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It was back in October of 2010 that Sega first released Sonic the Hedgehog 4 Episode I [$3.99 / $4.99 (HD)], a direct sequel to the original 16-bit Sonic trilogy on Genesis and the much ballyhooed return to its classic 2D roots after more than a decade of mostly mediocre Sonic games. While we did enjoy Episode I in our review, I don’t think it exactly lived up to the expectations set by the rabid Sonic fan base (could anything, though?).

In short, Sonic 4 Episode I brought modern visuals, great level designs, and a Sonic experience that was decidedly better than the majority of recent entries in the series. However, it didn’t quite feel like the Sonic games of old. Sonic’s movement in-game felt both slippery and sluggish, and it seemed much too easy to lose momentum and speed while playing, which isn’t a good thing for a character that has made his name by blasting through levels in a blue blur. Still, with the right expectations Sonic 4 Episode I was a pretty darn fun platformer that worked well on the touch screen, and was a huge step in the right direction for a faltering Sonic franchise.

Then, for the next year or so, Sega seemed happy to almost forget that Sonic 4 even happened as they hyped the impending release of an enhanced port of Sonic CD for iOS and other major platforms. And, last December, Sonic CD [ $4.99 ] finally hit and it was simply phenomenal. Since a lot of people might have missed out on Sonic CD the first time around back in the ‘90s, in a way it was almost like the new Sonic game that fans had been clamoring for for years, and really served to highlight just how much Sonic 4 Episode I missed that mark.

But, Sonic 4 wasn’t terrible by any means, and it wasn’t quite through just yet. Just a couple of weeks after Sonic CD’s release, Sega announced that Sonic 4 Episode II was slated for 2012. They would be using a new game engine for this latest episode in order to provide better visuals and address the complaints from fans over the wonky “feel” of Sonic’s movement.

So, with the convoluted backstory of Sonic 4’s rocky development road out of the way, this week finally saw Sonic the Hedgehog 4 Episode II [ $6.99 ] hit all the major platforms. And, just like Episode I, it makes many great strides forward for the series, but some hiccups keep it from being the second coming of the original Sonic games that everybody hoped it would be.

Sonic 4 Episode II will look very familiar if you’ve played Episode I. There are 4 worlds to explore, each with 3 stages and a boss fight, and you can again play every stage in the default Score attack mode or a speed run-focused Time Attack mode with Game Center leaderboard support. This is all pretty much right in line with how the first game works, except that all levels aren’t available right off the bat which gives the game a much better sense of progression.

Additionally, in the same way that Episode I drew a ton of inspiration from the original Sonic the Hedgehog, Episode II draws a similar inspiration from Sonic the Hedgehog 2. Many of the level elements and themes will seem quite familiar, the bonus stages are similar 3rd-person half-pipe coin-grabbing runs (which are incredibly fun I might add), and of course Episode II also contains Tails as a semi-controllable secondary character. You can even connect locally with another device and a second player who can control Tails while you control Sonic, just like back in the Genesis days.

During solo play Tails is controlled by the AI and just follows you around like a puppy dog, but you can also use him to pull off some team moves like him lifting you through the air using his helicopter-like tails, or a powerful combined spin dash move that will blast through enemies and obstacles like butter. These team-up moves are designed to be necessary to pass certain parts of the game, and add some nice variety to the platforming.

Speaking of level designs, I felt that the levels in Episode II weren’t quite up to snuff with what was in Episode I. The general flow of a level is often ground to a halt due to an oddly placed dead end, and there are far too many underwater sections which really slow down the pace. That’s not to say there aren’t any bright spots, and in fact there are a lot of really fantastic interactive elements in the environments – like bouncing back and forth between the foreground and background, or snowboarding down a snowy mountain – that really break up the action nicely. Overall though, the levels really feel more choppy and slower than you’d like a Sonic game to feel.

One majorly cool addition to Episode II is the inclusion of the bonus Episode Metal content that will unlock if you have Episode I installed on your device along with Episode II. Episode Metal shows how Metal Sonic rises from the ashes after being defeated in Sonic CD, and follows his adventures through 4 reworked levels from Episode I leading up to his reintroduction in the story of Episode II. These levels are short, but it’s incredibly fun to play as Metal Sonic and see just how he rises back to prominence to team up with Dr. Robotnik.

Another real bright spot for Sonic 4 Episode II is its visuals. It’s an absolutely huge upgrade from Episode I, which despite not supporting Retina Displays was still a very good looking game. However, Episode II blows it out of the water. From the fantastic lighting effects to the parallax scrolling to the incredible water effects, around every bend some sort of new visual treat is waiting for you in Episode II. And, at long last, this includes support for Retina Displays on iPhone and iPod touch, though sadly not for the new iPad (though it still looks great on that device).

