Last month developer Mountain Sheep released Ice Rage [99¢], a simple arcade title that looked like ice hockey but played a lot closer to a game of air hockey. It nailed the simple, fast-paced gameplay but fell a bit short in terms of content, offering just one-off quick play matches against the AI or a same-device multiplayer mode. Granted, the multiplayer mode was a stupid amount of fun, especially on the large screen of the iPad, but Ice Rage still lacked that single-player staying power.

Over the weekend, an update was released that looks to improve this situation with a new single-player Tournament Mode. Here you’ll take on the 9 opponents in the game one after the other, and their AI increases in difficulty as you progress. Make it through them without dying and you’ll square off against Skar, the new boss character you can see in the icon above. Also, a very simplistic stat upgrade system lets you increase your character’s speed, power, and technique with each subsequent win.

While the Tournament Mode is cool, it’s still pretty thin. Upgrading your player is fun, but only lasts for your current tournament. A persistent profile where you could continue leveling up your player over multiple tournaments would be a neat addition. Still, the new Tournament Mode is a welcome addition, and despite being a bit shallow there’s something about it that just keeps me coming back to play some more.

Beyond the Tournament Mode and new Skar character, this update also brings some improvements to the visuals, animation, physics, and menu UI. In other words, some pretty standard, but necessary, update type of stuff. It sounds like Mountain Sheep have even more plans for updating Ice Rage, and this latest update is a step in a good direction. Definitely worth checking out for some simple arcade fun, especially if you have an iPad and someone to play against.