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Crescent Moon Games made a huge splash with their entrance on to the App Store with Ravensword: The Fallen King [$2.99 / Free]. Since the success of Ravensword, Crescent Moon Games has been extremely busy, both on developing their own games and positioning themselves as a publisher for other indie developers as well. These projects include the recently released Rimelands: Hammer of Thor [$4.99], UltraKid: Mystery of the Mutants, and others. Much like the recent dramatic before and after trailers of Aralon: Sword and Shadow, Crescent Moon's involvement in Mobile Game Garage's Gears seems to be a similar extreme graphical makeover.

Check out the before and after:

Gears is going to be a ball roller based heavily on Steampunk influences filled with puzzles that involve turning gears, growing vines, and other fantasy-based elements. The game is going to launch with full Retina Display support sometime before Christmas along with the other games Crescent Moon Games has in production. There have been a ton of ball rollers released on the App Store, mostly because the games work so well with the tilt controls of the iPhone, but I'm always excited to see familiar game types taken to new levels.

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The App Store is home to some seriously weird games. Whether you're playing a bear driving a car around the forest in Enviro-Bear 2010 [99¢] or a cat inside a ball shooting at a giant cup of noodles in Meow Meow Happy Fight [99¢/HD], there are many strange experiences to be found on the iOS platform. The latest one that I've come across is called Font Monsters [$1.99/Lite] from Japanese developer Muu Muu, who have previously released the similarly strange and generically named Block Guy [$2.99/Lite] to the App Store. Font Monsters is a text-based shooter (literally, you shoot text) that has a really wacky style, with interesting character designs and catchy music, and it requires some fast reactions to engage in its challenging gameplay. It's also completely unlike anything else available on the App Store.

In Font Monsters, a series of monsters comprised purely of different keyboard characters come marching towards your first-person perspective. You defeat the monsters by shooting fonts at them one by one using your keyboard until there is nothing left of them, and the text characters you shoot must be the same type that the monsters are made up of. If you shoot a character at them that's not a part of the monster, they will fire back a random character at you that must be quickly typed to shoot it down before it hits you. If the monster gets to where you are then he (or she?) starts beating on you mercilessly, deducting life from a gauge at the top of your keyboard.

It's a totally odd concept, but also satisfying and fun to play. There are 5 levels to play through in Font Monsters, each one more difficult than the last. In each level you must defeat a certain number of monsters in a row to complete it, from 15 in the first level all the way to a whopping 50 in level 5. If you fail to beat a monster and they deplete your life gauge to zero, you must start the entire sequence over again. The monsters also become more difficult with each level. In level 1 they approach you in a fairly straightforward manner, allowing you to inspect them pretty easily to see what font characters you should shoot at them. In later levels they start to flip, stretch, and skew all over the place making it much harder to tell what fonts they are made up of.

You earn a score for defeating each monster which goes towards a cumulative score at the end of each level. Although it's not explained in the game, it appears that the quicker you beat a monster the better score you earn. Unfortunately, the top score for each level is only saved locally, as this would be a perfect game for online score tracking using Game Center.

One of my favorite things about Font Monsters is how cleverly designed all the enemies are using just font characters. There are 60 different monsters in the game, some fairly basic and some quite complex but all of them are interesting. A very cool feature in the game is a catalog that lets you view all of the different monsters that you've faced and even select them individually to do battle against them in one of the 5 difficulty levels. The catalog is definitely a nice touch and gives you incentive to keep playing and “collect 'em all” for future practice or admiration.

One big problem with Font Monsters that is kind of unavoidable is that as you keep playing you start to recognize what font characters make up the different enemies. Once this starts happening, the game can be a bit easy as you face these monsters over again. I was originally pulling my hair out shooting “O”s and “I”s at a particular monster before I finally figured out it was actually the percentage sign (%) I should have been shooting. Remembering this the next time I faced him, he was much easier to defeat. It's still a challenge to figure out the monsters the first time you face them though, and even if you recognize them they can be difficult to kill on the later levels.

Font Monsters is one of those quirky titles that must be experienced to really understand. Luckily there's a lite version so there's no risk in at least checking out the game to see if it appeals to you. I found that I was having way more fun playing the game than I though I would after just watching the video, and players in our forums are liking the game as well. Sure, it could definitely use some kind of online high score mechanism, and possibly even a greater variety in monsters. What would really be cool is if you could create your own monsters using the available keyboard characters and have them be added into the regular rotation in the game. But even as it stands now, Font Monsters is a totally unique experience that offers a good challenge with plenty of content.

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Tokyo's Apple Store was recently host to a "Game Nights at the Apple Store" event where EA presented a slideshow with a surprising amount of information regarding upcoming titles for both the iPhone and iPad. We've known some of these have been in the works for a while, but this is the first time for many that we've either seen any kind of screenshot or any solid release information. Japanese iPhone site 4gamer.net was in attendance, and provides the following photos of the slideshow:

First off, Reckless Racing, formerly known as Deliverace is a game we were following quite a bit before it got picked up to be published by EA. Since then, we haven't heard much about the game aside from wondering when it was finally going to be released.

