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Eli and Jared are Hurdle Turtle [$.99] fanatics. It’s a documented love affair beyond that of mortal bounds. And while the either of the duo would love to be the one to pen this blockbuster of a post, they can’t. They’re… unwell after a botched duel to the death over the rights of authorship. It’s with a leaden heart and a rejuvenating tinge of anticipation that I bring you this Hurdle Turtle update news: competitive multiplayer is coming soon.

Version 2.1.0 of Hurdle Turtle will usher in real-time, actual competitive multiplayer to the core game using Game Center as its service. The creators of Hurdle Turtle tell us that you’ll be able to play against friends, foes, or random dudes alike via the support, which should be coming very soon since the update is in Apple’s hands right now.

As you’d expect, Hurdle Turtle multiplayer will support friends play as well as auto-matching, and it plans to make this easier on your end: after picking a match, the game will assign the match a random level where you’ll be able to select your character before it begins in truth. No flashiness, just raw-dog Hurdle Turtle action.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I must tend to Fearless Leaders’ wounds. Jared’s Beard of Woe is a powerful weapon indeed.

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If you haven't heard of it yet, Kickstarter is currently the largest funding platform to creative projects in the world. It's the kind of site that you can sink hours into looking at all the incredible proposals people have. If you find something you like, you can "kickstart" it by throwing some money at the project. Each project has rewards to thank those who fund the project and one of the lower-rungs of the funding ladder usually involves getting a copy of whatever game/movie/product/etc is being proposed. It's a great system, and I really recommend looking into it if you've got some extra cash and want to support some great projects.

Anyway, something that caught my eye today was a project called "Tweet Land – The first set of games that play with reality!". It's a really cool idea, and it's already well on its way to meeting its funding goal. The basic premise is to release a series of iOS (and web) games that use tweets to create events in the game:

The game works really simple. Every time someone in the world tweets something, his or her tweets could affect the gameplay of Tweet Land by triggering certain action-keywords. It could be a "car accident" in your racing game, it could be your hate-gun gets reloaded in the action game, it could be anything.

I think what sounds so cool about this is that I've been a huge fan of randomized games on the platform. Various roguelikes, endless runners, and others games that are different every time you play them really appeal to me. Using the real world as a "random" event generator seems like such an amazing idea. Although, thinking about it, the real world really is far more random than any random number generator ever could be. Chew on that for a bit.

The down-side of all this Kickstarter business is that since we're essentially being pitched a concept, it could take quite a while for that to actually materialize into a game. Regardless, I'm excited.

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If you're at the point where your frog breeding factory in NimbleBit's Pocket Frogs [Free] is running at 110% capacity and you're looking to get your next freemium fix, I've got just what the doctor ordered. Ian and David Marsh, twin brothers behind Pocket Frogs has been hard at work on their next game, titled Tiny Tower. They haven't even started beta testing their game yet, so details are still being worked out, but here's what we've been told:

Tiny Tower tasks you with constructing and managing a tower populated with bitizens and businesses. Put your bitizens to work and keep your businesses stocked to earn enough revenue to expand your tower skyward. Unlock and collect one hundred plus floor blueprints that will make your tower stand out from the rest.

Check out the screenshots from an early development build of the game:

What made Pocket Frogs so awesome was that NimbleBit designed the game from the ground up to be a fun game first, and a freemium money maker second. There never really was a stopping point in Pocket Frogs where you had to pay to continue, unlike far too many freemium games where it's entirely too easy to spot all the time sinks and "optional pay walls which rarely feel optional on any level. We've been told Tiny Tower is going to be the exact same way, and I can't wait to give it a try.

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I’m clicking rewind on our post-GDC 2011 coverage in order to… cover some stuff we weren’t quite able to at GDC 2011! Here’s the deal: During our partying at GDC, we kept running into Paul from Tag Games. On top of being able to hold his brew like a champ, the dude can design games with the best. He took the time to chat with us about Car Jack Streets 2, and as I hinted just a second ago, it’s sounding mighty good.

