Archive for January 18th, 2012
‘Cytus’ Review – Beauty In Simplicity
When I play a music game, the most important things I’m looking for are good music and approachable gameplay. Cytus [$0.99] by Rayark manages to nail both of those and even adds a little bit of visual flair on top of it. While Cytus does have a few small issues and miscues in regards to a few elements, it’s still great to play and is a worthy addition to the iOS rhythm genre.
Cytus plays similarly to – note bubbles appear on your screen and must be tapped to the rhythm of the song. An ‘Active Scan Line’ moves up and down the screen to the beat of the song and helps you time the hits on each note. In addition to normal notes, the game also features holds and slides which add some variety to the gameplay. Hits are scored on a system ranging from ‘Perfect’ to ‘Bad’ with a final ranking at song completion dependent on the length of your hit chain and the amount perfect hits.
As you can imagine, the gameplay is pretty simple, but well executed. While the note positioning is mostly done well, there were a few songs where the notes seemed slightly off or not in tune with either the beat or off-beat. There weren’t too many instances of this, but it was still annoying nonetheless.
Where Cytus really shines is in its music selection and presentation. Song-wise, players can choose from 15 songs ranging from J-Pop to Techno with a little bit of Synthpop thrown into the mix. The song selection is very much -inspired and should sound familiar to anyone that has played those types of games before.
While I imagine some gamers may immediately scoff at the music genres I just listed, I’d plead with you to give it a chance. One of the things I loved about each song in Cytus is the approachability regardless of whether you’re a fan of that sort of music. It’s not very often that I play through a music game and I pretty much like every single song that’s thrown at me, which should speak volumes of the care put into the selection in this game. Just make sure you play with some headphones in order to do the music justice.
The overall presentation, meanwhile, is one of the more striking aspects of Cytus. Everything has a very clean, minimalistic feel accompanied with some beautiful artwork. It’s hard to explain what in particular is so appealing – maybe it’s because the whole game looks like a modern Final Fantasy-menu. Also included is Game Center support as well as social network integration. There were a few instances where the interface was a little too bare (for example, the tutorial fails to explain the various pop-up mode options), but otherwise I came away impressed.
While Cytus gets a lot of things right, there are a few elements missing that are typically standard in most music games. For example, there’s no ‘life meter’ in Cytus, meaning that you could just simply launch a song, not do anything and still see the level through (technically, you ‘Fail’ the level, but you don’t know until after the song ends). Granted, you actually have to get a ranking higher than the minimum in order to unlock the ‘Hard’ difficulty and new songs, but some of the fun with music games is working under the pressure of an all-powerful meter judging your performance (or maybe I’m just a masochist).
Another weakness in Cytus is in regards to the hit detection. Basically, the hit window is relatively loose, meaning that you have a wide margin of error between what is considered a ‘Perfect’ tap and what is considered merely a ‘Good’ hit (or between ‘Good’ and ‘Bad’ for that matter). While some folks wouldn’t necessarily consider this a bad thing it does decrease the overall challenge, particularly for those of us that are veterans of music games that were rather unforgiving.
Despite these omissions, Cytus still does a great job executing the features it does have. Considering its relative minimalism, I think Cytus is a good title for gamers looking to get into the music genre on iOS devices. I would have liked to have seen more songs, but I’m hoping the developers will add more in the future. Regardless, with a great selection of music, simple but well-executed gameplay, and a good, clean overall presentation, Cytus is well worth a recommendation for anyone interested in rhythm games.
TouchArcade Rating: 
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‘Adventure Bar Story’ Coming To iPhone In February
Adventure Bar Story, a -like RPG that originally released in Japan as Adventure Bar of Wonderland Portable on PSP, is being localized and fitted for iPhone and iPod Touch. , the studio behind this new effort, revealed its intentions to do this , and even dropped a few new screenshots to stimulate the community. We’re including a much less, er, eye-melting below.
Knock out the “item” part of Recettear’s title and insert “bar” if you want a decent idea of what you’ll be getting into with Adventure Bar Story. The goal is to have the best bar in the kingdom; To accomplish this, you’ll need to dungeon crawl and harvest the component parts of a variety of monsters to win cooking and drink contests. You know, just like in real life.
As of right now, the title is not slated to incorporate iPad support. That’ll be a thing the studio evaluates based on sales. Pricing, by the way, has yet to be confirmed.
