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Yesterday, Fun Guy Media released Entombed for the iPhone [App Store], an exploration puzzler set in the labyrinthine underground tombs of ancient civilizations. The game is something of a grave-robber scenario, but the other way around.

You play the role of Blake (indeed), whose father, a heroic archeologist in his time, has recently died in a freak accident, leaving you with a dread family legacy. During his life, your father explored the ancient tombs of long lost civilizations — the Egyptians, the Incas, the Aztecs, the Persians, and the like. He stripped them of their treasures for display in museums around the world, but, known only to his closest family members, he secretly kept a number of precious items for his own, personal collection. Over the years, your family has seen many a dark and tragic event befall them, your father's recent demise among them. Upon consulting an Egyptian mystic, you learn that the only way to avoid the same unfortunate end as your father is to return the artifacts in the secret collection to their rightful resting place.

And, so the adventure begins. As you move through the levels of this game, your goal is to return the artifacts in question, which requires solving various puzzles that riddle these subterranean labyrinths to get to your final destination. Along the way you will find various objects and obstacles that must be collected, moved, or crumbled in order to gain access to closed off areas of the tomb. There are pits, dart traps, sliding walls, and sketching challenges that test your observation skills as an archeologist.

You negotiate the many twists and turns of these catacombs by tapping where you'd like to move. Certain objects can be tapped to trigger interactions and a pinch / spread mechanic is used to zoom in and out of the play area. The angled top-down 3D graphics are simple but nice, with great, moody lighting accompanied by a similarly atmospheric audio track.

See our demo video that shows bits of early gameplay.

I, along with several forum readers, encountered a few glitches here and there in the game which required a level restart. It's an unfortunate blemish on a clever and enjoyable game, but I expect the developer to address these in a near-term update. Despite the glitches, our forum members are rather enjoying this one.

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The original Hero of Sparta [$1.99 / Free / HD] was a technically innovative hack and slash adventure game released in late 2008 when the App Store was still in its infancy and large-scale 3D games were few and far between. In our review we called the original "visually impressive and fun". In the Hero of Sparta series, you play as Argos, a Spartan hero, who has to make his way through endless hordes of monsters. Much like the God of War trilogy which the Hero of Sparta series is heavily "inspired" by, along the way you'll fight massive bosses, execute finishing moves via touchscreen quick action sequences, and eventually master the combo system to turn opposing enemies in to pulp.

Hero of Sparta II [$6.99] offers a significant graphical improvement over its predecessor and is packed with new powers and weapons to use while murdering everything that moves. If you enjoyed the first installment, it's safe to say you will also have a blast with the second one as well. If you haven't heard of the Hero of Sparta games before, give the lite version of the original game a spin to see how much you enjoy it.

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Sega has released a number of classic Genesis games on the App Store- Sonic the Hedgehog [$5.99], Sonic the Hedgehog 2 [$5.99], Golden Axe [$2.99], Streets of Rage [$2.99], and as of last night, Ecco the Dolphin [$2.99] and Space Harrier II [99¢]. In the past we've been increasingly critical of Sega releasing these emulated games, as while the games wrapped in the emulator are undoubtedly classics, the emulator itself leaves much to be desired.

Revisiting these games with my iPhone 4 has revealed that Apple has finally released hardware that is fast enough to properly run Sega's emulator (although I have had weird crashing issues with Sonic 2). If you've got an iPhone 4, the games run substantially better than the 3GS/3rd generation iPod touch, leaving the touch controls as the only issue. If you're stuck in the world of the iPhone 3G or 2nd Generation iPod touch, you're still better off skipping all of these because the performance really isn't that great. The games are playable, yes, but not a good experience by any means.

Anyway, Ecco the Dolphin is an action adventure side scroller released on the Sega Genesis in 1992. In the game you play as a dolphin, ramming in to things and using your sonar to both talk to other friendly sea creatures and interact with various objects in the game world. When I played the game the first time around on my Genesis, I thought it was surprisingly difficult as you need to manage Ecco's air supply while navigating vast underwater mazes. Drowning over and over was not something I was expecting to get myself in to when I first saw the cute box art.

There's a fairly extensive library of clips on YouTube of people playing the game in various emulators:

Ecco the Dolphin is just as much of a classic as the other games Sega has released, and really should be played by anyone who considers themselves a gamer who hasn't yet. If you want to go back in time even further, Space Harrier II was a launch title for the Genesis and debuted with the system in mid-August of 1989. Like most games of the time, Space Harrier II came packed with a nonsensical story where you're searching out a distress call from the 214th sector in the year 6236. You run around on a pseudo-3D checkerboard landscape shooting your laser at anything that crosses your path.