To rewind a little further, Car Jack 2 appears to be a faithful follow-up to the original Car Jack Streets [$3.99]. It’s like Grand Theft Auto, if the name didn’t ring a bell. To quote from our original review of Car Jack Streets:

Randal's [the protagonist] money-making options are many and fall on both sides of the law. While, as one might expect, money can be earned by jacking cars for chop shops, helping with bank robberies, delivering "merchandise," and knocking off or protecting thugs, there are also legit ways to bring in the cash, such as driving taxis and buses and delivering pizza. A pizza pays a bit less than a hit, however…

As you’ll notice from the forum post, CJS 2 has an unusual art style, also, if you’ve been following the App Store, you already know that it’s hitting AFTER Rockstar put out a full and really good Grand Theft Auto game for the iOS. So, what’s the ace up Paul’s sleeve? Word on the street is that Car Jack Streets 2 is free-to-play with oodles of social features.

We’ll let you know when we know more stuff about the game. But, hey, just wanted to put it in your mind. Looks like a winner, and we're really curious to see what can be done when you combine social gaming with a genre that typically always been single player.

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We first reviewed Big Blue Bubble’s Burn the Rope [Link] back in late December, and really enjoyed the unique gameplay despite a few minor complaints. Among these were the lack of Retina Display graphics or Game Center, and an annoying bug that made it difficult to burn a rope around tight corners, thus making it harder to 100% a level for a gold medal. Then last month, Burn the Rope received a substantial update taking care of most of these complaints. Game Center was integrated with leaderboards and achievements, that nasty bug that prevented 100% completion on levels was fixed, and 16 brand new levels were added to enjoy.

I had previously said when the last update came out that the only thing left that I wanted to see out of Burn the Rope was support for Retina Display, and with today’s update my final demand has been met. The Retina Display support really makes the graphics pop, but Big Blue Bubble didn’t stop there. This update also contains another 16 brand new levels, as well as 3 new insects to deal with and new bonus rounds to complete.

The first new bug is the firebug which will explode when ignited by your flame and burn everything within its blast radius. Next are electric bugs which travel in pairs and once one is ignited it will shoot a bolt of electricity to its partner that will start an additional flame burning in a different area of the puzzle. Finally, water bugs will extinguish a flame that comes into contact with them, so you must make sure to have another flame burning somewhere before encountering them.

Also new in this update are bonus rounds which can be played upon completion of certain levels in the campaign. Here you’re given a puzzle that is crawling with a ton of bugs and the goal is to try and burn as many of them as possible before a short timer runs out. These levels are a fun break from the normal ones that can require some intense strategizing.

Burn the Rope was a fun puzzle game to begin with, and it got even better with these past two updates. Now that Retina Display support has been added, I can’t really see how it can be improved any further aside from just adding more levels to play through. There are now a total of 112 levels including all the new ones, so Burn the Rope is definitely a good investment for the amount of content it contains. The game is currently still on sale for 99¢ though the developer has stated the price would to up to $1.99 with this latest update, so it can change any time. If you have yet to grab Burn the Rope, now would be a great time to do so with so much content added since the initial release.

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In October of last year we first caught wind of Martin Kool's loving homage to retro adventure games, Sarien.net. Nearly a month later, we got a hands on preview of Space Quest, the first game Martin ported from its previous web-based browser state to an iPad-specific version that was custom tailored for both the screen and input of the device. Not long after that, Space Quest went live. While I'm not entirely sure how many people played the web-based version of the game to completion, it sure was awesome to have, and was a great tech demo for just what was possible via a web app on the iPad.

Today we got word that the rest of the Sarien.net catalog has been ported over, and in addition to iPhone support, the whole site is now hosted via Amazon's content distribution network to make loading even faster. Most of the games have even been extensively tweaked to be easy to play on the touch interface.

I'm not sure how much more detailed I need to get on this because, well, all the games are completely free to play and don't require any kind of installation beyond navigating your iOS device to sarien.net, tapping the game you want to play, adding a bookmark icon for it, then launching it. The single down side (if you'd even call it that) to all this is that since the games are played online via a web browser, you need an internet connection, but that seems to be a decent tradeoff to being able to instantly play such fantastic vintage adventure games for free on your iPhone or iPad.

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A few weeks back we reviewed Burn the Rope [99¢], the puzzle game with the sort of familiar sounding name but really unique gameplay. In Burn the Rope, you ignite a single point of an elaborate picture made out of rope with the goal of burning as much of it as possible. The catch is that the flame will only burn upwards, so you must twist your device around as the flame burns along the contours of whatever picture you are burning. It's a clever game and quite a lot of fun too.

