TouchArcade.ru

Back in July of 2009, mine, yours, and everybody else’s lives were changed forever when a little game known as Enviro-Bear 2010 [99¢] recklessly drove its way into the App Store. More than just a video game, though, Enviro-Bear 2010 may quite possibly be the most important artistic work of our time. It’s also hands down the most accurate and fully featured bear-driving-a-car simulator available anywhere. In short, I am who I am today because of Enviro-Bear 2010 and its influences on my life, and I know I’m not alone in saying that.

We let the world know about Enviro-Bear 2010 in our review, and the game went on to see a crazy amount of popularity following shortly after, including being featured on G4 TV’s Attack of the Show and landing a spot on our Best of 2009 Buyer’s Guide. In all seriousness, it’s easy to get wrapped up in the so-bad-it’s-good nature of Enviro-Bear 2010, what with the complete absurdity of the premise and its lovingly crafted MS Paint quality graphics. But, there’s actually quite a bit of depth to the gameplay with the purposely awkward controls and the level of interactivity with the various objects in the game. Doing well in Enviro-Bear 2010 actually takes a decent level of skill and tons of practice.

Enviro-Bear 2010 hasn’t seen a ton of updates in the past 2 years, I mean, it was pretty near to perfection when it first launched. Still, there have been some interesting new features added into the game like a magical mushroom which transforms the cartoonish world into something more shockingly realistic, or the elusive golden fish which has only been discovered by a select few dedicated gamers. Today, Enviro-Bear creator Justin Smith has dropped another unexpected update to the game, adding universal iPad support, tons of different language translations, and no doubt some other hidden goodies.

Playing Enviro-Bear 2010 on the large screen of the iPad is a glorious experience, to say the least. With my iPad comfortably propped up in my lap, both hands are free to man the controls of the car as well as deal with the many hazards that drop into the car’s interior, including that mischievous badger who seems dead set on harshing my mellow. I hate you with all my being, badger. Also, grabbing items using Enviro-Bear’s single huge paw has been made easier, which is extremely welcome when there is a ton of crap piled up in the interior and you need to accurately grab something under pressure with Winter bearing down on you.

If you’re somewhat new on the iOS scene and this is the first you’re hearing of Enviro-Bear 2010, then just a cursory glance at any of these screenshots should tell you if it’s the sort of game for you. It’s extremely difficult, mostly due to the purposely terrible controls, and it has a visual style that only a Mother Bear could love. But, for those that can appreciate these sorts of things, there is no finer bear-driving-a-car simulator available, and now you can enjoy Enviro-Bear 2010 from the comfort of your iPad as well.

[source]

Hardly even needing an introduction, PopCap’s Bejeweled 2 [Free] is the grandaddy of all the match-3 puzzle games that have ever graced the App Store. The Bejeweled franchise itself is more than 10 years old, and it’s hard to come across somebody who HASN’T played a version of this game at some point. Many titles have innovated on the match-3 formula since Bejeweled 2’s release shortly following the opening of the App Store, but somehow it still remains one of the most compelling and fun entries in the genre.

Now, for reasons unknown, PopCap has dropped the price of the iOS version of Bejeweled 2 to free. This marks the first time the game has ever been free on the App Store, and as part of the first run of iOS games back in mid-2008 Bejeweled 2 used to be a $9.99 title. It’s been living the 99¢ dream for about the past year though, but the fact that it’s now free is still pretty significant. If don’t yet have Bejeweled 2 on your iOS device, now would be a great time to snatch it up, because I really don’t know how long it will remain free.

[source]

Like word games? Great! Graeme Devine’s studio, GRL Games, is launching a new front-facing camera-enabled game this coming September 1 across the iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch. It’s titled Word Chat, and it’ll release with a total four modes, one of which is an online mode that’ll let you chat face-to-face with your pals similarly to how GRL Games’ last title, Full Deck Hold 'Em [$2.99], allowed.

The online mode you’ll see just below is pretty simple. In 100 second timed rounds, you and your bud are tasked with spelling as many words as you can out of an endless set of tiles. As more words are forged, the tiles are removed and the highest score wins.

