextensively posted about already. It turns out our excitement was totally justified, as this game both looks (and plays) great.
Next up is a game called Topia which is a collaboration between Crescent Moon and Glenn Corpes, the creator of Ground Effect [$1.99]. It turns out that Glenn also had his hands all over the creation of the original Populous, which really shows in the following video:
Last, but certainly not least is Pocket RPG, an entirely randomized hack and slash game that we first caught wind of last year. It seems like the game is nearing release, and Josh goes through tons of details in this nearly 7 minute long hands-on video:
Coming off the successful launch of Touchgrind BMX [$4.99], which we reviewed last month, I met with the folks from Illusion Labs here at WWDC 2011 to discuss their plans for the series moving forward. Speaking of that successful launch, Illusion Labs has revealed that Touchgrind BMX sold over 100,000 copies in just its first 10 days in the App Store, making it their fastest selling title to date. Combined with the original Touchgrind [$4.99/HD], the total sales for the series exceeds 1.5 million units. That’s no small potatoes!
As for the future of Touchgrind BMX, there are a few nice things in the works. Just last week, an update was released which added some much-needed Retina Display support for the game, but unfortunately it was at the expense of a smooth frame rate. Illusion Labs is furiously working the kinks out of this, and the new build I was able to play showed a vastly improved frame rate with Retina Display visuals enabled. They’ll continue to refine this and then plan to drop the optimization update in the next couple of weeks. Following the improved Retina Display update, the hinted at new level Polar Ridge will be released along with full Game Center support.
But it doesn’t stop there. Once all of these new features are finally launched, the next step will be adding a TV-Out feature to Touchgrind BMX that will allow the game to be played on a big screen while being controlled on your iOS device. They demonstrated this functionality to me by using a portable projector and projecting the game right onto the wall in front of me. It looks absolutely awesome, and plays just as good. The iOS screen takes the form of a bike silhouette and controls exactly as the game normally would. Here’s a developer video showcasing the functionality projected onto a big screen:
Pretty cool stuff, but that’s still not the end of the Touchgrind-related news. Way back in January of 2010, Illusion Labs demonstrated a proof-of-concept video that showed the original Touchgrind being played on a MacBook using the multitouch-enabled trackpad. They never actually released the game for Mac due to not really having a solid distribution channel, but when the Mac App Store was announced last October the Touchgrind MacBook demo was one of the first things that came to our minds.
Now, at long last, Illusion Labs is releasing the original Touchgrind on the Mac App Store. The best part? It will be launching for free. You heard that right, for free. Illusion Labs isn’t known for dropping prices or giving away things for free, but this is something they wanted to do for their fans as a thank you for making Touchgrind such a success. You’ll be able to grab Touchgrind for your Mac sometime in July. The announced features for Touchgrind BMX will slowly release over the course of the next several weeks or so, and I can’t wait to see what else Illusion Labs has up their sleeve for the future.
The Apple Design Awards are an annual event hosted at WWDC that seeks to recognize the best of the best applications and games across whatever Apple platforms Apple wants to elevate. In 2010 the Mac was snubbed, but in 2011 Apple flipped the script and gave it a place amongst the other two relevant platforms: the iPad and the iPhone.
The results of 2011’s awards show are now public. In the interest of our interests, we’ll be highlighting just the games that took the fancy little trophy Apple gave to winners. A few listing can be seen at sites like, say, TUAW.
iPhone
Cut the Rope [$.99 / HD] - Chillingo Infinity Blade [$5.99] - Chair Entertainment
Infinity Blade and Cut the Rope are two fantastic titles that really stress the strengths of the platform. Both feel native and original and benefit from the unique platform. These are well-deserved winners, for sure.
Anomaly: Warzone Earth is a firm example of what you can do with a limited budget and a great idea. It’s a gorgeous “in reverse” tower defense title in which you’re charged with taking down towers with a small group of minions. Warzone Earth is geeked out with all sorts of fun sub-systems and unique points of design. This was a solid choice, too.
