TouchArcade.ru

I recently had the chance to visit the Telltale Games San Rafael studio and spend some time with their upcoming story-based puzzle game Puzzle Agent. In the game, you'll play the role of Nelson Tethers, the country's preeminent (and only) agent of the FBI Puzzle Research Division. An incident at the eraser factory in Scoggins, Minnesota has brought production of erasers to a halt. Since this particular factory supplies erasers to the White House, the foundations of democracy hang in the balance until they are able to replenish their supply. All inquiries about the factory's closing have resulted in responses in the form of puzzles, so Nelson is sent to investigate the incident and unearths a twisted tale of what's really happening in Scoggins, Minnesota.

The art style in Puzzle Agent is directly inspired by the work of Graham Annable, who is responsible for creating the Grickle comics and animated shorts (which can be seen at his YouTube channel). Puzzle Agent isn't exactly a Grickle video game, but it does use the same type of characters, animation, and dark humor that the series is known for. Telltale Games producer and designer of Puzzle Agent Mark Darin engrossed himself in the world of Grickle before writing the story for the game, and Graham did the storyboards for characters and locations. For fans of Grickle, it's very much a Grickle game, but is not directly branded as such and doesn't require any previous knowledge of that series to enjoy the minimalist style and twisted sense of humor in Puzzle Agent.

Puzzle Agent can be compared to games like Professor Layton or The Jim and Frank Mysteries in that you're on an adventure and must use solving puzzles to unravel the story and progress through the game, but it makes some smart changes to the formula that sets it apart from similar games. Most notable is that all of the dialogue in the game is voiced, which gives the characters a ton of personality that couldn't be conveyed through text alone. Also, whereas adventure games are traditionally set against 2D backgrounds, Puzzle Agent renders the backgrounds in 3D. The game still has that 2D animated look that it sets out to achieve, but the 3D backgrounds allow for more dramatic camera movements and transitions between scenes.

Another smart design choice is in the way you interact with the environments. Tapping on the screen causes a ring to emanate from the point where you touch, and if there is anything interactive within that radius a small icon will show up. This allows you to inspect large areas without scouring every inch of the screen, or as Mark Darin calls it, “pixel hunting”. As someone who hates to miss anything in an adventure game, and who tirelessly hunt-and-pecked for every coin in Professor Layton, I really appreciate this mechanic. Despite being a multiplatform release, Mark has said that Puzzle Agent was designed from the onset with touch interface in mind, and it really shows.

Puzzle Agent was released for Mac and PC last month, but is shaping up very nicely for its iPhone and iPad release. It looks and plays like a dream on the iPad, and even makes the transition to the smaller screen of the iPhone rather well. Some textures need to be cleaned up a bit on the iPhone version due to being shrunk down to a smaller size, but overall both versions are nearly complete. Telltale expects to be submitting any day now, and hopes to have the game released before the end of August, although that can largely depend on Apple's approval length.

After trying out the game at their offices, I picked up the game for my Mac and have been enjoying it a lot so far. If you're as impatient as I am, you can get Puzzle Agent right now from the Telltale Games webstore or pick it up on Steam. Otherwise be on the lookout for Puzzle Agent on your iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch in the next couple of weeks and expect a full review then as well.

[source]

Glu Mobile's latest foray into the App Store is a cheeky physics puzzler featuring what is essentially, traditional pinball mechanics à la Peggle. What Escape from Nom [App Store] does differently though, is that it supplements its standard levels with a comprehensive level editor and allows your creations to be shared online — but with a few deal-breaking catches.

The core gameplay in Escape from Nom involves getting Alan, a colored blob at the top of the screen, to the pool of colored goop at the bottom. Key to this endeavor is that Alan must be the same color as the goop when he touches it (or the level fails), and he has to avoid being eaten by the evil Noms along the way. To help Alan are a number of tools either fixed on the level already, or able to be dragged onto the level from your expandable toolbox at your discretion.

Continuing the pinball theme, bumpers, paddles, shunters and teleporters make up the range of tools at your disposal; each gradually unlocked as you progress through the game's paltry 30 levels (with a further 20 levels and the teleporter tool purchasable In-App for $1.99). Taking a leaf from Peggle's book, Escape from Nom also allows you to fine-tune where Alan is dropped through a scroll wheel at the bottom of the screen. In this way you can set up your drops precisely (aided with the help of a double-tap zoom feature) and line Alan up perfectly– a necessary feat for some of the more complex levels.

Compounding the difficulty are the Noms themselves, large creatures that can be static or motionary, but are always hungry. The only way that Alan can get by them is by either avoiding them entirely, or by touching a bumper of the same color as the target Nom– changing Alan's color and enabling Alan to pass through the Nom without harm. The need for particular colors, precision bounces, avoiding obstacles and eventually Portal-esque teleporting, equates to a routine of trial and error gameplay as you experiment to achieve the desired outcome. The colorful graphics and catchy jingles in Escape from Nom all serve to add to that fun-factor.

Unfortunately what wasn't as fun were the in-app ads that pervaded each level's loading and result screens. From my understanding these iAds will only presently show up for U.S. users, so whilst not all users will experience them, for those that do they are an eyesore that I'm certainly not happy about in an app already paid for. That doesn't appear to be the worst of it, though.

