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On this week’s episode of the TouchArcade Show we power… actually, we stay pretty much on topic. At the top, we address a pressing bit of user feedback before jumping into the latest, hottest, and best in iOS. Fibble and On the Wind lead off our games segment, and then we gleefully dive into a bunch of news-y subjects after the break. Topics include the latest rash of 3rd party peripherals and EA being voted the worst company in that one Internet poll.

Feel free to join us. You can listen via one of the links below, or hey, subscribe to us on either iTunes or Zune. If you like us, subscribing is the easiest way to get our new podcasts the second they hit the web.

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Direct Link: TouchArcadeShow-046.mp3, 36.8MB

And now, the show notes:

GAMES

• On The Wind [$1.99]
• Towers N Trolls [$.99 / UHD]
• Fibble [$1.99 / HD]
• Sky Gnomes [$.99]

JARED’S KITTY KORNER

• Super Catrio I [$.99 / Lite]

FRONT PAGE

• Controller Round-up: Apple’s rumored device, the BladePad, and An Interesting Camera-Enabled peripheral
• EA Voted Worst Company In America
• Square Releases Puzzling New Game

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How refreshing it is to play a game with a down-to-earth plot? Even the most grounded of games usually bear their fair share of swords and sorcery or bombastic battles. Super Lemonade Factory [$1.99] goes a different route, telling a simple story from one particular moment in time. Lisolet and Andre are newly married in the days after World War II. Andre is set to take up his father’s lemonade factory, but first he and Lisolet must tour the premises, meeting the workers and learning about the challenges they face.

It might sound a little dry, but the tale accompanies a clever platformer designed to play on the strengths and weaknesses of its stars. Andre is blessed with physical strength and can break through boxes that bar the couple’s path. Lisolet is agile; she can double jump and reach places Andre can’t, often giving him a foot up with a crate from a higher perch. Isn’t it lovely to see a marriage with partners that complement each other so well?

The journey through the factory is surprisingly perilous—you’d think it had been designed as a deathtrap. Often, either Andre or Lisolet will need rescuing right from the start. You’ll have to direct the other across a pit of spikes, perhaps, over floating platforms and around the surprisingly deadly people of the factory. Once one has saved the other, they can travel together—Andre is happy to give Lisolet a piggyback so you needn’t cover the same ground twice. From there it’s usually a hop, skip and a jump to the level’s exit.

A detour may be necessary on the way. Though it seems like the sort of thing aimed at completionists, you’ll want to collect each level’s bottle cap. These are occasionally well hidden and usually hard to reach, but behind them sits half the game’s content. Collect all the caps in a given area and you’ll unlock the hardcore version of that area, where platforms are smaller and faster and spikes are everywhere. Brushing against a spike is deadly, and Andre and Lisolet only have two lives to work with if you can’t find any bags of sugar to replenish them.

Controlling the couple is simple, with on-screen controls for walking, jumping and dashing. These are responsive and rarely get in the way, but they suffer the usual flaw of being a little too easily mis-tapped. You can swap between Andre and Lisolet with a horizontal swipe; a vertical swipe puts Lisolet on Andre’s back.

Lisolet is blessed with one more ability: a way with words. She can speak with any of the factory’s denizens. The foreman, the chef – these workers open up about their hopes and dreams, both for the company and for themselves. A food inspector waxes poetic on the need for cleanliness, and a General blusters about the misfortune that could befall a company that chose not to meet military requests for supplies.

These bits of flavor are woven into the metagame: Game Center achievements are awarded for speaking with all employees, and your progress is marked on the level select screen. But more than that, the dialogue is rather charming. The foreman is a burgeoning Bolshevik who loves to muse on the meaning of labor; Andre will share stories from his past. Much of it hits a bit heavy-handed, but it’s always a pleasant diversion—you’ll also find the occasional pop-culture reference if you’re paying attention.

In the end, the gameplay suffers for its simplicity. The most puzzling levels aren’t more complicated than pushing a couple boxes in the right order before jumping, and there are only so many spikes one can add to a level before it gets silly. If there’s more to be done with the formula, though, we may yet see it done. The developers offer a system for level creation and plan to add the best of the user-created content to the game. On top of 72 already entertaining levels, that sounds pretty good.

And hey, if you haven’t noticed, Super Lemonade Factory is a looker. If you’re into pixel art, you won’t be disappointed—both the style and the animation are fantastic. On top of that the chiptune soundtrack is pretty great, if a tad overly-aggressive for the content.

So while the game isn’t flawless, it’s still an easy recommendation. There are kinks to be worked out, but they don’t detract much from the good stuff: a solid, fun puzzle platformer with great ideas and outstanding presentation. And, frankly, how often do we get to play a game with such a delightfully low-key premise? For that, Super Lemonade Factory most certainly deserves a look. Still, it’s unlikely to push platformer fans, so know that going in. You might not find a challenge, but you’ll find a lot of charm.

TouchArcade Rating:

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In tomorrow’s update for SpellTower [$1.99], creator Zach Gage is giving fans a lot of reasons to stick with his beautiful word game. On top of adding new iPad support, night colors, tweaks, and various fixes, Gage is finally implementing a bluetooth battle mode, which looks as great as it sounds. We’ve got video of it just below, in fact.

