TouchArcade.ru

I'll start out by saying that this is a bit of a curious post. The app I'm highlighting here isn't a game at all — not even sort-of a game. It's a music player, of sorts. But, a music player that should bring a smile to the face of many a gamer who sat in front an Amiga or PC, joystick in hand, back in the late '80s and early '90s. The app I speak of is French developer Yohann Magnien's Modizer [App Store]…and it's a MODplayer.

First, some history for those unfamiliar with MODs, trackers, and all that lot of sampled digital audio goodness. In 1985 the Commodore Amiga was released, bringing with it dramatic innovations on every front, really. And, among them, was its 8-bit, 4-channel, wavetable, stereo audio subsystem offering far better audio playback than any other consumer machine of the time. Digitized sound samples could be loaded into the Amiga's CHIP RAM and triggered for playback (and with zero CPU intervention), with highly realistic results. Two years after the Amiga's release, developer Karsten Obarski decided to create a program that would load samples into said RAM and trigger them for coherent playback using a simple script that's something akin to the scroll of a player piano. That program was called Ultimate Soundtracker. That script, plus its associated audio samples, all bundled together into a single file were called a module or MOD. Since then "trackers" of every sort, along with new MOD-like formats, emerged for platforms far and wide.

Demoscene coders were quick to adopt these trackers to create soundtracks to accompany their onscreen pixel magic and soon the "music guy" became a critical component of every demogroup. Noting this, game developers soon adopted MODs as their solution for in-game music. Back in the day of limited CPU resources, audio boards with real horesepower came onto the scene to enable efficient playback of not just 4 but 8, 16, 32, 64 channels. Demos and games benefitted mightily, and audio geeks had a new scene to drool over. (I was a GUS and CapaMOD man, myself.)

And plenty of iOS games have reach out to MODs, S3Ms, XMs, and other formats of the kind for their soundtrack solutions.

And, so we come back to Modizer. Is it the only MODplayer in the App Store? No, it's not. But it appears to be the most full-featured. Modizer supports a dizzying array of audio formats thanks to its use of the MODPlug and UADE players (the latter of which actually emulates an Amiga 1200 computer), switchable in the settings menu. A variety of OpenGL-based audio visualizers can be enabled to accompany playback, a feature that will be much appreciated by those accustomed to hearing MODs running alongside a demoscene production's onscreen pixel magic. And it all runs smooth as glass without missing a beat.

Modizer is a universal application, natively supporting the iPhone 3G, iPod touch 2G, iPad and up, with specific optimizations for the iPhone 4 and iPad. The app includes a file browser that allows free access to the MODLAND and HVSC collections — about 215,000 tracks in all — that, when downloaded, are stored locally for quick access. The archives contain audio tracks from basically every demo ever made as well as most games for the C64 and Amiga.

See our iPad demo video. The developer provides a few iPhone demo videos, as well.

At a mere $.99, Modizer is a godsend for gamers with a fancy for digital music. And, while indeed not a game, Modizer for iOS seems worth a spot here at Touch Arcade.

UPDATE: We just got word from the developer that he's currently working on a v1.1 update that includes various bugfixes as well as a number of enhancements:

• Some optimization for browser (mainly when browsing modland/artists)
• Sharp X68000 support (mdx/pdx files) with updated Modland lib
• Addressing issue where some formats miss the last second of music
• And more to come, depending on user feedback…

Magnien indicates that he's also considering a network "user stats" sort of ranking system that would let users easily share the overall highest rated songs. We'll keep you posted.

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I'll start out by saying that this is a bit of a curious post. The app I'm highlighting here isn't a game at all — not even sort-of a game. It's a music player, of sorts. But, a music player that should bring a smile to the face of many a gamer who sat in front an Amiga or PC, joystick in hand, back in the late '80s and early '90s. The app I speak of is French developer Yoyofr's Modizer [App Store]…and it's a MODplayer.