Much like Sonic 4 Episode I, Episode II is an overall enjoyable platformer with a few relatively minor quirks that hold it back from greatness. No, it’s not going to replace any of the original trilogy’s games as the greatest of all time, and it doesn’t even approach the high level of quality of Sonic CD on iOS. But at this point, I think those are unrealistic expectations. The bottom line is that Sonic 4 Episode II is a great modern day 2D Sonic game, and I’d love to see a third episode that is inspired by Sonic 3 in the same way the previous Sonic 4 episodes were inspired by the original two games.

If you’re a Sonic fan that can deal with the differences from Sonic’s ’90s greatness, or if you just like fun platformers in general, Sonic the Hedgehog 4 Episode II has a lot to offer and is a worthy entry in this new era of classically-inspired Sonic games.

TouchArcade Rating:

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It seems my favorite board games are about the end of the world. We’ve talked about my love of Elder Sign [$3.99 / $6.99 (HD)], the game about stopping (or failing to stop) the rise of the ancient ones. And now I have a new sweetheart: Yggdrasil [ $5.99 (HD)], a game about stopping the forces of evil from destroying the world tree and changing the fate of Ragnarok. While it has a decidedly more Norse spirit than its eldritch cousin, Yggdrasil is more familiar than it first looks.

That first look might be a killer, though. Like so many board games before it, Yggdrasil makes the mistake of data dumping all over the player on the first glance, which left me completely confused about what lightning strikes had to do with anything, how elves were even involved, and why on earth I’d want to take anything from the World of the Dead. But it’s not nearly as confusing as it seems. One game’s worth of flailing around Yggdrasil was more than enough for me to learn how to play—from there on out, it was all about learning how to win.

Let’s not break this down too far. If the game designers can’t explain it clearly, I don’t expect to have much more luck. But here are the basics: you begin with your choice of up to six Norse gods—you know, Thor, Odin, Freyja and the like. You can play any combination yourself or you can split them up for a cooperative pass-and-play experience; there is no online multiplayer so far. The more gods you add the longer you’ll need to survive. If that’s not enough of a challenge you can also throw yourself a few extra handicaps.

Good and evil take turns. On your god’s turn, you have to complete three actions (though some gods have unique talents that alter that total). Each of those actions must be done while visiting a different world, any of the nine that can be reached from Yggdrasil. In Asgard, for example, you’ll fight your enemies and push them back. In Midgard you recruit more vikings to die for your cause, and so on.

After each god takes his or her turn, one of the evil gods takes one too. One is drawn from the deck, be it Loki, Hel, Fenrir or any of the others, six in total. That one moves forward in Asgard, getting one step closer to Odin’s stronghold and the end of the game. Each enemy also takes a single action as determine by its card—Jormungand, for instance, destroys one of the islands where your Valkyries collect viking souls, and Fenrir requires you spend actions to calm him. Asgard has three lines of defense. If five of your enemies pass the first line, three pass the second, or one passes the third, you’ll only have one final turn to push back back or lose. This is complicated by the substantial strength they gain as they trek across the board.

All this together makes for an intensely strategic experience. Since the enemy is moving inexorably forward, every time you fail to push one back you’re losing ground permanently. So each turn you have to plan your three actions carefully. Elves and vikings can help guarantee your success in combat by lowering the number you need to hit on your dice rolls, but they’re a semi-limited resource and recruiting them costs actions. Weapons are similarly necessary and similarly costly. Early on you might be able to get away with a few full turns spent building up your strength, but if you don’t dig in and hold back the advance you’ll lose before you know it.

There’s quite a bit more to it. You have to manage the flow of viking souls, and move your valkyries across islands to recruit them. You have to defeat Loki’s ice giants as he summons them or they’ll cut you off from whole worlds. And at every step, you’re at the mercy of the cards and dice. Will Fenrir get drawn multiple turns in a row, eating away your actions? Will the dice give you the numbers you need to defeat your enemies? And do you have a backup plan? You’re definitely going to need one.

For all its tension, Yggdrasil isn’t actually extremely difficult to win. Putting together a good team and using their godly powers to their limits isn’t a guarantee, but it improves your odds substantially. And ultimately all you really need to do is survive long enough to wear down the enemy and empty its deck. Once you do succeed, there’s a single Game Center leaderboard to compete on, but no achievements. You’ll be well-rewarded for good performance nonetheless—as you win more games by wider margins you unlock new gods and new Ragnarok scenarios. These can increase the game’s difficulty substantially, so you can customize the game to your skill level.

