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On this week’s episode of the TouchArcade Show, it’s a fascinatingly huge struggle to stay on topic. At the top, we discuss Paula Dean’s latest problem, why Eli is across the ocean, and several other things that are increasingly more offbeat. However, we do eventually dig into the world of iOS in order to bring you the latest, hottest, and best-est in iOS news and coverage. Games like Pocket League and Raid Leader, as well as Smash Cops all make an appearance, as well as a hearty discussion on buying habits and the Vita.

If you’d like to listen, go ahead and do so via the handy links below. Our favorite dudes subscribe to us on iTunes and Zune, though. Both are fantastic ways to get our episodes the very second they’re available on our feeds. Definitely consider it.

iTunes Link: The TouchArcade Show
Zune Marketplace: TouchArcade.com Podcasts
RSS Feed: The TouchArcade Show
Direct Link: TouchArcadeShow-035.mp3, 46MB

One note before our show notes: Eli’s going to be in Europe for a bit, but we expect that some of the issues from this week’s podcast (caused by horrible hotel WiFi) will be addressed by next week. You’ll catch some audio burping and stuff from time-to-time and we’re sorry about that.

GAMES

• Pocket League Story [$2.99]
• Raid Leader
• Helsing’s Fire [$.99 / HD / Lite]
• Geometry Wars Touch [$.99]
• Smash Cops [$2.99]

JARED’S KITTY KORNER

• Candy Ninja-Cat [$.99]

NEWS

• ‘Adventure Bar Story’ Coming to iOS
• TouchArcade At MacWorld
• Man Makes iCade NES Controller

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I’m a little out of touch with the Kindle and Facebook game world, so pardon me if you already know this: Triple Town [Free] is amazeballs. Yeah, that’s right. Amazeballs. It’s also freemium, so I’m not actually sure what you’re waiting for. Go download it.

You know how Dungeon Raid [$0.99] took the match-3 thing and made it completely soul-consuming? That’s exactly what TripleTown does. But for those of us not into gaming in our browsers or on our e-book readers, it’s brand spanking new, something Dungeon Raid hasn’t been for a while.

So here’s the scoop. Triple Town is a pretty straightforward matching game with cutesy art and simple tap controls. It’s all about matching things in groups of at least three, a rather familiar task. Instead of clearing the board, you’re building it up. If you play haphazardly, making every match you can, you won’t get far.

That’s because everything in Triple Town can be upgraded. You’re given a six by six grid partly filled with randomly generated terrain. You draw random tiles to work with – a chunk of grass, let’s say. Plant it, and then plant two more beside it to make a bush. Put three bushes together to grow a tree. Three trees together builds a hut, and three huts makes a house. Each combination gives you a little breathing room, but you can’t outright clear anything off the board until you match up the very top tier.

When you put down the last piece of a triad the upgrade forms out of that piece’s position. It’s incredibly easy to end up putting your trees all over town if you’re not careful, and not so simple to actually build them together. If you want to do well you’re going to have to plan a few steps ahead and be ready to improvise. Occasionally you’ll luck out and draw a crystal, which acts as a wildcard, or a bot which can clear a space. You can also switch out one piece for safekeeping, which can save your city-building career if you use it well.

Then there are the bears. You have to murder the bears. Don’t be fooled by their cute little faces – they’re jerks and they’ll fill up your town if you don’t deal with them. You can kill them by trapping them, and they leave a gravestone behind. Three gravestones makes a church. Three churches makes a bigger church. Yeah. Suddenly you’re dealing with two separate upgrade paths all getting in the way of each other.

Since the grid you’re playing on is pretty tiny, mistakes don’t take long to come back and haunt you. The goal is to earn more and more points to upgrade your settlement to a camp, a town, a city, a megalopolis and several steps in between. Each milestone is a Game Center achievement, so let’s just say I don’t have many achievements yet. It’s easy to keep getting better, though. Every failure yields a lesson, and once you’ve got the system down it’s just a matter of putting it into action.