Yesterday developer Big Blue Bubble released the first update to Burn the Rope. One of our biggest gripes with the game in our review was the inconsistent way the flame would burn around sharp corners in a picture. Even if you swear you burned around the corner properly, the game had a tendency to leave just the tiniest bit of rope unburned, thus preventing you from getting 100% completion and a gold medal on the level. It was frustrating to say the least, but this issue seems to have been completely squashed as I have yet to encounter it since updating. Also, it appears that you no longer need a complete 100% to earn gold, so even if you do leave a tiny portion of rope unburnt then you can still manage to get a gold medal.

Besides this much needed fix, the new update also contains a new area with 16 brand new levels to play through. Game Center is now integrated with online leaderboards for each area and 30 achievements to obtain. The ability to play music from your iPod library has been added, as well as your choice of 3 additional flames to pick from which are unlocked by doing things like rating the game in iTunes or “liking” its Facebook page. The flames are cosmetic only, but I actually really like being able to mix up which one I use. My personal favorite is the one that sparks like the fuse on a stick of dynamite.

Burn the Rope was pretty awesome initially, and this new update has fixed most of my issues with the game as well as added a lot of new content. My only request now would be for Retina Display graphics, and the developer has said in our forums that this feature should be coming sometime down the line. A lot of other folks seem to be enjoying Burn the Rope too, as since our initial review the game has skyrocketed into the #2 position overall in the US App Store. If you have yet to check out Burn the Rope, now is a great time to grab it as the game is currently 99¢ but should be jumping up to $1.99 with the next update.

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I know what you're thinking, but despite the name, Big Blue Bubble's newest iOS game Burn the Rope [99¢] has nothing to do with the popular title Cut the Rope [99¢/Lite]. It's actually a completely unique kind of puzzle game that tasks you with burning a design made out of rope by igniting just one point of the picture and guiding the flame, earning a medal based on the percentage of the entire picture that you burn. Various insects and spiders affect how you're able to burn the rope, and the 80 levels contained in the game get increasingly more difficult and complex as you go. There are a couple minor annoyances about Burn the Rope, but the core gameplay is engaging and there's enough content in the game to keep you busy for some time.

The basics of Burn the Rope involve touching a single point of the rope design to start a flame burning. The flames that ignite will only burn upwards, so you must spin your device around as the rope burns to keep the flame always moving up. It's possible to have multiple flames burning the picture at once if you can keep them all pointing upwards, but once a flame sits stagnant sideways or downwards for too long it will burn out. Torching at least 60% of a puzzle will net you a bronze medal, 80% for a silver, and the entire 100% will land you a gold medal.

As you progress in the game, bugs will begin to appear in the levels crawling along the rope. Different colored ants will change the color of your flame if you burn them up. Some levels contain pictures with portions made out of colored rope, so you have to strategically burn the correct colored ant to change your flame to the same color as the rope you're trying to burn. There can also be colored beetles crawling in some levels that add to your level completion percentage when burned, but again your flame must match their color in order for it to count. Finally there are spiders that will shoot out a string of web when burned, enabling you to reach portions of the rope picture that would normally be inaccessible as they aren't connected to the rest of the picture.

I don't normally like having to twist and turn my device around to play a game, but it doesn't bother me in Burn the Rope because the motions are mostly subtle, and there's an almost hypnotic feeling to slowly turning your device in your hands as you follow the flame along the rope. In this way, Burn the Rope has more in common with the Zen Bound series than any other game I can think of. The levels get fiendishly clever and complex the farther you go, and it will be a real challenge for anyone to attain gold medals on all 80 of them.

While the gameplay is interesting and fun, there are a few small things I feel could be better about Burn the Rope. It has a really cute art style, but it would definitely benefit from being enhanced with Retina Display support to make it stand out more. Also, I'd like to see Game Center integration with some neat achievements tied to the game's progression. The developers have stated in our forums that both of these features are already planned for the first two updates, and I think that once those hit it will add a lot to the overall package. One small problem I noticed was that the way the rope burns can sometimes be odd, leaving a very tiny chunk of rope unburnt when it shouldn't be. This forces you to replay a level if you're going for 100% completion, and although it happens infrequently it can be pretty annoying.

Despite any minor issues, Burn the Rope is a pretty great experience. I came very close to just glossing over the game because I assumed it was some sort of Cut the Rope ripoff, but I'm really glad that I checked out the trailer and gave the game a shot. There's plenty of content to play through, with 80 levels currently in the game and more coming in updates. Burn the Rope is definitely worth a look if you're interested in a unique puzzle game, and if you aren't afraid to spin your device around in public.

