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Raising Big Poppa Pump hasn’t been easy. He gets hungry at weird times and doesn’t sleep through the night. He also isn’t the cleanest pocket monster I’ve ever owned. But I have a feeling that all this time spent grooming, teaching, and playing with him will lead to something truly rewarding. I’m talking about evolution, man — an incredible change that takes place because I’ve proved that I’m an awesome owner.

Big Poppa Pump is my little monster dude in Hatchi, Portable Pixel’s game for those of us who remember the Tamagotchi so fondly. The two games — and I use that loosely — are pretty similar. You hatch an egg that contains a monster, and then that monster becomes your digital pet. As an owner, you’ll be responsible for feeding, cleaning, entertaining and even applying first-aid to the little one.

Functionally, this is all really simple to do. If your monster’s “smarts” bar is low, and his energy is high enough for an activity, you click the book button to raise it. If his “hygiene” is low, you hit the baby button to give it a bath. If his energy is low, or if you just want a break, you can hit the lights and that puts him to sleep.

The sleep mechanic rolls in a little save state trickery, by the way. When you put a Hatchi down and exit out of the app, upon returning you’ll notice a slight visual hitch and then magically see the energy bar fill according to the amount of time he’s been doing the bed thing. My experience with this varies; sometimes Big Poppa Pump needs hours of rest, sometimes just dozens of minutes.

Most of my day with Big Poppa Pump isn’t spent doing anything thrilling, complex or even all that fun, which is why I hesitate to call this a game-game. In the mornings, I wake him up and grind until his needs are all completely met. I continue to do this through the afternoon until he gets too tired and needs that big nap. At night, I try to tire him out so he doesn’t wake up angry, unclean, and unsatisfied at 2AM.

My greatest fear as an owner is that he’ll die in the night, which is something that can happen. “Yes, it can die if you don’t look after it,” Portable Pixels tells us. “It will get sick first and you can use the first aid to cure Hatchi.”

It’s hilarious, but I really, really, really don’t want Big Poppa Pump to bite the dust. I’ve somehow bonded with the thing, as silly as that sounds, and the competitive part of my brain wants to see an evolution based on my meticulous play.

Big Poppa Pump isn’t evolving as fast as I’d want it to for our preview coverage, so I asked Playable Pixels how it works. “You’ll need to feed, clean, play with and generally look after your pet to ensure it grows up,” it tells us. “[Pets have] several different forms they can evolve into depending on how you look after them.”

That’s as much detail as we’re getting at the moment, but as you’ll see in the article, there are some pretty hip forms. Big Poppa Pump is getting a lot more exercise than he needs, so here’s to hoping that he evolves into a gigantic muscle monster.

That’s the experience as it stands now — train, wait, train, wait some more, and then receive some sort of evolution. In the future, though, Playable Pixels hopes to add a lot more content, including a social component, if sales are good.

“Initially its a retro theme, but we’ve had lots of ideas about bringing it into the mobile era. Taking him on day trips for example, or socializing with your friends Hatchis,” it tells us.

“One of our beta testers said she would give her left arm for a graveyard for all her past Hatchi’s, and one of our developers wants a defibrillator. Its really a side project inspired by a reddit post back in September.”

Portable Pixels says its been “fairly overwhelmed by the response” so far. In an effort to keep up with it, its set up an e-mail address for people to be notified when the game is hitting and for feedback purposes. That address, if you’d like to get in on this, is: hatchi@portablepixels.com.

Currently, the game is on track for a January 15th release at $.99 for iPhone and iPod Touch. A Universal version isn’t slated to happen yet, but it could if “the need is great enough.”

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Surprise! Infinity Blade has made a lot of money. The other afternoon, Epic Games announced that, overall, the franchise has earned $30 million since the debut of the original Infinity Blade [$5.99] in December 2010. An astounding $5 million of that comes from the earnings of Infinity Blade 2 [$6.99], which released November 30th, 2011. A month or so ago.

Here’s some boilerplate for your eyeholes:

“The success of the Infinity Blade franchise is testament to our talented team who is devoted to making games we want to play, all while using Unreal Engine technology to redefine what is expected from games on iOS devices,” Epic Games President Dr. Michael Capps says in a statement. “We have so much more in store for players, and will continue to make great content for Apple’s evolving platforms.”

