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GRL Games’ awesome word game, Word Chat [$.99], has just received a brand new game mode and a few other select tweaks via a free update. The new mode is Word Solitaire and it’s basically what you’re envisioning — you pull tiles from the columns to make new words and then the tiles on the upper reaches of the board are revealed until you clear the level. Designer Graeme Devine tells us that this was, at one point, an entirely fresh game, but he soon decided to roll it into Word Chat as a mode instead. How nice!

As far as new mechanics, Devine added in a power-up for use in Word Solitaire that allows you to change out letters. As for tweaks, there’s a few: tiles are now smoother on old devices and you can also shake your phone to alter the bubble background in the game.

More updates like this are coming in the future, according to Devine. He wants to update a lot with a ton of meaningful content, which is an approach we can certainly get behind.

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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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Last week we reported on rumblings that GameStop was going to get into the iOS device buying and selling business. We also briefly discussed this on our last podcast, and the TouchArcade hive mind thinks it makes sense, as currently GameStop is a company with a business model based entirely around physical media that's facing the cold hard reality of a physical media-free future thanks to devices like the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. Without some kind of strategy, GameStop could potentially be the next Blockbuster Video, with a business made totally obsolete by advancements in convenience technology.

According to Kotaku, taking iOS devices on trade in isn't the only thing GameStop has up its sleeves. Apparently, they're rolling their own touch-based hardware platform… This, oddly enough, doesn't seem that far fetched either. There are a bazillion Android OEM's out there desperately trying to sell their various reference designs with hopes that they catch on in some meaningful way. And GameStop needs to figure out what it's going to do in the new frontier of app gaming as the bread and butter of their business is taking a game on trade-in for $6 and re-selling it for $60– Something you can't do with virtual goods.

From the looks of it, GameStop will likely be taking an existing Android device (I'm guessing something based on the Tegra family) and branding it as a "GameStop certified gaming platform." This would potentially also allow them to run their own proprietary Android storefront, that they'd have complete control over, and could then sell virtual goods in stores via downloads codes quickly and easily. (Assuming this catches on, of course.)

What will be interesting to see is if GameStop attempts to weasel in some kind of wacky trade-in mechanic into their store, or what else they could possibly have in mind to make them think that something like this would take off in any meaningful way. Just branding something a "GameStop certified gaming platform" doesn't change the fact that Android's gaming library is largely filled with old ad-laden ports of iOS titles, and if you're standing in a GameStop, I'm not sure why you'd choose a GameStop tablet with Shrek Kart over an iPad with… everything else. Unless of course, the way GameStop is going to choose to compete is on price point, which hasn't exactly worked out for any Android tablet save the HP TouchPad which was liquidated at a massive loss.

[via Kotaku]

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Gameloft made a splash back in February when they announced that they were hopping on the Unreal Engine bandwagon. This summer it was revealed that March of Heroes would be their first Unreal-based game… And it'd be playable at E3. Naturally, we had our greasy hands all over it at E3, and we even took home some gameplay video:

This information comes courtesy of the Gameloft twitter account, mere moments ago:

With that out of the way, maybe it's the custom designed tin foil hat I'm wearing right now, but something seems a little fishy about this announcement. First off, Gameloft's Twitter is notoriously meticulous when it comes to capitalizing things, even to the point of capitalizing "GALAXY" in "Samsung GALAXY," using all the proper periods in "N.O.V.A." instead of just typing "NOVA" like the rest of the world, and more. Secondly, the link they're linking to is just their generic Facebook page which contains no information on the matter.

So is this a prank, hoax, publicity stunt, or a little of the three? Who knows. I was looking forward to Gameloft throwing their hat into the proverbial Unreal Engine ring, so this is a bit of a bummer if it's actually true.

Update: Well, it turns out my tinfoil hat was reading tea leaves again, something it really loves to do. Gameloft's Facebook was just updated with this snippet:

Hi everyone, we know we have a big community of FPS fans here… so we are very sorry to announce that we will not be releasing March of Heroes.

