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Yesterday we caught wind that this “new” Dark Meadow [$5.99] that we’d heard rumblings about wasn’t new at all, but instead originally was planned to be an update that converted the existing app into a free to play game. Predictably, even with the vague offer of “exclusive upgrades” for existing owners, news that Dark Meadow as we knew it was going away fired up our community like few things can between the actual article comments and the Dark Meadow forum thread.

Thankfully, it seems Phosphor Games has made a last minute decision to cancel the complete free to play conversion, and instead will be keeping the existing Dark Meadow and releasing a new free to play companion version. Per a Phosphor representative on our forums:

Our intention was that we’d have one version of the app, so (future) leaderboards, etc could all be shared by same community. We always planned on turning off ads and gifting premium players, so we didn’t see any negative to what we were planning.

BUT it sounds like the community really wants them to stay as separate versions. From reading the forums, one large issue is it sounds like a lot of users have completed the current version, deleted it (as it is a large file size), and would like to check out the next one, but there is a good chance they won’t have save data, and they’d have the hassle of downloading the current one just to have a save game, then download the newer one, etc. All an annoyance we’d rather not give our fans.

SO we are keeping the Premium version of Dark Meadow separate from the Free one, and both will get all the new features. So anybody who previously purchased the game can update whenever they want, and they will just get new stuff. …Read More

So, that’s good news. But, it still is a little strange that keeping two version seems like such an eleventh hour decision, as this sort of community reaction to plans to load a previously-paid game full of micro transactions couldn’t have been easier to predict.

So, put away those pitchforks and burning torches, as it sounds like Phosphor Games is doing the right thing after all. Since this update was scheduled to land this week, I’m guessing it’ll be a bit longer before we see the new free to play version as at the very least this decision means another trip through the Apple approval process.

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Who doesn’t like a good old-fashioned surprise sale, right? This afternoon, we were stoked to see that Ravenous Games has put the League of Evil series on the block. As of right now, it’s offering both titles for an agreeable $.99. To put that in perspective, League of Evil 2 debuted earlier this February at $2.99, while the original has hovered around $1.99 or so since last year. Dollar(s) off, people!

We’re huge fans of both games, by the way. The sequel is a much improved version of the original’s high-octane, trial-and-error platforming, but the first one really nailed it, too. You can read our review of the first game here and League of Evil 2’s write-up here before you take the plunge. Spoiler: these games are tough.

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It’s hard to appreciate a novel game when clunky stuff enters the picture. Sminis [$.99] is one of the few Unreal Engine 3 games on the App Store that doesn’t look like an Unreal Engine 3 game, and it’s one of the few puzzlers out there that tries to be something different. I also have a man-crush on its attempt to feel at home on touch devices, as it doesn’t try to do too much despite being rendered in 3D. On the other hand, it suffers from a hairy problem: its core design flashes ruthlessness too often, leaving you squirming helplessly in the hands of overindulgent design decisions.

Sminis are tiny, and supposedly sentient, robot beings crafted by an evil scientist in order to help him do, uh, evil stuff. After a “freak accident,” the Sminis are free to bust out from the scientist’s contraption-filled lair. You play as a maestro-god tasked with guiding entire groups of Sminis simultaneously through the scientist’s Frankenstein machines. Lose too many Sminis to a saw, hydraulic press, or a moving platform, and it’s game over.

Think of Sminis like a new-age Lemmings. Sminis act on their own accord unless you tell them to start or stop with a simple tap on the screen. Presented in a couple of different perspectives, each level has you actively guiding these little guys through various timing-based traps. Sminis are a manufactured good, however, so they’ll keep spilling out of spawns as you guide one or two along a level’s rote path. The catch is that Sminis also possess timers. Stopping one may start others, and so on. If two Sminis touch, you lose both. Each level has a cap of Sminis you can lose. Greater difficulties stress increasingly clean runs.