The thing to take away from this isn’t exactly “wow, that’s a lot of money.” Nah, it’s that big-budget, AAA-quality releases on the App Store can make money. Not everything needs to be $.99 and require a razor-thin development budget to see ridiculous returns. Also, there’s a significant audience out there who wants to play great, deep games with superb visuals — and for us, that’s the most heartening news.

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Super Crate Box [99¢] finally launched yesterday to a fairly rousing reception. I caught tons of people praising the game all over the Twitters, in our forums, and probably in other social outlets that I’m not even cool enough to know about yet. With no other big releases this week, Super Crate Box has been the talk of the town for the past 24 hours or so, and has in turn been shooting right up the paid app charts, currently sitting just inside the top 40 overall.

But another clever way to see just how many people are engrossed in Super Crate Box is by the “total crates collected” counter on the main menu. Basically, it tallies up the number of crates that have been collected across all players on iOS, or at least the ones that have connected to the internet, since the game’s release. At the onset, developer Vlambeer had said on their blog that if players could grow the total crates collected tally up to 5 million then they would release the first content update for Super Crate Box.

It’s kind of a neat incentive, since we’ve all grown so accustomed to free content updates and most of the time just blindly expect to receive them. True, free updates are one of the coolest aspects about App Store gaming, but I don’t have a problem with having to work for it a bit in Super Crate Box, especially when the “work” is so much fun. Plus, as the counter continues to rise, it gives a pretty good indication that people are still actively playing your game, and that any time or effort you spend on making a content update will be justified.

However, I don’t think even Vlambeer expected that Super Crate Box would be so popular right off the bat. It’s been just over 24 hours since the game has been available and the total crates collected has already surged past the 3 million mark. At this rate, we should be hitting 5 million even before most of us get off work to start the weekend. It really is quite remarkable.

Vlambeer isn’t being very forthcoming with exactly what it is that will be in the 5 million crates update, but so far all requests I’ve been hearing have been for new arenas, new characters, and new weapons. So basically, more of everything. I can’t wait to see what makes it into the first major update.

On a similar note, the game unfortunately launched with a bug that caused it to crash on 3GS devices running certain versions of iOS, and already an update has been released that rectifies this. I’m glad to know that serious game crashing bugs don’t need to wait around for the 5 million crate mark, and am really impressed with Vlambeer’s quick turnaround with that issue. We’ll keep on contributing crates to the grand total on the way to 5 million and the first content update, and you can check discussion on Super Crate Box in our forums until we collectively hit that mark.

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In some ways, platformers are the toughest to make on a mobile platform. There’s always questions regarding the length and difficulty of individual levels, as well as whether the developer can successfully implement a control scheme to make the game accessible enough for level completion and item collection. Crazy Hedgy [$1.99] from Cybertime is a great example of how platformers should be done on iOS. Not only does it get the basics (like gameplay and replayability) right, but the tilt-based control scheme works very well with the rest of the game. Assuming you don’t mind tilt controls, Crazy Hedgy is well worth it and highly recommended.

At its core, Crazy Hedgy is an adventure-platformer that has you playing through a large amount of levels with the primary goal being to get to the end. There’s not much of a story to go on, other than the fact that the land of Green Hedges has changed (and not for the better) and you need to save it. Along the way you’ll find various types of diamonds that can be collected and act as the currency to upgrade your character in the in-game store (IAP need no apply here). In addition, players are charged with collecting gold coins, which unlock the ability to purchase upgrades and are used as an artificial barrier between worlds (each world has about ten levels). In your way is a variety of different enemies and traps that you can either avoid or take on (extra points awarded if you can toss the enemies into those traps).

Crazy Hedgy does a great job with pacing, variety, and gameplay introductions. The gold coins and diamond currency act as natural progression tools towards allowing players to learn new and advanced moves as they get further into the game. In addition, Crazy Hedgy succeeds at preserving core gameplay while building upon it with new moves, different enemies and bosses. This is also reflected in the difficulty curve, which slowly introduces more and more complicated enemies and environments to the point while never making you feel overwhelmed. There’s nothing that ever pops out that confuses you or seems out of the ordinary; it’s relatively easy to use techniques you’ve learned in the past to get towards newer strategies in taking on what you’re encountered.

One minor complaint is that the game doesn’t really stress how important gold coins are – if you don’t collect enough of them in a world, you will get to a point where you’ll have to replay levels looking for them until you get enough to unlock the next set of levels. Granted, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing as it also gives you an opportunity to earn more diamonds and purchase new upgrades. It’s important to note that there is no IAP in Crazy Hedgy; if you want to progress, you’re going to have to play the game to collect enough gold coins and diamonds (what a concept!).

