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Casey's Contraptions [$2.99] was already a great game before this week's update. In our review, we applauded it for its charming approach to creative physics puzzling. But there was one outstanding concern: for a game with a full-featured level editor, it really sucked not to be able to share new levels with the world.

Turns out the developers got right on top of fixing that problem, because the newly released 1.1 update adds a global level sharing system. You can still share your contraptions with just your friends by email, but now you also have the option to share with the whole world. You can also download other users' creations by heading to the My Contraptions menu and hitting the Download Contraptions button. This takes you to a website that lists all the published contraptions, which you can grab with the tap of a button.

This leads to a new problem that anyone should be glad to have—an overabundance of choice. Thankfully users need to successfully play through their levels to post them, so there are no worries about broken levels. But given how popular level sharing is already, I won't be surprised if a ranking system shows up soon.

For those of you playing with children or family members, there's more good news—a user profile system has been added with support for up to six individual players. There are also a few bug fixes and tweaks to round things out.

It sounds like the next update will give us even more reason to keep playing. According to the developer, there are plans for a new location, new items, and the highly-anticipated iPhone version. The iPad version should be going universal too. Great news all around for Casey's Contraptions.

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Gameloft's BackStab [$6.99] was released for Xperia Play a few months back as a timed exclusive, but now that it has finally arrived on iOS as a universal app, we get to take a look at the studios take of Assassin's Creed via Pirates of the Carribbean. Which is to say, it's an open world action adventure game with lots of jumping around and stabbing things.

The core of the game relies on the same parkour and action mechanics of the Assassin's Creed games on consoles. That means the bulk of the game requires you to run around a somewhat open world and jump from object to object. Control wise, you'll get a virtual thumbstick and some buttons to control sword swipes and jumping. Combat is a button mashing affair and while you get some counter moves, you don't get a block, so most battles can be won by hitting the attack button repeatedly. Touching and scrolling anywhere on the screen moves the camera around. It's tolerable, but there will be plenty of instances where you miss jumps, balk stealth sequences or attack thin air because you can't quite get the camera settled properly.

The same goes for free-running, which only works in certain contextual situations. Occasionally you have to push the jump button and sometimes the game does it for you. It's confusing at best, unpredictable and annoying at its worst and you'll die a lot if you don't get the hang of it.

You'll be doing all of this dying, running, jumping and stabbing across several locales in what can only be described as one of the most insane, brain-melting stories I've played through in a long time. From the outset, you play as Henry Blake, an officer in England's Royal Navy who ends up with a faux-hawk and a badass biker jacket after being double-crossed by a man who was apparently an old friend. This puts you into shackles, gives excuse for a daring escape and eventually provides the reasoning for the crux of the story, your revenge. To get your revenge, you'll kill chickens and rabbits to make food for a buxom lady, run errands for random people and explore a few different Caribbean Islands in a series of missions only slightly related to the main story arc.

I'm weary to "spoil" the strangeness the game takes on around its mid-point, but let's just say it pulls an Uncharted and goes off the rails of reality and spills into something totally different. This wouldn't be a big deal if it made a lick of sense, but the game seems to push you to want revenge, not to run around caves searching out different artifacts to reverse an infection. The world simply doesn't justify the twist, but it's a point only a few will likely quibble with.

As far as the open-world is concerned, it's a mix between Assassin's Creed and Red Dead Redemption, in that you'll be running around and taking on missions from random people, saving people from being killed by the Spanish and picking flowers. The kitchen sink approach is admirable, but the game is so buggy it's difficult to really dig into. If you can deal with it, there is tons of content to explore, even if it's all a bit familiar. You can play through the main storyline in about four or five hours, but if you explore the extra missions and side stuff, there is plenty of gameplay to be had.

The engine is likely the place to put the blame for the bugs. Characters will fall through the ground, get stuck in jumping loops or disappear altogether. Design wise, several of the NPCs seem pulled directly from Assassins Creed II, but the low polygon count and often humorous animation means you'll never really mistake this for anything but a mobile game. While those are minor annoyances and are mostly expected in open world games, they happen far more than they should and even worse, happen to your own character sometimes. The game does a decent job of magically pulling you out of stuck corners, but I had to restart a few times after getting trapped on a ledge or in a wall.