In the smaller and more focused levels, the individual Sminis timer is an enjoyable, if not wholly pleasant, aspect. It’s a second layer of complexity that compliments the other perfectly. But later, the individuality of the game’s parts can feel overwhelming. Quickly enough, gone is the air of coherent, puzzle-driven play, as the entire experience devolves into a mess of sloppy reactions and stupidity thanks to the sheer amount of moving stuff on-screen. In these moments, it’s like Sminis is afraid to let you breathe.

In one level, for example, you’ll be forced to navigate Sminis moving from three spawns onto three moving platforms set at a very, very specific pace. The timing here seems to revolve more around luck. Take a second to think, and you’ll lose a Smini. Watch the platforms, and you’ll lose a Smini. I should note that, all too often, it’s possible to glean an absolute solution by peering into the level designer’s mind and synching each Smini at specific, undrawn checkpoints. Levels all have a specific rhythm, and you’ll squirm while trying to figure them out.

There’s some solace to take in the schizophrenic pacing; some levels indisputable walks in the park compared to their predecessors. Another helpful thing when you come down with the Sminis blues? The fact that it’s clearly different. It isn’t a match-three. It isn’t a block rotating game. And it isn’t a word game. It’s a novel experience, so that keeps you moving.

It’s disturbing that the consistently awesome look of Sminis hasn’t influenced what goes on in the game. It looks good, if not unique. Only a handful of UE3 titles on the App Store attempt to be something more than “Shiny Dude Kills Everything Part 3.” This has some touch and character, as well as a fun, cutesy vibe.

But while Sminis always looks good, it tends to take big, scary dives in puzzle quality. At the same time, it’s hard not to recommend it alongside a few caveats. Sure, it can be a tad ruthless, and yeah, the mechanics can feel clumsy, but in bursts, Sminis feels good.

TouchArcade Rating:

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Are you into Japanese RPGs with turn-based combat and slightly stilted translations? Do you crave a game that’s best played with a spreadsheet and a community of other players close at hand? Do you keep buying crafting or management sims in search of something truly deep? If so, get excited. Adventure Bar Story [$0.99] fills that niche beautifully. As a big fan of games like Harvest Moon and the fabulous Recettear I consider myself among that elite crew, and I love this game, flaws and all.

While it isn’t the best in its class if you look across platforms, there really aren’t any quality games similar to Adventure Bar Story on iOS. There are RPGs, yes, and there are management sims (so often presented in freemium grind-fests), but a deep combination of the two has been noticeably absent before now. Rideon Japan brings us a game settles right into that gap, offering many hours of entertainment for a remarkably low price.

When our story starts, our heroine Siela and her sister Kamerina are apparently competing to see whose apathy can run the family bar into the ground first. When a buyout offer arrives, Siela is inspired to actually try to get things up and running again. Her friend Fred offers to help. Fred owns the only shop in town, so he’s a good guy to have on her side. He lets Siela in on a little secret: there’s a field nearby where you can literally gather cooking ingredients from the ground.

After a trip to the meadow, Siela returns to the bar to cook up a few dishes. Once she’s got a few things worth selling she gives them to her sister, who opens the bar and sells the goods off-screen (no interacting with the customers for you). This is all a little silly, admittedly: icons indicating produce, meat, dairy and other supplies litter the ground of the meadow, and at first it seems there’s little to do but gather them up and head back to the bar to paw through menus and create inspired dishes like “Salted Daikon” and, um, “Salted Cucumber.”

But Adventure Bar Story slowly reveals itself to be atypical, even in the world of management RPGs. Everything in the game revolves around food. To level up, you eat. To earn money, you create dishes to sell. To advance the plot, you run your restaurant as well as you can. In fact, the game can be played nearly entirely as a restaurant management sim, finding the best prices for the best goods to make a self sustaining menu. Siela and her party only need to venture out into dungeons only when they’re high enough level to complete them and advance the plot. Or you can play traditionally, grinding monsters and looking for hidden secrets.

