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If you'd told me that an iOS game about a pig with seasonal allergies and the monsters that love to eat his boogers would top my list of most charming games on the platform, I'd have laughed in your face. Then I had a chance to get hands-on with Gesundheit! just a few days before its release. Whaddya know, mucus can be charming after all.

I'm not a big fan of gross-out humor, but that's only a small part of what makes Gesundheit! stand out. For starters, it's completely gorgeous. The hand-drawn art style you can see in the screenshots is consistent throughout every level, cutscene and map. The game also sounds fantastic. The music might just rival Bumpy Road for twee charm, and I mean that in the best possible way.

Of course the gameplay is really where it's at. Gesundheit! is a top-down action puzzler. The goal is to lure all the booger-eating monsters into traps without getting caught — and if they see you, they'll come for you. You move your hay-fever plagued pig around by tapping where you want to him go, and control his sneezes with a billiards-style pull and release. This launches a snot ball, which monsters just can't resist. The whole thing seems super precise, which is helpful when you're running for your little piggy life.

I've only had a chance to play a handful of levels, but the combination of game mechanics works very well so far. There are puzzle aspects, while you figure out how to get the monsters to the trap and how to collect all the starfruit on the way. You also need to be stealthy, keeping out of site of monsters, sneezing and darting quickly out of sight. And you'll need good aim to bounce your snot-balls precisely where you want them. New elements, like teleportation pads and mosquito monsters, are introduced regularly to keep things tricky. I can't wait to see the rest of it.

Gesundheit! has come nearly out of nowhere, being revealed by Konami behind closed doors just last week at San Diego Comic-Con. But it's not exactly brand new. Back in 2008, Gesundheit! emerged at the Independent Games Festival as a student showcase finalist. It went pretty viral as a PC demo, but a full release never made it out the door. When Revolutionary Concepts started working with artist Matt Hammill, they found out about his pet project and collaborated with him to bring it to iOS. Looks like the results are worth the wait — this game feels right at home on a touch screen.

Gesundheit! will be released this Thursday for the introductory price of $0.99 on iPhone and iPod touch, and $1.99 on iPad (3rd gen devices and iOS 3.2 or higher). We'll bring you a full review of this sneezerific charmer once it's out. In the meantime you can join the anticipation in our discussion thread.

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On this week’s bonus edition of The TouchArcade Show, a crew of three — count ‘em! — chat with indie games visionary and creator of Canabalt [$2.99], Semi Secret Software's Adam Saltsman. The conversation kicks off with a light discussion of Adam’s oddly elaborate sandwich and then into other much more hard-hitting topics such as the themes and ideas that went into, ultimately, the creation of Canabalt, what Adam offers the indie games community, and several of his other games including Zits & Giggles and Wurdle [$1.99], one of the first iOS word games to hit the App Store.

You can download this episode directly or stream it via the links provided below or, hey, you can even subscribe to our fair podcast via iTunes or the Zune Marketplace.

iTunes Link: The TouchArcade Show
Zune Marketplace: TouchArcade.com Podcasts
RSS Feed: The TouchArcade Show
Direct Link: TouchArcadeShow-Bonus-006.mp3, 30MB

This is an awesome and honest discussion that I think you’ll like. We’ll be back, of course, with another bonus episode next week with another developer chat. Also, prepare yourself for another flagship podcast this Friday. Yay! If you want to get in touch with us and get your name in the show the e-mail is podcast@toucharcade.com. You can also hit us up on the Twitter and the Facebook if social media is your thing.

Interstitial for this episode is all via Overclock Remix’s Daniel Baranowsky, the man who composed the iconic song for Canabalt. A snippet of Jim Guthrie’s Audio Pepsi opens and closes the ‘cast. Here’s a track list of what we used:

• Jurassic Park Before Time OC ReMix
• Final Fantasy VII ‘Damn Those Turks!’
• VVVVV ‘Clubbed Baby VVVVVeal’

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You know what the App Store needs? More imaginative and psychedelic rhythm games, that’s what. Conveniently for the purpose of this news story, a new one is on the way from the same man who is responsible for dropping Space Invaders: Infinity Gene [$4.99 / Free] on us eons ago, Taito’s Reisuke Ishida. It’s called Groove Coaster, and it appears to be as simple as the titling suggests: you listen to some trance-y / new wave-y music and tap out the beat as a blink-y thing glides on rails.