That said, BackStab runs well on the iPad and only occasionally chugs on an iPhone 3GS. Control-wise, it's far better suited for the iPad's bigger screen and you'll likely be accidently touching buttons far more often on an iPhone. The world looks great on all of the devices, even if the characters don't.

The characters are fully voiced, but the dialogue isn't particularly noteworthy and the voice acting, while an admirable inclusion, doesn't really add to the experience. For their part, the sound effects and music do a good job of sounding like what they're supposed to, but don't plan on being blown away by the sound design or the acting. It's better than previous Gameloft titles, but still has a lot of room to grow.

If you've been desperately craving an Assassin's Creed game set in an 18th Century pirate wonderland to play on the go, this will do the trick, but don't expect too much from it. If you can deal with all the bugs, you'll certainly be taken on a bizarre ride and you'll have a ton of stuff to do in the world.

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Space is a pretty lonely place, something you'll discover in Jonathan Mulcahy's A Long Way Home [99¢]. Stranded a hundred light years away from Earth after a catastrophic ship explosion, the game's astronaut hero has to find a way home. He travels from galaxy to galaxy alone, with just a haunting piano soundtrack and an occasionally chatty wrist computer to accompany him.

To find his way home, he needs to jump from asteroid to asteroid, collecting enough dark matter to open a wormhole and travel another light year toward Earth. The asteroids rotate slowly, and its your job to pick the right moment to jump. Time it well and aim correctly, and he'll fly in a straight line toward your next target, or near enough to get picked up in its gravity. Aim poorly and he'll fly straight off into the endless void of space. Not a good way to go.

I found it challenging enough to survive many of the game's 100 levels, because jumping across large chasms of space from tiny, rotating asteroids takes a lot of precision. Even if you've got great aim, the challenge ramps up as you're introduced to debris fields, asteroids that limit your jumps, teleporting dark matter and other obstacles. But despite all the potential chaos this is a slow, thoughtful game. Occasionally you'll need to act fast, but for most of the game you'll be waiting for the perfect jump.

A Long Way Home rewards patience, while impatience usually gets you killed. You can walk around the asteroids using your choice of on-screen, accelerometer or hot zone controls, and that speeds things up a bit, but if you jump too soon you'll have to wait until you've drifted away and then start the whole level over again. If that sounds like something that would make you want to smash your iPad over your knee after a few tries, this isn't your game.

Even with the patience of a saint, you may run into a few frustrating spots. You can die unfairly in some levels, skimming the edge of the screen or getting a little too close to a debris field. I also ran into one bug that nearly broke the game, letting me skip a few levels and making my computerized companion wander off for the start of a new galaxy. A reset fixed it, but a major error like that makes me a bit more cautious about recommending the game.

If you can look past those few bugs, though, A Long Way Home is a game worth experiencing. With my headphones in and the music on, the feeling of loneliness was so visceral that I found myself actually missing my chats with the wrist computer. It can really hold up its end of a conversation, but it's only around to introduce new game mechanics. The rest of the time, it's just you and the universe. I wouldn't blame anyone who found that dull, but with a few fixes this could be a real indie darling. If you're up for patient, thoughtful gameplay that makes for an evocative experience, you should give A Long Way Home a shot.

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A couple of weeks ago, we learned that Ten One Design was getting ready to release a smaller version of their wonderful Fling controllers for the iPad which would be suitable for use on iPhone and iPod touch devices. There was a lot of negative backlash to this announcement though, and I can sort of see why. The promo image for the Fling Mini showed that using 2 of the controllers at the same time really blocked much of the screen of the device, and it was hard to imagine how it could be practical to play games this way.

Last week at WWDC, Eli and myself both got our hands on an early pair of the Fling Minis and put them to the test. Surprisingly, the screen blockage is almost a complete non-issue when you’re actually using the Fling Minis. The plastic that the Fling Mini is comprised of is translucent and doesn’t really block any more of the screen than your own thumbs normally would. But, that’s not to say that they don’t come with some quirks and they won’t work on every game that you’d hope. For the games that they do work with they work exceptionally well, and just like the Flings on iPad they offer a smooth and tactile control option over using a touch screen alone.