After a couple days of gathering and cooking the basics, the game opens up. A new dungeon unlocks and the story moves forward. New dungeons are filled with new ingredients, and this is when the cooking sim starts to shine. Trying to discover recipes from scratch feels similar to playing something like Doodle God [$0.99]: there is a collection of ingredients and tools to work with, and you’re left to discover the internal logic that drives the combinations. Once you get one recipe down, you can usually iterate on it to create other, similar things. A basic understanding of cooking helps, but if you hit a wall there are recipes to be bought. Hint recipes with a few blanks filled in open up as you discover new ingredients, too.

Each new ingredient dramatically increases the number of recipes that can be completed, so the bar really starts to hustle after a few days. Once its profile is high enough, Siela is invited to participate in local cooking contests. If she can cook something popular enough to take first place (something that can be worked out by paying attention to what sells in the bar), there will be big rewards and more interest in her bar.

I’m impressed by the depth of strategy Adventure Bar Story offers. Each day’s menu takes consideration: is it better to list high-cost foods, or use them for experience? Recipes that go particularly well together unlock combos that make them hot ticket items. And since the party can only head out once per day, deciding where to go to farm which ingredients is a challenge.

While combat follows a typical turn-based, random encounter RPG formula, that doesn’t mean it’s dull for long. Many of the skills effect the food that drops from battle. Dispatch an enemy with “Butcher” and it will drop extra items; skills like that abound. You don’t unlock them by levelling up with food, you unlock them automatically with points earned in battle.

Adventure Bar Story does contain IAP, but it’s ridiculously optional. Jewels, the premium currency, were added in on top of the existing content, and they add a couple shortcuts and a few handy weapons and items. You might want to use them to solve a particularly tough recipe or to get ahead on equipment, but they’re never, ever necessary.

The game doesn’t particularly distinguish itself on aesthetic levels. The music is enjoyable enough without being distracting, the environments and sprites are RPG-standard. The dialog often feels forced, but generally the translation is serviceable. There are a few language and cultural gaps to watch out for when working through recipes, though, and a handful are completely lost in translation. A word of warning, while we’re discussing flaws: save often. The game supports multitasking but no auto-save, so it’s easy to set yourself back by switching apps and taking too long to return.

Once you get the basics down, Adventure Bar Story can get pretty rote. You unlock new characters from time to time, find secrets and improve your bar, but it all happens slowly. So goes the story, too, so most of the playtime is spent navigating long lists of items and putting together recipes. It’s fun for a while if you’re in it for the RPG, but it’s great for a lot longer if you’re the sort of person who can’t resist a checklist or a spreadsheet. On the whole, this game is a steal—but only for the right sort of person. Many of them are hanging out in our forums, working on divining the game’s depths. Trust me, you’ll want their help.

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I’m sure many of you out there have spent the past week burning through your allotment of sick days at your job so you could spend all day with the shades drawn hunkered down on your couch in front of Mass Effect 3. If this describes you and you have an iOS device to boot, then you’re probably going to want to grab the free Mass Effect 3 Datapad [Free] which has now gone live in the App Store.

We learned a tiny bit about the Mass Effect 3 Datapad last month, and the app description makes it sound like the companion app to the console title is actually even more feature-filled than we originally thought. You’ll can check out codex entries from all three Mass Effect console games to learn more about the lore. There are also videos, screenshots, and a news feed on all things Bioware and Mass Effect.

Most interestingly, the Mass Effect 3 Datapad app can interact directly with the console game. After meeting certain characters in Mass Effect 3, you will receive messages in the iOS Datapad app. Nothing integral to the enjoyment of the console game, but rather additional fan service for those that want to explore even further. Also, you can deploy ships in the app’s Fleet Commander which can increase your chances of success against Reapers in the console game. Pretty neat.