Japanese publication Famitsu scored the first look at the new title. The first video here demonstrates the basics of the game in what must be one of the easier levels:

The second video shows what appears to be a more difficult level, with tons more beats to hit and visual effects to accompany them:

For what it’s worth, you can tell this is Ishida’s. As Joystiq notes, it’s all wire-framed out and ready to grab some glow sticks for this evening’s rave. Infinity Gene had a similar look and feel and that certainly panned out well for a title, that, overall, really had a spring in its step and some awesome mechanics to share. Here's to hoping this has more than meets the eye… but even if it didn't, I think I'd be pleased with it. Our collective gut says that this is definitely a game to watch and review whenever it’s slated to hit.

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If you're into following the business side of the mobile gaming industry, the Flurry Analytics blog just simply needs to either be in your RSS reader, or the daily rotation of sites you read. It's a fantastic information overload of charts, data points, and analysis which is the product of having their analytics package included in over 75,000 different iOS and Android apps. Not long ago we posted about some recent findings of theirs that showed that free to play was accounting for 65% of the total revenue that games are raking in compared to "premium" games which went from 61% of the total revenue in January all the way down to 35% a mere six months later.

Today Flurry expanded on these numbers, and revealed that of the 3.5m consumers they're tracking, the average transaction inside of a free to play game is $14. The breakdown of what makes up this $14 average is incredibly interesting as well. For instance, data shows that around 3% of consumers spend money in free to play games, of that 3%, 71% of the transactions that occur are under $10, but 51% of the total revenue generated from these games come from transactions over $20. Check out the chart:

Flurry gets even more in depth with that $14 average:

Let’s spend a moment on the $14 average, which may seem high to you at first blush. There are two reasons the average settles here. First, within the “under $10” bucket, most transactions cluster at the $9.99 level, followed by $4.99, and finally $0.99. In fact, in total, consumers spent $0.99 less than 2% of the time. Why then would so few consumers spend just $1 in freemium games when this price point is so popular among premium games (the pay-before-you-can-play model)? Because freemium games drive a different decision-making mindset for consumers. They simply are deciding whether or not to spend. Our data shows that around 3% of consumers will spend money in freemium games. A deep commitment to the game experience appears to influence their buying habits. The second reason the $14 average seems high is because the high-end of the spending spectrum is very high. Among all purchase price points, over 5% of all purchases are for amounts greater than $50, which rivals the amount paid at retail for top console and PC games

Also, interestingly enough, 30% of that top-tier $20+ transaction are actually over $50, making it beneficial for freemium developers to actually keep "whales" (as Flurry puts it) in mind when developing their games. Some other shocking figures from the same post include the fact that iOS and Android now make up 34% of the portable gaming revenue share, up from 1% in 2008. What's crazier yet is although Nintendo has taken every opportunity to dismiss smartphones, in that same time frame their revenue share shrank from 75% to 57%, even through the release of the 3DS.

With how quickly both smartphone gaming and the free to play model has taken over in the past six months, I can't wait to see the Flurry reports six months from now. Nintendo's shrinking revenue share also has me wondering just how much longer they're going to remain relevant in the mobile market if they don't produce something that competes with convergence devices, especially as smartphones get cheaper and more widespread.

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Stray Robot Games is a New Zealand based studio, formed late in 2010 who have just released their first iOS game: Wooords [99¢], a minimalistic word game, which involves sliding fridge-magnets around the screen. You've probably seen puzzles in newspapers (or on the App Store) which involve forming as many words as possible from nine letters. One of the letters is the "key letter" and must appear in each word, and if you manage to put all the letters in the right order, you form an elusive "big word" and earn bonus points.

In Wooords, instead of typing words in (or writing them in a newspaper), you simply slide fridge-magnets around to form words, anywhere on the screen. The letters don't have to be perfectly lined up, just adjoining, as the game is clever enough to detect when a word is formed and you'll be rewarded with a burst of stars, a happy sound and some points. An awful lot of effort went into this design decision, too.