For the most part, I’m impressed. The Norse theme comes through with surprising depth as each element of the game takes its place in the overall story of Ragnarok. And despite a slightly slow start, the game gets immensely tense. If you’re passing the iPad around to play, expect long discussions about strategy. The evil gods come on like a tide, impossible to hold back forever. Carelessness can mean a loss before you have any idea that you’re failing.

There are a few small quirks of the iPad adaptation, which has some errors in the text and instructions that seem to be written for the physical board game. On the technical side, it’s a bummer that the game isn’t Retina-ready. It multitasks, thankfully, but it doesn’t have any longer-term saving. Longevity might be a problem, too; it seems that once you get a good strategy down it will be up to you to push for harder scenarios.

Those things aside, Yggdrasil is giving Elder Sign a serious run for its money in the field of board games I most like to play solo. It plays beautifully on iPad, and looks nearly as good as it plays. Most of all, I enjoy Ygdrassil because it’s a game that gives me a good measure of control over my fate, and the fate of the world by extension. You’ve gotta be lucky, but the game rides on much more than luck. Board game fans would do well to pick this one up, and maybe pop in to our discussion thread for some tips when you do.

TouchArcade Rating:

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Way back in November of 2010, Playcreek released Death Worm [$0.99 / Free ], an official enhanced remake of the popular Flash game of the same name. By that point, we had already been enjoying a retro-inspired version of the “giant killer worm” formula for a few months with the excellent Super Mega Worm [$1.99 / Free ], but in our review for Death Worm we noted that both games offered decidedly different experiences and could happily coexist together.

Other people seemed to like Death Worm too, as this week Playcreek is celebrating hitting the 5 million download mark by releasing a big content update. The first new item on tap is a new ice-themed stage for the campaign, and more than 20 new enemies have been added to the game including a Mega Boss battle. A new trailer showcases the different features found in the latest Death Worm update.

The other big addition in this update is a brand new mini-game called Countdown. It tasks you with collecting lizards underground within a certain time limit and while avoiding hazards, with each lizard collected resetting the clock to allow you to keep going. Finally, there are a set of new achievements and some new in-game music to rock out to.

Death Worm is a game I thoroughly enjoyed when it came out in 2010, and the new update has reignited my interest once again. Definitely check it out if you’re into playing as a giant killer worm and enjoy challenging arcade games.

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In an age where game studios are talking to behavioral psychologists and hiring retention experts and monetization specialists in a rush to juice the most out of free-to-player gamers, there’s at least one studio developing free-to-play games that doesn’t care about metrics, compulsion loops, and user acquisition. Game business never informs game design at NimbleBit. Fun is first, the mechanics of free-to-play are secondary.

Pocket Planes is the next big thing from the two-man studio, and it’s philosophically linked with its other titles. Without shaking a virtual change cup in your face, Pocket Planes gives you a vibrant and customizable world and ownership over it as you ferry a fleet of planes from one airport to the next. Designers David and Ian Marsh believe that these components will be enough to organically drive the free-to-play aspect. No business trickery is required.

The Art Of Good Free-To-Play

“[Our] philosophy is to consider monetization as little as possible during the design of the game,” Ian tells TouchArcade. “The in-game currencies are balanced to be a natural part of the game without the option to even purchase more during design and beta,” he points out. “Adding IAP and deciding how much to charge is always one of the last things we do before launch. We take care to make sure that everything in the game is accessible and achievable without every purchasing IAP.”

Ian and David proved that this approach works with Tiny Tower. The game made money even though monetization aspects weren’t a focal point. The game also did well with critics, earning all sorts of amazing reviews and even a Game of the Year nod in 2011 from the editorial team at Apple. Millions of people played Tiny Tower, too.

Pocket Planes is still deeply in beta, but I’m as hopelessly … hooked on it as I was Tiny Tower. Every ten or so minutes I pick up my phone and plan more flights. When I’m not playing, I spend time thinking about new planes and creative ways to expand my cash and transport flow. Should I grind in my current selection of airports until I can buy New York’s airport? Or should I keep expanding with much smaller airports to broaden my empire, and slowly build up the necessary resources to acquire international hubs? What if I converted all my fleet to four-seat airplanes? How much could I earn then?

These are the questions running through my head, in part because the simulation aspect of the experience is so good. But I’m also just straight-up invested in the world that I’m creating, and I want to keep making it bigger and better. There are so many small, yet beautiful touches in Pocket Planes that drive my mania. I can name all my planes and customize each of my pilots. My passengers post their thoughts on an in-app Facebook client called “BitBook.” I can buy any airport that I can afford, and I can also upgrade it to make it bigger and better. I can build my planes and when I watch them fly, I can collect the game’s two currencies randomly floating in the air. Pocket Planes also knows when I’m flying. The day and night cycle is synced to the real world. When I receive a Push notification, my phone emits a soft airplane cabin ding.