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We've been having a great time with Aralon: Sword and Shadow HD [$6.99] as evident by our review from last week, but there is no denying the fact that the game's initial release was a little rough around the edges. It didn't stop us from enjoying it, but we're extremely happy to see Crescent Moon Games hard at work releasing updates to tweak the game. Animations have been approved for both fishing and pick pocketing, in addition, NPCs also have gotten some new animations and greetings.

Graphical and performance enhancements have been made which makes the game run and look better, and spell effects have also been improved. In the additional content department, there are new quests, crafting recipes, items, and more. Also, in your travels you will come across both mage and troll henchmen that will aid you. Two new shops have opened as well, one in the city and one in Taryn Ridge.

Various improvements have made to the game's dungeons including souping up boss battles, and Crescent Moon addressed some of the crashes players were experiencing along with implementing a bucket full of other bug fixes and balance tweaks. If you were waiting to pick up Aralon to see what happens with future updates, now is your chance. We've also heard from Crescent Moon that they're hard at work on another update, and plan to implement as much as they can from the Aralon suggestions thread on our forums.

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We're big fans of Dinofarm Games / Fusion Reactions' arcade-style dungeon crawler 100 Rogues [App Store]. The game, which we reviewed back in May, is a re-imagination of the typical Rogue-like formula. It features the typical elements of the genre — near-certain death, randomly generated maps and loot, and a foray into the depths of an enemy-riddled pit — but delivers it in a way that makes you feel you are playing something else entirely. In our initial review, we found it to be pretty brilliant.

In that review, we spoke of the long list of planned features that the developer had in store for the title. Here, half a year later, it's clear those weren't empty promises. The developer released all of nine updates to the game through October, and two weeks ago released version 2.0, a massive update that enhanced the gameplay in a great many ways.

Some of the enhancements that came with version 2.0:

• Hell! Another world, with new levels, music, monsters and maps to explore, has been added to the end of the game, appropriately situated between the Dungeon and Satan
• New Boss: A new, Dungeon-themed boss has been placed between the Dungeon and the new Hell world
• Amafyst: The Fairy Wizard's basic projectile skill now leaves behind Crystal Caltrops upon impact, each lasting 10 turns dealing damage and slowing monsters that walk on them. Each skill point in Amafyst creates a higher number of more damaging crystals
• Easy Mode now spans all three game worlds
• Map Generation: Each map is now comprised of a mix of handcrafted and randomly generated rooms
• Mob Clustering: Monsters now spawn more tightly in groups, and only spawn in mobs within rooms, reducing the incidence of difficult encounters in hallways.
• Game Center can now be disabled via 100 Rogues user preferences in the Settings App
• Stability improvements throughout the game

And the continuing evolution of 100 Rogues is showing no sign of slowing down. The version 2.1 update has been submitted to Apple and should go live later today or tomorrow. And it's a pretty significant update.

A partial list of what version 2.1 will bring:

• Two new weapons
• One new armor type
• End Cutscene now rendered in-engine (Apple's movie player has been entirely removed from the game. Enjoy the greatly reduced update size!)
• New Bandit Hole 1 music
• Custom Playlist support via Options Menu
• iOS 4.2 support (Game Center / Multi-tasking on iPad)
• Load Times improved throughout the games
• Many various bug fixes

In addition, a new, third player class will be released by December 15. This new class is known as the Skellyman Scoundrel, which lead designer Keith Burgun describes.

In terms of character, the Scoundrel is a member of the Skellyman race, a race of Skeleton-People created by magic many generations ago. This means that they actually reproduce and have baby skeletons which grow into adult skeletons – they're not undead and they don't come from humans. The Scoundrel in particular happens to be an undead Skellyman, however, as she was killed by her lover in life – he stabbed her in the back of the head with a dagger. She now keeps it in her skull (and it ends up looking like a fashionable ponytail because of its tassle) and stalks the dungeons looking for greater and greater kills with which to satisfy her thirst for revenge. When you get enough backstabs, you can deliver the ability SKELLY VENGENACE, a skill which makes the skellyman pull her lover's dagger from her skull and plunge it into a target. This skill can do *MASSIVE* damage, like you've never seen in 100 Rogues.

This Leap Attacking, Skelly Vengeance-dealing new class is all about stealth, mobility, speed, and dealing great damage to singular targets. It should mix up this already heavily-updated title rather nicely. Hats off to the folks behind 100 Rogues for so admirably keeping the ball rolling with 100 Rogues, as well as for these exclusive details and (inset) design sketch.

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