There’s only one problem: eventually the free ride runs out, and when it does, it hurts. Triple Town gives you a limited number of turns to work with – enough for a lot of free play, enough to get you hooked. After that, you can buy 200 more turns with coins. You earn more coins each time you finish a game, but it’s not really a sustainable practice. So you’re probably going to need to shell out. You can either buy coins for cheap and keep going 200 turns at a time, or you can splurge to unlock unlimited turns at a painful rate – $6.99 in the US store.

I won’t argue that’s not a lot to pay for a simple little game like Triple Town, given the App Store economy. But the game offers such a generous amount of free play that it’s worth getting even if you’re not interested in putting any cash on the table. Of course, you’ll need to rely on your willpower at that point, which might be a heavy burden to bear.

Sure, Triple Town is just another matching game, but it’s deep and surprisingly strategic. You’ve got to plan your moves out in advance while dealing with random draws and turns ticking down. You’ve got to balance spending your coins on the exact tile you need with earning enough each game to keep you going. It’s challenging enough to keep your brain working and simple enough to dig in those one-more-game hooks. So why not give it a look? The first hit is always free.

TouchArcade Rating:

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Developer Microids and publisher Anuman Interactive have announced that Barbarian – The Death Sword will be hitting the App Store early next month. Barbarian is a modern remake of the classic Commodore 64 title Barbarian – The Ultimate Warrior, also known in the US as simply Death Sword. Released in 1987, the original Barbarian was a one-on-one fighting game pitting buff and brutal warriors against each other.

Despite the fighting genre being in its infancy, Barbarian was critically acclaimed for its competitive gameplay. However, most of its notoriety outside of the gaming world was garnered by its violent nature where you were able to decapitate your opponent in a shower of blood, as well as the scantily clad models featured on its packaging.

The new version of Barbarian looks to be a similar one-on-one fighter, but with visuals that have been crafted in 3D. Check out the promo video below, which features both scantily clad women and violence just like its original inspiration:

One other really cool aspect about Barbarian – The Death Sword that was pointed out in the video is the ability to compete against other players across different platforms. I’m not sure if this extends all the way to the PC and Android platforms, but at the very least you’ll be able to play against your buddies no matter if they’re on a Mac, iPhone or iPad. Another thing I’d like to find out is if this multiplayer is online or just local. But, it shouldn’t be long before we can find out, as Barbarian – The Death Sword is set to launch in the first half of February, and we’ll be checking it out when it hits then.

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If you enjoy Tetris, match-3 games and Boggle, then Puzzlejuice [99¢] from Colaboratory might be right up your alley. That’s because this falling-block, color-matching, word-finding mash-up combines these things into a nice-looking bundle of pleasure.

Puzzlejuice starts with falling puzzle-blocks, just like Tetris. You can rotate each falling block by tapping the screen or drag it left or right. A ghost image of the block shows where it will end up at the bottom. When you’re happy with the position of the block, you can swipe it downwards to speed up its descent. And the idea is to form a solid row. That should all sound fairly familiar for anyone who knows Tetris, but that’s just the start of this game.

When you form a solid row of blocks across the playing area, instead of disappearing, the blocks turn into letters. And to make the letters disappear, you must draw a line across adjoining letter-blocks, to spell a word in eight directions, like Boggle. If your word is long enough, the surrounding blocks are also destroyed. So now you’re multitasking between managing falling blocks and finding words.

The falling blocks are comprised of different colors. Whenever you match-up three or more blocks of the same color, those blocks can be tapped so they convert into letters. So now you’re managing falling blocks, matching and tapping colors and also finding words, which is enough to keep your brain challenged and fully entertained (especially if you’re a male, because apparently we’re not great at multitasking).

A series of objectives are provided as well, which can be completed across multiple games. For example, you might need to spell a six letter word, use two power-ups simultaneously or activate 3+ rows at once. By satisfying these objectives, you can unlock power-ups, like “The Kabomb!” (explodes blocks), “Driller” (falling blocks carve through everything they touch) or “Twister” (scrambles the blocks). You can choose up to three power-ups to carry.