These are the aspects that David and Ian believe drive users to spend. These are the things it spends all of its time developing. There is no conversation about loops or feedback. The duo spend their time making games with character, real progression, and meaningful stuff. Their games have a soul.

“I’m not sure if there is some kind of secret sauce, but we definitely focus a lot of time on adding lots of things to our simulation games that make them feel like a functional little world inside,” David tells us. “I think the stronger the feeling that there is a buzzing simulation going on inside the game, the more fun it is to influence it and use your actions to mould and direct it.”

“I agree with Dave completely,” Ian says. “The more detail and emotion you put into these little worlds the more immersed players become and the more they enjoy spending time with it.”

“I think the customization has a lot to do with it as well,” he continues. “That isn’t just a plane flying in the game, it is your plane that you named yourself and spent time finding the perfect paint job for. In Tiny Tower, it isn’t just a generic bakery, it’s Brad’s Bread with interior decoration of his choosing and hand picked employees that took work for him to recruit.”

David explains that Tiny Tower and the feedback blowing up NimbleBit’s inbox is actively informing the development of Pocket Planes. Users are lauding their game design ideals and are actually thanking David and Ian for making a fun game first.

“I think we definitely are trying to strike the same balance and attitude in all our future free-to-play games because it resonates with players and matches the type of games we prefer to play ourselves,” David says. “The other thing we have learned from Tiny Tower and also Pocket Frogs is that the more we can stimulate players imaginations the better. The kind of fan art and fan communities that have grown around those games is amazing and that is a target we are always aiming for.”

Pocket Planes is shaping up to be a tremendous game and my praise is coming at a time when more and more new free-to-play games continue to feel like skinner boxes instead of fun things to play with. Ian and David are doing important work here, proving that free-to-play doesn’t need to inform fundamental game design.

“Even without spending a dime, players become heavily invested in these worlds because of their character and charm — not some carefully crafted compulsion loop. That is what keeps them coming back,” Ian says.

Fun doesn’t need to cost a penny, and that’s what NimbleBit strives to make a reality with each release.

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A couple of years ago, Brandon and Cody Pollet formed F5 Games as a clever way to sneak into Electronic Entertainment Expo and experience the gaming event firsthand. Both were college students with big ideas, and they ended up leaving it with even bigger ones. E3 gave their studio a soul. When the App Store exploded later, the duo discovered a direction.

In 2011, Brandon and Cody went back to the Los Angeles-based event that got them dreaming big in the first place to reveal Pocket Heroes. They describe it on this week’s bonus episode of the TouchArcade Show as the game they’ve always wanted to make, and it’s been a long time coming. Pocket Heroes hits either later this month or early June, almost a full year since the duo initially showed off their idea.

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Direct Link: TouchArcadeShow-Bonus-036.mp3, 17.4MB

Pocket Heroes is a little like what would happen if Words With Friends [$2.99] and Dungeons & Dragons were slammed together repeatedly. In Pocket Heroes, you’ll battle foes and explore dungeons alongside other users asynchronously and level up and manage the skills of your priestess, Dwarven mech, rogue, or paladin in the process. As you’ll see, it’s also rocking a gorgeous lo-fi art style, but with specific enhancements that make it feel new and relevant on phones.

Demoing the game for the first time at the event wasn’t an intentionally poetic move. It also wasn’t a coordinated reveal drawn up in an elaborate, year-long marketing plan. Brandon and Cody just wanted to see if people liked their idea before they committed to it. They needed a push to believe in what they had. Their idea was big, bold, and it seems like they knew it was going to push them creatively.

“We were pretty hesitant to show it off,” Brandon tells TouchArcade. “We made Independence Night [Free] and then we made IncrediBlox [$.99]. They weren’t huge successes on the App Store.”

“We were kind of at the point — do we have what it takes to figure this thing out, do we know how to make something that people are going to like? So, we decided to go to E3 and show it off. This is the game we’ve always thought we should be making. Let’s show it off and see if people are interested.”

“We did, and then we got this huge response,” Brandon says. “I don’t regret showing it off as early as we did. I don’t think it would have ever been made if we hadn’t gotten that feedback from everybody.”

It’s been a heck of a ride for Pocket Heroes fans, in part because Brandon and Cody didn’t realize what they had, but also because what they had planned was too ambitious for its own good. Brandon explains.

“When we first started mapping out Pocket Heroes, it was called The Black Fortress. We had a very specific idea of how it was going to play out.” Brandon and Cody soon discovered that having underpowered heroes tackling tremendous evil in what would have been an end-game dungeon wasn’t, in fact, awesome. The game needed progression, and it needed to be more consumable.