Osmos, on the other hand, is a laid-back experience that doesn’t require much from the owner. It’s an ambient game that looks beautiful and plays just as well on the iPad as it does on the PC and the Mac. Good one on Apple for recognizing this.
According to TUAW, the winners in these categories have are receiving a Macbook Air, an iPad 2, and an iPod Touch in addition to their trophy. I wonder if anyone at Chair is in a position to need free tech. From the sound of it, Apple should have given them flippers to swim through the pool of cash below the office.
There's no way to beat around the bush on this. Even though many developers have gotten onboard the universal app train, a select few have implemented any cloud-based game save storage system to allow you to sync progress across devices. Of course most server-based free to play games already do this, but in your typical super-casual 99¢ time-waster, your progress is largely locked onto the device that you're playing it on. I can't really fault developers for this, as implementing such a system would largely be overkill for most games, and maintaining the entire online infrastructure to track cross-device progress in a game like Dungeon Raid [$2.99 / Free] would be silly for the developer to do by themselves. For them, there's not much benefit. It would take a heck of a lot of engineering, and servers cost can be substantial-- But that's where Apple comes in.
Monday's keynote introduced us to iCloud, an entirely free cloud-based storage system usable by everyone who owns a recent iOS device, and every developer who wants to use it. So, while it might have been entirely unrealistic for the Dungeon Raid developer to do all this himself, Apple has made it nice and easy.
I've spent most of the day today discussing the prospects of iCloud with many of the developers around WWDC and really one word can describe the temperature of each conversation: Excitement. According to developers who have attended various iCloud-centric WWDC sessions, implementing iCloud-based storage of game saves will be nearly as trivial as dealing with gave saves stored locally on the device is now. This means that as developers inevitably work on tweaking their various apps and games to make them more iOS 5 friendly over the next few months, they'll also likely switch their storage methods over to iCloud, as there's little reason for them not to.
It's still early though, and we're really just scratching the surface of what's possible on the first day of WWDC. One thing I wasn't able to get a very solid answer on was how this was all going to work between standard and HD versions of games. For instance, right now Game Center works like this: If you release your game as a universal app, you can share Game Center leaderboards and achievements for that game across all iOS devices. However, if you release the same game as a separate standard and HD version, Game Center treats those as entirely different apps, and as such, keeps leaderboards and achievements for each app individually.
It's an interesting problem, and no one is sure right now if there's a real solution. Apple obviously seems to want developers to focus on universal apps, but developers vastly prefer two different apps due to pricing flexibility, chart advantages, and several other very valid reasons. If Apple is sticking with the same restrictions as they have for Game Center leaderboards, I hope this just spurs developers to continue the trend we've started to see in offering universal compatibility in the HD version.
This truly seems to be the best of both worlds, as developers can still retain pricing flexibility for two different apps, while providing universal compatibility and cross-device iCloud save syncing while still providing a lower-priced option for those who only own an iPhone or iPod touch.
Another potential snag might be in how game saves are reconciled across multiple devices that might not always be connected to the internet. For example, if you've got a non-3G iPad and an iPod touch, and play the same game on both before returning to a friendly WiFi network. Each game will have different amounts of progress, and the developers I've spoken to so far aren't really sure how things will shake out once these two different game saves hit the iCloud.
Surely this is something Apple has considered, and I'm almost positive we'll find out the answer to all these questions and more in the next few weeks as developers delve into iOS 5. One thing is for certain, holy cow am I happy that cloud-based game save storage will practically be a standard feature in the not too distant future.
Craneballs Studios, the folks responsible for the popular Blimp [Free/HD] titles and the recent arcade shooter Overkill [Free], are readying a release into the super casual high scoring genre. Called Super Rope, it takes the endless vertical jumping formula and replaces jumping with climbing ropes using a simple swiping gesture that works really well.
The larger aim of Super Rope is to try and appeal to both the casual audience and the dedicated high score chasers. It accomplishes this by offering a few different difficulty levels. On easy, the game moves at a slow enough pace that even a young child can play along just fine, but on the harder settings things start to move quickly and it will require some quick reaction times in order to do well.