Possibly Escape from Nom's most exciting feature was the level editor; a simple but powerful tool that enables users to fully re-create any of the included mission packs. It's easy to use and testing and saving your levels is a breeze, though uploading them does require Facebook. So why Glu Mobile chose to further monetize their most anticipated feature is beyond us– yes, you have to pay to download other users' creations. For $0.99 you are given 30 credits, which allows you to download 30 levels that others have made. And there is no way to preview each level either. After purchasing a level, it can be rated and recommended to other users, but the simple fact that you are largely in the dark about your purchase is still unnerving.

Ultimately, what Escape from Nom amounts to is a baffling corporate experiment that has tarnished an otherwise fun action puzzler. Beyond the initial purchase price, asking users to swallow pervasive iAd in-game advertising, an initial level offering that can be finished in an hour or so, a further 20 level expansion pack for $1.99 and then still charging them for user-created levels seems absurd.

Note: To add insult to injury, the game has dropped to Free from $2.99 for the day, successfully pissing off early adopters who paid full price in that early launch window.

(In-App Level Purchases, In-App Advertising and Paid User-Creations)

[source]

Late last year Gamevil's action adventure RPG Hybrid: Eternal Whisper [$2.99 / Free] hit the App Store, offering an extensive skill upgrading system along attacks that change depending on how your character is gripping their sword. The original Hybrid was well received on our forums, with many fans of the Zenonia series enjoying the shift to an even more action-oriented gameplay model.

Hybrid 2: Saga of Nostalgia is in the final stages of beta testing which has been conducted in part on our forums and if all goes as planned, Gamevil plans on submitting the game to Apple towards the end of the month. In the meantime, they've released the following teaser trailer which includes a bit of gameplay towards the end:

We'll post more when we get our hands on the game, but if you enjoyed the first, look forward to Hybrid 2 arriving sometime this September.

[source]

In May of last year we first took a look at DifferentCloth's Lilt Line [$2.99], a well received rhythm game with a great soundtrack. Lilt Line was a little on the simple side, but the overall experience of the game was really cool as the tilt and tap based gameplay was paired really well with the music. Earlier today Helicoid was announced, which looks to be a somewhat similar music-based game only this time it's based on tilting your phone around to advance through a spiral.

It's hard to make out how much fun the game will be from the video alone, but I expect it to be a bit like Lilt Line in that it won't really make sense until you've got the game in your hands. Helicoid was submitted to the App Store yesterday, and DifferentCloth expects it to be released sometime next week. For more details, check out the thread in our forums or the Helicoid web site.

[source]

Last year, the Paramount licensed and Freeverse developed Top Gun [$1.99] was released on the App Store. It featured fighter jet action that loosely continued the story of the 1986 movie and brought some advancements to iPhone gaming that were noteworthy at the time, not to mention some awesome easter eggs. The first Top Gun was well received by players, and now Freeverse is set to bring out the sequel Top Gun 2. They have sent over some exclusive screenshots as well as some additional information about the game.

According to information from Senior Producer at Freeverse Bruce Morrison, Top Gun 2 will be a more streamlined experience than the first. You'll be able to start the game and jump into air combat quickly, and it will support the fast app switching of iOS4. As Bruce puts it, “we cut out the stuff that got in the way in the first game, and let players focus on what they really want to do: blow up enemy jets, tanks and helicopters, and look cool doing it.” He also notes that Top Gun 2 draws inspiration from some old-school arcade titles like R-Type and Galaga in regards to the behavior of enemies in the game, and will reward players able to react to and recognize enemy patterns.

Top Gun 2 will focus on preventing a nuclear strike on America, and will feature the F-14 Tomcat which is a fan favorite amongst fighter jets. As an added bonus, if you check out Top Gun 2 via the in-game link from the original Top Gun, you can unlock a bonus jet to play in the first game.  The Top Gun 2 screenshots look good, and it should be an improvement over the first title. The game is set to release this Thursday the 19th, so it won't be long at all before we're able to get our hands on the full game. We'll take a closer look at Top Gun 2 when it becomes available.

[source]

Whether or not you remember it or were even aware of it, earlier this summer Sony launched a fairly silly ad campaign starring Marcus, a sassy kid who has had it up to here with games like Paper Toss [Free] for the iPhone. Sony released a few other videos starring Marcus as part of the "Step Your Game Up" campaign, but this was the video that started it all:

The basis of the video seems to be that Marcus is outraged that on the App Store you're charged for a "fake version of a real game" despite the fact that Paper Toss, the game shown in the video, always has been and likely always will be free. After the initial surge of Marcus videos, the ad campaign seemed to die off, until this week when Sony released their next video:

The latest video highlights Sony's PlayStation Network "$9.99 Favorites" section with five year old games like Twisted Metal: Head On and Hot Shots Golf: Open Tee. What they neglect to mention in this recent video is that new PSP games, such as Madden 11 which is available on the App Store for $7.99 sell for just as much as their physical media counterparts at $39.99. They also leave out the fact that if you own a PSP Go and are limited to downloaded games only, you will often need to wait for games to be released on the PlayStation Network after they're released in stores, and sometimes they're not even released for download at all.

Then if you add in Sony's requirements of needing to be running the latest system software which can take hours to download and install to even browse the PlayStation Network store or that when you're downloading a multi-gigabyte game on your PSP you can't do anything with the system but wait for it to finish… I could go on and on. It should be interesting to see what Sony's next move will be, as declining PSP sales along with the failure of the PSP Go seems to be driving them to desperate measures to try to regain a foothold on the mobile gaming market.

[source]