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Ship management and pseudo line-drawing make an appearance in Kavcom Limited’s The Lighthouse HD [$4.99]. Offering a different take on the classic genre, The Lighthouse HD’s great visuals and variety offset some choice design decisions holding the game back from loftier heights.

In The Lighthouse HD, you take the role of an all-seeing lighthouse operator helping ships get across hazardous waters. Tap anywhere on the screen to shine a light on that area. If you shine the light near a ship, it’ll alter direction towards the direction of the light (and will then continue straight on its new path). The game plays somewhat similarly to line drawing games like Harbor Master [$1.99 / HD / Free], with the difference being that you can’t directly alter the course of your ships and instead must use the light to indirectly manage your shipping lanes (rather than drawing routes).

The goal of each mission is to accomplish various objectives (which include goals like getting ships from one point to another and leading fishing boats to giant schools) before losing all your ships. In addition, you’ll encounter barriers such as rolling fog, ship-seeking sharks, and giant krakens looking to trap your ship. As expected, a lot of multitasking, coordination, and precision are required to pass missions and hit the highest scores. Overall gameplay is executed well enough, although I would have liked an option to speed up the map when I’m working with slower boats (considering the game is on a timer, I could see why this wasn’t on the top of the list).

The areas that The Lighthouse HD does a really great job with are its visuals and presentation. The game succeeds in conveying a moody, dark atmosphere at the onset of each mission. Weather effects such as rain, lightning and fog add even more to the general feel of the game, although there were a few times when the various effects made it hard to see some of the baddies swimming underneath the water (call it part of the cruelty of the sea, I suppose). As you get towards the end of each mission, the sun begins to rise, the music starts swelling and the whole map gives off a sense of seeing a light at the end of the proverbial tunnel. I rarely see a game succeed at achieving a play on emotion, but The Lighthouse HD does a good job of getting there.

Unfortunately, there are several areas in The Lighthouse HD that feel rough around the edges. Specifically, the game is filled with a lot of frustrating gameplay nuances that just seem out of place. For example, there are no on-screen notifications when ships are about to come into play on the map. Considering that several levels charge you with taking ships from one end of the map to the other, with both entrances also posing as exists, it can be very frustrating when you get close to an exit and a ship appears out of nowhere and collides with your existing ship, making you lose both in the process.

Another example deals with actual gameplay mechanics. One of the items available to you to make guiding ships easier is buoys, which force nearby ships to divert course automatically. The problem is I could never get the buoys to work correctly – I’d place one in a certain location thinking ships would divert one way and they end up going another way. Considering there doesn’t appear to be a way to remove them once they’re placed. This ends up being a waste of resources and can make or break a level.

Another concern is in regards to content. The Lighthouse HD offers 30 total missions, making the game good on content for at least three or four hours (depending on whether you like collecting objective medals). However, I imagine that most gamers will clamor that the game could use more missions, particularly at its current price point. The developer has stated in the forums that additional levels are coming, and I hope they arrive sooner rather than later.

Despite these shortcomings, The Lighthouse HD should appeal to fans of vehicle management games and line-drawers. Its nuanced changes to the standard gameplay and overall visual presentation do a decent job of differentiating itself. Assuming you can get past the relative lack of content and occasional strange gameplay missteps, I’d recommend The Lighthouse HD .

TouchArcade Rating:

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There’s a lot of value, to me, in something I can confidently call “a happy little game.” Niko [Free] fits the bill, with a cute little dude at its center named Niko who is bound and determined to save the lives of his friends who just so happen to have been doomed to exile in some unknown world that lies beneath the forest.

We’ve heard all varieties of the backstory before, and surely this is just another of those, but you can’t deny that developer Sulake knows what they’re doing. After all, they’re behind the Habbo Hotel world, and the ten million monthly visitors there is nothing to shake a stick at.

So how have they applied their expertise to Niko? Well, it’s a game with a very simple approach, which seems to be a highly successful formula for other winners in the genre. So if you’re into that whole Aves with an anger problem thing, you might like this. Niko is an easy guy to control – you have a set of arrows on the bottom of your screen to move him back and forth and a button with his face to make him jump slingshot style (pull it back, see a trajectory appear, and fire away).

That’s it. Nothing fancy. Your job is to navigate a series of 30 levels, the first six of which are free to play. You’ll need to pony up $1.99 in order to gain access to the other 24, should you be so inclined.