Our developers will be focusing on developing various awesome games in the months to come and working on making them even better. Fans of March of Heroes should definitely look forward to the powerful Modern Combat 3. We are however, not cancelling our work on the Unreal Engine! We are expecting to release these games starting 2012.

So, I suppose, now is the time for rampant speculation as to why it was cancelled instead of just released as-is. The version I saw at E3 seemed very complete.

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By the unspoken law of videogames, a sequel tends to follow at least a full year after the original, but in the case of HotGen's To-Fu: The Trials of Chi [99¢/ HD], it has been less than six months before we're seeing the follow-up, aptly titled, To-Fu 2 [99¢]. You wouldn’t think much could happen in just those few short months, but what To-Fu 2 lacks in artistic changes, it makes up for in level design chops.

In a lot of ways, it would have been easy to pull a Madden 12 on To-Fu 2 because, for the most part, this is the same game as it was before. The art, music, sound effects, and everything else are pulled from the original. That is, except for one single new feature: you can now charge To-Fu and send him rocketing through wood blockades.

Other than that and a couple environmental hazards, the basic design remains the same. You pull To-Fu in the direction you want him to go, then watch as he flies across the screen. Your goal is to get to a pink fortune cookie at the end of a spike or chainsaw riddled stage. This time around, the game comes packed with 100 levels, but unlike the first one, the levels are more diverse and far more difficult.

Like the first game, you'll have three objectives in each level: finish it, get all the blue orbs, and do it in a set number of moves. In most cases, you'll need to replay a level twice to get everything. The first To-Fu was challenging, but never really displayed any levels that could be called memorable. To-Fu 2 pushes the difficulty up, making it much twitchier, complicated, and ultimately a more memorable game.

There are essentially two reasons why the game is harder this time around. First off, the level design is, to put it bluntly, better. Levels have several tiers and they're mixed up in a way where they don't get stale. Getting all the orbs and completing the level in a set number of moves feels like two distinctive objectives, and totally changes how you get through each stage. The side effect of that is that they're wildly inconsistent. You'll blaze through three or four levels before getting stuck on a particularly hard one. It's not a building process from simple to hard, it's more of a random scattershot of levels thrown together.

They're also a lot tighter. Where the first game would give you a bit of leeway in you movements, this time around, To-Fu will die on you if he even gets close to spikes. It makes the game considerably more tedious and oftentimes annoying, but for the most part, it keeps things interesting by requiring a pinpoint precision with everything you do.

Unfortunately, it retains some of the problems from the original. The game assumes you're willing to trial-and-error your way through certain sections. Since the levels are often rather large, it also means you'll be flying blind a lot, especially during the parts where you have to fly out of teleporters at an exact angle. The screen real estate is made a bit better on an iPad, but during a lot of the sections, To-Fu 2 suffers from the same problem as Angry Birds where you feel like you're kind of flinging him in the general direction of where it needs to go, but never being certain of what the results will be.

Calling To-Fu 2 a sequel seems a little off. While it's not just about the game's artistic direction, To-Fu 2 doesn't offer enough new stuff to really make it feel like anything but an expansion pack to the original. It's a good thing the first game was good and the core  formula is certainly worth repeating, but don't expect anything new or special here.

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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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I've long been a fan of Jeff Minter's unique take on game design, and his iOS releases are in my list of best games to be found in the App Store. His titles all drip definite old school appeal, and so I was extremely pleased to see his recent tweet indicating that he has worked iCade support into all of the iOS titles where it makes sense.

Jeff has posted a lengthy video demonstrating iCade gameplay in his imminent upcoming title GoatUp, as well as Minotuar Rescue [App Store] and Minotron: 2112 [App Store].

All titles mentioned should be getting an update soon that includes the demonstrated iCade support and GoatUp should arrive any day now. We'll be bringing an in-depth look at the latest title when it lands.

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If you missed out on our WWDC preview, allow me to calibrate your expectations about Tiny Heroes [$2.99], a new tower defense title from Simutronics Corp. You may have heard that the team behind this game was headed up by David Whatley, the developer of the outstanding geoDefense [$1.99 / Lite] and geoDefense Swarm [$1.99]. Already your brain may be whirring along, thinking about upgradeable towers and mazing. Stop that. You won't find those here. And you won't miss them, either.