First, some history for those unfamiliar with MODs, trackers, and all that lot of sampled digital audio goodness. In 1985 the Commodore Amiga was released, bringing with it dramatic innovations on every front, really. And, among them, was its 8-bit, 4-channel, wavetable, stereo audio subsystem offering far better audio playback than any other consumer machine of the time. Digitized sound samples could be loaded into the Amiga's CHIP RAM and triggered for playback (and with zero CPU intervention), with highly realistic results. Two years after the Amiga's release, developer Karsten Obarski decided to create a program that would load samples into said RAM and trigger them for coherent playback using a simple script that's something akin to the scroll of a player piano. That program was called Ultimate Soundtracker. That script, plus its associated audio samples, all bundled together into a single file were called a module or MOD. Since then "trackers" of every sort, along with new MOD-like formats, emerged for platforms far and wide.

Demoscene coders were quick to adopt these trackers to create soundtracks to accompany their onscreen pixel magic and soon the "music guy" became a critical component of every demogroup. Noting this, game developers soon adopted MODs as their solution for in-game music. Back in the day of limited CPU resources, audio boards with real horesepower came onto the scene to enable efficient playback of not just 4 but 8, 16, 32, 64 channels. Demos and games benefitted mightily, and audio geeks had a new scene to drool over. (I was a GUS and CapaMOD man, myself.)

And plenty of iOS games have reach out to MODs, S3Ms, XMs, and other formats of the kind for their soundtrack solutions.

And, so we come back to Modizer. Is it the only MODplayer in the App Store? No, it's not. But it appears to be the most full-featured. Modizer supports a dizzying array of audio formats and, to accompany them, offers a variety of OpenGL-based visualizations, which is much appreciated by those accustomed to hearing MODs running alongside a demoscene production's onscreen pixel magic.

Modizer is a universal application, natively supporting the iPhone 3G, iPod touch 2G, iPad and up, with specific optimizations for the iPhone 4 and iPad. The app includes a file browser that allows free access to the MODLAND and HVSC collections — about 215,000 tracks in all — that, when downloaded, are stored locally for quick access. The archives contain audio tracks from basically every demo ever made as well as most games for the C64 and Amiga.

See our iPad demo video. The developer provides a few iPhone demo videos, as well.

At a mere $.99, Modizer is a godsend for gamers with a fancy for digital music. And, while indeed not a game, Modizer for iOS seems worth a spot here at Touch Arcade.

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There are a ridiculous amount of these see how far you can go vertical climbing games on the App Store, and much like the match three genre, classics like Doodle Jump [99¢], Mega Jump [Free] and others overshadow most new releases. Argentinian iPhone developers Hungry Game, creators of Fly Kiwi Fly decided to throw their hat in to this overcrowded ring, and wound up with Sir Lovalot [99¢]– A jumping game that manages to set itself apart with cute graphics, a fun premise, and loads of collectable loot.

Sir Lovalot plays a lot like similar games in that you're tilting your device to the right or left to control your character who is constantly jumping whenever he has solid footing on a platform. The first thing you notice while playing is that instead of jumping on a 2D plane, Sir Lovalot climbs a Rapunzel-like never-ending 3D tower. Tilting causes your knight to spin around the outside of the tower, which will have platforms on all sides of it. Platform types include standard stone platforms, breakaway wooden platforms, spring-loaded platforms, platforms that turn in to spikes, spikes themselves, and others. Not being to see all sides of the tower provides a considerable challenge as you get farther in the game, as often times the path upward isn't as clear as similar games where you can see all of your options at once.

The difficulty of Sir Lovalot is defrayed a bit in a number of ways. First off, you're able to fall back down a few platforms without penalty, and you start the game with three hearts which get spent each time you hit a set of spikes. To balance this, you're constantly under the pressure of a timer that is refreshed at checkpoints along the way up the tower. While being able to miss a jump or land in spikes a few times makes the game feel more forgiving than most, goof up too much and you'll run out of time before reaching the next checkpoint.

As you make your way up the tower you'll find various pieces of loot to collect which also add to your total score. Sir Lovalot has OpenFeint integration for online leaderboards, which undoubtedly will soon be dominated by people far better at the game than me. To see what Sir Lovalot looks like in action, check out the following video:

I totally dig the theme of Sir Lovalot, and really can't help but smile as he performs various acrobatics while twirling his sword around in the air ascending the tower. The only thing that really sticks out as an annoyance is that the game uses a single fairly obnoxious spring sound each time you jump. This quickly gets incredibly tiring, but thankfully, sound effects can be turned off in the game's options. If you're looking for a new game to satiate your need to jump forever, give Sir Lovalot a try.