Level design in Niko actually reminded me directly of retro Sonic titles like Sonic the Hedgehog 2, where you often find yourself flying at exhilarating speed picking up dozens of rings at a time, only to risk the danger of bumping into a beastie you didn’t see and losing them all. Niko opts not to include the painful part of this formula, merely letting you use bouncy pads and moving platforms in the air to propel yourself through its worlds.

There are enemies, but they don’t really make as much as an appearance until you get a bit further along. It feels like a proper platformer, and while the levels hold challenge, they never feel frustrating to complete, which is one of my gripes with a lot of portable platformers and puzzlers today.

Each level you play gives you the opportunity for multiple ratings, of course, with a total of three stars to earn based on performance and golden disks that are harder to find. A unique addition to replay value is also offered in the form of rewards that can be taken over to Habbo and used there. Badges, trophies, and a special surprise if you rescue all if Niko’s friends are all there for the grabbing, so that ought to come in handy if you are already a Habbo member (or are considering becoming one).

Well-made, clever and fun, Niko is definitely a platformer that’s worth your attention. If you explore the first six levels for free, and if you find you’re hooked, it’s pretty cheap to score the rest. Then you can slingshot, jump and fly through the air to your heart’s delight.

TouchArcade Rating:

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Back in the arcade fighting game heyday of the ‘90s, 2D heavyweights like Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat had to contend with a new brand of brawler on the block: the 3D fighter. Games like Virtua Fighter and Tekken forewent 2D sprites and single-plane gameplay in favor of 3D polygonal character models and a full range of movement within the combat arenas. Happily, it turned out that there was room for both kinds of fighters to coexist, with gamers enjoying 2D and 3D fighting games in harmony.

One of the most popular 3D fighting franchises to come out of this era was Namco’s Soul Edge, and more prominently its sequel SoulCalibur, both of which were noteworthy for their focus on weapon-based combat. SoulCalibur hit arcades in 1998, and was then ported to the Sega Dreamcast to launch alongside that system in 1999. The Dreamcast version was remarkable, featuring even better graphics than the arcade version and a wealth of additional modes and characters. In 2008 SoulCalibur was again resurrected for Xbox Live Arcade, boasting a high definition makeover but lacking any sort of online play.

And now in 2012, almost a decade and a half after the original arcade release, SoulCalibur [$11.99] is now available in the palm of our hands on iOS devices. The iOS version appears to be based off of the most recent XBLA version, utilizing those excellent high definition visuals for Retina Display and iPad screens. The framerate and animation is also incredibly smooth, another hallmark of SoulCalibur, and everything looks bright and crisp running on iOS. For those that didn’t already know, you would never guess that this was actually an almost 14 year old game.

However, just because it looks pretty doesn’t mean the iOS version doesn’t have its share of drawbacks. Most glaring is the lack of any sort of multiplayer mode, an integral component of any good fighting game. I can’t for the life of me figure out why Namco Bandai would omit such a feature, but the iTunes description does state that additional modes are planned so I’m still holding out hope for multiplayer sometime in the future. For now though, it’s sorely missed.

As for single player content, SoulCalibur comes with quite a few modes. There’s the standard Arcade ladder, Time Attack, Survival, Extra Survival, and Practice. Sadly, the Team Battle and Mission modes from previous versions aren’t in this iOS version. There’s also a Museum mode where you can set up matches and watch two AI players battle it out or watch an Exhibition where you choose a character and watch them go through all their moves solo. Finally, there’s Game Center integration with leaderboards for Time Attack, Survival, and Extra Survival modes as well as 11 achievements to unlock.

A big factor when considering fighting games on iOS is controls, and SoulCalibur comes through in this department about as well as you could hope for. That is to say the virtual controls aren’t perfect, but they’re entirely workable and just as good as any other iOS fighters out there. If you don’t have any trouble playing games like Street Fighter IV Volt [$2.99] or King of Fighters-i [$6.99], then you shouldn’t have any trouble here either. The button positions and opacity can also be adjusted however you like, which is appreciated. One problem I did have though was with some of the menu UI being a bit too small on the iPhone screen, thus making it hard to make a selection sometimes. A minor complaint, but annoying nonetheless.

Whether or not you need SoulCalibur on iOS will depend on how fond of the original you are, and how important multiplayer is to you. It’s at the higher end of App Store pricing at $11.99, and that’s at a 20% off introductory price. But, I loved the original on my Dreamcast and think the price is absolutely worth it to be able to carry SoulCalibur around in my pocket. As for the lack of multiplayer, it’s a shame, but there’s still plenty to do by yourself. There’s the Game Center leaderboards and achievements, and half of the game’s 19 characters need to be unlocked first, as do several other goodies in the game, giving some good incentive to continue playing.