So, the game has been split into simpler, more digestible parts. What you’ll see in a couple of weeks is the just first of four chapters. The rest will be added over the year. The last chapter will be, roughly, the game Brandon and Cody originally designed a year ago. They’ll see their original vision through, though it might be close to next E3 before we see it all. How fitting, right?

On this week’s bonus episode of The TouchArcade Show, Brandon and Cody talk freely about all of this and further elaborate on the delay between sneak peek and reveal of Pocket Heroes. They also dive into what sets their apart from the rest of the RPG herd. Other topics include the games that inspired the development of Pocket Heroes and what F5 Games’ name actually means. Feel free to grab the audio version above or subscribe to us on iTunes.

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Any gamer who has been at it for as many years as myself certainly has a shortlist of particular standout favorites that set themselves apart for one reason or another, having indelibly left their mark upon his or her twitchy gamer brain. One such game that can be found on my list / burned into my brain is the Apple II title Wings of Fury, written by Steve Waldo and published by Broderbund in 1987. It’s a side-scrolling, carrier based aerial shooter set in the Pacific during World War II. The mission of the game is to use your Hellcat’s canons, bombs, rockets, and torpedoes to wipe out island installations, enemy ships, and defend your carrier against aerial attacks. It’s a lot of fun and is particularly challenging due to the somewhat realistic flight mechanics and the need to delicately land on the carrier to refuel / rearm.

Others out there who, reading this, fondly recall Wings of Fury (it also made it to the Amiga [video], C64, DOS, etc.) will be pleased to know that a rather well-done iOS remake has been put together by Korean studio Idea Spoon Games and released into the App Store.

Wings of Valor [App Store] is an iPhone title that pretty much captures the experience of the original — it looks like it’s all there, with simple, clean graphics. Of course, for a game like this, the onscreen analog stick is no match for the real-world, analog Apple II joystick with which I piloted my Hellcat in decades past, but the Wings of Valor controls work well enough.

In a chat this afternoon, author JY Kim of Idea Spoon explained that he is a huge fan of the original game and, lamenting the lack of App Store titles of the particular sort, decided seven months ago to bring the game, himself. Kim is a one-man operation and, as such, has rolled everything on his own, including the 2000 images that were drawn to bring the game together, the physics and particle system, and the camera / zoom system. He takes particular pride in the last, which he felt needed to be close to perfect in order to make the game work. He plans to soon bring improved visuals, better dogfight AI, and iPad support to the title.

Folks in our forums are having a pretty good time with Wings of Valor, so far.

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How many games does it take before you can call a developer a sure bet? Radiangames has been bringing its games to iOS like clockwork lately, and we’ve been impressed. Super Crossfire HD [ $2.99 ] and Fireball SE [ $1.99 ] are both excellent games that iterate on arcade classics, and the newest entry, Ballistic SE [ $1.99 ], also returns to a popular well: the twin-stick shooter. Like its predecessors, though, it’s a thoughtful take on the semi-stale genre. It makes up for familiarity with a heck of a lot of fun.

Ballistic SE has two big things going for it. It has a system of enhancements that let you customize your game every time you play (not unlike the Jetpack Joyride update that just landed), and it has ballistic mode, which is pretty much bullet time. Every time you fill up your ballistic meter, a button is primed. Everything slows down when you hit it: your ship, enemy orbs, even the music. As panic buttons go, it’s impressive and stylish.

The game also has a lot of amber. The color is everywhere: menus, interface elements, your ship, explosions, you name it. At the risk of dating myself, I used to play games on a monitor that looked like that; I don’t miss it. But there’s a method to this monochromatic madness. The amber is safe, your eyes drift over it. Every other color stands out, and those colors universally identify your enemies.

The enemy color coding is important enough that colorblind players might be at a disadvantage. The enemies are just orbs—some come in different sizes, but they all have the same general shape. But if you know what a given color does, you know whether an enemy is flying toward you or moving at random, whether it will dissolve before your guns or stand up to all fire. A firm grasp of the enemy colors is a good shortcut to survival.

Whether you’re playing Waves or Challenges, you’ve gotta survive. Waves pits you against ever-increasing waves of enemies, grinding you down over time. Challenges are a more vicious sort of play, with your choice of five pre-set combos of enemy types designed to take you out in short order. The one thing that can help stave off the inevitable? Your selection of enhancements.

Enhancements pretty much make the game. That’s not to say it isn’t good otherwise, but throw in enhancements and you essentially have a leveling mechanic that opens up a huge variety of play styles. You can speed up your ship, drop bombs in your wake, alter your shots, or speed up your ballistic meter. You can even pump points into your score multiplier if your confident that you don’t need any other boost more. It’s a fantastic little system.