For instance, as you move the fridge-magnets, they make little clinking noises as they collide with each other. If you drag a letter between two other letters, they ease apart to make room. And if you form a larger word, the letters subtlety decrease in size, so the word fits on the screen. If you shake your device the letters are randomly re-arranged. It's shocking how well this all works.

There's three game modes to choose from. In 'Classic' mode you have unlimited time to form words, which are rewarded by points and stars. Achieving one star unlocks the next puzzle (30 in total), but real satisfaction comes from obtaining the maximum three stars. This mode is about skill and persistence, rather than speed. The second mode is 'Daily Words', which is a daily competition to rank yourself against yourself, friends or the world. A fresh set of letters is released every 24 hours, which gives this game daily re-playability. And lastly, there's 'Word Jam' which places an emphasis on both speed and skill. The goal is to reach the target score within the word and time limit. This involves completing quick-fire rounds, so speed is definitely a factor here.

Wooords can be played casually for fun, but don't let the cute magnets fool you, this can also be a competitive game of speed, skill and strategy as you climb the Game Center leader-boards. The scoring in the old newspaper puzzles (and similar games) was based on the quantity of words found, with bonus points for nine-letter words. But in Wooords the scoring is far more advanced with multipliers, taking into account word complexity, the "IQ level" of a word, and more.

This cute little game has already become a part of my daily routine. It's fun to fling the magnets into words as quickly as possible and as the developer points out, you're also exercising your brain, by testing your "vocabulary, speed and concentration". Wooords is even a universal game, which sweetens the deal even further.

Even though you might already have a ton of similar word games on your device, the clever refrigerator magnet-powered gameplay feels surprisingly fresh, and makes the UI used in previously released word games flat out seem archaic in comparison. Before downloading, be warned: Wooords will make your actual refrigerator magnets seem unresponsive and far less interesting!

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Square Enix's Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions was getting close to becoming the Duke Nukem Forever of the App Store. It was announced back at E3 of last year. Since then, it missed its original September 15th release date, then got pushed back to "spring 2011". Spring came and went, then Squeenix announced it would be coming in June or July. That original estimate didn't turn out to be too good either, as not long after, it was pushed back again. As long as I'm linking all of these relevant stories, I should also mention our Final Fantasy Tactics hands-on preview, which still is one of my favorite April Fools Day posts, even though it sure did make a lot of people angry.

ANYWAY! With all that backstory out of the way, I can get to the good news: Final Fantasy Tactics has been submitted to Apple for approval. I blasted out a tweet polling developers for recent App Store approval turnaround times lately, and assuming there aren't any show stopping bugs or other reasons for apple to mash the big red "REJECT" button we could be playing FFT potentially as early as this Thursday, but more likely next Thursday, if Squeenix sees similar approval times.

This is exciting news, as Final Fantasy Tactics is basically the perfect game for the iPhone. (Yeah, I went there.) I'd still love to see them port more of the Final Fantasy games to iOS devices, and with how successful they all seem to be on the App Store, I can't think of much reason why they won't eventually. Either way, if you're looking for a place to party with people similarly excited for FFT, swing by the thread in our forums.

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Considering the numbers Rovio Mobile throws out when talking about the penetration of Angry Birds, it’s hard to imagine that there’s more than a dozen or so people walking the planet who haven’t purchased the physics-based puzzle title. But just in case you missed out on the HD version specifically, it’s now much cheaper than what it was. As of yesterday, the $4.99 title is $1.99, which is around a healthy three dollars worth of savings.

Angry Birds HD is, essentially, the iPhone version but bigger. Go figure, right? Yet, it does come off as a richer experience due to the enhanced screen real estate of the iPad. I, like many others, have drained a billion hours into this specific version, so I’ll vouch for its quality. And as a value proposition at this price point, it’s sorta a no-brainer. If you like smashing stuff with birds, get it. If you don’t, well, you can complain in the comments– Extra points for mentioning Crush the Castle.

