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In this week’s bonus episode of the TouchArcade Show, we sit down with the two dudes behind Tiger Style Games to get the skinny on Lost Mars, the duo’s atmospheric and ambitious action-gardening game. We talk a lot about the game’s odd categorization, how it tries to be different in the third-person space, and how the studio’s equally unusual, but refreshing design goals inform its work. We, of course, also break down what Lost Mars is and how Mars was lost, if you’re wondering.

Lost Mars hits a much later this year across the iPhone, iPod Touch, and the iPad, so why not listen to this while you wait, right? You can grab our pod just below via direct download or in-browser streaming. Additionally, you can subscribe to us on iTunes or Zune to get our new podcasts just as soon as we upload them.

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Direct Link: TouchArcadeShow-Bonus-016.mp3, 19MB

We’ll be back this week for another regularly scheduled episode of The TouchArcade Show and, of note, we’ll also probably have a very special guest! See you Friday!

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Need more Zenonia in your life? You know publisher Gamevil doesn’t have a problem with fulfilling that steamy desire. A fourth game in the RPG series — apparently dubbed Zenonia 4: Return of the Legend – is indeed coming down the pipe and a member of our message board snagged the first images we’ve seen of the iOS version in action.

Say what you will about the series’ old-school design and approach to the genre, but you’ve got to admit that the art direction on display is top-notch. Hit up the thread to see the other three images, but also be aware that they're obviously marketing materials.

Our mysterious poster doesn’t know when the game will arrive in the US or at what price, but he or she does seem confident in a couple of features. Zenonia 4 will probably feature retina display support, as well as “thousands of costumes, upgradeable items, and rare items,” they said in the post. As if you didn’t already spend enough time with Zenonia in the first place, right?

We’ll obviously keep our all-seeing eye on red alert and our all-hearing ears to the ground for official announcement and even more assets, so stay tuned.

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jAggy Race [99¢] arrived on the App Store without much fanfare, but this kart-racing game is an impressive debut release from Swiss developers SevenOnly. The goal is to race your little kart around the track within the allotted time. That sounds pretty easy, except the tracks are totally crazy.

They curve down-and-under, so your vehicle ends up racing upside down with 360-degree gravity. You can do massive jumps on the track which send you flying for ages, even around corners, or to other sections of track. If you've ever played the snowboarding game iStunt 2 Insane Hills [Free] the tracks are just as crazy, but here you're on wheels.

There's no other karts in this game, as you're solely racing against the clock and trying to avoid crashing. A timer starts beeping if you're running out of time, which really gets the adrenaline going, but If you take the corners too quickly you'll fly off the track altogether. Fortunately, there's mandatory checkpoints which illuminate as you pass and act as a re-spawn point if you wipe-out. This is a game of skill and timing as you can't simply hold down the accelerator.

To makes things trickier, there's obstacles to jump, laser barriers in the air, and large rotating saw blades to avoid. If you ram into an obstacle at full speed the kart bounces back, using up precious time, although you can slam on the brakes and speed forward again. And this game delivers a great sensation of speed, on tracks which grow much longer and more complex as you progress.

There's 5 tutorial tracks, followed by 3 worlds of five tracks each. When you complete a level, the next level unlocks and you can unlock an additional 3 bonus tracks by scoring three gold wins per world (making 23 tracks in total).  But be warned: It's not easy to achieve gold results at first, and obstacles can sometimes appear too quickly to avoid if you're not familiar with the track yet. In jAggy Race, memory and quick reflexes come in handy.

The track is only one-lane wide (as wide as your kart) so there's no swerving left or right. Instead, there's buttons to drive forward and backwards on each side of the screen. Or tap both together for braking. Some tracks require a combination of driving forwards and backwards, but there's always arrows conveniently located  to show you which way to race.

Jump buttons are available on both sides of the screen. While you're mid-air, you can optionally tilt the device to do flips. If your kart tips over, or is racing along on two wheels, you can shake the device to upright it. Once you've mastered the controls, there's an option to remove the buttons altogether if you choose. The controls in general work really well, and your fingers never obscure the action.