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‘Justin Smith’s Realistic Summer Sports Simulator’ Gets More Realistic in Latest Update
Last month, Enviro-Bear 2010 creator Justin Smith released his latest iOS endeavor called Justin Smith’s Realistic Summer Sports Simulator [Free], or JSRSSS to lazy people like myself. Summer Sports Simulator was like a twisted take on an old Atari 2600 track and field title, with a bunch of Olympic-style events to partake in by awkwardly flinging your athletes through them. There was something strangely compelling about JSRSSS with its quirky gameplay and charm, and the mini-game nature of the events made it a perfect go-to title when I’m looking for a quick fix of fun.
Despite really liking Summer Sports Simulator, there were a few minor issues that detracted from the experience. With the game’s first update, these have basically been taken care of. The most glaring problem with the initial release was that it lacked any sort of online high score tracking, which seemed like a big omission for such a high score-centric game like this. To rectify this, Game Center has been added with leaderboards for every event as well as a leaderboard for most gold medals earned during one play through. I’ve been having a ton of fun trading spots on the leaderboards with friends in JSRSSS.
The next major addition is a brand new event, the kayak slalom, and then the rest of the update consists of smaller tweaks and fixes. Controls have been improved on the iPhone, the AI has been balanced, and that weird cat that seemed to be stuck on the title screen has been fixed. Also, you can now choose from a list of actual flags and countries, rather than the weird mashup countries from the original release. See? I told you it got more realistic in this update, though I was pretty partial to the silly country names from before. Finally, you can turn on a “turbo” mode from the help screen at the main menu, which makes the entire game run at double speed. This makes an already difficult game that much more so, but it is kind of a fun feature to check out.
Another big change for Summer Sports Simulator is that the initial game is now free. Previously, it cost 99¢ which gave you 4 events and the option to unlock an additional 10 events with a $1.99 in-app purchase. It’s something that we took issue with in our review, not so much because the game wasn’t worth the money but more because it just seemed confusing and possibly off-putting for those who were thinking they were getting the whole game for their initial $.99 purchase. Now, the game basically functions as a free demo with five events and the remaining 10 still available from within the game for $1.99.
Justin Smith’s Realistic Summer Sports Simulator is the type of game that won’t be for everyone. Now that the barrier of entry has been lowered to free, there’s no reason not to give it a spin. It’s a really fun game made even better with this latest update, especially Game Center integration.
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‘Q.U.B.E.’ Might Hit iOS Someday
The ’s first release, , is also its first success story: after just a few days on PC download, the first-person puzzle game has generated enough dough to from the Fund. Now, Toxic Games is looking to launch the title on other platforms, including iOS. “We’re currently prototyping an iOS version, and a Mac version has been in the works for months now,” a studio representative told .
Q.U.B.E. is a fascinating puzzler that has you, as a telekinesis-wielding dude, rotating and generally fiddling with the size and shape of colored blocks in sterile rooms. It’s a style of game that we don’t really have on iOS, so we’re stoked about the possibility and excited about what it could open up on the platform it ever does see a release. This isn’t exactly a match-three, you know?
[Via ]
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‘Caylus’ Review – Play Tom Builder, But Prepare to Play Alone
Caylus [$4.99] is an outstanding game, consistently ranking in top 10. It plays like Ken Follett’s The Pillars of the Earth as you take on the role of a master builder tasked with winning the favor of a ruler and building something great. Your world revolves around struggles for resources, money, favor and opportunity. , the folks behind Neuroshima Hex [$4.99 / Lite], have put together an equally outstanding port – as long as you’re prepared to play locally.
It’s becoming a bit of a running joke that Big Daddy’s Creations puts out great board game ports with shoddy (or no) multiplayer, and Caylus is no exception. You can’t play over Game Center, you can’t invite friends, and trying to play asynchronously will extend the game length to near-infinite. But if you’re down with fighting AI or playing locally against friends, this is a must-buy for any board game fan.
Here’s how a typical game of Caylus goes: there is a castle, there are buildings, there is a road. Each players has six workers, and takes turns each round placing them in the various buildings. The provost and bailiff (essentially progress markers) make their way down the road at the end of each round and each worker gets his due. Some buildings provide resources, others provide gold or change the turn order, and some let you trade your resources around.
The ultimate goal is to build up more favor from France’s King Philip the Fair than any of your competition. The king is generous with favor in a ‘you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours’ sort of way. If you use your resources to help build up his castle, he’ll bestow favor upon you – especially if you’re the most productive builder of the round. If you collect resources, you can turn them in at the end of the game for more favor. Building monuments, shops and landmarks like churches will make you very popular, and sometimes you can ship off extra money or resources to earn a little extra mid-game. Though I wouldn’t say Caylus is incredibly strategically deep, these methods of building up points give players a few different tactics to use to defeat their foes.