In other Angry Birds news (we're so topical), Rovio's Web shop is having a "Deal of the Day" on the black bird plushies. For a limited time, you can grab one for $12.99. Also, according to a recent Rovio tweet, the store has new international shipping prices. Packages to the US and UK are only $5, while Europe is $7. Sadly, no Angry Bird plushies ship with a dog as cute as this one. Swoon!

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The obvious choice for the oft-teased tablet-bound version of Czech studio Amanita Design’s gorgeous and moody point-and-click Machinarium has always been the iPad because of its reach, but the whole “Apple doesn’t support Flash” thing has been the stumbling block. Good news, though: apparently a non-flash-based iPad version of the title has actually been in the works, and in even better news, it’ll hit the App Store next month. Neat!

"It's almost finished, but we still need to fix a lot of small bugs and test it properly. It should be ready during the next month… hopefully." Amanita founder Jakub Dvorský, told Pocket Gamer.

Amanita has remained busy since the Machinarium's initial release in 2009. Machinarium has since seen a release on Mac and a PSN version is slated to hit this fall. The studio has put out a sequel to Samarost, Samarost 2 [$2.99], across various platforms.

It’s hard not to pump your fists for these guys. Despite Machinarium's low and flexible price point, it has been pirated a ton, kinda like another equally imaginative and price-flexible title, World of Goo, was / probably still is.

At one point, both studios reckoned that only around 10 percent of the players who had the games actually paid for them, which is disgusting. Here’s to hoping that the Machinarium iPad port is good in the first place, and subsequently gets the feature love that World of Goo [$4.99] did upon its App Store debut.

We’ll be looking at this after it releases, but if you’re totally in the dark about the game, there are a billion and one reviews out there to look at.

[via Pocket Gamer]

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Magnetic Billiards: Blueprint [Free] is an odd game. The Pickford Bros. might have put a bit too much of themselves into it — they literally pop up all over loading screens offering tips and kudos. A player piano score runs in the menus, and a robotic voice congratulates you on cool shots while doorbells count off combos. Oh, and there's a back story about how this is all built off a game blueprint found in old family documents. So yeah, it's strange. But it's also smart, generous with its free content, and, more importantly, insanely fun.

As the name suggests, it's little bit like billiards. You line up a shot, hit one ball into some other balls, and clear the table to win. There are also an awful lot of elements that bring in a bit of a match-3 flavor. But then the game tosses both inspirations right out the window. The board lacks pockets, and you can only clear the balls by matching all of one color together. If you try to do that as efficiently as possible (as in billiards, or any matching game) and you'll be rated terribly. You can only earn a good rating by taking as many shots as possible without screwing up. It all feels like it's been put together backwards, but you'll get the hang of it.

Your score is the product of a crazy amount of factors. Each ball you shoot needs to hit another ball of the same color, or you'll lose a life. If you do it right, your tariff goes up. Your tariff is the foundation of your score – the points you get for a hit are based off your tariff, any combos you earn multiply it and so on. Screw up and hit the wrong colored ball first, and your tariff gets wiped. You multiply your tariff each time you bounce your ball off a wall on the way to its destination. Buzzing close to a ball of another color multiplies it as well. When you clear a color, the game checks if your linked up balls match a list of cluster shapes, and those reward tariff bonuses, combo bonuses and extra lives. It sounds super complicated, but it doesn't take long to pick up the salient points. It's such a cliché, but this game really is easy to pick up and hard to master.

Magnetic Billiards' free-to-play model is pretty much perfect. You're given the first 20 levels of Classic mode, the puzzles described above. Most levels are locked to start, and you can earn keys to open new ones by doing well. Since the speed you earn keys ties to how successfully you complete each level, you don't really have to grind — you just need to improve. I played around for well over an hour before diving into paid content.

Once you're ready to move on, you'll find a few IAP options. You can download the second tier of classic levels and each arcade mode individually, or you can buy all the game's content (and all future content) for one flat price. The latter option also includes a reusable skeleton key, so you no longer need to worry about grinding your way to new keys if you don't want to. I'd definitely recommend picking up the premium classic levels. They ramp up the challenge considerably, adding more balls and more colors to deal with. Whether or not you'll want the rest of the content depends on how much you love to chase high scores.