The retina graphics look great and the "camera" panning is super smooth, starting with a wide view of the track and background, zooming in on the car at the starting post and then tracking the car nicely, despite the rapid turns, drops, jumps and loops.

If you look closely, you'll notice some attention to detail. The kart wheels rotate and Jaggy (which is the name of the driver) looks over his shoulder when in reverse and even blinks occasionally. And the backgrounds are layered with details. There are sheep grazing beside (or sitting upon) the track.  And when the voice says "Ready…go!" at the start, you can accelerate quickly to turbo.

jAggy Race is a fun casual game, but it's also an exciting and challenging game for competitive gamers who want to familiarize themselves with each track for better results. Game Center leader-boards are provided for each track, plus 46 Game Center achievements. jAggy Race is already a good deal for a buck, but the developers advise that new tracks, additional features and a universal version are being worked on already, which will make this game an even better deal down the road.

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Chillingo is pretty reliable when it comes to fun mobile releases, so I went into my experience with Fruit Roll [99¢/HD] expecting to enjoy my time with it. A cheerful, colorful title with a cartoon-inspired style, Fruit Roll foregoes a complex approach in favor of a simple one, which really makes it easy to pick up and never want to put back down.

You play the game as a wide eyed, adorable fruit that must go rolling through sidescrolling levels, jumping through the air in pursuit of stars and other fruits and avoiding creepy-crawlies such as caterpillars and giant red frogs. The game is on rails, so you won't need to control your movement, only take actions as it's happening, such as jumping. You have a single jump and a double jump, controlled precisely by a tap or two from your fingertip. Movement is fluid and comfortable to use, so you never have any moments of stabbing at the screen with your finger trying to nail a jump.

There's more than meets the eye when it comes to gameplay, though. When you begin, you'll notice a little bar on the far left of your screen with three slots. As you progress through levels, you'll not only see stars and enemies, but also fruit you can roll over to pick up. Each one you pick up will be added to this queue, and when you want to, you can tap one of them and become that fruit. This would be fun if it was just for the hell of it, but it actually has a purpose.

By color-coding, you can then take on enemies of a corresponding color by rolling over them, and as long as you are the same color, you'll knock them out. This lends an element of strategy to the game, as you have to be on your toes to change colors appropriately, all while moving and avoiding enemies of the wrong color (and the game speeds up as you progress through levels, so you'll have to work hard to keep up). The end of each level also contains a large area of stars that you can double jump your way through to suck up extra points.

Another option is to collect three fruits of the same color, which will transform you into some sort of monster fruit that can barrel past all enemies and grab twice the amount of stars for a short period of time. This is key to making it through some of the harder levels, not to mention it's a lot of fun to transform into a wacko version of yourself that can take out anything in its path.

One thing I'm not nuts about with Fruit Roll is that all the levels are strung together, creating an endless flow of play until you die by being hit by an enemy of the wrong color. It does help that the terrain changes each time you play, but I couldn't help but feel it would have been cool to bookmark your progress or finish levels. Fruit Roll is more about racking up points and speed running than it is about level completion, though — your goal will just be to see how far you can make it and how many points you can get in the process.

The game is Game Center enabled and also works with the Crystal network, and it's definitely the kind of thing that casual gamers will want to come back to over and over to see if they can nudge that high score just a bit further along. It's a pleasant gaming experience in every way (including the price!), so if you dig great presentation and consistent, engaging gameplay, I think you'll get a lot of fun out of this one.

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Boiling down the themes of uber-profitable App Store games yields a single undeniable fact of the universe: animals are lazy. The birds can be as angry as they like, but they don’t seem to do a thing about the pigs on their own. It’s only when you launch them out of slingshots that they take action. The gormless Om Nom would starve to death if it weren’t for you rewarding his horribly sedentary lifestyle with candy by cutting the rope. Let’s face it. You’re all a bunch of enablers.

However, since your co-dependent tendencies aren’t likely to change any time soon, it’s as good a time as any to take a look at yet another creature lacking motivation in Swing the Bat [99¢]. Published by Chillingo and created by Deadbug, the game draws in numerous elements from many recently successful iOS games.