Like Ecco, there are no shortage of Space Harrier II gameplay videos captured from various emulators on YouTube:

Space Harrier II hasn't aged as well as the other classics Sega has released, but it's still pretty cool to take a look at what was considered cutting-edge mind blowing graphics over 20 years ago. But like all these games, the touch controls of the Genesis emulator on the iPhone aren't ideal and the framerate is low on older devices. Because of this, they're all hard to really recommend, but at least they exist in some form on the App Store if you're determined to revisit these classics on your iPhone.

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If you're a regular around here, you've probably played tons of iPhone games, as well as other kinds of video games for that matter. The key word here is "playing" these games, as no matter what the object of whatever video game you're currently enjoying is, it likely involves you doing something. That's where Godville [Free] comes in, it's a "zero-player game" in that it requires absolutely no interaction from the player at all. Your character in Godville plays himself, all by himself, and you take the role of an omnipotent god and can either encourage or punish your hero, or do nothing at all.

When you want to know what your character in Godville is up to, you simply load the game and see what adventures he has been on lately while you've been off doing other things, or playing actual games. Sometimes your hero will be brave and slay endless hordes of monsters, collecting and equipping all forms of magical loot along the way. Sometimes your hero will find himself outmatched and need to run, and other times your character will either swindle or get swindled, all without any interaction from you at all.

As your hero goes on his adventure he can level up, eventually earn a personal motto, start learning specialized skills, or even join a guild. Your character has his own alignment which is swayed by his adventures, and once he completes a quest, he gets a new one and goes off in attempt to complete it all by himself. This may all sound a little stupid, and honestly, it is– But that's the best part.

If you've ever played an MMORPG or any other RPG that focuses on grinding and repetitiveness, it's surprisingly amusing to just be able to load up your Godville character and vicariously live through his randomized adventures without needing to actually do anything at all. I have a feeling that fans of RPG's will at least get a chuckle out of some of the things your character ends up doing in Godville, and everyone else can just download a free game then complain in iTunes reviews that you can't do anything.

I'm not entirely sure friends mean anything in this game, but if you're looking for another deity to add in game, my username is "Hodapp".

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One of the coolest things about the App Store is the sheer amount of obscure ports it exposes us iOS gamers to that we would have otherwise missed. Prior to the news of the iOS port hitting our forums, I had never heard of Battle for Wesnoth [$4.99 - iPhone / iPad] and tonight its creators are unleashing another open source game on to the App Store, Frogatto & Friends [$1.99]. Frogatto is a platformer with some of the most blatant classic video game influences I've seen in quite some time, and I mean that in the best way possible.

Everything from the style of the fantastic pixel art that makes up the game, to the way Frogatto deals with enemies, to interface elements all seem to be lovingly lifted from memories of the sixteen bit era. In the game you play as a tiny unemployed frog who sets out for adventure and employment. It doesn't take long before the villain of the game, Big Bad Milgram, is revealed, and your sights are set on restoring order to the world. Fighting through various boss fights, solving puzzles, and making your way through tons of enemies and platforming obstacles are all vital parts of Frogatto & Friends.

Much like Battle for Wesnoth, Frogatto is freely available online to play on either Mac or Windows machines (as well as some out of date Linux builds). It's really a toss up as to which version is better, as platformers like this really need the physical controls that playing on a keyboard provide. On the other hand, the iPhone port is great, but I'd really love to see some better game save handling.

Currently if you quit the game for any reason, you lose your progress from the last save point. Save points are plentiful throughout the game, but I really think we're at a point now where if you're releasing something more than a simple time waster you should really include better save state handling. Even using fast app switching loses your progress, which is a total bummer given how awesome it has been with iOS 4 to quickly and easily switch between checking your email or browsing the internet while playing a game.

If you can get past losing a little bit of progress if you quit the game, Frogatto is totally worth checking out. I've been completely captivated by both the art of the game, and the game world itself; so much so that while playing through the other games that have been released tonight to write about I kept wanting to go back to Frogatto & Friends. I'm a total sucker for games like this, and I doubt I'm alone on that. If nothing else, at least give the free PC version a try.

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We've posted about Sword of Fargoal [$3.99] and its iPad counterpart Sword of Fargoal Legends [$6.99] numerous times now, even including it in our Best iPhone Games of 2009 listing. The thread on our forums has been going strong since March, and is filled with close to 2000 posts of people suggesting new features and telling tales of their adventures, with the developers participating constantly in the discussion.

