TouchArcade.ru

We’ve been incredibly excited for Farsight Studio’s upcoming Pinball Arcade since we first heard about it this past October. Following their critically acclaimed Pinball Hall of Fame Gottlieb and Williams collections that have appeared on various platforms over the years, Farsight is now working on what they hope to be the ultimate pinball video game with Pinball Arcade. Featuring tables from historic pinball companies like Bally, Stern, Williams and Gottlieb, Pinball Arcade is also set to be updated and expanded frequently following release and should eventually contain at least 50 classic pinball tables, making for the ultimate virtual collection.

Pinball Arcade is slated to hit just about every platform you can think of, including iOS. Last month, we checked out a trailer that showcased several of the tables in action, though the footage didn’t seem to specifically be from an iOS device. However, their most recent video demonstrates the Tales of the Arabian Nights table from Pinball Arcade running on an iPad 2, and it looks absolutely fantastic:

Pinball Arcade is scheduled for an early 2012 launch – which is like, now – and I’ve got my money on us seeing it in the App Store before the end of the month. The first tables to launch with the game are Tales of the Arabian Nights, Ripley’s Believe It or Not, Theatre of Magic, and Black Hole. They hope to add 2 new tables per month via updates, and each month a different table will be featured as “Table of the Month” and offered at a discounted rate. For launch, the first Table of the Month will be Tales of the Arabian Nights, which will cost 99¢. The other 3 tables will run either $1.99 or $2.99 each, according to Farsight’s Twitter.

Be on the lookout for Pinball Arcade to hit hopefully really soon and check out our forums for some discussion on the game.

[Thanks Jeff!]

[source]

The easiest way to describe 5th Cell’s upcoming Run Roo Run is to call it Canabalt, but with levels. That works. In the game, you control a kangaroo in search of its joey, and the path to finding it involves plenty auto-running and manually hurdling obstacles. To jump, you tap the screen. To run, you tap the screen. It’s as much of a triumph in that style of minimalist design as Canabalt is, and it has similar elements and mechanics.

The “but with levels part” is a pretty big game-defining departure. Run Roo Run’s world has oodles of color and instance-based content. In all, it rocks over 400 levels, all of which are clumped into individual chapters that introduce new mechanics. You’ll bounce on tires, float on fans, play around with a double jump, and avoid retracting spikes as well as the rest of its outback’s hazards, like cactuses, jagged trees and wood, and so forth. The way the game builds on itself, considering it has just a single, super-easy action, is pretty impressive.

Most levels break down like this: on a horizontal plane, you’ll be presented with two or three jumps, all with repercussions for failure. Jump too soon, and you might hit a wall or a jagged rock. Jump too early, and you’ll collide with the obstacle. As you progress, you’ll be jumping to a tire, bouncing off of it at the perfect moment into a double jump that’ll carry you in-between two rocks and to the level’s end point.

Each level is designed to be super breezy. You’ll finish most 3-5 seconds. You’ll then be graded and awarded a medal based on some sort of behind-the-scenes magic, presumably tied to the amount of jumps and time spent.

There’s a level of thoughtfulness, precision, and attention to specific points of design throughout the game. The jumping mechanic has no give — when you jump, you’ve committed; you can’t make adjustments. Since this is the case, consideration of how you’re going to do something is integral, and so is your observation of level structure and your callbacks on how to do stuff.

Being tuned for scrutiny isn’t a problem, by the way. Even though this is a particularly bloated game on an art production level, 5th Cell holds back on filler. Every piece of a level has a purpose, and it’s that purity that helps you understand the hazards.

If you wanted to be crazy about this, you could probably call Run Roo Run a “masocore” game. Like a Super Meat Boy, or even Run Roo Run’s inspirational material Space is Key, Run Roo Run is all about the thrill of perfectly nailing an increasingly convoluted set of actions in rapid succession. The reward is your accomplishment — the platformer equivalent of a puzzle game’s “a-ha!” moment.

I think the key difference here, though, is that this game doesn’t hate you. Every time you jump, 5th Cell throws an arrow on the floor. This helps you focus on that third jump, as you’ll be able to easily gauge where to jump again on the first two based on the arrow. Additionally, you can buy or earn level-skips and a fancy bullet-time aid that slows the action down. The F2P stuff, by the way, doesn’t interfere with the game.