I had a chance to try out Super Rope at WWDC this week and quite liked the swiping controls and the rope climbing gameplay:
Super Rope should be launching at the end of June or the first week of July. The game will be free and come with one character and one environment, with 4 additional characters and environments each which can be unlocked by earning stars in the game or via IAP star bundles. The 5 characters in the game will have different special items and abilities, and the plan is to continuously offer new content to unlock down the road following release.
It will also include Game Center integration with at least 80 achievements and leaderboards to compete on. We’ll check out more of Super Rope when it hits the App Store in the coming weeks.
This WWDC has been an odd event so far, with yesterday thoroughly focused on the keynote WWDC gaming-centric sessions occupying most developers' time. Regardless, we've tracked down a few developers that have given us a look at their upcoming games. The first of which was Imangi Studios, creators of Harbor Master [$1.99 / Free / HD]. There's still a few weeks of worth left to be done on their next title, Temple Run, but we're liking what we've seen so far.
Temple Run is an endless runner, but the catch is that the game is played in a third person chase view which adds some more gameplay elements than just jumping. You tilt to collect coins, and in addition to jumping to avoid things, you also need to swipe to turn as well as slide other obstacles. Check out the incredibly self explanatory video:
As a major fan of the endless running genre as a whole, I like what Imangi has done with Temple Run. They hope to get it released by the end of the month, and of course, it will come with a full array of Game Center leaderboards, achievements, and all that fun stuff.
Today, Apple CEO Steve Jobs kicked off the week of the 2011 World Wide Developer Conference here in San Francisco with his keynote presentation that outlined three major technologies the company will soon be rolling out: Mac OS X Lion, iOS 5, and the iCloud service.
Mac OS X Lion
Jobs and company began running through several of the 250 new features that will arrive with the forthcoming major update to Mac OS X, Lion (version 10.7). Among the many advances it will bring are deeper support for multitouch gestures, facilities to allow easy creation and management of fullscreen applications, and the LaunchPad system that makes for easier browsing and launching of apps -- all of which bring Mac OS X's look and feel closer that of iOS.
Mac OS X Lion will be available sometime in July, exclusively through the Mac App Store as a 4GB download at a price of $29.99.
iOS 5
Jobs then moved on to iOS 5, beginning with a look at where we are. Since the original iPhone's 2007 debut, over 200 million iOS devices have been sold, in all, 25 million of which are iPads. There are presently 425,000 apps in the App Store, 90,000 of which were designed specifically for the iPad. And, since its debut less than three years ago, 14 billion apps have been downloaded from the App Store, generating a total developer payout of over $2.5 billion.
Apple intends to grow those already impressive numbers with the release of iOS 5, a major update to operating system driving the company's mobile devices. This new release will bring over 1,500 new APIs for developers to work with and over 200 new features.
Senior VP of iOS Software Scott Forstall took the stage to detail ten of the more notable features that iOS 5 will bring.
1. Notification Center is a new component of iOS that acts as a central notification hub that can be swiped into view, presenting a list of recent notifications and the ability to jump to the application associated with each. Additionally, notifications will no longer pop disruptively onto the screen, but will appear at the top of the screen, taking the user to the originating app with a tap or fading out entirely if ignored. The iOS lock screen will also display a list of the most recent notifications, with a swipe across each taking you to the originating application.
2. Newsstand gathers the many disparate digital magazines and newspapers available on the App Store into one place and allows easy browsing and purchasing. Chosen items will be downloaded into the News Rack, which features an iBooks-like interface that shows the current front page as the item's icon. Background downloads will allow subscribed items to updated themselves for easy pick-up reading.
3. Twitter support has been integrated into iOS, providing single sign-on (no need to re-enter password every time an app wants to access your Twitter account) and a pop-up Tweet Sheet for applications that support the new components. Those with immediate support include Camera, Photos, Safari, Maps, and Contact, the last of which can pull twitter user photos and import them into iOS contacts to put simplify the task of putting a name with a face.