The Arcade levels are interesting, and they change up the game's formula. Relentless is probably the best of the three, functioning as a slow and steady survival mode that will let you build up ridiculously high tariffs. In Countdown mode, your tariff drops faster and faster, and you have to keep moving to keep it from falling to naught. Sardines packs four new balls onto the field with each move you make, so all your attention will be on eking out a little space to play with. The only thing the arcade modes are missing is the cluster shape bonuses, which would add a nice level of strategy. Still, they're a solid addition if you're already hooked.

Game Center achievements and leaderboards are available whether or not you choose to pay, and you can get quite a lot of mileage out of the free game. There's a bit of a learning curve, but you can pick up some great tips in our discussion thread. It won't be easy to resist unlocking the rest of the content, though. Magnetic Billiards is a creative, original game from veteran developers. It looks great and plays beautifully. That it's also risk-free is purely a bonus, but it does mean you really have no reason not to take a shot.

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One of the things I love about the App Store is that even after 3+ years it still has the power to surprise me with a game release that I never would have expected. Over the weekend, Namco Bandai finally released the first Tekken game for iOS. Unfortunately, it’s not an actual fighting game, but rather a mini-game called Tekken Bowl [Free].

Tekken Bowl was a bonus mode of sorts that was included with the PlayStation 2 release of Tekken Tag Tournament. Tekken Tag was the first game I bought for my PlayStation 2 after sleeping outside of Best Buy to secure a day one purchase of the console. It was a phenomenal fighting game 10 years ago and still holds up well today. Namco Bandai is currently in development of a sequel to the game coming to arcades later this year, and presumably to consoles after that.

It’s been quite a few years since I’ve picked up Tekken Tag Tournament, but I remember being quite fond of the Tekken Bowl mini-game. Alas, those were simpler times back then, and Tekken Bowl’s simplistic gameplay doesn’t do much for me in this day and age. It doesn’t help that the iOS version is really scaled back from the original, though it does contain some new elements unique to this version.

There are only 3 characters to choose from in Tekken Bowl: Xiaoyu, Jin, and Panda. Each have slightly different attributes in the areas of power and control when bowling. You can play through a regular 10 frame game either by yourself or with 2 using 1 device pass-n-play style. There’s also a puzzle mode where your job is to knock down all the pins in each of the 30 levels, which are adorned with ramps, gaps, explosives, and other elements. You’re given a predetermined amount of balls to knock down the pins with, and can earn bronze, silver, and gold medals based on how many you use to get the job done.

The thing about the main bowling game is that it was designed for a console with buttons, and this hasn’t really changed in the transition to a touch screen. You adjust your player position at the bottom of the screen by dragging, then tap on a set of moving meters to determine both how straight and how powerful your shot is. It’s extremely simple but works alright, it just would have been nice if they implemented more natural swiping gestures to determine your shot like most bowling games on the App Store.

Strangely, the puzzle mode of Tekken Bowl does implement a different control scheme that’s more catered to a touch screen, but it’s not really that great either. Here, instead of the old-school power meters, you’re given a triangle shape on screen that represents both the angle and power of your shot. Simply drag a bowling ball icon where you want on the triangle and it will send your shot out based on where its placed. Again, this method works, it’s just not very fun. Plus, the puzzle mode often requires a level of accuracy that’s not possible with the chunky ball icon and triangular meter.

All in all, Tekken Bowl is pretty unremarkable, which is a shame because it has a lot of potential. If it had a full roster of characters, a decent amount of modes, some sort of persistent single player career, and new controls that utilize the touch screen better, then Tekken Bowl could have been a pretty cool little game. As it is now, it feels very much like the mini-game that it originally was, though sadly, it’s not even as good as that version.

Tekken Bowl’s mediocrity largely gets a pass because it’s free, it’s universal, and the graphics look pretty decent. Hopefully this release is just a teaser of sorts and Namco Bandai are planning on releasing a full-fledged Tekken fighting game for iOS in the near future. It’s already been proven that a fighting game can work really well on the touch screen, and the Tekken franchise leaves a gaping hole in the genre with its absence on the App Store. Time will tell what happens on that front, but in the meantime Tekken Bowl is worth the free download if you’re curious or looking to scratch that nostalgia itch, just don’t expect much from it.

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