While most bats are unable to survive without the power of flight to help them acquire food, this bat has developed a bit of a unique evolutionary adaptation. Rather than actually learn how to use the anatomy it was born with, he has developed the ability to launch his legs out like a grapple-gun, attach to trees, and swing to get around. It’s a cybernetic augment that would make even Adam Jensen jealous.

The first cue that Deadbug takes from the winning lazy animal formula is one-touch controls. Tap and hold to launch your leg and attach it to a surface and swing, then release at the optimal point in the arc to launch yourself forward. A handy guide is present to show you where to release for maximum momentum, but once you’ve got the hang of it you can decide to remove the training wheels and gauge your swings on your own.

There are two main modes in Swing the Bat, Dusk ‘til Dawn and Night Fire. Dusk ‘til Dawn is essentially Tiny Wings [99¢] in reverse, where you race to see how far you can get before the sun rises. As you advance, different animals will appear in the bamboo and attempt to stall your progress. Points are rewarded for perfect swings and for gathering food such as fruit and moths. Gather enough food and your bat will be inspired to actually fly for a short time.

While the main objective of Night Fire is still to get as far as possible, this second mode forces you to get more strategic. A fire at the base of the trees will continue to grow, and popping balloons to release buckets of water on the blaze is the only way to ensure you’ll have the time needed to push forward. It’s less speed and more precision focused than the other.

The second major cue it takes from Tiny Wings (and more recently, Jetpack Joyride [99¢]), is the implementation of an extensive achievement/objective system where completion will unlock new bat costumes. While the objectives never really force you to play the game much differently, as they do in the aforementioned games, they do add some needed spice to a fairly vanilla core. The unlockable costumes along with character design and general art direction all have a fun cartoony feel to them; the game’s got a nice look about it.

My biggest complaint about Swing the Bat is that while it brings in many of the mechanics of a Tiny Wings, it’s missing the same sense of arcade-like fun. The swinging controls are precise and easy to master, but it lacks the sense of speed and fluidity that makes other successful entries in the genre so enjoyable.

Even when you’re hitting every swing perfectly, the plodding pace of the swings means there’s no point where you get enough momentum going to really feel like you’re flying through the levels. The other animals that are there to provide a needed difficulty curve unfortunately also rob you of really ever enjoying a good run of swings.

The flying mechanic also is a bit under-baked. Once you eat enough fruit to temporarily unlock this ability, you should be able to take advantage of it to avoid those pesky pandas (who are strangely less lazy than the bat). However, the game does a poor job of indicating when you’ve activated this mode, so by the time you realized why you aren’t swinging any more you’ve wasted half the time you had to fly.

Deadbug has clearly paid attention to what works in the genre and brought some solid design to bear for Swing the Bat. The game has a warm colorful look, and the objectives and controls give this $.99 title a decent store of longevity and enjoyment. It never quite breaches the level of pure fun and action of the titles it so clearly draws inspiration from, but it lives up to the Chillingo standards we’ve come to expect. It’s worth the buy for those hungering for more one-touch objectives to get lost in and another cute, helpless animal to spoil rotten.

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WayForward, the studio that’s just finished cleansing and manipulating Majesco’s Bloodrayne franchise into something that’s actually fun to play with Bloodrayne Betrayal for Xbox Live Arcade, is porting the second game in its original Shantae franchise to iOS. In a couple of weeks, the studio plans to launch Risky’s Revenge on the App Store for the iPhone, iPad, and the iPod Touch, a representative has confirmed with us.

Risky’s Revenge debuted on the Nintendo DSi e-store in 2010. Despite the relative obscurity of the platform, people have been downloading and embracing the action-platform game. Heck, its even gathered some lofty awards with the media at large, which isn’t something download-exclusive Nintendo DS games do.