Eli has put together this fantastic comparison video showing off the difference between the original Fling, which you can read our original review of, and the new Fling Mini:

In my own experience, I’ve found several games that work near perfectly with the Fling Mini. Both Bug Heroes [Free] and Max Adventure [99¢/Lite] are two of my favorite dual-stick shooters that don’t come with many compromises when using the Fling, which you can see in this second hands-on video. There will be times when accessing a UI element or menu option will be difficult because the Fling Mini is blocking that part of the screen, but it’s easy enough to detach a suction cup and swivel the controller out of the way to gain access to these. It would be cool if there were tiny hinges in the connector arms of the Fling Mini so you could quickly flip them up to access the entire screen. Perhaps in a Fling Mini version 2.0.

The Fling Mini is also well-suited to some games that use just a single analog stick or a d-pad for movement, and one interesting thing is how well it works with the Joypad Game Controller [Free] which we also covered at WWDC this year. Especially with the Joypad SDK now offering the ability to use analog sticks, one or two Fling Minis combined with an iPhone or iPod touch and the Joypad app could make for a really nice controller for playing an iPad or desktop game.

One example of a game that did not work so well is Age of Zombies [$2.99/Lite]. I had high hopes for this one as it employs a touch anywhere scheme for its set of dual-stick controls, which would mean precise placement of the Fling wouldn’t be necessary. Unfortunately there is no way to access the grenade button while using the Fling with this game, which is a pretty big problem. You can avoid this by using only one Fling on the left control stick, but this gives the game an inconsistent feel. Also, games that utilize buttons in the lower corners of the screen, like many first person shooters, are also basically unplayable due to the plastic spirals of the Fling Mini blocking those areas of the screen.

The thing I like most about the Flings is that they just “feel” good. The movement is solid and smooth, and for the games that they work well with they are definitely an enhancement. On the larger screen of the iPad, the original Fling works with a greater number of games and there are much fewer instances of inaccessible UI elements. These problems are amplified with the Fling Mini and the smaller iOS screens, but it isn’t a total deal breaker and for the select games that they do work well with they feel absolutely brilliant.

One of the first things I asked Ten One Design about the Fling Mini was whether they would also work on an iPad, thus negating needing two different styles of Flings. While there’s technically nothing preventing them from working on an iPad, almost all iPad virtual analog sticks require a larger range of motion than what is afforded by the smaller Fling Mini. You may be able to come up with a few games that work well on the iPad with a Fling Mini, but for the most part you are better off using the original Fling with that device.

Really the best thing to do is find a friend who owns a pair or head to an Apple store and try out the Fling for yourself. If you like the way they feel and can deal with limited game compatibility, then they are a great purchase. Hopefully more developers will incorporate special settings for using a Fling controller in their game, especially with them now being available on iPhones and iPod touches.

You can currently pre-order the Fling Mini in a 2-pack for $24.95, and they should be shipping sometime in mid-to-late July. The original Fling for iPad is available now in 3 colors at a price of $19.95 for a single controller or in a 2-pack for $29.95.

Product Pages:

• Fling Mini 2-Pack (Pre-Order)
• Fling for iPad

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Have you ever signed up for a cheap vacation, only to find the room is half the size you expected and the "beach-front" view is actually a back alley and a pile of dirt? That's pretty much what Fin, the pint-sized hero of Mighty Fin [$0.99], gets when he decides to sign up for Shady Sal's suspiciously cheap Round the World Tour. Instead of dirty sheets, he's dealing with sharks and frigid waters in a vacation he'll be lucky to survive.

Guiding Fin through the deadly waters involves the same sort of one-touch gameplay that made Tiny Wings [$0.99] such a winner. You can press down to make Fin dive, and release to make him jump. He swims toward obstacles full-speed ahead while you react to keep him safe. Along with spikes, jellyfish and other deadly foes, each level is filled with points bubbles. These boost your score and telegraph the best way around upcoming obstacles. Since each level is randomly generated when you play it, this extra assistance is handy.

Mighty Fin has eight levels, with regular and endless modes for each. That doesn't sound like much, but the levels are long and some are quite challenging. Each level also has three hats to earn – one found within the level, and two for getting gold-ranked scores on regular and endless. Game Center leaderboards add a little more replayability.