If you can deal with its shortcomings, SoulCalibur on iOS is actually an excellent port. It looks great, runs smoothly, controls as well as a fighting game can without buttons, and offers a decent amount of single player content to play through. If we can get some kind of multiplayer or other missing modes via updates in the future, then we’ll really be in business.

TouchArcade Rating:

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Zombie Wonderland 2: Outta Time! [99¢] has everything a good zombie game needs: guns, girls, guts, green goo and a generous amount of cleaning equipment. Oh, come on. Don’t raise that eyebrow at me. You know it’s true. Every good shoot-out tends to leave an inevitable mess and Zombie Wonderland 2, unlike so many of its peers, is not afraid to acknowledge it.

Here, in this goofy little defense/time-management/real-time strategy title, you’ll have the dubious pleasure of playing as the redneck stereotype Chuck. Being the responsible Zombie Cleaner (and someone totally oblivious to the idea of job security) that he is, Chuck will stop at nothing to rid the world of the cannibalistic undead.

As you might have guessed, this isn’t a particularly easy task. You’re going to have to do everything from bringing a vegetarian vampire his lactose-rich treat to protecting pet goldfish in Medieval Japan.

Silly, eh? If that description hasn’t scared you off just yet, this might spell the beginning of a wonderful friendship. Much like the story itself, Zombie Wonderland 2 is a fair bit of mindless fun, the kind that can easily rob you of a few hours of your time. If what you want is a simple, silly hybrid of the aforementioned genres, stop reading and go download it already.

However, if you’re an Apple App Store connoisseur, this may be where you sit down and ponder the direction of your dollar a bit more. Like a serving of fast food, Zombie Wonderland 2 is both satisfying and unfulfilling all at the same time.

Gameplay here is relatively straightforward. Each stage consists of you being told to defend a certain item from zombies for a number of nights. Of course, as a Zombie Cleaner, you’re also going to have to do your best to ensure that there is no unnecessary gunk on the floors at the end of the night, something easier said than done.

To accomplish this, you’re going to have to make use of your trusty shotgun ‘Betsy’, cleaning implements, turrets, wooden planks, unusual bullets and a peculiar assortment of limited-use weapons. Controls are exceedingly simple. To attack a zombie, you touch it with a finger. To board up a window, you tap it with a finger. To summon your infant Death Worm, you – you get the picture.

Sadly, though, it isn’t quite as exciting as it sounds. Your nightly escapades will mostly consist of you boarding up windows and playing ‘whack-a-mole’ with the festering onslaught. Regardless of how many you purchase, you’ll only get access to one turret at a time. One. Uno. Satu.

To make things even worse, your turrets are about as impervious to zombie attacks as cookies are to the Cookie Monster. More often than not, you’ll find yourself attempting to fix it while corralling flaming cadavers. It’s the same with the limited-use weapons and the various bullet types. Sure, you might have a dozen but you’ll ever get to use one variety at a time.

All said and done, however, Zombie Wonderland 2 is still an enjoyable piece of work. The over-the-top silliness and the bright, colorful graphics feel reminiscent of an old Saturday morning cartoon. The game’s just difficult enough to make it challenging and simple enough to engage in without requiring too much of a forethought.

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I’ve played a lot of iOS games in my time, and have gone through varying levels of addiction with certain titles. Even so, that usually doesn’t last for too long. I’ve never found my own personal Angry Birds or Tiny Tower. That is, until I picked up Hero Academy [Free] for the first time. Shortly after, I noticed that I was playing a match while cooking, waiting for people to come over, or pretty much any other time I had three free minutes or more at a time. At that point, I identified that I might have found that game that I feel the need to play endlessly. Good news is, all my other friends seem to have the same problem, so that works out for me.

Hero Academy is Robot Entertainment’s first iOS offering, and I think it’s the sign of good things to come. The premise is very basic: You are playing a tactical battle against another team, and the goal is to destroy their crystals before they destroy yours. Each round allows you five moves (”action points”), which you can use to either place team members and items on the board, or move and attack with your preexisting team members.

If you play the free version of the game, the only team available to you is the Council, which is made up of humans and is a well-balanced option. Should you wish, you can unlock the Dark Elves for $0.99, which can summon the spirits of their fallen enemies to aid them in battle.