To be clear, this is a port and it will have virtual controls as a substitute for the DS’ control functionality. And while that sounds like a bummer, it’s important to note that WayForward is actively tweaking the design of the original game to cater to iOS. In our Q&A below, the studio specifically says it's tinkering with the spacing of environmental objects and the behavior of AI, in addition to overhauling the UI and how moves are triggered.

We’ve played a bit of a developer build and love what we’re seeing — Risky’s Revenge is undoubtedly poised to be a technically and mechanically sound game that we’ll be happy to have with us on the move. As for what’s next on iOS for WayForward? We realize we’re getting ahead of ourselves, but it sounds like its interested in sticking with the App Store in some capacity down the line. The first priority for it, though, is to get this out of the door in the best possible way.

Q&A

Let's pretend that the entire iOS audience hasn't had a chance to see Shantae: Risky's Revenge on the DS' digital store. What is it and what makes it so awesome?

Shantae: Risky’s Revenge is a modern day sequel to the Game Boy Color classic Shantae, originally distributed by Capcom. In it, players guide a hair-whipping, belly dancing genie on her quest to defeat Risky Boots, a sexy pirate who’s determined to rule the world. Nintendo fans will notice the influence of Zelda, Castlevania, and Metroid right off the bat. There are puzzle-filled dungeons, gigantic bosses, magical upgrades, and a humorously flirty-girty storyline. Having developed 3rd party Nintendo titles for over 20 years, we’ve got a good handle on this kind of thing.

What makes it a good fit for the iPhone and iPod Touch?

Shantae is famous for three things; high ratings, hips that don’t lie (whatever that means), and being difficult to find. We’re bummed when we get letters from gamers who want to play it, but don’t have the means. So, moving to iOS should help fix that.

Technically, the game runs silky smooth at a rock solid 60 frames per second, which is essential for an action game. The character artwork gets a huge boost on retina display, and our love of dot pixel graphics is perfectly preserved since there’s plenty of resolution to go around. The iPad version is especially engrossing, since the visuals really stand out.

You're going to have to make do with virtual controls, right? What kind of enhancements, tweaks, or concession have you had to make as a result?

Virtual D-Pads are my personal arch nemesis, so I’m happy to report that ours does the job incredibly well. I should explain that this was not a quick and dirty port… it’s been almost a full year of nonstop work, and we’re preparing a release candidate now. The game has changed over time. Early on, our focus was to make it play exactly like the Nintendo DS game, but over time we saw the need to make it play “proportionately” the same. Meaning, if the player put out X amount of effort as in the DS version, they should get an equal sense of accomplishment in return.

Using that philosophy we made tweaks throughout the game. Platforms are slightly wider, chains dangle a little bit closer to the player’s grasp; enemy behaviors are just a bit different. Players familiar with the Nintendo DSi version will probably enjoy discovering the subtle changes. We also overhauled every menu interface and changed how many of the player’s moves are triggered. We also optimized each version for use with Fling and Fling mini joysticks, and came up with an inspired list of Achievements for Game Center. Overall, there are many more enhancements than concessions.

What do you hope new fans or consumers will get out this particular version of the game?

I hope players will get a kick out of our bizarre sense of humor and appreciate core gameplay fundamentals, maybe fall in love with the characters too. But mostly, we’re just happy to have a stage to entertain on.

I’ve read that WayForward often uses Shantae to demonstrate its abilities with new technology. We’re all under the impression that this is a cohesive and whole game, but is Risky’s Revenge iOS a sign that more is to come from the studio on this platform?

Yes, we’ve done that a lot in the past, and this is indeed a full product. I think with this title, we’re officially on every popular platform out there. As to whether or not there’s more to come? Probably. But rather than porting something akin to a $29.99 retail game, we’d more likely make something specific to iOS from the get go. Right now we’re extremely jazzed to bring Shantae: Risky’s Revenge to iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad.

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We recently brought news of the BulkyPix announcement that the much anticipated iOS port of Eric Chahi's Another World will be landing in the App Store on September 22nd. Xavier Liard of DotEmu, the studio developing the iOS version, put us in touch with the game's renowned author to discuss details of the upcoming release.