Both modes give you access to enhancements, but they differ in how they present them. When playing a challenge you can pick ten enhancements right off the bat, and you’ll live or die by your choices from then on. In Waves mode you’re given a single enhancement point each time you hit a new level milestone. You power up over time based on your picks.

In practice, Ballistic SE plays out pretty simply. You have two sticks (with customizable positioning). One aims your guns, the other aims your ship. Standard twin-stick stuff. Aside from your ship there are three things on the field: enemies, of course, that come at you in waves, immovable bombs that destroy enemies when you hit them, and starbursts that increase your score multiplier. Deciding when it’s best to fly through the bombs is almost as important as learning to avoid and shoot down the enemy orbs. Knowing when to trigger your ballistic meter is another vital skill for long-term survival.

Long-term survival is, in fact, the name of the game. You get extra lives for hitting score milestones, so playing better means living longer and longer. The waves get ridiculous pretty quickly, but there’s salvation to be had with checkpoints that unlock after ever-increasing numbers of waves. You can restart from these checkpoints, but there’s a catch: the further in you start, the more your score will suffer. If you want to remain competitive on the Game Center leaderboards, you’ve gotta start from scratch.

None of these things are revolutionary; Ballistic SE doesn’t rewrite the twin stick shooter or bring us a brand new perspective on the genre. Instead, it’s an incredibly solid, well-balanced game that makes up in entertainment for what it skips in flash. Radiangames is carving out quite the niche on the App Store, and Ballistic SE does it proud.

TouchArcade Rating:

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You see a form of this question in almost every high profile game’s review: why doesn’t this have iCloud support? Apple’s remote storage service is a tremendous offering that lets us resume any supported game from any connected Apple device. During our commutes, we can bang out a couple of minutes in Infinity Blade 2 on our iPhones. Later, at home, we can finish the section we were exploring on our iPads. When the service works, it’s awesome, but we don’t see a lot of games using it. It’s a surprise when one does.

We spent a few days asking a small pool of independent game developers why they aren’t incorporating iCloud in their latest games. What we discovered isn’t surprising: iCloud is always on a good studio’s radar, but the pitfalls of indie development keep it there. It’s too alien, and maybe even a little too wonky, for cash-strapped and low-bandwidth studios to take a chance on.

I’d Buy That For A Dollar

Time, cash, and bandwidth are the three most important resources to the production of any good game. If there’s not enough of one or the other, something goes bad. In the age of $.99 download these resources are even more precious. Their effects on the creation of games are exaggerated to the point where even experimentation on things like iCloud, no matter how easy it might be to implement, becomes a liability. Vlambeer says it couldn’t commit time and resources to iCloud with Super Crate Box because it didn’t have the time or cash to spare.

“We think iCloud is a great technology and we can totally see why Apple is pushing it,” Vlambeer’s Rami Ismail tells TouchArcade via e-mail. “The thing is that while from the user side it’s an easy thing to set up, as developers it’s a new thing that we have to consider, learn to use, and then apply.”

Super Crate Box is the first game Vlambeer has made for iPhone and iPad, so that put an unusual strain on the studio. By the time iCloud support could become an actual bit of functionality as opposed to just a desire, Vlambeer had decided its time would be better spent on tweaking the game’s controls.

Ismail tells us about another wrinkle: now that Super Crate Box is out in the wild and its users have multiple saves across devices, there’s a worry that throwing in iCloud at this point could cause something horrible to happen, like loss of progress or even high scores. It’s happened before with other games.

Zombieville 2, for example, launched and included the service when it was new. Creator Mika Mobile learned something in the process: iCloud has a hard time when both local data and cloud data are in the picture. If it pulls the wrong set, it could potentially corrupt a save.

This sort of problem has branching consequences. If Vlambeer has to fix a broken Super Crate Box, that’s a month spent on a finished game when it could be working on something else, draining resources that it just doesn’t have. Ismail breaks down how close to the edge Vlambeer was when it started on Super Crate Box and explains why this informed its decision to not include iCloud.

“Like with basically everything in life, money is a consideration when making games,” Ismail said. “Consider the following: Super Crate Box had five people working on it — the two at us at Vlambeer and two guys at Halfbot. Since we felt the people that made the original art and music deserved a bonus for their work on the original, we decided to pay them out a little holiday money as well.”

“We pay ourselves far below minimum wages because we hardly have any real-life costs at this point. However, the Halfbot guys both have families to support. Multiply the costs of two families and two students by the amount of months it took us to make the game. Then add a few thousand dollars for art and music — AND then add the Apple developer license, iPads, iCades and all other stuff we used to test the game on… the costs simply start adding up and up.” Ismail estimates that Super Crate Box on iOS cost his studio around $15,000.