From reading comments we get on articles, as well as endlessly pouring over our forums, it seems above all what our community seems to unanimously love is any developer who sticks with their game, and there is a short list of developers I can even think of who have done as much with their games as the Fargoal team has done over the life of Sword of Fargoal. Since its initial release on the iPhone, all kinds of new items and treasures have been added, along with new monsters, sound effects, potions, dungeon levels, and graphical effects. New traps have been thrown in, as well as multiple difficulty levels to make the game both more forgiving to new players and more brutal to veterans.

This latest update adds high resolution graphics, allowing players with iPhone 4's to enjoy the game at full Retina Display resolution. If you've been following the development of the game, specifically its pre-iPhone origins, it's really great to see how far Fargoal has come while still maintaining a retro feel. The original Sword of Fargoal was a 40×22 ascii game that ran on the Commodore 64, which can be seen in the bottom corner of the following comparison screenshot:

On the horizon for Fargoal in future updates is a complete overhaul of the random dungeon building system. Instead of the current 40×30 tile area that every dungeon floor is made of, floors can be any length and width. The developers are hoping that this will give Fargoal a much more "architectural" feeling to the dungeon generator. Dungeon generation is also said to be getting more purposeful, with things like guard rooms, store rooms, underground lairs, vaults, oubliettes, and other rooms for players to come across.

There is going to be more environmental interaction and danger outside of combat, and with these two things are coming even more descriptive text to help set the scene a little better. Fargoal will also eventually have an even wider variety of monsters that vary in intelligence and ability. Some will even use battle tactics and strategy, with certain enemies organizing with other enemies when appropriate to quicken your demise.

If you haven't updated Sword of Fargoal recently, now is a great time to do so. If you still haven't downloaded Sword of Fargoal, it's among the best roguelikes available on the App Store, and certainly the most approachable, especially with the recent difficulty settings. Sword of Fargoal is one of my favorite games, and it's really easy to recommend, especially with how committed the developers have been to both updating the game in the past and continue to update it in the future.

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Back in April of last year we ran a story about mobile developer ZodTTD's announcement of the forthcoming platform puzzle adventure game Wizzley Presto and the Mysterious Time Machine. What made the project interesting was the fact that the developers set a goal to complete the development of the game within 30 days, publicly documenting their progress along the way at 30daygame.com.

A cool element of this project is the blog. We are doing this game in 30 days, from an idea to a finished product for AppStore. Best of all we’re showing all of what is involved along the way. Expect lots of interesting posts for all those who wonder what it’s like programming a game on the iPhone & iPod Touch!

Early this month the game (renamed Wizzley Presto and the Vampire's Tomb) went live in the App Store [link]. But hey — wait a minute — that's a lot more than 30 days! I contacted the developers to find out what gives.

I spoke with project programmer Craig Rothwell, who also happens to be the person behind the OpenPandora handheld and the iControlPad iPhone accessory. He indicates that he achieved "mission accomplished" within 30 days, as planned, but the decision was made to expand the title into something overall more complete.

We did indeed complete the 30 day game but it was rather nice and we decided rather than releasing it then as a 'tech demo' we would like to make it bigger and better.

Now one thing a lot of people don't realise is that 90% of 'full' games which have development started are never finished, team members get bored, people move to other projects, the steam runs out and the 'on no! real work!' syndrome starts. Fortunately I've worked on games before (for the Gameboy color and GBA) so I knew how to just knuckle down and get on with it, sleepless nights and all.

So over the space of 8 months we worked on a proper plot, scenes, monsters and dialogue.

By Christmas 2009, the game was ready to go — as developed and tested in the iPhone simulator — but, when it was loaded onto an actual device, it didn't work. (The simulator is not the perfect testing ground…) Work began to get the game running on actual metal, and in March a few extra features (such as egg throwing) were added in before submission to Apple. And, after a rejection / resubmission snafu, Wizzley Presto has landed in the App Store.

It's a pretty nice title, actually. It features extremely impressive oldschool artwork reminiscent of  by pixel artist Ruckage along with a nice audio track. The goal of the game is to traverse screen after screen of obstacle, puzzle, and enemy-laden platforms, by way of button touch controls, in order to make it through all three "chapters," each bringing a save point. It's not so much a Turrican or Mario affair, but more a modestly-paced puzzle solving experience reminiscent of the classic Dizzy series. Stand on a switch to activate a sliding bridge, find the appropriate tool to make it past an obstacle, etc. Less arcade action and more problem solving. Kind of a Babylonian Twins — without the twins, to reference an existing iPhone title.

Wizzley Presto and the Vampires Tomb is lovely, clever, and quite enjoyable. I'm pleased the team took the extra time needed to build the game up to its current form. And, if you have what it takes to be the first to finish the challenge, the developers have a $1,500 prize waiting for you.

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