Going deeper, there are a number of rules and strategies that can affect your success in a big way. For example, each worker you place costs you money. Generally, the further along the road you place a worker, the better the reward. If the provost hasn’t passed the building he’s in, though, it won’t be counted in the round’s final tally. You can pay the provost to move him back toward the castle or further along the road – but so can everyone else. So sending a worker to a far out shop can be a massive risk, especially if you’ve already earmarked unearned resources to help build the castle at the round’s end.
There are five different resources to manage and a huge list of buildings to erect. There are also a slew of conditional rules to keep track of. So here’s where I applaud Big Daddy’s Creations the most: Caylus’s tutorial is outstanding. With the tutorial messages on through my first playthrough, I figured out maybe three quarters of the game. After one more match to polish up on the details I understood nearly everything. I’m still working on strategy, but such a thorough and straightforward introduction is pretty impressive for a game with Caylus’s complexity.
I’ve run into one or two cases that weren’t explained by anything in the rules, and it’s possible they were bugs. A couple crash bugs have been found, as has a miscommunication with Apple about translations (the game is only available in English but lists several other languages in its App Store listing). Big Daddy’s Creations has covered their plans to solve these problems in a already, so I’m confident any other issues that crop up should be handled in a timely fashion.
Otherwise, the big sticking point is multiplayer. Caylus is universal, so you can play with friends on an iPad or pass-and-play on smaller devices. But online play should be a big part of the game, and playing with random unranked strangers that you can’t chat with takes a lot of the fun out of it. Also, you really have to poke around the interface to quit a game once it’s done, or to leave one for another part way. The interface is mostly extremely usable, but that’s an unintuitive task. And there’s a serious lack of stat tracking.
But for pure entertainment dollar by dollar, I’ll take Caylus over most board games in the App Store. It’s an obscenely good game, which makes its flaws all the more frustrating. If you also want to gripe about that, there’s support to be found in our . Me? I’ve said my piece, so now I can go back to playing. It will take more than awkward multiplayer to keep me from having this much fun.
TouchArcade Rating: 
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Jeff Minter’s Llamasoft Releases ‘Caverns of Minos’ to the App Store
Video gaming icon and goat enthusiast Jeff Minter has just pushed out the latest offering from his development studio , called Caverns of Minos [$1.99], which has just gone live in the App Store. Caverns of Minos offers a similar brand of retro-inspired gameplay and psychedelic visuals, and, just in case you were worried, a hefty dose of minotaur rescuing.
Caverns of Minos is a mishmash of genres – part cave flyer similar to Lunar Lander, part rescue game sort of like Choplifter, and part vertical shmup like… well, about a million games since the dawn of time. Its biggest influence was an old Atari title called Caverns of Mars, which should be immediately apparent to those familiar with that game. Caverns of Minos boasts 4 different ships to pilot as well as 21 different caverns to explore and complete. You’re tasked with rescuing minotaurs as you explore each cavern looking for a special item which must then be delivered back to the mothership. Yep, this game has that great Jeff Minter craziness we all know and love.
Check out this developer gameplay video which shows Caverns of Minos being played on the iPad, and then about halfway through demonstrates its iCade compatibility:
Our resident retro expert and Minterologist Blake Patterson has already spent extensive time with Caverns of Minos, and the consensus seems to be that “the game is great.” We’ll be taking some time to write up a proper review beyond just those four words in the very near future, so definitely keep your eyes peeled for that. However, if you’re a fan of Llamasoft’s previous App Store offerings, or just a fan of retro-style arcade games in general, then it’s probably a pretty safe bet to just go ahead and pick up Caverns of Minos, and you can always head into our forums for even more on the game.
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‘Scribblenauts Remix’ DLC Hits, Adds 20 More Levels
Pound through Scribblenauts Remix [$1.99] on launch night? Now there’s good reason to give it another go. Warner Brothers has just announced the availability of the game’s first bit of DLC. It’s a pack that adds a total of 20 new levels split into two chapters and an additional fantasy-themed playground complete with a king and a throne.
The price is pretty agreeable: is looking for $.99 in return for some more fun in the oddly entertaining and incredibly inspired puzzle game. We’ve spent a few minutes with the new content, by the way, and we’re pretty sure you’ll dig the new missions. Check out screens of a few just below:
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