4. Mobile Safari is the most popular mobile web browser in use today; nearly 2/3 of all mobile browsing is done with it. New to Mobile Safari is Reader, which provides a clean, unified rendering of multi-page stories, generated from RSS information. Reading List is an Instapaper-like system that allows webpages to be saved to a list for later reading. And, finally, tabbed browsing support will allow for easier management of multiple sites at the same time.
5. Reminders is a type of active to-do list system that can setup a "geofence" and trigger reminders based on your geographic location.
6. Camera is getting an update that will bring optional grid lines for better framing, on-device editing like cropping and rotating plus red-eye reduction. The volume up button can also be set to trigger the shutter. Additionally, a camera icon will appear on the lock screen allowing photos to be taken quickly without unlocking the device.
7. Mail under iOS will be enhanced to allow draggable addresses, indentation control, message flagging, full-message search, left / right swipe to / from inbox to message, an integrated dictionary, and support for the newly expanded iOS keyboard that can be slid upwards to split out into two thumboards.
8. "PC Free" changes have been made to iOS to allow it, for the first time, to be fully used without the need to sync to any PC or Mac. Upon first power-on, iOS devices will display a Welcome screen, as opposed to a sync notice. Software updates will now take place over the air via WiFi, and incremental "delta updates" will allow more efficient system updates.
9. Game Center has received several enhancements in this next version of iOS. Forstall indicates that there are over 100,000 game and entertainment titles in the App Store and, in an effort to further iOS as a game platform, Game Center has been expanded include user photos, achievement points, access to friends of friends, friend recommendations, game recommendations from Apple, and game downloads direct to Game Center. A framework for handling the behind-the-scenes back-and-forth needed by turn-based games has been provided as well, to eliminate the need for developers of such titles to handle everything on their own.
It was noted that in just nine months, there are 50 million Game Center users, while Xbox Live currently has about 30 million users after nine years of up-time, as a comparison.
10. iMessage lets iPad users get in on iPhone-style Message app texting. It's 3G and WiFi based, supports rich media, and works on the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. The system includes optional delivery and read receipts with messages pushed to all of your devices.
It was also mentioned that iOS 5 will support wireless mirroring of an iPad 2 screen to an Apple TV display, WiFi-based syncing with iTunes, and will bring all of the resources of Mac OS X's Core Image subsystem to iOS developers.
iCloud
The third piece of today's keynote puzzle is iCloud, Apple's long-rumored online data storage / retrieval system that's designed to make life much simpler for users of all Apple devices.
"Some people think a cloud is just a hard disk in the sky," Steve told the crowd. "We think it's way more than that." iCloud stores content (think contacts, calendar, photos, music), with wireless push to all devices. But the kicker is, it's completely integrated with apps. Everything happens automatically, invisibly. "It just works."
iCloud replaces MobileMe and its core apps -- Contact, Mail, Calendar -- with completely rewritten version made to store data remotely and sync it with all Apple devices, Mac OS X or iOS-based. But those are just three of the nine total apps that make up the iCloud system. The App Store app has been updated to show your full purchase history from any device, with a download from cloud button that allows such apps to be redownloaded on different devices without any additional charge. Moving forward, any app purchased on any device gets pushed out to all other iOS devices. The iBooks app now works in the same fashion, as well.
A Backup application wirelessly backs up all data on an iOS device to the cloud via WiFi -- user data, camera roll photos, videos, books, apps, and music. If you purchase a new iPhone to replace an old, all data from the old device will sync down to the new unit.
Documents in the Cloud is Apple's solution to the complex and unnecessary nature of the filesystem on modern systems. As Jobs indicated, it "completes the iOS document storage story." This component of the iCould system allows applications to manage their own documents, syncing them to the cloud and down to all other devices. Support for Documents in the Cloud is already present in the latest versions of Pages, Numbers and Keynote. iCloud developer APIs are forthcoming that will allow storage of full documents as well as simple key value data. Documents in the Cloud supports all iOS devices, Macs, and PCs, too.