More importantly, though, it just doesn’t set you up for failure like most of these masocore games do. The action is straightforward; each jump is mightily choreographed, each obstacle plainly displayed. You’ll never be left scratching your head or feverishly thinking about what your iPhone would look like with its gears and guts sprawled gushing from the sides.

Undoubtedly, 5th Cell is going to get some flack because the overall game is tuned to be easier than it could be — the vast majority of its hundreds of levels are these simple, breezy romps. There are “Extreme” offerings, however. After finishing a chapter, you can go back and compete in a series of a dozen or super challenging levels. I don’t mind the casual build to a remarkable level, so the difficulty isn’t a problem for me.

One neat point: 5th Cell is apparently going to get behind Run Roo Run in a big way, as it’ll be uploading 10 new levels a week beyond release. It’s unclear how long it’ll keep this up, or really what base this will serve, but it’s a neat idea.

I think you should check this out. Run Roo Run isn’t the most original game ever, but it takes the best out of a lot of worlds, and then owns that stuff. Its entertaining in big or small chunks, and those challenge levels are a whole new world of hurt. Give it a shot.

TouchArcade Rating:

[source]

A shoulder surfer would describe Super Crate Box [$.99] as a mess, a pixelated mash of vivid colors and explosions wrapped in a whirlwind of erratic movement, 8-bit sound, and some decidedly bizarre character design. They’d be right. Super Crate Box is a mess, but it owns its fast-moving arcade chaos, and deftly brings you along for the ride.

You don’t even realize that you embraced it until it’s an hour later and you hate that godforsaken disc launcher with the passion of many angry men. What renders you helpless has a lot to do with its infinite, looping structure and purity of play. This is a minimalist, throwback-style game that wants you to do one thing: capture crates for a high score. The hooks are in its constituent parts, which seamlessly blend into a cacophony of arcade action surrounding this pure purpose of play. It becomes hypnotizing, fast.

Your typical game goes a little something like this: on a flat plane, enemies tumble out of an invisible pipe in the opening of a level, and you, while they fall, capture crates and defeat those enemies with the weapons you pick up from said crates. If an enemy hits the lava pit because you didn’t kill it, it pops back out of the top at double speed and joins the ever-growing conga line of even more brainless enemies.

Avoidance is key, but so is aggression. Each crate contains a new weapon that forces you to strategize distance versus time at the drop of a hat. As you play, you’ll unlock even more weapons, all of which do something completely different and are often devastating. Laser guns, mines, rocket launchers, grenade launchers, the shotgun are just a taste of what’s on the roster. Each has its own special kind of spread and weaknesses. Some even have big negatives, like the disc launcher, which is a single fire gun that has bullets that bounce back at you.

Whatever pacing you’re imagining, multiply that by 11 and you’ll get a sense of the raw madness that is Super Crate Box. One second you’re charging up a laser gun to rid a platform of its occupants, the next you’re dropping down to another level and using a mine in order to put a stop-gap on that side so you have enough free-time to grab a crate on another platform. The frenzy absorbs you, and the raw precision becomes a second nature thing. People say it’s a mess, and it is, but I’m OK with it. I welcome all of it.

As you play, you’ll steadily unlock more guns and more characters to use in the game. It’s your usual incentive program, but where it departs is in the fact that it also rewards failure. If you die 500 times, for example, you’ll unlock Super Meat Boy as a character. Simply gathering crates, no matter how many times you die along the way, is also a valid way to unlock stuff.

I’m surprised by how much I dig the virtual controls; Halfbot and Vlambeer did a heck of a job translating the action to the touchscreen and then making it feel as natural, and as split-second responsive as the game’s PC and Mac counterparts. On iPhone, the two-button UI is a tad too bulky. On iPad, the game feels at home. Regardless, these guys nailed it. This game feels good.

Another place you can play is on the iCade. Currently, the controls have been flip-flopped inadvertently in an update, but when they’re working ideally, they feel great. I think this is the way to play since you get that tactile feedback.