The Mass Effect 3 Datapad is free and a Universal app for iPhone, iPod touch and iPad so if you’re into the Mass Effect universe, are currently playing Mass Effect 3 or plan to in the near future, you should definitely give the app a download.

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Last week we had a chance to sit down with Kathy Fung, founder of SiuYiu, the studio behind tower-builder Vegas Towers HD [Free]. She showed us two games that should be coming out in the next few months, and we have to say, they’re pretty charming.

First up is Pocket Minions. This is a tower builder of a different sort, and it’s pretty adorable. It’s also strategically complex in a way that some similar tower games don’t quite pull off.

The goal is to create a perfect working ecosystem where your tower will produce and protect your minions and your minions will give you the means to keep building your tower. Each new floor you build gives you the ability to make a new minion, be it a Hunter, Maid, Wizard, Knight or whatever. You can command each of those little guys to produce new resources, like food or gold, that can be used to create even more minions and floors.

The minions are full of character, and you can drag them around to do your bidding. Neglect them enough and they’ll riot, leaving you to hang them up in the dungeon to straighten them out. Keep them happy with unclogged toilets and well-stoked furnaces and they’ll work their little hearts out for you. They’ll even take on thieves, ghosts and dragons, the threats that come to make your life miserable.

While this all sounds like the perfect recipe for an IAP currency system, we’ve been told Pocket Minions will be a premium title without purchasable currency, so you’re going to have to manage your tower through hard work and careful planning.

The studio does have a freemium title coming soon as well, called Tiny Sheep. It has two things we’ve seen before—animal breeding and city building—but it looks like it’s going to combine them delightfully. Everything comes back to the sheep. To earn money, you shear them and sell their wool. You use that money to add to your flock or bring in buildings that support your sheep breeding, like shearing shacks and markets for wool trade.

It looks like there’s quite a bit more to come from the city-building side of things, with fairs and churches and all manner of things around to support your sheep breeding.

Caring for your sheep fills out the other side of the game. You’ll need to protect them from wolves, shear them regularly, and keep them happy and healthy. If one member of the flock wanders off, the others will be sad until it’s found. If you protect them and keep them together, they’ll be happy. And when they breed, there’s always a chance they’ll produce a new, rare sheep, and you’ll have something highly prized to shear, sell or share.

The art style is particularly charming, and you absolutely must check out the teaser:

We’ll have more for you about both of these games a bit closer to release.

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Out at GDC 2012 I sat down with publisher Ayopa Games and, in the time of an hour, ran through seven different titles in a sort of marathon session. It was a lot to take in, but there are some real stand-outs here.

Some are new, some are updates. Let’s have a look.

MacGuffin’s Curse

Created by Brawsome and Green Stripe Snake, MacGuffin’s Curse is a game that falls under the category of Werewolf Comedy Puzzle Adventures. It is the tale of out-of-work magician and (hence) not-so-cunning thief Lucas MacGuffin who attempts to rob a museum to pay the rent, and finds himself bound to a magical amulet with the power to turn him into a werewolf (and back again).

The game consists of 150 different rooms across 11 different environments, such as junkyards, parks, mansions, museums, etc. Each room is its own grid-based puzzle that must be solved using Lucas in either human or werewolf form — or both (walking into a beam of moonlight triggers the transformation). In addition to the 150 core puzzles are around 100 secondary features / quests that serve to add variety and keep Lucas especially busy at all times. In the end, the ultimate goal is just to get the cursed amulet off of poor Lucas.

In a nice touch that retro gamers will enjoy, the soundtrack is available in chiptune format, sampled from a real SID-based C64, and can be accessed via an in-game home computer setup.

MacGuffin’s Curse won the Best Writing award at the 2012 Freeplay Independent Games Festival and will be available on April 19th as a universal iOS app as well as on Mac and PC.