“The shorter a project is and the fewer people work on it, the lower your costs are and the easier it is to create risky projects. This is essentially why a lot of indie studios remain small — we want to make games we love to make and honestly, if we could avoid all business and just do that without any worries, we’d be doing that. However, there’s always the economic realities, so we have to consider all that as well. In the end, we love making games, but we want to be able to keep making games.”

“During development, at some point, you run out of time or money — whatever you want to call it. If things went well, that’s a point at which most improvements you could make to the core game make barely have any noticeable effect. With Super Crate Box, we chose to spend a lot of time on such tiny improvements, especially to the controls. Burning through spare money from our release of Serious Sam: The Random Encounter, we just kept going until the gameplay in Super Crate Box iOS was the best we could make it.”

“That turned out to be six months later. Basically we found ourselves running out of everything. At that point, we considered adding iCloud, but obviously that was too late to do that. If we wanted to do that, we’d end up figuring out how to add it, where to add it to the code, how to make sure we don’t damage player save games or even delete some save games — basically, it’d add an additional month to development.”

Ismael said at this point Vlambeer had two options: it could either gamble by adding content and support that might or might not work or require additional resources, or it could release a good game. “When we have to choose, we always go with releasing a fun and solid game. We’ll usually pick a few technologies that we feel would benefit the game most, so in Super Crate Box’s case that was Game Center, OpenFeint and iCade support.” Vlambeer says it’ll always pick the latter when it comes down to quality versus any form of external support.

End Of The Day

Other studios that we talked to for this story, including Simogo and Uppercut games, told us that their latest projects didn’t launch with iCloud support because of similar reasons. Vlambeer isn’t the only studio on the App Store deciding to hold out on iCloud support in an effort to stay nimble and put out the best game that it possibly can within a sustainable timeframe.

It’s also obvious to us that iCloud and the implementation of it needs to be easier, and the service itself needs to be more reliable. Almost every studio we talked to had some trepidations or a horror story to share. Browse our message board, and you’ll find even more from users receiving the bad end of an iCloud problem.

That’s not to say iCloud isn’t awesome. It is. Games that use it, like Infinity Blade 2, are better for the implementation. iCloud could also be used for stuff beyond saves, so there’s promise of what’s to come. We simply want to see more of it.

Studios like Vlambeer and most others know that you take gaming as seriously as they do, so iCloud support isn’t ever going to just get thrown into the mix. Solid implementation takes time and money to pull off, though, and these are finite resources. Studios may want to roll in the support, but until they can afford to do it, iCloud will continue to be a staple of the cutting room floor.

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You see a form of this question in almost every high profile game’s review: why doesn’t this have iCloud support? Apple’s remote storage service is a tremendous offering that lets us resume any supported game from any connected Apple device. During our commutes, we can bang out a couple of minutes in Infinity Blade 2 on our iPhones. Later, at home, we can finish the section we were exploring on our iPads. When the service works, it’s awesome, but we don’t see a lot of games using it. It’s a surprise when one does.

We spent a few days asking a small pool of independent game developers why they aren’t incorporating iCloud in their latest games. What we discovered isn’t surprising: iCloud is always on a good studio’s radar, but the pitfalls of indie development keep it there. It’s too alien, and maybe even a little too wonky, for cash-strapped and low-bandwidth studios to take a chance on.

I’d Buy That For A Dollar

Time, cash, and bandwidth are the three most important resources to the production of any good game. If there’s not enough of one or the other, something goes bad. In the age of $.99 download these resources are even more precious. Their effects on the creation of games are exaggerated to the point where even experimentation on things like iCloud, no matter how easy it might be to implement, becomes a liability. Vlambeer says it couldn’t commit time and resources to iCloud with Super Crate Box because it didn’t have the time or cash to spare.

“We think iCloud is a great technology and we can totally see why Apple is pushing it,” Vlambeer’s Rami Ismail tells TouchArcade via e-mail. “The thing is that while from the user side it’s an easy thing to set up, as developers it’s a new thing that we have to consider, learn to use, and then apply.”

Super Crate Box is the first game Vlambeer has made for iPhone and iPad, so that put an unusual strain on the studio. By the time iCloud support could become an actual bit of functionality as opposed to just a desire, Vlambeer had decided its time would be better spent on tweaking the game’s controls.

Ismail tells us about another wrinkle: now that Super Crate Box is out in the wild and its users have multiple saves across devices, there’s a worry that throwing in iCloud at this point could cause something horrible to happen, like loss of progress or even high scores. It’s happened before with other games.

Zombieville 2, for example, launched and included the service when it was new. Creator Mika Mobile learned something in the process: iCloud has a hard time when both local data and cloud data are in the picture. If it pulls the wrong set, it could potentially corrupt a save. Bummer.