Controls in Crazy Hedgy are divided into two categories: movement and actions. Movement is exclusively controlled by the accelerometer, and is handled very well. I particularly liked the tilt sensitivity and the plentiful opportunities to calibrate your device. A sensitivity meter would have been nice in the options, but I think as it stands it should suffice for most folks. Occasional controls also pop up on the screen during set quick time events. While they don’t detract from the overall experience, they do feel tacked on and unnecessary.

Actions, meanwhile, or controlled by tapping on the left or right sides of the screen. The right controls jumping (double tap for a longer jump) while the left controls punching and attacking. Initial attacks are restricted to simple tap punches, but as you unlock new moves you can also swipe various ways to control your attacks on the baddies. Considering that the game requires quite a bit of precise jumping and aiming as well as fast reflexes (especially in later levels that have faux timers), I’m pleased that  the controls allow me to accomplish everything I need to succeed in Crazy Hedgy with very little distraction from the controls.

It’s rare to see a platformer on iOS that actually understands all the elements required to make it successful and, most importantly, fun. Crazy Hedgy gets it, and not only offers enough variety, great presentation, and replayability to keep you satisfied, but also offers enough compelling gameplay to simply keep you playing. Nice visuals and music, as well as a good control scheme don’t hurt as well. Folks that don’t like tilt-based games may be turned off by Crazy Hedgy’s control scheme, but I implore you to put those feelings aside and check this game out.

TouchArcade Rating:

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What makes iPad and iPhone cool is that they offer games the Xbox 360s and PSPs of the world straight-up can’t — they allow us to directly interact with games. Touch is an endlessly interesting way to play, and we see some of the most creative games in this space as a whole as a result of this control style.

Some studios, however, aren’t willing to rethink design and offer virtual buttons to compensate for the lack of a physical controller. There’s a lot of these kinds of guys out there, actually, which is probably why we’re seeing a mini-boom in the 3rd party controller market.

The hottest device right now is 60beat’s GamePad. Unlike many other controllers, it requires no technical voodoo. You simply just plug the male end of its luxuriously lengthy cord into your headphone jack, pick the controller in an in-game menu, and then get to work. It’s really that simple; I haven’t had a problem yet.

Big is the first thought that hit me when I picked it up, and it turned out that it was a hair too large for me. Remember the “Duke” Xbox controller? The GamePad is much smaller, but the issues it has because of its size are pretty similar. Both are inarguably useable devices, but they’re not the best designed out there.

To get more specific: this thing has huge wings that, to use comfortably, require me to ride up on the neck of the thick plastic and push my outer palms more towards my chest than I’m accustomed to when using a controller. It’s a weird angle — it’s like you’re squeezing, as opposed to relaxing.

A few minutes of play is a valid cure for the initial awkwardness, but the grip I have to use with this thing makes its ten buttons — four shoulders, four face, and two of those useless analog stick shoe-ins — harder to reach than I’d like. I’m also not able to get my hands comfortably perfectly square with the sticks, which is putting some english on my movements.

Speaking of buttons, I’m digging the feedback. There’s some meatiness to each and some ideal springiness to the shoulder buttons. The d-pad feels good, too, though I’m sure a purist could find something up with it.

The important thing is that, straight-up, the GamePad works. The response times seem just fine, everything is reasonably reachable, and it adds that real, meaningful layer of tactile feedback to the games. You’ll lose game audio unless you connect a pair of headphones to the splitter the device ships with, but this is a forgivable offense considering the technology at use here.

Also, it makes the games that use it currently — Bugdom 2 and Aftermath — much, much better.

In Bugdom, for example, the GamePad eliminates all the dirty UI elements and allows you to play much like you would any other 3D platforming game. It fleshes out the nuance of specific points of design. Like, for example, the hovering mechanic. Also, it gives you significantly more control over the character, which makes touch jumps easier.

The latter applies to Aftermath. With the GamePad, it’s much easier to move and do the things you want to do. Interestingly, the guys behind Aftermath tied camera controls to the face buttons, which caters to its run-and-gun, corridor style of play.

The GamePad might be bulkier than I’d like, but it gets the job done. The bonus here is that it obviously has an ability to make gameplay more potent. Developers will need to work with 60beat in order to get this controller in their games, though, so the future is as up in the air as our recommendation. If you start seeing a bunch of titles with compatibility, this might be something to spring on.

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