There are two game modes, Zen and Core. In Zen Mode the blocks don’t drop, but you only get 90 seconds to play. In Core Mode you play until the blocks reach the top of the screen. Core Mode has two difficulty levels, with the harder levels requiring longer words to explode surrounding blocks, but offering three times the points. Basically, the longer your words, the bigger the width of your explosion, which all helps your Game Center score.

I tried this universal game on the iPad and iPod touch, both of which played well, although the music spluttered at times on my 4th generation iPod. There’s a “picture-in-picture” mode for the smaller screen devices, which shows a zoomed in image of what’s under your finger. On the iPad that mode is unnecessary, but on the smaller screen it’s useful for seeing the words you’re swiping, or un-swiping.

Puzzlejuice may not be totally original, as it combines three common App Store genres, but putting them together into one game was a stroke of genius. It’s a real breath of fresh air with loads of frantic gameplay, style and humor. As an added bonus, Puzzlejuice is currently on sale for 99¢ due to being featured by Apple, and at that bargain price (or its original price of $2.99, for that matter) it’s a strong recommendation for puzzle and word game fans.

TouchArcade Rating:

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Mole Kart [Free], the world’s most blatant Mario Kart clone, is now free for a “limited time,” on the App Store according to the game’s developer. As we’ve covered in the past, Mole Kart lacks a lot of Mario Kart’s feature set, but what it include, it charges for piece by piece as IAP unlocks. So, when we say free, we mean that pretty loosely; in this case the cover charge is the only price barrier that has been removed.

If anything, now you’ve got a chance to see just how blatant of a rip-off that Mole Kart is without dropping three bucks beforehand. You could also watch this trailer or read this thread, though, and save yourself some time:

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We previously covered smuttlewerk interactive when we took a look at Companions [$4.99/Lite], a well-done top-down role playing/strategy title. Now the developers are back with Time of Heroes [$0.99], another great addition to the genre. Ditching the top-down sprite visuals for a 3D-look, Time of Heroes still maintains smulttlewerk’s reputation for gameplay depth while successfully transitioning to a classic turn-based strategy game.

If you’ve ever played the likes of Final Fantasy Tactics, you’ll feel right at home with Time of Heroes. The game takes place on a series of maps, with players choosing heroes, units and their placements at the beginning of the battle. The game then plays out via turn-based gameplay with the goal being to accomplish all the objectives of the map (typically kill the opposing heroes while keeping your own alive). Time of Heroes is classic turn-based strategy, and I think it gets a lot of things right.

By far, the most successful element that Time of Heroes captures is its very deep gameplay. In addition to the standard rock-paper-scissors type of unit matchup advantages, Time of Heroes also features terrain bonuses (and weaknesses) and aura influence (bestowed by being close to a hero). Considering all these bonuses apply to both your units as well as the enemy, these all lead to every move potentially being very important in the great scheme of winning each battle.

While I absolutely loved the depth, I can imagine that the large amount of variables might seem overwhelming for the novice tactician. This is especially true since the game loves to throw out scripted mini-cutscenes during battles that end up with even more baddies joining the scene. Some of the maps can become downright disheartening when you’ve used up the brunt of your forces, think you’re on your way to killing the final monsters, and then more show up. Thankfully, Time of Heroes also includes a good difficulty system, ensuring that most folks should be able to tailor the game to their own skill.

In addition, Time of Heroes does a great job making your actual heroes stand out stat-wise. Most missions will force you to keep them alive via objectives, but your characters also have a very robust experience system with a large amount of talents that can be picked up via the collection of skill points (which you earn by leveling up). When you add in the fact that each hero can equip various items that can either boost their stats or the stats of the units they command, you’ll find that there’s a lot of choices in how you choose to win each battle. Even the spell system deserves some praise, as most spells offer area of effect bonuses that can be the difference between victory and defeat (your enemies have access to these spells too, so watch your positioning).