This sort of problem has branching consequences. If Vlambeer has to fix a broken Super Crate Box, that’s a month spent on a finished game when it could be working on something else, draining resources that it just doesn’t have. Ismail breaks down how close to the edge Vlambeer was when it started on Super Crate Box and explains why this informed its decision to not include iCloud.

“Like with basically everything in life, money is a consideration when making games,” Ismail said. “Consider the following: Super Crate Box had five people working on it — the two at us at Vlambeer and two guys at Halfbot. Since we felt the people that made the original art and music deserved a bonus for their work on the original, we decided to pay them out a little holiday money as well.”

“We pay ourselves far below minimum wages because we hardly have any real-life costs at this point. However, the Halfbot guys both have families to support. Multiply the costs of two families and two students by the amount of months it took us to make the game. Then add a few thousand dollars for art and music — AND then add the Apple developer license, iPads, iCades and all other stuff we used to test the game on… the costs simply start adding up and up.” Ismail estimates that Super Crate Box on iOS cost his studio around $15,000.

“The shorter a project is and the fewer people work on it, the lower your costs are and the easier it is to create risky projects. This is essentially why a lot of indie studios remain small — we want to make games we love to make and honestly, if we could avoid all business and just do that without any worries, we’d be doing that. However, there’s always the economic realities, so we have to consider all that as well. In the end, we love making games, but we want to be able to keep making games.”

“During development, at some point, you run out of time or money — whatever you want to call it. If things went well, that’s a point at which most improvements you could make to the core game make barely have any noticeable effect. With Super Crate Box, we chose to spend a lot of time on such tiny improvements, especially to the controls. Burning through spare money from our release of Serious Sam: The Random Encounter, we just kept going until the gameplay in Super Crate Box iOS was the best we could make it.”

“That turned out to be six months later. Basically we found ourselves running out of everything. At that point, we considered adding iCloud, but obviously that was too late to do that. If we wanted to do that, we’d end up figuring out how to add it, where to add it to the code, how to make sure we don’t damage player save games or even delete some save games — basically, it’d add an additional month to development.”

Ismael said at this point Vlambeer had two options: it could either gamble by adding content and support that might or might not work or require additional resources, or it could release a good game. “When we have to choose, we always go with releasing a fun and solid game. We’ll usually pick a few technologies that we feel would benefit the game most, so in Super Crate Box’s case that was Game Center, OpenFeint and iCade support.” Vlambeer says it’ll always pick the latter when it comes down to quality versus any form of external support.

End Of The Day

Other studios that we talked to for this story, including Simogo and Uppercut games, told us that their latest projects didn’t launch with iCloud support because of similar reasons. Vlambeer isn’t the only studio on the App Store deciding to hold out on iCloud support in an effort to stay nimble and put out the best game that it possibly can within a sustainable timeframe.

It’s also obvious to us that iCloud and the implementation of it needs to be easier, and the service itself needs to be more reliable. Almost every studio we talked to had some trepidations or a horror story to share. Browse our message board, and you’ll find even more from users receiving the bad end of an iCloud problem.

That’s not to say iCloud isn’t awesome. It is. Games that use it, like Infinity Blade 2, are better for the implementation. iCloud could also be used for stuff beyond saves, so there’s promise of what’s to come. We simply want to see more of it.

Studios like Vlambeer and most others know that you take gaming as seriously as they do, so iCloud support isn’t ever going to just get thrown into the mix. Solid implementation takes time and money to pull off, though, and these are finite resources. Studios may want to roll in the support, but until they can afford to do it, iCloud will continue to be a staple of the cutting room floor.

[source]

A couple of weeks back we told you about Galcon [$1.99 / Free ] creator Phil Hassey’s latest project titled Dynamite Jack. You play as a captured Space Marine who is forced to work in a dangerous place known as Anathema Mines. Of course, being a bad ass you decide that working for “the man” against your will just isn’t for you, so you set out to escape from the depths of the mine.

In a recent blog post, Phil noted that a fellow developer suggested that the deaths in Dynamite Jack lacked a certain impact. So drawing inspiration from the awesome death sequences for Roget Wilco from the classic Space Quest series, Dynamite Jack now features plenty of awesome ways to die, as you can see in this new video.

Since death comes often during the course of playing Dynamite Jack, there will be an option to turn off the death animations if they grow tiresome, but they’ll be on by default. Part of the leaderboard tracking will include how many times you bite the dust as well. Dynamite Jack is scheduled for release on Mac and PC May 10th, and will be coming to the iPad within a couple of months after, hopefully around July 1st if all goes according to plan.

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