Archive for the ‘Atom’ tag
¡Freebie Fiesta! – ‘Babo Crash HD’, ‘Crystal Quest’, ‘DinoSmash Online’, ‘Dr. Nano – 3D Artery Adventure’, ‘Max Vector’, ‘Mecho Wars’, and ‘Piyo Blocks’
I'd say the best possible way to start any morning is with a massive cup of Dunkin Donuts coffee and a downloading whole pile of App Store freebies. There are quite a few free games available today, but some of these promotions have been running for a couple days now. Given the temporary nature of most freebie sales, I'd say there's a decent chance of some of these games returning to their original price very soon so be sure to grab any/all of the games you're interested in ASAP.
Babo Crash HD – If you like puzzle games where you're able to pull off massive chains of blocks being cleared, intentionally or unintentionally, Babo Crash HD is right up your alley. It follows the familiar Bejeweled style gameplay model with gems you swap around to form matches of three or more. What sets Babo Crash HD apart is the ridiculous array of power-ups in the game that can clear out entire swaths of gems at a time. Free, fun, and universal– What's not to like about that?
Crystal Quest – Originally released in 1987, Crystal Quest was one of the first game to support the color display of the Macintosh II and since then has been ported to a number of different platforms including the iPhone. Gameplay is fairly basic and amounts to surviving through waves of enemies and collecting crystals. It feels a little dated, but if you were around for the original Macintosh release this should be an awesome blast from the past.
DinoSmash Online – An extremely cool online deathmatch game which piles up to 16 players in to a 2D map filled with platforms to jump around (or use your grappling hook) on and weapons to pick up. It was recently updated to support the Retina Display of the iPhone 4, and the game seems to play well on both WiFi and 3G networks. Also, the title screen music absolutely owns and DinoSmash Online is worth downloading just to listen to it, even if you have no intention of ever playing the game.
Dr. Nano – 3D Artery Adventure – We first got a peek at this game back at PAX East, and while the controls feel a little clunky the game is based around the amusing premise of shrinking yourself small enough to solve medical problems in the human body by running around and shooting them… You might even learn something about human anatomy in the process.
Max Vector – This is a game so gameplay is a little basic and performance is on the mediocre side, but Max Vector has so much awesome retro flare to it that it's worth checking out for that alone. The graphics and music are awesome, and like any good shooter, it has a heap of screen-filling bosses to spam massive amounts of bullets at.
Mecho Wars – A turn based strategy game with some cool gameplay mechanics such as a day and night cycles which does things like freeze water so your troops can walk across it, forcing you to take time of day in to account with both your attacks and defenses. Mecho Wars has a full single player campaign as well as four different OpenFeint-powered online multiplayer modes.
Piyo Blocks – This match three is loaded with bright pixel art and a ton of personality. Piyo Blocks features three different game modes, along with full OpenFeint integration for online leaderboards, achievements, and all that other fun stuff. Doing well hinges on pulling off massive combos, and it's fairly rewarding when you get your score multiplier going like crazy.
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TouchArcade 360iDev Game Jam – A Night to Remember
Late last night the TouchArcade Game Jam at 360iDev brought a room full of developers together to build a game in twelve hours with only a single word as the inspiration: "Tiny". After a few cases of Red Bull, a truck load of Doritos, and some Franzia, each participating developer slowly formed workable prototypes for game ideas thought up on the fly. Some people worked in teams, others went solo, but I feel confident in saying that everyone had a good time.
To track the progress of the developers, we opened up a that they used to post screenshots and get ideas from the TouchArcade community. Ordered by the number of responses each game got, here are the products of the Game Jam:
From and comes a tilt to shoot game where you must defend a cake from …cake lovers? Various power ups are included, my personal favorite being the multi-cake shot seen in the above screenshot.
and teamed up to build this molecular line drawing game where you chain together atoms to clear the screen. Different atoms have various numerical values to them, and matching them together creates huge molecules for massive points.