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We're not sure what has possessed the publishers of dozens of amazing iPhone games to decide that tonight was the night to hold a massive sale — but it's happened. And you can benefit from it.

A huge number of high profile games have dropped in price to all time lows. The number of high quality games you can pick up for $0.99 right now is amazing. We hand picked a few to highlight here, but below we've listed dozens more. Every game on this list is worth the sale price, so now's your chance.

A few notable games dropping to $0.99 include:

Osmos, $0.99 Osmos was originally released in late August of 2009 for the PC, and went on to win numerous awards. The multi-touch controls work wonderfully on the platform and it’s a natural fit for the iPhone. We highly recommend picking this one up. Review

Spider: The Secret of Bryce Manor, $0.99 We choose Tiger Style Games’ Spider: The Secret of Bryce Manor for our 2009 Game of the Year. Spider is an original concept built specifically for the iPhone by a small self funded team. Review

2K Sports NHL 2K11, $0.99 It wouldn’t be hard for NHL 2K11 to claim the title of best ice hockey game on the iPhone, since the competition is sorely lacking. But it surprisingly goes above and beyond and offers a truly full-fledged NHL experience on a mobile platform. Review

Archetype, $0.99 Archetype delivers one of the most robust, beautiful, and most importantly fun first person shooter (FPS) experiences that can be had on the iPhone. Review

Here's the rest of the list, grouped by price. Unfortunately, this appears to be an iPhone / iPod Touch phenomenon mostly. Only two games (marked below) are iPad native.

$0.99

• Civilization Revolution ($6.99 -> $0.99)
• Soccer Superstars ($2.99 -> $0.99)
• 9 Innings: Pro Baseball 2011 ($4.99 -> $0.99)
• Baseball Superstars 2010 ($2.99 -> $0.99)
• Need for Speed Shift ($6.99 -> $0.99)
• Bookworm ($2.99 -> $0.99)
• Geometry Wars: Touch ($4.99 -> $0.99) Universal
• Puzzle Agent ($4.99 -> $0.99)
• Monkey Island 2 Special Edition ($2.99 -> $0.99)
• The Secret of Monkey Island Special Edition ($2.99 -> $0.99)
• Doom II RPG ($3.99 -> $0.99)
• Assassin's Creed II ($5.99 -> $0.99)
• Zombie Infection ($2.99 -> $0.99)
• Peggle ($2.99 -> $0.99)

$1.99

• Crash Bandicoot Nitro Kart 2 ($4.99 -> $1.99)
• Risk: The official Game ($4.99 -> $1.99)
• Hybrid 2: Saga of Nostalgia ($4.99 -> $1.99)
• Zenonia 2 ($4.99 -> $1.99)
• Castlevania Puzzle: Encore of the Night ($4.99 -> $1.99)
• Mirror's Edge ($4.99 -> $1.99)
• ACE Combat Xi: Skies of Incursion ($4.99 -> $1.99)
• Myst ($4.99 -> $1.99)
• Doom Resurrection ($6.99 -> $1.99)
• Sonic the Hedgehog 2 ($5.99 -> $1.99)
• Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 ($4.99 -> $1.99)
• NCAA Football by EA Sports ($4.99 -> $1.99)
• Command & Conquer Red Alert ($4.99 -> $1.99)

$2.99+

• NFL 2011 ($4.99 -> $2.99)
• Real Racing ($4.99 -> $2.99)
• Call of Duty Zombies ($9.99 -> $4.99)
• Call of Duty Zomies HD ($9.99 -> $4.99) iPad Only
• FIFA 10 by EA Sports ($6.99 -> $4.99)

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Last week we took a look on a clever multiplayer quiz game called Go Native! [Free]. Instead of needing to guess the correct answer like most trivia games, Go Native! asks you to choose the most popular answer amongst all of the other players playing the game. We explained how this all works in our review:

In Go Native! you play the role of a native trying to, well, fit in with the natives. Fitting in involves answering an onslaught of questions, but instead of needing to answer questions correctly, you're trying to guess the answer that the majority of other players picked.