At the bottom of your screen, you’ll see a selection of five items and characters, which the game randomly deals you each turn. If you don’t like what you got, you can use your finger to drag anything you don’t want over to the tiny door in the bottom left corner. Once your turn is finished, you’ll get new stuff and hopefully get dealt exactly what you were looking for. This selection of items includes spells and weapons to strengthen your characters’ attack and defense abilities so you can survive in the field for longer.

The board itself also includes some options to give you the advantage. In the middle of each board is a tile with a crystal on it, and reaching it will weaken the enemy’s crystal a bit. There are also tiles that have a sword or a shield on them, which will give you a buff to attack or defense. At the end of a turn, you can also choose to submit your turn normally or submit it with a taunt, which is pretty much just to piss your opponent off.

Getting to know your characters and how their skills can be used is vital. For example, the magician can cast a spell that can hit a row of opponents and only spend a single action point on it. Using these types of skills to your advantage will give you the edge needed to keep those fools off your crystals.

Frankly, I’m no fan of waiting around for someone to take a turn. When I first saw that Hero Academy had no single player mode where you could at least play against the computer, I was a bit let down. At first, I only had a few games going with other friends. The key to the fun of Hero Academy really came clear when I got a lot of games going, and that was when I started to feel my skills were improving and I was getting better at it. Considering my moves more carefully and how I could best defend against the way my opponent played was rewarding, and I started to win more matches.

There is one downfall to the game, and that is that the free version is relentless when it comes to in-game ads. Between each match, you’ll see an ad that you have to stare at for five seconds before it disappears and you can play again. If you’re good at ignoring things, you may not mind one bit, but if you’re like me and it bugs the hell out of you, you can buy any heroic team to get rid of the ads, which costs a buck. Only the Dark Elves are available for now, but Robot promises new teams are coming in the near future. You can also spend a bit more to get new avatars if you so desire.

Hero Academy is a simple game, and it does what it’s built to do very, very well. If the content continues to expand and offer more for the fanbase, I could see it being something I would want to come back to over and over again in the future. It also offers access to invite Facebook and Twitter friends to join you right in the menu, so never fear if you don’t have enough games going at a time. Invite everyone you know, and soon enough your phone will be jingling with the notification sound you’ve learned that you’re unable to resist.

TouchArcade Rating:

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To steal a line from Jon Irwin, “The platforming genre, once dominant, has now been relegated to counterprogramming.” Which is to say that the two-dimensional platformer has overtaken, like kudzu, much of the niche and indie landscape that isn’t dominated by games that involve shooting things in the face. For mobile gaming, that idea is more or less maintained  if you swap face-shooting for physics-puzzling or colored-block-sliding. But that kind of reductive generalization doesn’t leave room for nuance, and nuance is exactly what you need to talk about Terra Noctis.

At first blush, Terra Noctis [$.99] seems pretty derivative: the pits are inexplicably endless, the physics are rudimentary, and the enemies — pumped in straight from the Mushroom Kingdom — die if something lands on their heads. Even the narrative introduction seems particularly on the nose: Allen is a nightmare who isn’t scary enough to pass his monster exams. Desperate, he sneaks out of school to find a way to get scarier. The idea is never revisited.

It’s not long before Fire Fruit Forge starts to introduce new mechanics: shooting, power-ups, puzzles, three different types of currency, and a bat named Columbus who guides Allen to secret areas and sometimes, bafflingly, lets him ride around on his back. Unfortunately, these do little to dispel the first impression: some of the mechanics don’t really affect the core platforming, and the ones that do are one-note concepts that don’t add much.

There are three different collectible items that can be spent: blue fairies buy power-ups, red fairies unlock the next hub-world, and golden coins unlock bonus levels. It’s kind of weird that a game about crushing goomba skulls involves so many ways to buy stuff.

I like the idea in theory — collectibles have long been a staple of the genre, and Fire Fruit Forge are right to give Allen’s monetized pixie dust mechanical value. Because these items are hidden throughout each non-linear level, players are ostensibly motivated to explore. This, in turn, introduces a risk-reward element to Terra Noctis‘ points system and OpenFeint leaderboards: player score is based both on speed and collection, and climbing the leaderboards depends on managing both.

There are problems with the system, though. The power-ups add very little to Terra Noctis, and using them never become a regular part of my strategy. This devalues the importance of the blue fairies, which in turn makes collecting them less gratifying. It disrupts the balance of the entire system. Similarly, the red fairies and coins are too easy to find, and the levels they unlock are too cheap: not once was my progress impeded by a lack of funds. In other words, not once was I motivated to explore Terra Noctis in a meaningful way.