In Tiny Heroes, you are the master of a dungeon rich with treasure. In classic Dungeons & Dragons style, where there is treasure, there are heroes. Are you going to sit back and let them take your treasure? Heck no! So you set up defenses in their way, and who can blame you if a few of those defenses are a touch lethal? You have liability insurance, right?

Once you push past the first few levels, which introduce you to the basics a bit too slowly, you'll find a game that has more in common with Plants vs. Zombies than geoDefense. The first clue is in the resource management: rather than profiting from killing heroes, you build mana stones that generate mana every few seconds. You use that mana to build your defenses, which are designed to block the oncoming heroes. Why politely leave a path for them to travel down when you can stop them in their tracks?

As you progress through the game, you unlock all manner of vicious defenses. Spike traps, catapults and barricades are just the beginning. You'll get so many that you won't be able to carry them all into battle. Instead, Tiny Heroes requires you to strategize and pick your poison before starting each stage. You'll need to learn how to combine your most brutal traps with static defenses and creatures to effectively guard your treasure, and you'll need to make sure you have the resources to pull your plan off.

But for each imaginative defense you set up, the heroes are ready to counter it. Knights march in with a single-minded appetite for destruction, thieves dismantle your traps from a safe distance and wizards take out your mana crystals, starving you for resources. Once you get a handle on defeating them, you'll find yourself facing epic versions of each. Your unbeatable combo may be able to take out basic knights with ease, but then an epic ranger will sweep in and keep things balanced.

It's the dungeon layouts and pathing that take Tiny Heroes from Plants vs. Zombies clone territory to something quite different, though. Each level has a unique layout, requiring an original strategy. The level layout can help or hurt the heroes, because they don't travel in the ways we've come to expect. In most tower defense games, enemies use basic pathing logic. They'll travel down the path that takes them to their goal most quickly, to hell with the consequences.

In Tiny Heroes, on the other hand, the heroes are a little more complicated. In their tiny brains they have a drive to explore, to find the best path based on what they can see. While this does occasionally lead to weirdness, like heroes wandering back and forth under fire, it also means that they put up a good fight — and that you can trick them.

For a game about the wholesale slaughter of friendly adventurers, Tiny Heroes is surprisingly adorable. Big goofy eyes can be found on the heroes and more of the defenses than you'd expect, and the animations are similarly charming. The only thing that's missing is music. I've spent hours on end with this game and haven't minded the lack, but if you're auditorially inclined you'll certainly miss it.

But otherwise, Tiny Heroes is a complete package. The two included campaigns are huge and challenging, and there's a third coming as a purchasable update. The Game Center/OpenFeint achievements are done beautifully: you're rewarded with new defenses for completing groups of them, adding quite a lot of replayability to the game. You can play through in Campaign Mode, and then replay individual levels for higher scores and achievements in Quick Play. There are also challenge levels to be had, and these put your skills to a serious test.

There is one in-app purchase available, but let me stress that it's totally optional. The Defense Expansion gives you four new defenses that aren't available in normal gameplay. They are very slightly overpowered, but this is by design: they're there to help people who find the game too frustrating. If you're stuck and you'd rather not pay, the developers have a series of walkthrough videos available on their website, and forums to discuss strategy.

iPad users are currently out of luck, but according to the developers an iPad version is planned. It's expected to have it's own set of levels that take advantage of the extra screen real estate, so it should be worth the wait.

I can't say enough about Tiny Heroes. It's a fantastic game, with few flaws to speak of. Challenging, but rarely frustrating, it had me returning to levels again and again to improve my score. By turning genre conventions on their heads, Tiny Heroes succeeds brilliantly. And you don't have to take my word for it alone — our discussion thread is packed with fans. Who wouldn't want to throw down against a bunch of greedy do-gooders, just this once?