This involves a silly thought process that forces you to decide whether the players you're playing with are going to answer questions seriously or just pick whatever the silliest response is to the question asked. You can play with up to 30 players at once, and questions range from multiple choice, simple yes/no, or even filling in the blank where you're able to type whatever answer you'd like.

In our review we thought the game could be a lot of fun, but like a lot of online games, required a large active player base to really ever see its full potential. Realizing they needed to seed their online community with a load of players, the developers dropped the price of Go Native! to free. If our review at all piqued your interest, but you were reluctant to take the plunge on a paid online game with very few players, now is your chance to give it a spin for free. With any luck, a lot of other people will too because I'd really like to play a full 30 person game of Go Native!

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Halfbrick Studios, developer of both Fruit Ninja [99¢/HD] and Monster Dash [99¢], has officially announced today the port of their hugely successful PSP Minis game Age of Zombies to the App Store. There had been speculation in our forums for over a month that the game would be making an appearance on iOS devices, with a “coming soon” banner on the Age of Zombies website and a product description on Halfbrick's online merchandise store providing hints of an intended App Store release. Early this morning, Halfbrick updated their website and sent out a press release with Age of Zombies iPhone screenshots, thus confirming the game will indeed be coming.

Age of Zombies is the original adventure of Monster Dash hero Barry Steakfries. When Barry uncovers the plot of Dr. Brains to send zombies to different points in time to destroy mankind, he decides to take action. He'll travel through five different time periods battling zombified versions of cavemen, mummies, ninjas, and dinosaurs. The teaser trailer for the PSP Minis version shows some of the gameplay in action:

The game will include the full five worlds of the story mode as well as a Survival mode featuring online high scores, and is set to be an improvement over the PSP version in a number of ways. It will contain better graphics, a reworked user interface, and dual-stick touch screen controls for controlling Barry. Click through the following gallery for a look at some screens of the iPhone version of the game:

No word on pricing just yet, and the release date doesn't get any more specific than sometime in October. Halfbrick does note that Age of Zombies will be a universal build that will run on both iPhone and iPad, which is good news for gamers with both devices. We are definitely looking forward to taking Age of Zombies for a spin when it releases this October, and until then drop by the upcoming game thread in our forums to join in on discussion about the game.

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In the wake of how much fun I've been having with MovieCat!, I've been on the hunt for other trivia games to add to my arenal. It was at this point that I stumbled across Go Native! [99¢], which offers an oddly amusing untraditional take on trivia. In Go Native! you play the role of a native trying to, well, fit in with the natives. Fitting in involves answering an onslaught of questions, but instead of needing to answer questions correctly, you're trying to guess the answer that the majority of other players picked.

This involves a silly thought process that forces you to decide whether the players you're playing with are going to answer questions seriously or just pick whatever the silliest response is to the question asked. You can play with up to 30 players at once, and questions range from multiple choice, simple yes/no, or even filling in the blank where you're able to type whatever answer you'd like.

The goal of answering questions correctly is to advance from island to island, collect coconuts, and eventually meet up with the legendary Princess Mango. Different islands have different risks associated to them such as islands with quicksand and questions that need to be answered quickly. There's also an island where instead of answering the most popular answer, you need to choose the least popular as well as islands that cause you to lose all your coconuts with a wrong answer among others.

It's a cool premise for a game, and I like the idea of playing in a pool of 30 players online racing to the finish in a crazy popularity-based trivia contest. Unfortunately, there's no one to play with yet. I've only ever seen a few players online, and when I originally thought the game I was in was filling up with active players, I was incredibly disappointed to just see the player list filled with generic bot names.

The developers of Go Native! seem to have fallen in to a similar situation that quite a few games dependent on online players have found themselves in. In order for the game to be fun, there needs to be a large number of people playing online, but without a large number of players playing online, the game isn't captivating enough to play against bots waiting for other people to show up.

If Go Native! takes off and you can actually participate in 30 player games without issue, I could see it being a really great time. Unfortunately, with so few active players, all that Go Native! seems to have is a whole heap of unrealized potential.

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Early this summer we posted an exclusive sneak preview of NimbleBit's upcoming frog management title Pocket Frogs, which is something of a follow-up to their popular Dizzypad. The developer has recently posted a video showing the game in action and provided us with additional screenshots.