The other modes are basic solitaire modes designed for challenge as well as learning. In one, you’ll be given 200 titles and an infinite amount of time to come to grips with the game’s mechanic. In another, you’ll get 200 tiles and the aforementioned timer. The last mode is an infinite mode in which you can juice the game for more time after using every fourth letter.

We’re just now getting this into our hands, and will report back to you. If you have faith in Devine like we do, though, this seems like a no-brainer.

[source]

Crescent Moon Games missed a fantastic opportunity to help everyone on the PAX Prime exodus have something to do on their respective trips, but it is throwing a sale for the rest of us who need something to do… over the weekend, I suppose? On the toilet? While waiting for Deus Ex: Human Revolution to load?

Anyway, kicking off tomorrow, August 26, the publisher is hacking at the prices of its catalogue of RPGs and offering them all for a meagre $.99. In the case of most of titles, this will be a savings of several dollars for games that should keep you occupied for hours and hours on end.

Here’s the list and the prices of what these games will be tomorrow:

• Aralon: Sword and Shadow – $4.99 → $.99 [Universal]
• Ravensword: The Fallen King – $2.99 → $.99
• Rimelands: Hammer of Thor – $4.99 → $.99 [Universal]

The iPhone version of Pocket RPG [$4.99], which is making its debut tomorrow, will also be listed at $.99 and join in on this deal. We're not sure what the normal price of the app will be otherwise, though I'd imagine you'll at least be saving a dollar here.

If I may suggest, Aralon seems to be the steal here. Granted, it's a little clunky, but overall it's an entertaining and deep RPG experience. Above all, though, it's like nothing else on the platform, and that kind of novelty has its draws, too.

[source]

Earlier this year, Activision decided that it was done with Bizarre Creations and closed the studio after not being able to find an adequate buyer for it, which stuck me as unfathomable since this is the studio responsible for fantastic games like Blur, Project Gotham Racing, and so on and so forth. Regardless, since then, creators at the studio have made their own independent studios. Hogrocket, led by former Bizarre designer Pete Collier, Geometry Wars [$.99] creator Stephen Cakebread, and community manager Ben Ward, is one of those, and thankfully, they’re pooling their talents in service of an iOS game.

Todays news is a release date: the first game from the studio — which remains unannounced for the time being — is coming September 1. In a recent chat with Eurogamer, Collier talked up the release and the challenge:

"We're mega excited to be releasing our very first game here at Hogrocket. The shift from AAA to mobile has been a really rewarding challenge and this launch marks the beginning of an exciting new chapter for us. We hope you enjoy the game,” he said.

We’ve played the game and can’t comment on it at the moment, but what we really wanted to do here is throw down some context. We’re currently trying to wrangle a good time to talk to Hogrocket for an episode of The TouchArcade Show, so we thought it best to give you some sort of foundation to work with. We’re awesome like that.

But, seriously, keep your eyes on these guys. They know what they’re doing and it’ll be great to bring you more in the near future.

[Via Eurogamer]

[source]

When I first heard about Match Panic [$.99], I had the same reaction to it that a lab ape does to a banana attached to an electrical current. Its super casual conceit and its ridiculously cute aesthetic are as sweet as banana juice, but there is a price in succumbing to cutesy and simple in the form of credibility and overall well-being. In this delightful scenario, I’m referring to mental health, as opposed to physical health which our dear lab ape would be short of if it happened to be really, really hungry one afternoon.

As flat-out stated in our original review, the core play boils down to this: moving a cartoon object to one of two columns with a matching object. There's a gentle escalation of action as the columns fill up with more objects to match, but that's it. On the iPad or iPhone it feels great since all you’re doing is flicking, so this isn't the kind of game that begs for iCade support. Still, a torrent of surprise drizzled me when I rigged it into my device and gave it a go.

