Archive for the ‘AppStore’ tag
TouchArcade Padcast #11: iPad Discussion with Bolt Creative, Illusion Labs, Imangi Studios, and Freeverse
In the wake of Apple's keynote today unveiling the iPad, we rounded up Dave Castelnuovo and Allan Dye from , Anders Mårtensson from , Natalia Luckyanova and Keith Shephard from and Bruce Morrison from to hear what four successful iPhone development studios thought about the new device.
The reception amongst this group of developers was remarkably positive, and everyone had ideas for new projects exclusively for the iPad, as well as refining or enhancing existing games to take advantage of the additional screen real estate and processing power of the device. We also discuss the niche that the iPad will likely fill, and what kind of usage patterns we expect the device to see once it is available for purchase.
Music lovingly lifted from the .
Podcast: Subscribe in iTunes or (M4A, 50MB)
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‘Doodle Bomb’ – I Came to Drop Bombs
Bottle Rocket Apps is responsible for quite a few entries on the App Store, most notably, the which has been well received by iPhone owning fans of NPR. Their most recently release is Doodle Bomb [App Store], a physics-based bomb puzzle game that is a lot of fun.
The goal of each of the 50 levels in Doodle Bomb is to assist your eyepatch-equipped "bomb master" in tossing bombs from what appears to be some kind of strange sewer pipe to flip various switches, resulting in a door being unlocked– Allowing you to progress to the next level. Bombs are thrown by tapping on screen in the direction you want to throw, tapping closer or farther away from the bomb master to control the strength of your throw.
Throughout the game you will come across many different obstacles such as mice to bounce bombs off of, soldier to blow up with bombs, switches of different colors that control different gadgets and gizmos on the game board, pipes to throw bombs down, and many others.
Each level can be completed either by just tossing tons of bombs out and hoping something lands where you want it to, or by precisely throwing bombs and using the least amount possible. Every level also comes with a target number of bombs to use, and if you get under that, you will earn a "bomb badge" which then unlock additional goodies in game.
Doodle Bomb reminds me a lot of Ragdoll Blaster and other similar physics games on the App Store. I think it's safe to say if you're a fan of the physics puzzle genre, Doodle Bomb will be a welcome addition to your game collection. The also has quite a few people posting positive responses, along with the developer actively answering questions.
App Store Link: Doodle Bomb, $1.99
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App Store Download Stats: Apple, Gameloft and Lima Sky
Earlier this week, Apple that they had reached over 3 billion downloads in the App Store over the past 18 months. Of course, that number includes both free and paid downloads.
Adding more color to the number is the fact that Gameloft announced today that they had successfully reached 10 million paid downloads themselves.
“We have had a remarkable year on the App Store,” said Michel Guillemot, chairman and CEO, Gameloft. “Our success is defined not only by great production values, but a vested interest in bringing to market games that are commercially friendly and appeal to a mass consumer base. Taking into account that the App Store is only 18 months old, 10 million paid downloads is an achievement we are quite proud of.”
Their numbers were helped by holiday sales which typically see massive boosts in App Store traffic and downloads due to an influx of new iPod Touch and iPhone owners.
Doodle Jump sales
In fact, Lima Sky's much beloved Doodle Jump [App Store] saw this massive burst in sales as it held the #3 spot during the Christmas holiday.
According to their sales numbers, they saw nearly 80,000 paid downloads of Doodle Jump on Christmas day alone, with a total December download count of over 500,000.
The App Store originally launched in July 2008 and has since been a massive success.
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‘Super Monkey Ball 2′ – A Vast Improvement, But Not Quite There Yet
With its monkey rolling, twitch-balancing action, the Monkey Ball series seems like an easy sell on the iPhone. Despite stemming from a console franchise that’s been around for nearly a decade, the concept almost feels like it was grown specifically for the iPhone. If anything, this was a series that was waiting for the right platform to come along. But when Super Monkey Ball was released alongside the AppStore launch last summer, the results were anything but super. The controls were poorly executed, the visuals felt like a hand-me-down from the days when 16 bit gaming was trying to step out of 2D – the whole experience just wasn’t up to par. Now, 18 months later, Sega gets much closer to delivering the Monkey Ball game that everybody wants.
The objective in Super Monkey Ball 2 (like all games in the series) is to guide a monkey who is trapped in a ball to an exit without letting him roll off the playing field. You’ll navigate a variety of wild and well designed environments all the while using the power of tilt to control the ball. The game relies heavily on the concept of momentum, so you’ll need to make sure that you’re always moving at a controllable speed so that you can navigate the treacherous terrain laid before you.
Super Monkey Ball 2, while far from perfect, is leaps and bounds better than its predecessor. Visually the game has stepped boldly into the world of 3D graphics, looking a fair bit like the Gamecube games that paved the way for the series success. Both the main characters and the environments look completely up to what you’d seen in its home console brethren. Considering the last game felt less like a modern portable and more like the bonus stage from Sonic 2, this is a massive and welcome improvement.
While stepped-up visuals are nice, the real sticking point with the series previous entry was the controls. The game sees a major improvement here as well, but it’s still far from perfect. The good news is you’ll never have a problem telling your monkey where to roll anymore. The bad news? You can’t set your default position for the tilt and you can’t control tilt sensitivity. To keep your monkey perfectly still you’ll need to hold your iPhone at about 10 degrees from a perfect upright position. That means you’ll need to prop your iPhone directly in front of your face if you want to control you amiable ape without much difficulty. Those of us who don’t want to look like schmucks while rolling our monkeys around on the bus are completely out of luck, as holding the iPhone near your lap is really going to ramp up how difficult it is to get a handle on your monkey.
The lack of a tilt sensitivity adjustment definitely came across as an annoyance as well. Sure anyone can adjust to what’s offered in terms of tilting, but I found that sensitivity was just far too touchy for my liking. I had to make extra tiny delicate little moves to control my simian without bowling him clear off the playing field. As a big, brutish, relatively careless gamer, the forced precision seemed a little excessive. Tilt sensitivity controls would have fixed all of that.
Despite these annoyances, the controls still feel far more responsive than what we experienced Monkey Ball’s first iPhone outing. This time around the controls are manageable and anyone can adapt to what’s on the table.
The game has seen other improvements as well. Mini-games have always been a staple of the franchise, but they were conspicuously absent from the previous endeavour. This time around the game features Monkey Bowling – a complete bowling game where you roll your monkey ball instead of the tradition three-holed variety. Two other mini-games – Monkey Golf and Monkey Target – have placeholder spots in the menu with big “coming soon” messages attached. It’s a shame that the content wasn’t included at launch, but at least we know more is on the way.
Multiplayer is also a welcome addition, supporting up to 4 players over local wifi. The multiplayer offering isn’t incredibly deep – you can race against friends to complete each level in record time and play mini-games together – but that doesn’t keep it from being a nice bonus to players seeking a party experience. If anything, it’s what games like Monkey Bowling were made for.
Monkey Ball fans are going to be delighted by the improvements here, but it’s hard to deny that Super Monkey Ball 2 is far from perfect. Should Sega decide to introduce some tilt adjusting options when they release the extra mini-games, Super Monkey Ball 2 would be a much easier offering to recommend. In the meantime, I still found it just a little too twitchy and sensitive to keeps the waves of frustration at bay.
App Store Link:
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