The other supplemental mechanics, like shooting and flying, simply aren’t creative enough to keep Terra Noctis moving forward. The first time I shot a bat to complete a puzzle was neat, but the shooting function hasn’t changed since. These things are largely tangential to the running, jumping, and head-stomping, but adding extra mechanics isn’t the same as using them effectively. It doesn’t help that the environments and level design change very rarely, despite there being four different hub-worlds to explore. Visually and mechanically, Terra Noctis is a static place, and the entire experience can tend to feel same-y.

Despite the lack of variety, Terra Noctis is buoyed up by its visual design. You’ll explore the same vague forest and cave designs over and over, but the backgrounds are a nice example of parallax scrolling, and the foreground has a lush, storybook feel to it. The animations are fluid and expressive — I especially like that Columbus, the helper-bat, manages to seem anxious and excitable, even though he’s basically just a set of eyes with wings. There’s an undeniable charm and innocence that runs through every piece of this game.

You’ll also hear the same four or five synthpop tracks during the course of the game, but the Herbie Hancock-esque score — no, seriously — is used judiciously to set the tone for each level.

It doesn’t hurt that Terra Noctis is so fun to play. Even disengaged from the high-level design choices, jumping up and down and stomping purple goombas is a treat, thanks in no small part to the game’s  controls: they’re simply the most sensitive and responsive virtual buttons I’ve encountered to date. They aren’t perfect, though, since the buttons are placed too closely to one another — I often find myself going left when I mean to go right.

(The other systemic bugbear in Terra Noctis is hit detection: Allen’s hitbox seems too big and he often finds himself stuck in a ledge or block. This might lead to a few unwarranted deaths, but the checkpoints are spaced evenly enough that it never becomes a huge issue.)

Still, the level design is generous enough to accommodate those lapses, and the most significant exploration is vertical, not horizontal.  Players sometimes get cut off from areas they mean to explore, but Terra Noctis is usually pretty good about expanding and bottlenecking appropriately. In all but a few exceptions, you can feel free to wander around, comfortable with the knowledge that you will eventually circle around toward the critical path.

Maybe it’s a good thing that Terra Noctis‘ more ambitious designs fall through — there’s a lot of fluff that distracts from the core. As it stands, the game’s fairy-tale premise evokes something akin to coming home for a long weekend. The game’s strengths are found in the understated joy of jumping through space, of seeing some unreachable ledge or platform and guiding Allen to it. Terra Noctis, through its intuitive controls and design, provides simple pleasure. This is comfort gaming — familiar, identifiable, and care-free. I’m ready to spend Martin Luther King Day in my pajamas, guiding Allen through the rest of his quest.  I’m pretty sure I know where he’s heading.

TouchArcade Rating:

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I have a little confession to make: I’m directionally challenged. I know exactly where everything is, but ask me whether you turn right or left to get there and I’ll give you the correct answer about half the time. Not bad for a 50/50 chance, right? Because of this deficiency, Aetherium II [$0.99] has become my new nemesis. I know where I’m going, and I just need to tap one side of the screen or the other to get there, but somehow I still end up smashing into a wall most of the time.

I’ll not hold that against the game. My failings aren’t its failings, though it has several of its own. But man, if you like Snake, there are 100 levels here that will light up all the same bits of your brain, and four modes on top of that to boot.

Although every mode in Aetherium II plays with direction, there are three very different ways to play. You’ve got the main mode (and by far the best), Avoid the Edges, three different Maze modes and First Person, which is quirkier than it is successful.

Avoid the Edges is, um, pretty much what it sounds like. The edges are death – they can’t be touched. So you slip around each level avoiding walls and picking up stars, easy enough. But you can only turn left or right, and those directions are always relative while the controls are not. It gets pretty dicey as the passages get more complicated, the corridors get narrower and doors start closing in your face. And that’s before you start controlling two or three ships at once. It’s not all reflexes – later levels are positively puzzling.

The similarly puzzling Maze modes could be great fun, but instead they miss that target completely. Edges are fine, and you can navigate in any direction. The trick is to reach the end, and reach it quickly. The levels get downright huge, but are always contained to a single screen. It’s good, but could be better – the controls are a bona fide pain in the butt.

Traveling in all four directions using the edges of the screen is fine, but Aetherium II seems to lack any support for multitouch. So if you want to play with two hands, you’ll need to make certain to lift one finger before putting down another or you’ll careen right into a wall. Not cool, and hopefully fixable. It makes earning full marks for time pretty unlikely.