As we indicated yesterday, Another World for iOS will feature both the graphics of the original game as well as re-mastered "HD" graphics done specifically for this release. (A two-fingered swipe up the screen will toggle the visuals at any time.) In speaking with Chahi, I learned that this 20th Anniversary Edition of the game is running a tweaked version of the core script from acclaimed 15th Anniversary Edition, as executed by Chahi's own custom script interpreter that has been converted from 68000 assembly to C++. All of the sounds in the game have been re-mastered as well, to deliver an enhanced audio experience as compared to the original.

The preferred control method on the Amiga original was the keyboard. The iOS version brings two different methods of controlling our hero. The first and easiest to visualize is an on-screen virtual D-pad. The second method is a system that the developer refers to as "Touch Mode" and indicates that a great deal of time was put into it, to get things just right.

Touch Mode presents almost no visual control interface on screen. Lester's movement is controlled in this mode by tapping on, or dragging outwards to, the left or right side of the display. A double-tap sends him into a sprint, and sliding up or down initiates a jump or a duck. Chahi likens this control mode to the system used in Mirror's Edge. One difficulty the developers faced in engineering this mode was the number of simultaneous actions that Lester can perform, such as running and jumping. To make this work, once Lester is running, a swipe up the screen will send him into a long jump — there's no need to sustain a touch to keep him running. Chahi indicates that this mode is particularly useful on the iPhone and iPod touch, where one's fingers obscure a much greater portion of the screen as compared to the iPad.

The developers demonstrate the game's controls and difficulty settings in a brief gameplay video.

I pressed Chahi to try and get a hint as to what we might have to look forward to in the way of future iOS projects like, oh…I dunno, From Dust, maybe… Well, it turns out that his excellent XBLA God game is not presently slated to make an App Store appearance (though he did speculate that the next iteration of the iPad's CPU might just be able to pull off such a game). But that's not to say that Another World is all we'll ever be seeing from this talented designer on our devices. In fact, during my conversation with Chahi, he expressed clear enthusiasm for the iOS platform and the flexibility that its multitouch interface and rich, sharp display bring to gaming. The generous physical display size of the iPad, in particular, excites him, making it the member of the iOS family that holds, for him, the most interest. Chahi tells me that the overall development opportunity that the iOS platform brings to gamemakers reminds him of the long-gone days of developing for the late '80s game consoles such as the Gameboy and the Atari Lynx.

It was a real pleasure to chat with the master about his masterpiece, and iOS gaming in general. Another World is an exquisite work and had a significant impact on me when I first experienced it 20 years ago. I am so very pleased to know that a new generation of gamers will soon have the opportunity to experience Another World for themselves. I encourage anyone familiar with the game or simply intrigued by what they've read here to watch Eric Chahi's excellent GDC 2011 presentation, Classic Game Postmortem: Another World / Out of this World, hosted at the GDC Vault.

You can count on our in-depth look at Another World as soon as the game arrives in the App Store on the 22nd of this month.

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King of Dragon Pass [$9.99] originates from what I consider to be on the tail end of the golden age of PC gaming, where developers focused more on depth and originality instead of texture resolution and polygon count. In fact, King of Dragon Pass is a fantastically extreme example of this as there's no polygons to speak of, and the graphics only really consist of a assortment of hand-drawn illustrations to accompany whatever event is taking place at the time. I think the easiest way to describe what the game is all about is to call it a largely text-based menu-driven mash up of a Civilization game and a Choose Your Own Adventure book. If you're the kind of person who requires flashy graphics, fast action, rock-bottom pricing, and online multiplayer, stop reading now. This is not the game for you. If, however, you can barely even fathom a more glorious conglomeration than Civilization and Choose Your Own Adventure, prepare to absolutely lose yourself in King of Dragon Pass.

The game is set in the fantasy world of Glorantha, created by Greg Stafford, and used in several other traditional roleplaying games, literary works, and even a board game. The universe was originally imagined in 1966, and is chock-full of things which have since become standard in fantasy-based worlds. The people of Glorantha are the pawns of an array of both new and old gods who offer various benefits in exchange for worship. Magic and supernatural occurrences play an important role in the world, and aside from the typical races found in most fantasy worlds like elves, dwarves, etc, Glorantha is also home to strange humanoid hybrids such as anthropomorphic ducks and scorpion-men.