Escape from Age of Monsters

In the fall of last year, Massive Joe released Age of Monsters, as sort of ultimate rock-paper-scissors game, to high praise. The studio’s upcoming Escape from Age of Monsters is a follow-up title in the form of a side-scrolling, endless run-and-jumper. The game sets you, poor Gizzard, and a group of orphans on the run from a horde of hideous creatures from all corners of the multiverse. You must tun through crumbling buildings, punch through walls with your magic gloves (and perfect timing, if you have it), jump from building to building, collect bonuses and power-ups, and battle bosses. With any misstep, the monster get closer and snatch up an orphan. Once all the orphans are gone, the next mistake is your neck.

As mentioned, there are walls to smash. There are also fireballs to whack, and both of these actions are color-specific; one glove is red, one glove is blue, and the right glove must be used at the right moment. The whole thing has something of a rhythm component to it, and in some sense Guitar Hero is brought to mind. The music in the game is provided by the Okai Sisters (nee The Binges).

Escape from Age of Monsters will be released as a universal app towards the end of April, with price as yet undetermined.

Pocket Heroes

At last year’s E3, our own Eli took a look at F5 Games’ Pocket Heroes and said “whoa, now that’s really cool.” And he was a hardcore D&D player. After checking out the title, here eight months later, I can tell you things have only gotten better.

Pocket Heroes is basically “Quest With Friends,” a Words With Friends-style RPG. It’s multiplayer-only and allows up to four players to share an asynchronous adventure within a push-powered fantasy world laden with steampunk detailing. There are 20 different types of enemies (spiders, skeletons, ogres, etc.), six character classes (human paladin, dwarven mechie, elf rogue, and the like) with more to come in the future, and 10 different character levels. The whole thing has a pixellated, retro look to it (it takes place in the world of Altair, after all…) and is arranged something like the early Zelda titles.

Pocket Heroes is set to arrive at the end of April and is being discussed in our forums.

Patchwork Battles

Coming this summer from Patchwork Games is a rather unique RPG strategy title known as Patchwork Battles. The game puts you in control of “mimics,” which are on-screen characters made of a patchwork of various materials — cloth, tinfoil, and leather. You, the player, take the role of a young man that is part of a family of Animators, magicians able to breathe life into the inanimate mimics. After finding an ancient tome in his attic, he reads through the story of his forefathers and begins reenacting the battles of past ages with his mimics.

Within the game, there are eight classes of four characters, in all, rendered of different physical material. Each mimic consists of a heart or core, along with five surrounding body parts. Parts can be exchanged between characters to push their abilities in a certain direction. Each part can also be imbued with spells to enhance capabilities.

The version I saw demonstrated was obviously in the early stages of development, but what’s there so far is intriguing. Patchwork Battles will release as a universal iOS app, and eventually make its way to Android, Mac, and PC.

Mailmen

From Sandstorm Interactive comes the iPad-only stealth puzzle game Mailman [App Store], which challenges you to get the mail delivered on time in the face of adversity. And, in Mailmen, adversity comes in the form of neighborhoods full of vicious, roving dogs — the mailman’s bane.

The game sets three mailmen, Johnny, Charlie, and Dave — each with their own special abilities — to pick up mail, deliver it to various marked destinations, and get back to the base without being torn to shreds by the aforementioned dogs. Why are the dogs in this town so vicious? It’s to do with the enraged, psychotic ex-mailman Newman (get it?), who controls the dogs in a bid to make life near impossible for the poor letter carriers.

In order to succeed, teamwork must be used to combine the various abilities of the three mailmen in question, in order to overcome the carnivorous canines. Dogs can be tied up, deceived with fire-hydrant costumes, and left puzzled by a quick up-the-tree getaway. A sort of achievement system that’s really more of a “collectibles” arrangement rewards skillful play and a benevolent hint pigeon can be called upon to aid when things seems hopeless.

Mailmen launched a few days back as a universal app and is available at an introductory price of $0.99.

W.E.L.D.E.R.