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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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What I like about the Hector: Badge of Carnage games is how comparatively different from one another they are. The gap between We Negotiate With Terrorists and its follow-up Random Acts of Justice [$4.99 / $6.99] highlights not only the breadth and scope of the adventure genre, but also Straandlooper’s willingness to use episodic content as an avenue for experimentation and iteration.

There are some technical improvements to note — Straandlooper have added helpful on-screen cues to show players precisely where they’re tapping, and Random Acts of Justice is significantly longer than its predecessor — but Hector’s cirrhotic core remains largely unchanged: it's still a competent adventure, smartly written and well-designed.

Random Acts of Justice doesn’t stray particularly far from established tropes — puzzles are solved by navigating dialogue trees and manipulating items with a cast of quirky townsfolk – but Straandlooper is deft in their adjustments. There are some particularly clever setpieces. There’s a section in Hector is trapped in a building and Lambert must rescue him (after adopting a child) that’s particularly nice. Oh! And the bit with the date-rape drugs!

Straandlooper's most effective change was structural, though. The first game in the series was fairly strict in its pacing — titular Detective Inspector Hector is given three assignments, born fully-formed from creators Dean Burke and Kevin Beimers' collective thigh. The game ends when they are completed.

Ep2 loosens its grip, letting players suss out the game’s objectives for themselves. It's not enough for players to solve a puzzle — figuring out the puzzle itself is often the first step toward progress.

In other words, Hector felt like a (well-voiced and fully animated) flunky in Ep1, but he becomes a cop in Ep2: each step following logically from the next. The first game tasked Hector with simply completing assignments, but Ep2 is about gathering knowledge, using that knowledge to formulate a plan, and then executing that plan by blackmailing people in a brothel.

It is, to lift a term from television, procedural. From beginning to end, Random Acts of Justice drip feeds new places to explore and new people to interrogate, each piece fitting snugly into another like a giant matryoshka with villains at the center. Random Acts of Justice develops and unfolds, with a well-defined arcs for both story and gameplay.

The puzzles in “Random Acts of Justice” are, on the whole, better and more varied, but it’s really Hector’s up-grade from tchotchke-hoarder to investigator that pulls the game together. In Ep1, Straandlooper lampooned crime shows with pithy-one liners; here, they do it by taking the jumpy, outsized logic of Legally Blonde and creating a set of puzzles and narrative beats to exploit it.

The way Random Acts of Justice couples its investigative puzzle-solving with Hector’s job title is an effective, though perhaps genre-specific, tweak, but it stumbles sometimes in execution — there’s a long middle-section that, by and large, consists of navigating dialogue trees just so. These types of "puzzles tend" to be least fun of any adventure game because they get so repetitive and feel so strict. Ep2 also breaks the fourth wall with annoying regularity — it was a cute, knowing wink Ep2, but that humor technique, too, can become repetitive.

My only serious issue with the game, though: Lambert, Hector’s bumbling partner. The Hector series allows players to ask Lambert for hints and presents it as a viable, in-game option — it is, in other words, not cheating. Unfortunately, Lambert’s dialogue options are often based on information that the player hasn’t learned yet, effectively turning Hector’s hint system into a de facto spoiler machine. This type of cagey gating is annoying in any case, but doubly so in a game that depends on the slow osmosis of knowledge and lateral thinking.

Lambert also reveals — at the end of the game — that he had solved the case hours ago and kept the information to himself. This, I think, was originally conceived as a hilarious joke about both Hector and Lambert’s incompetence, but it just serves to undermine all of the work the player has so skillfully been doing for the last several hours.

Nevertheless, Random Acts of Justice is so well-designed and -written so often that I’m willing to forgive. The game stands well enough on its own, but in the context of the Hector: Badge of Carnage series as a whole, it’s a valuable lesson is just how much experimentation the adventure genre can stand while still feeling familiar and grounded. Straandlooper have an eye for characterization and parody, and they were smart to put their faith in the genre veterans at Telltale Games — it’s served them well so far and, I suspect, will continue to do so when Hector: Badge of Carnage wraps up in its third episode.

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