Match Panic when played with an iCade uses two buttons, both on the far side of the lower layout on the machine — there is no joystick support. The far left-hand button puts the center object in the left-hand column, while the right-hand button puts the center object in the right column. It's pretty straightforward, but because developers can’t really document these kinds of things in their official app notes due to Apple being nuts, I had to stumble around and figure this out myself. I just threw you a bone, here.

It’s hard to express exactly how the game makes me feel with ThinkGeek’s ridiculous little device, but when I play, I enter into that weird zone that Pavlov discovered — you know, the one where you drool whenever you hear a bell because you really, really like food? That one. Match Panic is a super simple, visceral kind of game designed specifically around rewarding and dazzling you for matching. With buttons and that tactile feedback the iCade provides, these feelings it inspires multiply in a scary, drool-inducing-dog-hears-a-bell sort of way. It's wild.

As a result, you'll catch yourself spending way too much time with it happily matching shapes. I got to the point where I forced myself to unplug, just like how I have to yank myself out of Pac-Man Championship Edition DX, which has a similar style of rewarding.

If you don’t own Match Panic, you probably should. And if you have an iCade, you definitely should. Match Panic nowhere near as complex as other titles that the platform supports, but it’s a grade A example of why the iCade is so cool and how it can flesh out experiences in new, and in the case of this, dramatic ways. I’ve been having a blast at least.

Previous games we’ve covered in this series: Mos Speedrun / HungryMaster. Check out our list of iCade titles here.

[source]

The one thing that I really love about our “bonus” podcasts is the fact that we only talk to people who fire from the hip: no boilerplate, no scripting, and no dodging. Game Revolution had the same kind of dialogue with an industry figure at Develop. In its conversation with Fish Labs CEO Michael Schade, you get the sense that he’s an unfiltered and passionate type of dude. He has a lot to offer as a result, especially when it comes to pricing models on the App Store, and as you’d assume by looking up Galaxy on Fire [$9.99 / Lite] on iTunes, he’s not a fan of the “race to the bottom.”

It’s not really fair to toss a headline up there and just move on, but the interview does revolve around “premium” price tags. Schade wants a premium $10 market on the App Store because he thinks developers of high-end games deserve it and consumers actually want it.

His answer when GR asks about the definition of a premium game and the part Apple could play in that:

“Every time I bring that to the table Apple asks the same question. I’d say it could be completely editorial, they decide what they think is premium – that’d be good enough for me, we’d just need to try hard enough to meet their internal premium criteria. I would appreciate if there was a floor price, and my gut’s feeling is that it should be $9.99 because that’s the lowest price for pay-per-play that I’ve seen on Steam for instance.

There are good 2D games, really good 2D games that are being sold for 9.99 Euros, so if you go $9.99 it’s even lower than that. So I think that’s the premium price. If somebody’s not willing to pay 10 bucks for a game on a platform he paid 800 bucks for, then that’s not premium.”

His stance against the myth that if games are cheaper, users will buy more games:

“I think the consumer is cleverer than that, they realize that if you pay just 59p for a game, you can’t expect the same experience as if you paid £5.99. Especially if your target group is more in the traditional hardcore gaming space, these guys are coming from a different price point anyway, and I closely follow discussions on forums where people discuss “what can you expect from a game that’s only 59p?”

“So if this category is targeted, and marketed at, I think it would be very successful. To a certain degree, it’s kind of a surprise that Apple have premium products, for a premium audience but don’t have a premium category for premium content, I think it’s a natural fit.”

If you’re into Schade, we heartily suggest you go check out the rest of the interview, which is laden with candor and even some talk on Android. Turns out that, despite the OS’ massive reach, developers aren’t really making money on the platform. Piracy, among other things, are big issues.

Again, it’s neat to see this kind of talk from a bigwig. We should bring him on the show sometime, eh?