It's in this world where your clan will settle. The game begins with a brief history of your clan, which goes all the way back to the "Godtime" where gods and people lived side by side. This part of the game plays very similarly to a Choose Your Own Adventure book, with the game tossing a hefty amount of backstory at you while offering you choices along the way where you decide things like your clan's main deity, how you feel about dragons, how much land you're going to take up, and other things like that. The cool part about this, which persists through the rest of the game, is that there's no wrong answers to any of these questions. You never hit a point where one decision you made caused the game to end, instead, the decisions you make have consequences, and a main part of King of Dragon Pass is how you deal with those consequences– But more on that later.

After you establish your clan's history, you come up with a name (mine have all been fart-centric) and decide if your clan is going to be peaceful, balanced, or focus on war. From there, you decide on either a normal or hard difficulty, with the main difference here being what your clan starts with. On normal, you're dropped into a reasonably well equipped settlement with existing trading partners and allies. Alternatively, on hard mode, the game basically treats your clan like you just wandered to a plot of land and decided to make it your home.

From there you can choose one of two victory conditions in either "short" or "long" games. In a short game, you win by forming a tribe with neighboring clans, getting one of your clan members elected to be the tribal king, and hold that position for ten years. In a long game, you'll need to take this one massive step further in convincing other tribes to form a kingdom, and lead one of your clan members' ascension to the position of King of Dragon Pass.

Accomplishing these goals is ridiculously difficult, and requires a serious understanding of the game's mechanics. King of Dragon Pass comes with a huge in-game manual (huge for an iOS game, anyway) which I seriously recommend reading cover to cover. The depth of the game leads to various systems which you'd never utilize or fully understand otherwise, which was the source of every single frustration of mine with the game initially. There's a small tutorial which helps you get started, but I think the best tutorial would have just been a huge button that says "No, really, read the manual."

These various mechanics involve everything you can imagine that would go into managing a fledgling clan trying to make it in the world. You'll need to keep an eye on your clan's population, the number of people filling various roles in your clan, and how many of them are sick or injured. Everyone in your clan has to eat, which requires either successful farming, or trading with nearby clans. Also, a clan without wealth can't really be taken seriously by other clans when forming alliances or trade agreements, so you also need to keep up your production of goods and establish trade routes to keep the economy flowing.

Exploring is also important to find new clans to engage with, who might not always be friendly… Which is where your clan's defensive and offensive capabilities come in. As I've played, I've chosen to take a defensive stance and really only attack when provoked, but you could just as easily be a warring tribe and let your proverbial fists do the talking when it comes to negotiating and taking what you want from other clans. There's so many more little ins and outs that I can barely even summarize them all, even after spending nearly a week with the game now I feel like I'm still finding new ways to approach challenges.

These random challenges are what initially attracted us to the game. They happen quite often, and always keep you on your toes. These random occurrences could be something like a surprise raid from a feuding clan. If you've got a force ready to fight, you could take them head on, or if you're vulnerable because you've sent most of your warriors to accompany a particularly valuable trade caravan you might opt to focus on evasive maneuvers and survival.

Explorers could stumble across a potentially powerful set of runes, but how you choose to deal with them could potentially result in upsetting your clan, the gods, and other things down the road. Refugees from other clans can seek admittance to your clan, and you can decide whether to greet them as equals, or take them as slaves. These random events can be completely ridiculous too– The best example I've seen of this is a ghost that potentially comes to haunt your settlement. Among other options, you can pursue legal action… And depending on how you've structured your clan and the strengths of your leaders, it can work.

What I like most about King of Dragon Pass is the seemingly infinite possibilities that the game has. The previously mentioned random occurrences are drawn from a pool of around 500, but none really ever have a "right" or a "wrong" answer. As you role-play your particular clan and play to its strengths, you could see the same problem pop up in future games, but the way it's dealt with and the outcome could be substantially different. Similarly, the simulation engine that powers the whole thing seems to completely embrace the whole "there's no wrong way" philosophy that permeates the entire game.