Another aspect of Time of Heroes that deserves kudos is its use of IAP. Yes, the game does feature an in-game shop that lets you spend real money, but they are all for items that only offer a small advantage in battle. Furthermore, these items are really only useful in the hands of folks that already possess some modicum of strategy, making them simply supplemental additions rather than ‘Win Game’ super items. Some may argue that IAP should in fact be limited to items that make the game very easy, but I appreciate the fact that Time Of Heroes tried to balance incorporating the option to provide some advantages via IAP while preserving the integrity of the game as a whole.

One thing you’ll notice about Time of Heroes is its pacing. It’s pretty slow, especially at the default settings with full movement and battles on. The game features extended battle scenes that do a decent job showing the various advantages of opposing units, but it can add a decent amount of time to each turn. Granted, the developers have put in plenty of options to skip most of the battle and movement animations, making the game much faster (I highly recommend using them). Despite this, even with the quick options turned on, the game can still be a little slow. However, in all reality this is a minor issue since I’m assuming that anyone that’s a fan of these types of deep strategy games should have more patience than the average gamer.

There are also some UI issues that I’d like addressed. For example, the way in which a unit’s movement becomes permanent as soon as you select another character is confusing at first, and seems counter-intuitive. Even though it would add another step, I thought a ‘Wait’ button would have made more sense. I understand it was done for the purposes of streamlining, but it still feels odd to me. Also, due to the “3D” view of the battle field, it can occasionally be difficult to tap exactly where you want your character to move (especially if the place you want to go is surrounded by units to begin with). Thankfully, a quick undo button is always there in case you have to try again (just don’t tap another unit beforehand).

Finally, I also would have liked more of an interactive tutorial. While the game does a good job getting you going with the basics, an advanced tutorial giving more in-depth lessons on terrain and unit advantages would have been a lot better for me instead of simply telling me to go to those screens and attempt to decipher the large block of percentages. It’s always tough balancing heavy gameplay depth with approachability, and while I think Time of Heroes mostly succeeds, this is one aspect that I think they could have improved upon.

While the concerns mentioned above somewhat detract from the overall experience, Time of Heroes nails the most important elements of a good strategy game. When you combine the large amount of depth on the gameplay side with a good narrative tale and a fairly decent control scheme, Time of Heroes is well worth a recommendation for any fan of strategic turn-based games.

TouchArcade Rating:

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Bullet hell experts Cave have today announced their next forthcoming iOS shooter Dodonpachi Blissful Death. Known as Dodonpachi Dai Ou Jou in Japan, it’s the fourth game in the Donpachi series and was followed up with Dodonpachi Dai Fukkatsu several years later, which we know as Dodonpachi Resurrection [$7.99/Lite] here on the US App Store.

There aren’t any details just yet for Dodonpachi Blissful Death, but based on Cave’s previous iOS releases I think it’s pretty safe to assume a few things. It will likely include an arcade mode that stays faithful to the original release as well as a special Smartphone mode that has been retooled for touch screens and given some additional features.

While most of Cave’s iOS releases follow this formula, they bucked that trend with their last release Bug Princess [$4.99/Lite], which was more or less just a direct port of the arcade version. This wasn’t exactly a bad thing, as the arcade game was (and is) amazingly fun, but I’ve grown to really like the special Smartphone modes that Cave puts so much thought into. Hopefully we’ll see this in Dodonpachi Blissful Death.

Beyond that, you can expect multiple ship types, weapon augmenters called Element Dolls, insane combo scoring, and hidden loops and bosses. So basically, tons of Cave shmup goodness. Really great news too, considering Cave has been contemplating focusing more on less hardcore, more social games. Glad to see them still bringing great titles to iOS.

As soon as we have more information on Dodonpachi Blissful Death’s arrival on the App Store, like pricing and release date, we’ll be sure to let you know. For now though, it’s probably safe to hit up our forums and start drooling.

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