[Via Game Revolution]

[source]

This morning while making my morning coffee and browsing through my email, I came across the most amazing announcement I've seen come out of Sega since the Dreamcast. (Yes, I realize Sega has made other, potentially better announcements since then, but still.) Sonic CD is coming to the App Store. If this doesn't have you squealing with glee, you must not have been alive during the Sega CD glory days, as Sonic CD is by far the absolute best Sonic game. It comes from the era of gaming before everyone felt the need to shoehorn needless 3D into games that are perfectly suited to be sidescrollers, and it was packed with the various benefits the Sega CD could offer: Full motion video, a fantastic soundtrack, and tons of content. There's even a radical time traveling mechanic where you can travel between the past and future on the same level.

Now, before we (justifiably) start grumbling about the quality of Sega's various emulated ports, there may be a glimmer of hope out there that Sonic CD might be everything we could ask for and more in an iOS Sonic game. Long-time readers might be pickin' up what I'm puttin' down. If you're new to the scene, let me introduce you to this video from over two years ago:

To make a long story short, in the summer of 2009, pioneering iOS developer Christian Whitehead announced his "iPhone Retro Engine" and "Retro Engine Development Kit." Sonic CD was the proof of concept Christian used to show just how incredibly well his technology works. We quickly followed up with an interview with Whitehead who got into some details, and made mention that he did in fact pitch this whole project to Sega.

Not long after that, all traces of the Retro Engine and Sonic CD running in it vanished from the internet. All of the communication after the fact was strictly off the record, but one could easily assume that when someone approaches Sega with a working proof of concept to not only port their games to tons of platforms, but do it quickly, easily, and with great performance, they're going to jump all over it.

If you're not quite ready to equip your tinfoil hat and go with me on this, consider this: Everything from Sega's PR blast this morning perfectly describes Sonic CD as we saw it running on the iPhone two years ago. It's hitting multiple platforms, widescreen graphics, "special iOS features," achievements, and more. If this were anything but Christian Whitehead's Sonic CD, my gut is telling me that it'd be running in some wacky variation of the Sega CD's original 320×224 resolution wrapped in a crazy emulator and not enhanced in the slightest… Because, really, that's how Sega rolls.

We likely won't have to wait too long to find out either, as it should be playable this weekend at PAX. Hopefully they've got the iPhone version there, and I'd put my money on it looking almost exactly like the above video.

Update: It turns out my gut is calibrated particularly well today, as Sonic Retro has confirmed that Christian Whitehead (via his online alias "The Taxman") is involved with this port and it is in fact using the Retro Engine. Sega's even provided a teaser trailer:

Seriously, can't wait.

Update 2: We were contacted Christian, who again confirmed his involvement in this release but mentions that only the Xbox Live Arcade version will be playable at PAX. Bummer! We'll be keeping our eyes out for the iOS version, that's for sure.

[source]

The first thing that struck me about Contre Jour [$0.99 / UHD] was how beautiful it was. Everything about this game is lush and gorgeous — the art, the music, I could just bury myself in it. The second thing that struck me was that everything seemed a little familiar. Was the art too World of Goo? Or maybe too Limbo? Was this mechanic borrowed from Cut the Rope? Or was that one from Bumpy Road? Or, heaven forbid, Angry Birds?

Familiar elements litter Contre Jour, and I've already seen some people write it off for that reason. Let me be frank: this would be a mistake. This isn't some cheap knock-off that's stolen something from your game of choice. If anything, Contre Jour is an elegy to games past. Developer Mokus has taken the best aspects of any number of physics games and platformers and recreated them into a single imaginative whole.

You control the world of Contre Jour, not its hero Petit (named for La Petit Prince, an inspiration for this game). It is a hostile world, but you have the tools you need to see him safely through. Over the course of 60 single-screen levels, you will nudge, swing, shoot and fling Petit to the safety of a glowing blue light.

To get Petit moving, you can nudge the ground he sits on, lifting it and lowering it to move him into place. Rarely will this be enough to get him to his destination, however. In most levels, you'll employ tentacles, both elastic and not, that can be attached to him and detached at will. Timing perfect swings and launching him with a variety of these tentacles is a skill you'll need to pick up quickly.

There are other tools to play with, too. Some levels have movable tentacles, which you'll need to maneuver carefully to keep from impaling Petit on a lurking spike. Air geysers shoot him away. And, in a pleasantly familiar touch, you can toss Petit through a portal and trust that he'll fly through the other side, inertia intact.