The Pollinator is less of a game and more of a zen garden app, as it is played by tapping the flowers as bees fly by to pollinate the plants to keep them alive. (As the title may hint.)
built a Canabalt-like side scrolling survival game where you play as a pretty little unicorn. The game's thread is worth checking out to see the iterations the art style went through.
Jason and Jakob of built a chalkboard battle game they're describing as "It's like iShoot meets Warheads for your chalkboard!" Check out the above video to see the game in motion.
This collaboration between and is said to offer Canabalt-style survival gameplay where you dodge things in the game world by pinching to zoom the game world in and out.
A team of three guys form worked through the night to build this game which involves gliding through the air and grappling the terrain to fling yourself forward while avoiding crashing in to the hills.
This oddly beautiful game by involves guiding a particle (named Owen) through a field of magnets. The polarity of the magnets can be switched around to guide said particle through the magnetic field without touching any other magnets.
While I'm not entirely sure if Serban from ever finished his game, the concept art alone is worth showing off. Since the theme of the Game Jam was tiny, his game is about sharks with tiny lasers.
Participating remotely via web cam was who built a tiny (and accurately named) space shooter game.
David Whatley of and 360iDev keynote speaker was working on a game entitled The Will of Steve. I'm not entirely sure what the plan was with the gameplay, but if I know David, it likely involved Steve doing something silly with that iPad.
put together this top down kayak racer and was one of the few people to also fulfill the bonus "Owen Goss" theme. Your kayak is controlled by swiping down both sides of the screen, and the game was just barely finished in time with 25 minutes to spare.
put together a match three based on body parts being dumped in to an open grave. They didn't quite get all the matching logic working, they have plans to finish the game over the next week.
came up with this zombie infection game that features user-modifiable graphics. You can either save the world from zombies, or, if you prefer, save the world from Owen Goss.
and put together this bacon-powered game where you play as a monkey in space with an insatiable love for cured pork products. Shoot monkey cages to free your friends and pick up Slim Fast to, well, go faster.
came up with this amazing side scrolling shooter. I'd summarize the game, but they already did it perfectly:
The unthinkable has happened. After numerous jokes about snow and hockey, our neighbors to the north have unleashed an aerial invasion, loading up tons of cargo planes with… bacon. You play as the fighter ace with a trusty P-51 mustang, who must shoot down the cargo planes with your trusty WWII plane… armed with heat seeking missiles.
This mysterious developer known only as "Rob" or "themuller" on our forums put together a game with a shockingly accurate title. A face scrolls down the screen, and, well, you mini-gun it.
Markus from put together this simple game that involves tapping the screen to leave food for the black dot to eat while you avoid the red dot. Graphics are extremely preliminary right now, but the game itself is fully functional.
I'm not entirely sure if this game turned in to anything more than this mock up screenshot put together by or not, but it's hard to not get behind anything that involves orbiting cats with laser eyes.
put together a concept for a ball rolling game where you suck up other red balls by rolling over them. The catch is, you have to avoid the pillars which becomes increasingly difficult as your red ball grows in size.
Finally, , a picnic raiding game, was posted about in our Game Jam forum but without any screenshots or details aside from the concept of playing two player with opposing armies of ants stealing food from a picnic. Hopefully we hear some more on this one.
And of course, thanks to everyone who came to the Game Jam. The vibe in the room was fantastic, and it's always great hanging around creative people bouncing ideas off one another… Especially when those ideas have to do with rapidly developed iPhone games and Owen Goss. We'll post a followup as we hear from more of these developers regarding the fate of their Game Jam games. I went through and listed everyone who posted anything in the in this article, so if your game is missing, it's not too late to post a thread!
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Some Early iPad Games that Have Our Attention
Today the iPad App Store opened up, revealing a great many iPad launch titles to those itching to see what they'll be loading onto their iPads when they arrive on Saturday. The amount of iPad app news this has generated today has us feeling as if we're standing in the middle of a tornado, admittedly. And so, without a great deal of rhyme or reason, I've chosen a few iPad games, now in the App Store, to highlight, the only real criterion being that they're titles we've not recently covered and are ones that I'm personally anxious to get my hands on.