The levels that Fin visits on his vacation are mostly pretty bleak – Backwater Bay, Teacup Tempest and Shipwreck Strait are as grey and unwelcoming as they sound. So it's a good thing the rest of Mighty Fin has charm to spare. The art is top-notch, especially for Fin himself. He's a goofy, bug-eyed little fish, but he looks so joyous when he leaps out of the water that I just had to root for the little guy. The hats are a nice touch too—it's a little more fun to play with a fish in a top hat or a lady's bouffant. You'll also want to catch the witty quips scattered throughout the game.

Mighty Fin's charm helps to smooth out some of its struggles. The music really needs more variety, for one thing. Also, If you're at all skilled with the game, the first couple levels won't make a great first impression – the levels are a bit too long and a bit too easy to start. The challenge ramps up, but avoid the early endless levels if you're finding the game too easy. I had to kill Fin off intentionally a couple times after I cleared a few million points. The later levels fare much better.

If you're not motivated by the high score chase, the game's done once you unlock all the hats. I'd love to see achievements and maybe a (cheerier) future level pack to pad the game out. An endless mode that actually gets harder and faster as you progress would be a nice addition, too.

It's certainly no complaint that I'd like to see Fin safely through another undersea vacation. In the end, I was entertained and thoroughly challenged by Mighty Fin. Reactions are mixed in the forums, but I think this is a winner for Launching Pad Games.

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I'm not the biggest crossword person. I love word games and trivia, but crosswords have just never grabbed me. So I'm a little surprised by how much I've enjoyed playing CRUX Crosswords HD [4.99].

Maybe it's the way it manages to capture the feel of playing on paper without all the messy stuff that goes along with actually playing on paper. You can't beat the aesthetic, with each puzzle laid out on a page of virtual newsprint with a nice clean handwritten font. I can almost smell the ink when playing this game.

Or maybe it's all the helpful little features. You can write in pencil or pen mode, so you know which answers you're certain about and which are still iffy. When you highlight a cell, you can see both the clues that intersect it at a glance. If you're getting close but can't pick an answer, use the rebus option to enter up to twelve options per cell. If you're really hard up, you can set the game to double-check your answers or reveal cells, entries, or the whole shebang. That saved me from a shameful trip to Google on a few occasions.

As a newbie, the source list mystifies me a bit. CRUX has a list of nearly 30 sources, split between U.S. and U.K. style puzzles. A few (those from New York Times and Telegraph) require subscriptions to their respective crossword services, which is to be expected. But I'd love to see a little more information on the sources. Are People Magazine puzzles more or less difficult than Onion A.V. Club puzzles? Or Washington Post puzzles? It's pretty much trial and error for me, but if you know your stuff, the hearty source list should be quite satisfying.

You can download each puzzle as it's published online, and once you've got it its yours to keep. A recent puzzles list lets you hop between in-progress or recently downloaded puzzles at will. You can also create user profiles if more than one member of your household has the crossword bug.

Every time I ran into an irritation, a few moments of investigation solved it for me. I was frustrated that the game would skip over already completed cells when I typed in a full entry. Turns out you can toggle that option off. If the timer makes you feel a little too pressured, turn it off too. There are almost too many ways to navigate each puzzle—you can tap on a cell, tap on a clue, swap between intersecting clues, or use the on screen direction pad to move between cells. You can also set CRUX to show only incomplete clues or only those that intersect your current selection. I have yet to run into a feature or convenience I felt was missing, but if you do, the developers have been taking feedback in the forums.

Like I said, I'm a crossword newbie. But CRUX Crosswords HD is pro. It looks fantastic and comes with everything but the kitchen sink packed in to make your crossword solving more convenient. If you enjoy crosswords, you should definitely give it a shot.

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It was back in mid-April that we first caught sight of Dream:scape, an upcoming fully 3D adventure game built using the Unreal Engine. Dream:scape has been loosely compared to a free-roaming Myst-style game, and the trailer showcased fairly stunning visuals and intriguing dialog that had me curious to see more. Here’s a quick synopsis as seen on the developer Speedbump Studio’s website:

Take on the role of Wilson, a coma patient relearning his past by exploring the dreamscape of his memories. Only there, in the lucid light of the subconscious, buried secrets are revealed, unraveling a decades-old mystery of tragedy, betrayal, and ultimately, revenge.