People in general are really responding to Super Crate Box, and our community digs it. I love it. Its high-octane play married with its no-frills, arcade game design that keeps me collecting crates and blasting enemies into delightful little pieces of monster. I’m thinking it’ll grab you, too.

TouchArcade Rating:

[source]

You might not have downloaded it yet, but you’ve played Z-Day [$1.99] before. It’s the game you play in your head while reading The Walking Dead; you know, that game where you plot out where you would go and how you would operate during the zombie apocalypse? That one.

Would you take in that stranger you found on the road? Would you mug him instead? Would you break into a police station surrounded by zombies? With moans at your back, three kills to your name and a sledgehammer at your side, would you stop to take a bag of tools from a broken-down car in the middle of the road?

These are the questions Z-Day asks, and presumably, ones you’ve considered before if a z-day daydream ever popped into your mind. Z-Day is a graphic novel spin on the Choose Your Own Adventure, text-based game, except its presented on iPhone and iPad in all of its gory, high-resolution art glory.

Playing is simple, and the moment-to-moment content is strangely intense. You start in your house. A zombie apocalypse has begun. You decide if you want to run or grab a new weapon. Then, you decide, while zombies are coming to the door, if you want to dig for supplies like duct tape, fight the zombies, or get to higher ground.

All along the way, Z-Day gives you plenty of entertaining situational content. At one point, you’ll be asked if saving your best friend is worth a zombie attack. Later, you might bump into a roving band of gun-toting jerks robbing a pawn shop. Before that, you might meet your unfortunate end in the bowels of a police station, as a horde steadily infests it as you search for fat loot.

The most interesting thing about Z-Day is that it doesn’t pull punches; if you make a bad decision, you’ll probably die. Also, it puts you in horrible situations and then has you make uncomfortable decisions. As you play, you might notice things like empathy have vacated your brain in the face of so many horrifying scenarios.

Breaking this down mechanically feels like a disservice to the experience. In Z-Day, you’ll be presented with a variety of Choose Your Action text boxes, hand-drawn graphic novel scenes, and a description of situations. Pick an action, and then move on to the next moment. The goal is survival, but even if you die, you’ll be scored on a variety of elements, including your decision-making or the quality of your weaponry and items and the amount of survivors you brought along the way.

Z-Day doesn’t have unique content, so you’ll see the same situations over and over again as you restart. It’s really up to you to role-play it and see different outcomes. There are quite a few, too, in each given situation.

I’ve been having a blast with this since it’s essentially gameifies what runs through my head whenever I read or watch a piece of zombie content, but it’s also solid production-wise. I heartily recommend this to anyone that still has an itch for zombies, or even an appreciation of primarily text-based titles.

TouchArcade Rating:

[source]

Whoa! World of Goo [$2.99 / UHD], a game that we’re always stoked to talk about, has hit one of those benchmark download numbers. According to developer 2D Boy, the physics-puzzler has hit one million downloads across the App Store and the Mac App Store. That’s a lot of loving for an indie game that doesn’t have a toy line.

2D Boy, as it usually does in its sales post, highlighted some interesting facts. Like, these, for example: about 69 percent of this million have come from the more expensive Universal version of the game, while 29 percent came from its regular version. The rest come from the Mac version, which in our experience, is every bit as delightful as the touch ones.

World of Goo won our game of the year award in 2010. We highly suggest you join the million or so people and get in on this action.

[source]

Call of Duty Elite for mobile, the companion to the companion Call of Duty experience, is coming to iOS tomorrow and Android next week, MacRumors reports. And it’ll bring a few interesting control options with it. Inside the app, you’ll be able to check your stats and other players’ stats, hit up after action reports, scope map information, track your challenge progress, and modify your loadouts all without ever having to look at your console.

While that’s a ton of cool support, fans will inevitably be noting what’s missing. In a conversation with Joystiq, Beachhead Studios Chacko Sonny said Beachhead learned a a few things about Elite’s stunningly bad launch, so it won’t be tossing out features until it knows they’re “at the level” fans actually want.