Photo Stream brings photos to the cloud. Take a photo on any iOS device or import a photo into iTunes on a Mac and it is automatically moved to the cloud and synced with all other Apple devices, and the Pictures folder on Windows PCs. This allows viewing of your Photo Stream on any iOS device -- including the Apple TV -- or Mac or PC. Photo Stream photos are all stored permanently on Macs and PCs, with the most recent 1,000 stored on iOS devices. Photos will be stored in the cloud for 30 days, long enough for them to make their way to all of your connected devices.
iTunes in the Cloud brings easy syncing of your music across all devices. Any previously purchased music can be downloaded without additional cost on any Mac, PC, or iOS device. Any future music purchase automatically gets pushed out to all connected devices. For music not purchased through iTunes, but ripped from CD or gathered elsewhere, the iTunes Match service will scan your library and allow you to download tracks that are found, at 256 Kbit AAC quality. Any tracks that were not matched can be uploaded to the cloud for access from any device. The cost for maintaining iTunes Match titles in your iCloud library is $24.99 per year.
MobileMe, which was a $99 per year, subscription service is now dead. iCloud replaces it as a free service that provides all of the aforementioned along with a me.com email address and 5GB of document storage, not counting photos, videos, music, apps, or books.
Developers can download a beta of iOS 5 with iCloud support today, and the system will roll out publicly in the fall.
Apple has placed a video of this morning's complete keynote event online.
Next week is going to be insane. WWDC. and E3 are both taking place at the same time. If you're a gamer, there's going to be so much news to take in next week that it might take two weeks to read it all.
If you're a developer, there are two ways you can contact me to set up a meeting at either event if you haven't already:
Solve this CAPTCHA to get my Google Talk name (which is also my email address, hence the anti-spam captcha) and shoot me an instant message. I'll be around all day and most of the weekend, and able to get you booked into a meeting slot and collect all pertinent pieces of contact information very quickly.
Send an email to tips@toucharcade.com with either "E3 2011 Meeting" or "WWDC 2011 Meeting" in the subject line so I can filter your message properly. Include what days you're going to be at the event in question, contact info, and anything else you feel is relevant to booking a meeting with us.
Scheduling meetings via IM is highly preferable, since I don't need to play email tag! I can't wait to see everyone next week, and while I'm sure that covering two major gaming events in one week will make all of our collective hairs just a little more grey, it will be worth it.
This morning Apple announced plans for the WWDC keynote which will take place this coming Monday June 6th. As usual, details are vague and the inevitable "one more thing" is veiled in secrecy, but here's what they've said so far:
Apple CEO Steve Jobs and a team of Apple executives will kick off the company's annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) with a keynote address on Monday, June 6 at 10:00 a.m. At the keynote, Apple will unveil its next generation software - Lion, the eighth major release of Mac OS X; iOS 5, the next version of Apples advanced mobile operating system which powers the iPad, iPhone and iPod touch; and iCloud, Apple's upcoming cloud services offering.
I'm anxious to see what iOS 5 and iCloud bring to iOS gaming. We likely won't know any details until the keynote itself, but I'm hoping for either an updated (or greatly refined) version of Game Center. Also, it would be super-sweet if iCloud functionality included some kind of cloud-based save game syncing across iOS devices.
The game puts you in control of the turrets of a Lockheed AC-130 heavily-armored ground attack gunship. But, it's not merely enemy troops you're trying to wipe out. It's zombies. Hordes of zombies. And gigantic, hard-to-kill boss zombies. (It's grizzly.)
While we were gathered, we also spent some time with Nuts! [App Store], Limbic's new climb-and-dodge title that launched on May 23rd and jumped high in the paid rankings shortly thereafter. The game challenges you, a squirrel, to make it as high as possible up a frustratingly branchy tree in an effort to gain ranking on the leaderboards. There are several different tree environments or stats (normal, icy, ashy, etc.). It's a fun little title that kept me well entertained on the late-night flight back home.