Back in November, we reviewed word-creation puzzler W.E.L.D.E.R. [App Store] from Highline Games and were impressed. W.E.L.D.E.R. (Word Examination Laboratory for Dynamic Extraction and Reassessment) is a game that can perhaps most easily be described as Scrabble meets Tetris. The game features an 8×8 grid which is full of letter tiles. The idea is to form words with four or more letters, by moving letter tiles around in various ways. The “Basic Swap” involves tapping any two neighboring letters (horizontally, vertically or diagonally adjoining) so they swap positions. The words must be written from left-to-right or top-to-bottom, much like a crossword puzzle. There’s no time limits, although a certain number of words must be formed to complete each level. When you form a word, the involved letter tiles disappear and any letters above cascade down to fill the gap, including new, off-screen letters.

Britt Meyers of Highline demonstrated an update to the game that recently landed, adding Gigawatt tiles for super scoring, new optional in-app purchasable items, overall balancing tweaks, an Undo button (iPad only), and various other improvements.

W.E.L.D.E.R. has known the distinction of iPhone Game of the Week and was the top selling iPad paid game, near its release.

Dungeon Crawlers

Early this year, Drowning Monkey released their aptly titled dungeon crawler Dungeon Crawlers [App Store]. The game is a visually well-done strategy role playing game that’s filled with witty humor, such as numerous Ghostbusters references (the main characters are Roy, Aegon, and Payter…) and the like.

Your band roams through the game’s various chapters and levels, encountering characters of all sorts, doing turn-based combat, amassing fortune, and leveling up. We reviewed Dungeon Crawlers shortly after its release, and really liked it, but felt that things moved along a bit too slowly for many players. The turn-based battle sequences tend to drag on in a fashion that may lead to frustration.

Drowning Monkey has recently released a v1.1 update to the game that brings a new chapter with three new levels, making for 5 chapters and 15 levels in all. A major addition is an in-game store where gold found in the dungeons, gained in battle, or purchased through IAP can be used to buy weapons, armor, and power-ups. The store offers over 250 items, in all. Additionally, a new “Select Level” option has been added so that players can easily go back and re-play a level with ease.

A v1.2 update that will bring online leader boards and an Arena Mode is already in development.

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Per Joystiq, Phosphor Games’ highly atmospheric Infinity Blade-like Dark Meadow [$5.99] is going free to play. Unfortunately, instead of a standalone free to play version, the existing Dark Meadow will have its price dropped to free, with IAP taking the place of the previous $5.99 price tag.

In my experience, taking an existing “premium” title and shoehorning the free to play business model into it never, ever, ever turns out well. If you’ve ever owned Dark Meadow, and think you’ll ever want to play it in its non-free to play form again, be sure to download it as soon as possible, sync your device, and backup the actual .ipa somewhere safe.

Joystiq mentions owners of the pre-freemium version of the game getting an “exclusive upgrade” when the game goes free. We’ve heard this “exclusive upgrade” involves removing the planned in-game ads and a bucket full of the IAP currency to spend. We’ll have to wait until the update lands to see how good of a “deal” this is for existing owners, but, regardless, backup that .IPA file if you know what’s good for you.

[via Joystiq]

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Forget about feeding your cat. Soon, you’ll be able to enrich its mind while simultaneously competing against the little guy in an app called “You vs. Cat” on iPad. Cat connoisseurs Friskies is behind the air-hockey-meets-interspecies-action title, and it’s tuning the experience specifically to pit you versus your cat. In a small demonstration at SXSW, Buzz Feed played against an adorable little kitty named Buddy, and was beat an amazing three times in a row. In fact, cats are up on humans by around one thousand games at the time of this posting.

There’s a lot of cat-specific apps out there. The vast majority aren’t games, though, which is what makes this remarkable. No doubt, our own Bearded One Jared Nelson will put this game to the test whenever he can. He’ll report his findings immediately, and with lots of gushy language because, cats.

[via Buzz Feed]

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