Speaking to the MacRumors about future features, Sonny said:

“We view this as the foundation. We want to hear from the community: how do they use this? What parts do they like? What parts aren’t as useful? We want to drive additional development going forward from people who play the game every single day. That’s going to help us deliver a better set of iterated features going forward, and for the forthcoming tablet version as well.”

During the rocky launch, we’ve all kinda gave up on Elite. The release of the mobile app definitely gives us reason to give it another shot, so we will. Tomorrow!

[via MacRumors]

[source]

Last week, we told you about Glitchsoft’s upcoming Star Marine: Infinite Ammo, a run ‘n gun shooter that looks to capture the magic of classic action platformers like Contra and Metal Slug. A game like Contra demands precision in its controls due to the hectic action on screen, and it’s hard to say whether or not that type of precision can be possible with virtual touch screen controls. Star Marine is hoping it’s found the answer to this problem by taking a dual-stick approach to its control scheme, which is looking pretty good so far.

In our preview last week there were just screenshots for Star Marine, but Glitchsoft has just released a trailer for the game so you can get an idea of what it looks like in action.

From the trailer, a few things stick out at me as looking particularly awesome. It appears there are quite a few weapons to use, including one that looks a lot like the infamous spread gun from Contra. Also, I really like some of the enemies that are absolutely humongous, sometimes filling up the entire screen. Finally, Star Marine incorporates a feature that slows down your descent when you’re falling through the air, giving you a better opportunity to lay waste to the enemies on the screen. I imagine this coupled with the dual-stick controls will allow a game like Star Marine to be quite playable with a touch screen.

Star Marine: Infinite Ammo is scheduled for a release this week, and we’ll be looking to get our hands on the title to see just how well it turned out when it hits the App Store.

[source]

Lots of folks out there became new iOS gamers over the holidays, and one of my personal App Store favorites that may not be on their radars just got iCade support in an update. Madgarden’s excellent Saucelifter! Heavy Disc [App Store] is a Choplifter clone that started life on the PC and landed on the iPhone in early 2009. Since then, it has seen numerous updates, getting iPad support as as universal app and receiving various gameplay tweaks here and there.

Gameplay involves piloting your flying saucer to various Earth-based prison barracks, blasting open the doors, picking up your captive crewmates, and dropping them off at the transporter where they’re beamed safely back to your alien world.  This is made challenging by evil Earth forces, including tanks, laser turrets, fighter jets, and flying attack drones.

There are a lot of nice touches to the title. The stylized, vector-based 2D graphics lend the game clean, future-retro visuals, with a day-into-night changing skyline that adds nice variation to the scene. A letter-box effect alters the aspect of the play area to provide early warning of incoming enemies. It’s extremely well done.

On the iCade, the leftmost six buttons control fire / autofire in the three relevant directions — left, down, and right. I greatly enjoy Saucelifter! via tilt-control, but I have to say that gameplay on the iCade more closely delivers the kind of fun I remember having in front of Gorlin’s helicopter classic, hour after hour, back in 1984. Other iOS controller accessories that feature iCade emulation, such as the iControlPad, should also work fine with Saucelifter.

Those not sold on Saucelifter! should at least have a look at the Lite version [link].

[source]

This week on The TouchArcade Show, the usual crew powers through a hostile host takeover, some New Years Eve discussion, and other offbeat topics in order to bring you the latest and greatest in iOS news, reviews, and TouchArcade business. At the top, we dig into Vlambeer’s awesome Super Crate Box. Later, we dive into the wonders of Photo Swap and other awesome games. In the second half, we talk about 60beat’s GamePad and address your awesome user questions!

We’ve set the bar for 2012, so it’s only down (or up) from here. Thanks for being awesome in 2011, and feel free to join us again this year. Speaking of that, if you’d like to listen you can do so via the links just below. The cool kids all listen to us on iTunes and Zune Marketplace, though.

iTunes Link: The TouchArcade Show
Zune Marketplace: TouchArcade.com Podcasts
RSS Feed: The TouchArcade Show
Direct Link: TouchArcadeShow-033.mp3, 42MB

Here are your show notes (with a bonus retraction at the end):

GAMES

• Super Crate Box [$.99]
• Hatchi
• Photo Swap [Free]
• Dungeon Raid [$2.99 / Lite]
• Justin Smith’s Realistic Sports Simulator [$.99]

JARED’S KITTY KORNER

• Very Hungry Cat [Free]

FRONT PAGE

• ‘Cthulhu Saves The World’ Coming to iOS
• 60beat’s GamePad
• ‘Infinity Blade’ Is Doing Well
• New TouchArcade Logo [Responses]

Retraction: Super Crate Box’s controls have been fixed in an update that hit between the time we recorded and the publishing of the podcast!