The levels themselves range from simple to sadistic. Nothing actively opposes Petit, but gravity, spikes and hungry plants do an admirable job of standing in his way. Should you find the challenge too much, any level can be skipped freely — but you need to collect a certain number of lights (there are, of course, three in each level) to unlock the second and third worlds.

Each of the three worlds is lovely and distinct from its fellows. Three instrumental themes accompany your journey, and they deserve a listen through a good pair of headphones. The worlds also manage to look quite different from each other while maintaining Contre Jour's monochromatic aesthetic. The neon glow of the Night world is particularly appealing.

The one drawback of Contre Jour is that on smaller devices some of the later levels require a bit too much coordination. The game supports multi-touch input, so it's possible to tap, nudge and launch all in a few moments, but it's awfully hard to be precise about what you're touching when you're covering the screen with several fingers at once. If you want to collect all the Game Center/Crystal achievements and top each chapter's leaderboard you may find it easier to do so on the iPad where you'll have a bit more room to pull off some of the more complicated maneuvers.

If there is room in your heart for another three-star, one-screen platformer, Contre Jour is more than worthy of your purchase. It's a beautiful, challenging experience. Our forum users seem impressed so far, and I am too. I can't wait to see what's still to come for this game.

[source]

Sprinkle [99¢] by Mediocre and Fabrication Games, is a water-squirting platform puzzler. The Swedish developers were pretty brave to take on this project as their debut release, as it's always challenging to represent water in a game, but they've really managed to pull it off. The water flows, splashes, pools up, makes waves, moves objects and surges, just as you'd expect it to. The water physics in this game look wonderful and are definitely the main attraction.

At the start of each level, a cute little red fire-truck arrives at the scene of a fire. You can adjust the height of the trucks crane by dragging it up or down, and you can also tilt the angle of the water cannon by swiping. Once the nozzle is aimed in the right direction, simply tap or hold the red button to squirt water. And the water does actually squirt. You can see the main stream of the flow with little bits shooting off, just like when you turned the hose on your family members as a kid. And it still feels good to squirt that H20!

This game is already being compared to Feed Me Oil [99c/ Review], which is also based on a liquid. However, the game-play of these two titles is actually completely different. In Feed me Oil, you're trying to pour thick black goop into a particular zone on the screen. Whereas in Sprinkle it doesn't matter where the water ends up, providing you put out the stubborn fires before your water supply runs out. And Sprinkle is set on one of Saturn's Moons, so there's little alien creatures inhabiting the levels.

There's four worlds provided at launch, with 46 levels in total. The key to unlocking the levels isn't speed as you might anticipate – instead, it's all about water conservation.  There's a little gauge at the bottom of the screen, which indicates how much of your water supply remains. The less water you use, the more blue water droplets you earn.

The blue droplets are used to unlock levels. If you obtain the maximum 5 droplets for all levels in a world, the next world is unlocked (which isn't made clear in the game). Or, if you can't be bothered with that, you can make optional in-app purchases for worlds 3 and 4, which also unlocks the earlier levels.  My main concern about this game was the number of levels, however I've been assured that additional levels are already planned for release soon.

Each level contains objects like blocks, ice and boulders to drag or hose into position, structures and mechanisms to manipulate with water and buttons to activate. The first world is pretty straightforward and can be solved by squirting water in the obvious directions, but then some puzzle elements are introduced to makes things more challenging. For example, you'll have to plan how to make your water reach each fire, because moving an object to drench one fire may unintentionally block the path to another. And just when you think all the fires are under control, a fireball might suddenly arrive from space, sparking brand new blazes.

Sprinkle has the cuteness factor turned up to high, with the fire-truck and little alien creatures looking adorable. The music deserves a mention too, for being catchy. And it's fun to squirt water through a small gap and have it erupt out the other side, like a geyser. Yup, splashing water around never gets old, so this new visually-appealing universal game will probably make a splash.

[source]