Pocket Frogs is a game of raising, breeding, and trading frogs. Each of your frogs will have three specific genetic traits that they inherit from their parent frogs, which according to NimbleBit will result in "many thousand possible emergent species." There are going to be multiple customizable habitats to raise your frogs in, and players will be responsible for keeping the frogs healthy, happy, and well fed by taking them out to explore the Pocket Frog pond.

Aside from breeding frogs, players will be able to get new frogs by ordering them in-game as well as trading frogs with friends via Plus+. There are also plans to have various challenges to breed certain frogs which rotate on a weekly and monthly basis and the frog store will rotate on a daily with new frogs to buy with in-game currency. NimbleBit is still hashing out plans on exactly how they're going to monetize Pocket Frogs, but have assured me that players will be able to access absolutely everything in game for free and whatever in-app purchases they finally decide on will be intended for serious frog breeders and otherwise entirely optional.

Pocket Frogs will be a free download, available for the iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad, and will take advantage of the iPhone 4's high-resolution Retina display. The game is slated for a September 15th launch, and those who download the title in its first week will receive an exclusive frog, the 'Black Floris Tribus'.

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Slice It! from developer Com2uS is a new puzzle game where you must dissect various shapes into equal parts. It may sound painfully simple, and can be if you're just dealing with straight circles and squares. But Slice It! throws some seriously crazy shapes at you that will have you scratching your head in how to approach them. A hint system helps prevent you from getting stuck on some of the harder shapes, and a nice five star scoring system urges you to retry puzzles in an effort to get a perfect score. With 60 levels to tackle, and room for more to be added in the future, Slice It! provides a surprising amount of slicing fun.

Right off the bat you'll notice that Slice It! has a very nice presentation, utilizing a hand drawn colored pencil look with graphics enhanced for iPad and Retina Display. Levels are displayed in groups of twenty on a stage select screen, and are unlocked one after the other as you complete them. There are five tabs on the side to select the different groups of levels, though only the first three currently have content. Tapping the fourth and fifth hints that more levels should be coming in future updates. It's slightly annoying to see these empty tabs in the game, but the 60 levels are more than enough to occupy most gamers attention for a good amount of time.

When you select a level, the shape that must be sliced is drawn for you. Touching a point outside of the shape anchors a starting point for the slicing line, and dragging across the shape gives you a dotted line of where the slice will take place. The real trick to Slice It! is that you must slice the shape into the required amount of segments for each level, as well as use up all of the slicing lines. This can call for some more creative thinking, even with basic shapes. Once you've fulfilled the segment and slice line requirements, the shape is sliced up, and you are graded on how accurately you can get each segment to be the same percentage of the entire shape. For example, a square cut into fourths would require each segment to be as close to 25% of the entire shape as possible to earn 5 stars.

If you slice too many segments, don't use all your slices, or have segments that are a much different proportion than the rest then you will fail the level and have to retry. If you do well and get 5 stars on a stage, you earn a hint to be used on one of the future stages. Each hint will tell you where a slice line needs to go to get you started, and in my experience with some of the more odd shapes, the hints can be invaluable.

A couple of small issues stick out in Slice It!. For starters, it can be hard to accurately place the anchor point on the iPhone's smaller screen, and I sometimes found myself having to try multiple times to get a line started where I needed it to. Related to this, if you draw a line and decide it's not where you want it to be, you can drag the end point of the line back to the starting point to not draw a line at all. Unfortunately the game often ends up drawing the line anyway, which can easily be erased with the undo button but is annoying nonetheless. Finally, sometimes multiple slice lines can intersect in the middle of a shape and cause a very tiny segment to be made, unbeknownst to you until you actually try to complete the level. This causes you to have to retry the level since that extra segment goes over the requirement.

These are all minor issues in an otherwise fun game, and merely serve to annoy rather than ruin the overall enjoyment of Slice It!. I was surprised by how much I enjoyed playing, and there is a strong “one more try” factor when aiming to get the most equal segment proportions possible. Even when I had already achieved 5 stars, I found myself retrying a level anyway just to see if I could get exactly equal segments purely for my own satisfaction. Players in our forums are enjoying the game as well, and if you're looking for a new type of puzzle game with a charming style that's easy to pick up and play, take a look at Slice It!.

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