If you’ve somehow missed out on SpellTower, now’s a good of time as ever to take the plunge. It’s a remarkable word game with a ton of clever puzzle games and its designed with elegance in mind. It ended up being one of our Game of the Year contenders, as it was easily the standout word game of 2011. Give it a look.

UPDATE: Sometimes things don’t go as planned, unfortunately. Some approval process stuff is holding back the update. The new release date is April 12th.

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In tomorrow’s update for SpellTower [$1.99], creator Zach Gage is giving fans a lot of reasons to stick with his beautiful word game. On top of adding new iPad support, night colors, tweaks, and various fixes, Gage is finally implementing a bluetooth battle mode, which looks as great as it sounds. We’ve got video of it just below, in fact.

If you’ve somehow missed out on SpellTower, now’s a good of time as ever to take the plunge. It’s a remarkable word game with a ton of clever puzzle games and its designed with elegance in mind. It ended up being one of our Game of the Year contenders, as it was easily the standout word game of 2011. Give it a look.

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Much to our surprise, non-Retina games and apps on the new iPad aren’t anywhere near as terrible looking at the difference between Retina and non-Retina games and apps on the iPhone. Regardless, it’s still really nice to play games that take full advantage of the over three million pixels of that beautiful screen.

Four great games recently had updates land to boost them into higher-than-HD-land:

• Carcassonne [ $9.99 ] – Review – A practically flawless iOS board game.
• League of Evil 2 [ $1.99 ] – Review – A Super Meat Boy-like sequel.
• Ticket to Ride [ $6.99 (HD)] – Review – Another great board game port.
• Zombie Highway [ $0.99 ] – Review – A slick survival driving game.

So, either mash that “Update All” button if you’ve got these games on your new iPad, or check out some of the above reviews. You really can’t go wrong with any or all of these games.

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If you’ve been following along with TouchArcade for a while, then you should know that one of our favorite pastimes is playing the asynchronous multiplayer racing game Disc Drivin’ [$1.99/Lite/HD]. Ah yes, Disc Drivin’. It first released in December of 2010, and there honestly aren’t any other games that have been out for that long that I consistently play on a daily basis. Granted, it hasn’t quite grabbed everybody like it has me (but bless your heart for trying, Eli), but for those who love the gameplay Disc Drivin’ has simply incredible staying power.

Disc Drivin’ developer Pixelocity is trying to ensure that myself and those like me will continue our daily racing obsession, and have just released the biggest update for the game to date. There are five(!) brand new tracks to compete on, all taking place in a brand new snow-themed environment. In this new environment you’ll (literally) run into two new kinds of obstacles: one is a giant snowball that will explode on impact and slow you down a bit, and the other is an ice block which will block your path before finally breaking and disappearing after it’s been run into a few times.

Other improvements include a badge count that updates without needing to open the app first (finally!), support for the new iPad resolution in the HD version, and resigned games will now go into your completed races list rather than sticking around in your current games list. If you aren’t sure what this Disc Drivin’ business is all about, then definitely give the free version a try. It’s the complete game, but has advertisements that pop up in-between turns. They’re really not that bothersome, but if ads really get your blood boiling then the full version can be yours for $1.99 or $2.99 on the iPad.

Above is an overhead view of the five new track layouts and pictures of the two new obstacles in the game. Also, check out all of our previous Disc Drivin’ coverage from the links below:

• Original Disc Drivin’ Review
• Online Matchmaking Update
• iPad Version Released
• Three New Tracks Update
• Three MORE New Tracks Update
• Customizable Disc Update
• Cast of “Mad Men” Love Disc Drivin’

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The latest update to Super Crate Box [$1.99] introduces a new kind of crate, developer Vlambeer told us via e-mail this afternoon. Version 1.1, which just hit, adds extremely rare, and random, golden crates. In all, there are just 100 to collect globally. Also, as if that wasn’t Willy Wonka enough for you, a rare golden enemy type is being added, as well. As soon as fans find all of the golden crates, Vlambeer plans to release the next update.

This update will also introduce two more indie characters to unlock: one from Starguard, and the other from Psychosomnium. Bug fixes, tweaks, and prep work for version 1.2 are also expected to drop when this hits. Oh! And the first person to download this will score the world’s very first golden crate. Dibs!

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Last year at E3, we got our first taste of F5 Games’ upcoming Pocket Heroes, and we were definitely intrigued by what we saw. Pocket Heroes looks to take a party-based adventure RPG and give it the asynchronous multiplayer treatment. In fact, it’s strictly online-only, with each player controlling a party member in the game and taking turns making moves asynchronously, with push notifications letting everybody know when it’s time for them to go.

It’s been described as Words With Friends meets turn-based RPG, and is probably best understood by watching the trailer below.

So, as you can see from that video, Pocket Heroes is a really cool idea. Since we first saw the game at E3 last June, F5 has been continuing to toil away at the project, and we got another chance to see where it was at during GDC last month. It had come a long way since E3, and actually looked very close to finished.

Earlier this week, the game’s publisher Ayopa Games posted the official game page for Pocket Heroes along with an official release date and pricing info. We can expect to get our hands on Pocket Heroes May 11th for the reasonable price of $1.99. Sweet! You can also see some brand spanking new promo art for the game and learn more about the different classes by visiting our forums, and we’ll definitely have more on Pocket Heroes as it nears its release next month.

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