Otherwise the maze modes could be great. There are three varieties. Classic is as standard a maze as you could find. Tunnels mixes it up with passageways and shortcuts. Doors gives you a series of switches to puzzle through. All good fun.

First Person mode will test your memory and direction sense. Enjoy wandering through a maze of twisty little passages, all alike? You’ll love this. You know the exit of the maze is directly across from where you begin, but not how to get there. If you can manage to keep from getting completely lost, this will be fun. It’s not for me – every level feels like getting lost in the same neon closet – but I can see how enjoyable it could be to build up a map in your mind as you wander each level.

So that’s 200 levels that are mostly great fun, but the trappings that surround them are a little clunky. As I said, the controls are dodgy, and aside from that the menus are awkward and the sound design is pretty terrible unless you’re really into beeping. But more importantly, how do you feel about motivational tricks – achievements, locked levels, and the like? Because you won’t find any of that here. There are leaderboards to climb and stars to collect, but it’s a game built for casual poking around and not dedicated play.

I’ve gotta say, there are great ideas here. Aetherium II is just full of them. But they don’t cohere into any kind of immersive experience. If you want to test your sense of direction, it’s a fantastic game to mess around with. But to commit to? It’s not quite there.

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You might not have downloaded it yet, but you’ve played Z-Day [$1.99] before. It’s the game you play in your head while reading The Walking Dead; you know, that game where you plot out where you would go and how you would operate during the zombie apocalypse? That one.

Would you take in that stranger you found on the road? Would you mug him instead? Would you break into a police station surrounded by zombies? With moans at your back, three kills to your name and a sledgehammer at your side, would you stop to take a bag of tools from a broken-down car in the middle of the road?

These are the questions Z-Day asks, and presumably, ones you’ve considered before if a z-day daydream ever popped into your mind. Z-Day is a graphic novel spin on the Choose Your Own Adventure, text-based game, except its presented on iPhone and iPad in all of its gory, high-resolution art glory.

Playing is simple, and the moment-to-moment content is strangely intense. You start in your house. A zombie apocalypse has begun. You decide if you want to run or grab a new weapon. Then, you decide, while zombies are coming to the door, if you want to dig for supplies like duct tape, fight the zombies, or get to higher ground.

All along the way, Z-Day gives you plenty of entertaining situational content. At one point, you’ll be asked if saving your best friend is worth a zombie attack. Later, you might bump into a roving band of gun-toting jerks robbing a pawn shop. Before that, you might meet your unfortunate end in the bowels of a police station, as a horde steadily infests it as you search for fat loot.

The most interesting thing about Z-Day is that it doesn’t pull punches; if you make a bad decision, you’ll probably die. Also, it puts you in horrible situations and then has you make uncomfortable decisions. As you play, you might notice things like empathy have vacated your brain in the face of so many horrifying scenarios.

Breaking this down mechanically feels like a disservice to the experience. In Z-Day, you’ll be presented with a variety of Choose Your Action text boxes, hand-drawn graphic novel scenes, and a description of situations. Pick an action, and then move on to the next moment. The goal is survival, but even if you die, you’ll be scored on a variety of elements, including your decision-making or the quality of your weaponry and items and the amount of survivors you brought along the way.

Z-Day doesn’t have unique content, so you’ll see the same situations over and over again as you restart. It’s really up to you to role-play it and see different outcomes. There are quite a few, too, in each given situation.

I’ve been having a blast with this since it’s essentially gameifies what runs through my head whenever I read or watch a piece of zombie content, but it’s also solid production-wise. I heartily recommend this to anyone that still has an itch for zombies, or even an appreciation of primarily text-based titles.

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Studio Pixel, the one-man studio responsible for giving us the original Cave Story, last Friday released its first iPhone and iPod touch game, Azarashi [$.99]. It’s as minimal as it is pure in focus; in it, you attempt to catch three seal keychains before they fall to the ground, and at the end of the round you are scored on your speed. Hit too early and you kill a delightful little seal, but do it just fast enough and you’ll earn more keychains to catch after all three rounds are over.

This is a really mini mini-game, so be aware of that before you download. If anything, it’s a brilliant display of Studio Pixel’s art, sound design, and edge. We’ve got some screens for those of you who don’t want to take the plunge just yet:

Cave Story is brilliant, by the way, and the PC and Mac versions are still free. If you’ve got some extra computer time today, we highly suggest you give it a look.

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