[source]

In some ways, platformers are the toughest to make on a mobile platform. There’s always questions regarding the length and difficulty of individual levels, as well as whether the developer can successfully implement a control scheme to make the game accessible enough for level completion and item collection. Crazy Hedgy [$1.99] from Cybertime is a great example of how platformers should be done on iOS. Not only does it get the basics (like gameplay and replayability) right, but the tilt-based control scheme works very well with the rest of the game. Assuming you don’t mind tilt controls, Crazy Hedgy is well worth it and highly recommended.

At its core, Crazy Hedgy is an adventure-platformer that has you playing through a large amount of levels with the primary goal being to get to the end. There’s not much of a story to go on, other than the fact that the land of Green Hedges has changed (and not for the better) and you need to save it. Along the way you’ll find various types of diamonds that can be collected and act as the currency to upgrade your character in the in-game store (IAP need no apply here). In addition, players are charged with collecting gold coins, which unlock the ability to purchase upgrades and are used as an artificial barrier between worlds (each world has about ten levels). In your way is a variety of different enemies and traps that you can either avoid or take on (extra points awarded if you can toss the enemies into those traps).

Crazy Hedgy does a great job with pacing, variety, and gameplay introductions. The gold coins and diamond currency act as natural progression tools towards allowing players to learn new and advanced moves as they get further into the game. In addition, Crazy Hedgy succeeds at preserving core gameplay while building upon it with new moves, different enemies and bosses. This is also reflected in the difficulty curve, which slowly introduces more and more complicated enemies and environments to the point while never making you feel overwhelmed. There’s nothing that ever pops out that confuses you or seems out of the ordinary; it’s relatively easy to use techniques you’ve learned in the past to get towards newer strategies in taking on what you’re encountered.

One minor complaint is that the game doesn’t really stress how important gold coins are – if you don’t collect enough of them in a world, you will get to a point where you’ll have to replay levels looking for them until you get enough to unlock the next set of levels. Granted, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing as it also gives you an opportunity to earn more diamonds and purchase new upgrades. It’s important to note that there is no IAP in Crazy Hedgy; if you want to progress, you’re going to have to play the game to collect enough gold coins and diamonds (what a concept!).

Controls in Crazy Hedgy are divided into two categories: movement and actions. Movement is exclusively controlled by the accelerometer, and is handled very well. I particularly liked the tilt sensitivity and the plentiful opportunities to calibrate your device. A sensitivity meter would have been nice in the options, but I think as it stands it should suffice for most folks. Occasional controls also pop up on the screen during set quick time events. While they don’t detract from the overall experience, they do feel tacked on and unnecessary.

Actions, meanwhile, or controlled by tapping on the left or right sides of the screen. The right controls jumping (double tap for a longer jump) while the left controls punching and attacking. Initial attacks are restricted to simple tap punches, but as you unlock new moves you can also swipe various ways to control your attacks on the baddies. Considering that the game requires quite a bit of precise jumping and aiming as well as fast reflexes (especially in later levels that have faux timers), I’m pleased that  the controls allow me to accomplish everything I need to succeed in Crazy Hedgy with very little distraction from the controls.

It’s rare to see a platformer on iOS that actually understands all the elements required to make it successful and, most importantly, fun. Crazy Hedgy gets it, and not only offers enough variety, great presentation, and replayability to keep you satisfied, but also offers enough compelling gameplay to simply keep you playing. Nice visuals and music, as well as a good control scheme don’t hurt as well. Folks that don’t like tilt-based games may be turned off by Crazy Hedgy’s control scheme, but I implore you to put those feelings aside and check this game out.

TouchArcade Rating:

[source]