So, without further ado…
Minigore HD from Mountain Sheep — $4.99
The iPad adaptation of Minigore sounds better than ever with 14 playable characters, "guest stars" from Hook Champ, Zombieville USA, Sway, and Envrio-Bear 2010, and redone graphics to take full advantage of the iPad's screen acreage.
Warpgate HD from Freeverse — $7.99
Freeverse's real-time strategy title Warpgate is here for the iPad, but not yet for the iPhone. Who would've guessed? (The iPhone version should be making its debut any day now.) All that we've seen indicates that this is a RTS title not to be missed.
Sam & Max Episode 1: The Penal Zone from Telltale Games — $9.99
Inspired by Steve Purcell's comic series , Lucas Arts in 1993 released the SCUMM-based adventure to much critical acclaim. Sequels followed and the odd, starring duo gathered something of a cult following. Those in the cult will be happy to see the just-released iPad title from Telltale Games, Sam & Max Episode 1: The Penal Zone.
Cogs HD from Chillingo — $4.99
In January we took a look at steampunk puzzler Cogs and very much liked what we saw. Cogs HD is now in the App Store and rendered on the iPad's 10-inch screen,
Mirror's Edge for iPad — $12.99
We recently posted about Mirror's Edge for the iPad, but at the time, it was to be a $14.99 title. While still premium, it seems to have made its debut at $12.99 — just a shade less dear.
Call of Duty: World at War: Zombies from Activision — $14.99
This bundle of zombie smackdown is the most expensive game on our list, but it does look like fun. Bigger screen = more menacing zombies.
Fieldrunners for iPad from Subatomic Studios — $7.99
Fieldrunners. Everyone's favorite tower defense game. Well, my favorite, anyway. And it's here in full-screen iPad glory.
Touchgrind HD from Illusion Labs — $7.99
Touchgrind is a highly unique iPhone skateboarding game. Skateboarding for your fingers, really. But the one limitation? Screen size. The iPad version should have no such limitation.
Ocean Blue from Com2uS — $9.99
Ocean Blue falls under the Entertainment category — it's not really a game. But it looks pretty fun. It has the distinction of being "the first realistic diving experience on the iPad." We're anxious to check it out.
Scrabble for iPad from Electronic Arts — $9.99
Scrabble. On a big multitouch screen. Not cool enough? How about this:
Scrabble Tile Rack for iPhone / iPod touch — Free
Use your iPad as the Scrabble board and connect wirelessly from your iPhone or iPod touch to use it as a private tile rack while you are playing Scrabble.
Harbor Master HD from Imangi Studios — Free
Imangi has produced an HD version of their chaos management game and is giving it away for Free.
There are plenty more announcements, screenshots and info about upcoming iPad games in our .
It's hard to track everything that's happening in the App Store right now. This is going to be a rather insane weekend for everyone connected with the iPad. Don't worry, our usual iPhone and iPod Touch game coverage will also resume but over the next week there's going to be a lot of news and attention on the iPad.
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Coming Soon: ‘Gravity Hook HD’ by the Creators of Canabalt
Back in 2008, and , two of the three masterminds behind Canabalt created a flash game called originally based on a typing-tutor game called Gravity Key by Arne Niklas Jansson. After securing permission to develop an endless mouse-based version of the game, the original Gravity Hook was created in five days utilizing the beginnings of what is now the .
A year later, Danny and Adam revisited their game and added new graphics, sound, controls, and gameplay to create Gravity Hook HD. Much like Canabalt, a free flash version is available that allows players to experience the game in its entirety, with global leaderboards reserved for the upcoming iPhone version.
If you have flash installed, you can try out Gravity Hook HD by clicking below. The game has sound, so make sure you mute your speakers before clicking if you're playing somewhere that epic soundtracks are frowned upon.
The developers aren't ready to discuss specific release dates, but hope to have Gravity Hook HD on the App Store sometime this month. We plan on spending some time at GDC with the entire Semi Secret Software crew, and might have more information on Gravity Hook HD then.
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