Unfortunately, after submitting the game to Apple, the release of Dream:scape hit a snag when it was revealed during the review process that due to a memory bug the game would only be certified for iPhone 4 and iPad 2 devices. It was expected that a robust game like Dream:scape would likely only work on 3rd generation hardware and up, but being limited to only 2 devices would not be acceptable. Speedbump decided to pull the submission and spend time reworking Dream:scape to run on older devices.

Which brings us to today, just over a month later where Speedbump has revealed that Dream:scape is finally ready and will be released next week on June 9th. The official devices supported will be the iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, 4th generation iPod touch and both iPads. Curiously, no mention of 3rd generation iPod touch support, though since that hardware is nearly identical to a 3GS I think it will be safe.

To celebrate having an official launch date, Speedbump has prepared a brand new trailer for Dream:scape:

I don’t know about you, but that second trailer has me even more excited for the release of Dream:scape. The first trailer showed some realistic depictions of gorgeous landscapes and interiors, but this one shows some seriously twisted dream world stuff going on that looks great and also kind of creepy. Also, I hate spiders, so the gigantic spider part is sure to freak me out.

We’ll be eager to check out Dream:scape when it launches next week, and until then you can drop by our forums to discuss the game.

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Minecraft for mobile phones is coming to Android first as an Xperia Play exclusive, the game’s developer Mojang confirmed to us in a brief e-mail exchange this morning.

This news comes on the heels of a rash of E3 invitations-turned-blog-posts. Yesterday, Play creator Sony Ericcson blasted out a digital invitation to a June 7 mixer to several members of the enthusiast games press. The invite was adorned with Minecraft art and, as if that didn’t do the trick, also referenced a well-known explosive enemy in the game.

With the surprise blown, Mojang is now able to confirm the project, which is formally called Minecraft – Pocket Edition. As you’d assume, it will have controls fitted to the Play’s touch pads, buttons, and d-pad, and will feature changes specific to the hardware and the, perhaps, less attentive audience.

“When playing on smart phones you will have a different screen size compared to PC, different hardware, different attention spans and thus the game needs to be customized to fit the mobile specifications,” a representative told us.

If you know Minecraft, you know Mojang doesn’t kid around with updates. The PC hit is updated a lot with the occasional game-changing overhaul, as well as standard tweaks, enhancements, and bug fixes. Mojang suggests this will be the case with Pocket Edition, too.

“The development process will follow the one we have for PC, release early and update frequently,” the same representative told us.

Apparently, more will be revealed about Pocket Edition during E3. As of right now, we still don’t know its price, release window, or possible cross-platform functionalities. If you read between Mojang's lines about this version of the game, however, the latter seems highly unlikely.

One thing we’d love to know is if Pocket Edition is a PlayStation Suite joint. If it is, then it's possible that this version of the game will work on the NGP as well as other Android 2.3 , PlayStation-certified devices. As reported eons ago, Sony plans to keep a hardware-neutral stance with the Suite platform, so cross-platform play is possible provided that Sony's device requirements are met.

We're not sure what this means for the iOS version of Minecraft in the short term. The studio still refers to this version as an actual project, but if this exclusive has a long-ish tail, you'll be waiting for awhile obviously. Will development slow or stop in the meanwhile? We'll ask.

The Xperia Play is available for purchase tomorrow in the US for $199 with a two year contract. I'm guessing that Mojang will be counting the days until this agreement is over if the desire for the Play's games is as poor in the US as it has been in the UK, Canada, Ireland, and Spain. Mid-month reports from sales in these regions indicate that under or around 1,000 units of each of the five PSOne classic exclusives have been purchased. That's not… good, to say the least.

Then again, Minecraft is a big deal. Perhaps it can push the platform? We'll see.

In-game image from the latest PC build of Minecraft.

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Combine two cups of freemium with a scoop of time management. Then add a dash of social, mix it together, and you'll get MobCrete's Pucca's Restaurant [Free], the freemium game that's currently devouring my spare time.

