A few noteworthy games have just received a price reduction that are worth checking out. One is a puzzle game that features some incredible photorealistic graphics, one relies on simple stick figures and silhouettes, and the other provides hours of dungeon crawling action. They all have separate iPhone and iPad versions available for a low price, so no matter which device you own this particular sale should interest you.
Ancient Frog – A puzzle game where you must lead a frog to it’s meal, which is naturally a fly, by moving one leg at a time. There are droplets of water laid out before you that are the only spots to place his feet. Keeping in mind that the frog’s legs can only stretch so far, you must position him close enough to the fly to be able to eat it, using the least amount of moves as possible. The graphics were simply stunning at the time of release, which was well over a year ago, and still impress today. The graphics are incredibly lifelike, and the gameplay is both challenging and “zen-like” due to the game’s great atmosphere.
We liked the iPhone version when it was released, and developer Ancient Workshop completely reworked the game for the iPad specific release, taking advantage of the higher resolution and extra screen space. Both versions originally sell for $4.99 a piece, but they have since both been dropped to 99¢. There’s also a lite version to try, which I would recommend doing since the type of gameplay on offer may not appeal to everyone. But if you end up enjoying what’s in the lite, I highly suggest grabbing Ancient Frog during this sale.
Stick Golf – A simplistic game of 2D golf with a clean style and a brutal difficulty. There’s eight different nine hole courses, all with a unique theme and some crazy level designs. You’re given a side view of each hole and a small trajectory line emanates from the golf ball. To hit a shot you simply adjust the line using a pair of directional arrows, tap a shot button once to start a shot strength meter, and tap again to set the power of the shot. Using one finger you are able to pan around the level to plan out your next shot, and playing Stick Golf couldn’t be easier.
The real challenge of Stick Golf is the difficult design of the courses and the physics system. Plenty of times I’ve made an epic shot only to have my ball very slowly continue rolling right off of some sort of cliff and down into a deep chasm, which I’d then lose plenty of strokes trying to get out of. Still, it’s a fun game and easy to get sucked into playing for short or long bursts. I’m not sure why I had never noticed Stick Golf before, but with the price dropping down to free it was a no brainer to check it out, which I’m glad that I did. There’s also an iPad specific version available for 99¢, and either are worth taking a look at during this sale.
Underworlds Ultimate Edition – The iPad version of Underworlds [99¢ / Free], a hack and slash dungeon crawler we really enjoyed in our review. Since we first looked at the game, two additional chapters worth of content have been added and the iPad version makes great use of the extra screen real estate with things like your inventory popping up in small windows instead of being full screen on the iPhone which you can see in the following video:
If you own an iPad and have any interest in dungeon crawlers, you need to grab Underworlds Ultimate Edition, especially while it’s free. If you’ve got an iPhone or iPod touch, give the lite version of Underworlds a spin and consider upgrading to the full version which provides a surprising amount of content for its current price of 99¢.