Success, it seems, comes from really playing the game making decisions as if you actually were a part of your clan. Just because there's not necessarily a right or wrong way to do things doesn't mean that your approach can't fail. In fact, you'll likely fail quite a bit as you get a handle on the game… But, understanding why you failed, and consulting the manual to learn what you could have potentially done differently to better manage the events that ultimately lead to your clan's demise is ridiculously rewarding.

Similarly, the flexibility of King of Dragon Pass doesn't make it an easy game either, even on the easy difficulty level. I think it most reminds me of playing a fairly realistic flight simulator in that you can realize your plane is going down, and you know you need to pull up, but there's also all these other buttons and switches that need to be hit at the right time and in the right order to make what seems like a simple maneuver actually transpire properly.

In King of Dragon Pass terms, you could have a random occurrence that suddenly leads to a disease outbreak amongst your farmers. The more time your farmers spend in bed sick, the less time they spend producing food for your clan. "Heal the farmers" seems like the obvious answer, just like pulling up in a flight simulator, but it's not that simple. To heal via magical means, you'll need to sacrifice to gods. If you're already low on resources, sacrificing even more can make the situation much worse. Alternatively, you could send out warriors to raid a nearby tribe to steal supplies from them, but the raid could fail, or worse yet, you could over-extend yourself and be defenseless if you get raided while your warriors are out on their raid. You could attempt to go out trading for food, but your caravan could be ambushed or not result in enough food anyway.

It's weighing all these options and executing the best potential course of events based on an entire dashboard of information on your clan has made what I initially thought was just a silly Choose Your Own Adventure style game into one of the most in-depth and strategic gameplay experiences I've had so far on my iPhone. I'm not sure how I'll ever tire of it either, as the replay value is through the roof because of how much variance there is in every different clan and every situation.

My only complaint with the game is that I wish it was for the iPad. The interface feels cramped at times, there's some weird text scrolling issues that wouldn't exist on a larger screen, but most of all– Games like this that I want to spend hours on end playing are just flat out more enjoyable on the iPad compared to hunching over your phone. There may be light at the end of the tunnel though, as the developers seem to be receptive of the idea and want to see how iPhone sales go first, but aren't ready to commit to anything yet other than bug fixes to the small-screen version.

Hopefully I've done a good enough job here explaining what this game is all about, as I think if you understand what King of Dragon Pass actually is, and you want it, there's no way that you won't love it. We try to avoid pricing discussion in our reviews, but I think in this case the $9.99 price point is totally appropriate. This is a deep game, and definitely targeted at a niche audience. That price point will make people stop and research what the game is before buying, then feel much more inclined to actually get invested and learn the game instead of tossing it aside like most of the other totally disposable 99¢ titles flooding the App Store.

I've had an absolutely fantastic time playing King of Dragon Pass. Its slow pace makes it a perfect mobile game. Nothing in it is real time, making it totally conducive to just open the game up, send a trade caravan off, then come back to it later without any negative consequences. Cultivating a successful tribe is totally rewarding, and the random occurrences always keep you on your toes so it never seems like you can just fall into a comfortable successful groove where your clan is just on cruise control. I'd love it for my iPad, but either way, I can't get enough of King of Dragon Pass.

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Big news on the Max Payne front: the third title in the series — which has been teased for what feels like centuries — is hitting the PC and consoles in March 2012, according to the game’s publisher Rockstar Games. Also, a mobile version of the original Max Payne has been announced. It’s slated to hit unspecified platforms and will support “connectivity” to Rockstar Games’ Social Club, features similar to “its PC counterparts,” HD resolution, and support for  wired controllers.

The boilerplate about this mobile version is buried underneath a ton of promises and hyperbole from the publisher about Max Payne 3. It's ridiculously vague, which makes us think that Max Payne HD for mobile is going to be targeted at beefed up Android devices that may or may not have been announced yet. Still, considering the reach of the App Store, it’s hard to believe that an iOS version isn’t in the works.