Pucca is a massive media franchise that spans animation, console games, fashion lines, and a lot more. If you know absolutely nothing about it (like me!), you'll still find Pucca's Restaurant to be an adorable restaurant sim. If you're a fan, you'll see all your favorite characters come together to help take your restaurant from a tiny diner to an opulent five-star affair.

There are likely hundreds of freemium sim games on iOS, so I'm not going to claim that Pucca's Restaurant is the best or most unique. I can, however, tell you that it's a lot of fun, and I can't stop playing. There are a few things I look for in a freemium game, and this one stacks up well. I never feel like I absolutely need to pay for currency, I'm not missing out by choosing not to harass my friends, and there's always lots to do.

To take your restaurant to a five-star destination, you'll need to manage meals, staff and decor. Cooking meals earns you money and experience, so you can unlock new recipes and items as you level up. You can use those items to decorate, drawing in more customers and earning more stars. As your restaurant gets more popular, you'll need more staff to cook and serve the food.

There's a slight time management flavor to Pucca's Restaurant, as you'll need to plan your dishes carefully to make sure there's always something ready to serve. You also have to make sure your meals don't go bad before you serve them. Decorating feels a bit like Animal Crossing, which is a game that desperately needs more iOS imitation. And hey, if you want some educational content, each dish you can cook in the game includes a full recipe.

I'm really loving the social content. I'm usually wary of letting games use my location data, but I'm glad I threw caution to the wind for this one. Not only is there a Yelp-style list of restaurant ratings, you can also check out a local map and rate your shop against everyone nearby. Or you can travel around the world and check out the top rated international restaurants. Pucca's Restaurant has only been out for a couple weeks here, but it's been around since March in parts of Asia, so you can see lots of crazy-awesome high level restaurant layouts – and they're all different. You can also check out the restaurants of your Game Center friends.

There are a few items you can't get for your restaurant without using Garu points, the premium currency of the game. You earn Garu points for hitting milestones and unlocking secret rewards, but they don't show up often enough to cover every possible purchase. I haven't had any problem going without, though, and my little restaurant is certainly remaining competitive. I am, however, completely mystified about why saving progress to the cloud costs Garu points. You'd think making sure players never lose progress would be valuable enough on its own.

My biggest gripe is that Pucca's Restaurant badly needs a tutorial. I muddled my way though the first few levels, and eventually figured out how to store decor, how to move things around, why I want new staff, but it was a struggle early on. Apparently a tutorial is on the way in the next update, and so far MobCrete has been quick to bring out bug fixes and new content. You can also hit them up in our forums.

If you've got room in your heart for a new freemium game, give Pucca's Restaurant a try. It's super cute, it's fun, and it's free. Is there a better recipe for success?

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Well, it seems the folks at Mountain Sheep and Remedy Entertainment have been chowing down on their Wheaties based on all the work they've been getting done. Their popular combat racing game Death Rally [99¢] just launched at the end of March, and we’re already on the fourth content update. This latest one isn’t massive, but does add a few neat new features and some welcome fixes.

First off, there are 2 new Challenge race types, Dollar and Ammo. Dollar is a race where every item in crates and on the track is a cash pickup, and the same goes for Ammo but every item is an ammo pickup. The Ammo race is actually a great place to try out another new feature in this update, the Weapon Overdrive. Picking up ammo when you’re already full will add a little glowing effect to your car and you’ll automatically fire off a more powerful blast of whatever weapon you’ve equipped. So if you have missiles you’ll shoot out multiple missiles, for example.

There are 2 new leaderboards in Game Center, one for total victories and one for total kills, and they’ve fixed a bug that prevented 2 achievements that were part of the last update from unlocking if you had previously earned them, which is nice since that was driving me crazy. They’ve also fixed the game progress restoration function that allows you to transfer your progress between devices, which wasn’t behaving properly before. Finally, if you choose to "like" the Death Rally Facebook Page from within the game, you can unlock an additional paint job each for the Wraith, Shrieker, and Sentinel.

So, not a huge update, but a good one nonetheless. And there’s the promise of much more to come, and at the rate the developers have been going I wouldn’t be surprised to see the next update really soon. Also, Death Rally is still on sale for just 99¢, which is an absolute steal. You can refer to our original review of Death Rally or check out the impressions in our forums if you need some more convincing, and we’ll keep our eyes peeled for the next update to come down the pipe.

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