The original Max Payne was a cool, satisfying third-person character action game with one of the neatest and most regurgitated hooks this side of jumping: Bullet-Time. In the game, you could slow down the action with an over-dramatic dive and take out enemies at your leisure.

It’s hard to tell considering the information that we’re working with if the mobile versions will see new content or lose anything in the translation, but regardless it’ll be neat for fresh faces to see where it all began for Max. As an old fan, I’m pretty stoked, too.

[Via Gamertag Radio]

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It takes a special kind of game to pull off surviving exclusively through tilt controls. That goes double for games that attempt to do it and are only available on the iPad. Sure, the iPad’s accelerometer has got to be used for something, but some folks (and rightfully so) find the idea of having to tilt your tablet every which way just to play a game to be a bit daunting. Pod Odyssey [$2.99] is the latest attempt at a tilt-controlled iPad exclusive. While its controls aren’t perfect, there’s certainly enough here for an enjoyable experience with some caveats.

Pod Odyssey isn’t a game with a particularly engrossing story. In fact, all you know is that you’re piloting a ship (that looks strangely like a squid) that is exploring various alien planets in labyrinth-like levels. The game gives off an abstract Lunar Lander sort of vibe. Each level has a primary and secondary objective, and your goal is to successfully complete both without dying (i.e. running out of energy for your ship). Standing in your way is a variety of structures that shoot projectiles at your ship. Those projectiles are anything from dumb missiles to land (space?) mines to heat seeking bombs that attempt to follow you.

According to Pod Odyssey’s iTunes description, its controls are so easy “a six-year old can play.” Assumedly, that depiction is referring to the game’s accelerometer based controls. Controlling your space pod is as easy as tilting left or right for directional controls, while tilting forward and back raise and lower the pod’s altitude. In addition to movement controls, you can tap the left side of the screen to raise a damage shield, while hitting the right side of the screen launches an EMP which slows down obstacles. Overall, the accelerometer controls are well done and offer enough precision in order to navigate through the smallest of passages with a steady hand.

My only lasting gripe about Pod Odyssey’s controls is the fact that you will need to continually calibrate your game whenever you shift into a different position while playing. This isn’t a problem solely with Pod Odyssey – this issue exists with most games that require precise accelerometer controls. Still, it would have been nice to have some sort of alternative control scheme in case you didn’t feel like tilting your iPad in order to play. However, once you do get the controls calibrated, Pod Odyssey becomes pretty easy to navigate.

It’s a good thing Pod Odyssey’s controls are well done, because you’re going to need every bit of skill in order to successfully complete every mission and secondary objective. I thought Pod Odyssey did a great job balancing its difficulty curve. The first third of the missions are spent introducing the various enemies and tools available for use, while the rest of them slowly ramp up both the general difficulty of each level as well as the secondary objectives. The last third of Pod Odyssey definitely turns up the difficulty and requires many runs in order to fully complete each level. However, I was never overtly frustrated with the difficulty – an important point for games such as this.

My most favorite thing about Pod Odyssey is its overall presentation. Both the music and graphics do a great job adding to the ambience and creating a feeling that you really are lost on a distance planet.  It combines that sort of surreal feeling you get when you’re playing a game with no real objectives, but then manages to successfully incorporate action sequences and goals on top of it.

Despite its strengths, I think Pod Odyssey does suffer from a lack of variety in both level design and enemies. As the levels progress and get harder, you aren’t really introduced to new challenges. Rather, you get the same obstacles thrown at you, but in greater quantity. Sure, the difficulty is there, but it can definitely become bland towards the end. Also, Pod Odyssey only features 27 levels, which means that even if you don’t mind some monotony, your experience isn’t going to last very long.

Regardless of these gripes, Pod Odyssey is a solid arcade-style maze crawler that gets a lot of the basics correct. If you’re looking for a challenging (but short) game to test your precise reflexes, and you don’t mind putting the accelerometer in your iPad to good use, give Pod Odyssey a try.

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