According to the above slide, it's slated for this month. EA almost always releases their games on Thursdays, so we're likely either looking at a release late at night next Wednesday, or the following week. Next up is NBA Elite 11, a 5 on 5 fully licensed basketball game that takes advantage of the Retina Display:

A client for EA's free flash game portal pogo.com is also on its way. The slide mentions the game will be ad supported, with additional content available via a subscription. We'll have to see how this plays out on the device, and if the subscription they're referring to is Club Pogo or something that will be exclusive to the iOS app:

Much like Reckless Racing, I expect the above two games that EA has listed as October releases to pop up late next Wednesday or the following Wednesday. Moving on to November releases comes Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit. We've been increasingly impressed with the Need For Speed series on the App Store, and I'm thinking Hot Pursuit will continue the tradition:

Next up is Pictureka!, an iPad game that sounds like a fast paced version of Where's Waldo? [$2.99 / HD]. It comes with pass and play local multiplayer for 2-4 people, and promises an art style that's both truly engaging and wacky. I'm not one to pass up on anything wacky:

Monopoly is finally coming to the iPad, which is allowing me to cross off yet another board game from my list of games I want on the device. The iPad exclusive features sound really rad, such as the auto-rotating tabletop mode… And I can't wait to see what in the world the new "cheating" mode entails. A mini game where you steal money from the bank while the rest of the players are getting drinks or going to the bathroom? We'll have to wait until December to find out:

EA Sports Active has been popular on consoles, and now is coming to the iPhone and iPod Touch. The following slide isn't really clear how involved the app will be, but hopefully it includes some cool GPS or accelerometer integration for tracking your performance instead of being yet another calorie/workout logging app. The features list upcoming post-launch gyro support, so we'll have to see how that all works:

Last, but certainly not least by any means is Dead Space 2. This confusingly named third person shooter is apparently going to bridge the story between Dead Space and its sequel, making this something more along the lines of Dead Space 1.5 than Dead Space 2. (This confusing sequel numbering reminds me of the Angry Video Game Nerd episode on the subject.)

I can see Dead Space being absolutely amazing on the iPad, and if they do it right, an iconic example of just how good and immersive an iPad game can be. It's not entirely clear from the slide if the game is going to be iPad exclusive, or for the iPhone as well since the header mentions the iPhone, but the bulleted list below mentions it being graphically enhanced for the iPad. Either way, Dead Space on the XBOX 360 was incredible, and I have a feeling it's going to be either just as awesome on iOS devices, or just as disappointing as Mass Effect Galaxy [$1.99]– I'm not sure there's much room in between.

Of course, we will post more as soon as we get any more information on any of these games.

[via 4gamer.net]

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iPhone mega-publisher Chillingo has announced earlier today that their casual physics-based puzzler Cut the Rope [99¢] has reached the one million paid downloads mark worldwide. This news comes just ten days after the game's release, and according to Chillingo this makes Cut the Rope the fastest selling iOS game to date.

Although they don't specifically mention details, it's assumed that the one million number is inclusive of both the iPhone and iPad versions of the game. But really, that's just nitpicking. The rate at which Cut the Rope has risen to the top is simply incredible. When we said during our original review that “Cut the Rope is one of those games that you could tell was going to be something special…” I don't think that we imagined it would be the kind of meteoric rise that we've seen in the past ten days.

Chillingo and developer ZeptoLab have noted that they are currently working on new updates for Cut the Rope that will add additional content to the game. Currently Cut the Rope is the #1 overall paid app in the US App Store, as well as most other major markets around the world. It rocketed into that spot within just the first couple days of release, knocking App Store phenomenon Angry Birds [99¢] from its perch at the top. If you have yet to pick up Cut the Rope, we really cannot recommend it enough as it's one of the most engaging puzzle experiences on the App Store and suits the platform perfectly. We'll be keeping an eye out for the promised updates to the game, and are anxious to see just how far Cut the Rope can ride this current wave of success.

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Back in May, we reviewed the iPhone version of Skate It [$4.99/Lite] from EA, a port of the existing Wii/DS game that was itself a spinoff of the Xbox 360 and PS3 Skate series. There was a lot to like about Skate It on the iPhone. It had better graphics than its DS counterpart, a robust career to play through, many different areas to skate, a heaping bag full of tricks to perform, and a nice level of customization that included a limited park creator. Despite this impressive list of features, two glaring issues held the title back from greatness. The biggest problem was the difficult tilt-only control scheme that took far too long to get the hang of, if you could at all. In addition to the control problems, Skate It had some performance issues, especially in regards to the touch recognition when drawing tricks onscreen using EA's Flick-It system. Surprisingly, EA released a new update today that looks to address both of these problems, and actually succeeds to a certain degree.

The biggest change in this new update is the inclusion of an option for a virtual control stick for moving your onscreen skater. Before, you tilted left and right to turn on the ground and spin in the air, and tilted forwards to crouch and gain speed or backwards to skid to a stop. Thankfully, all these movements can now be controlled with a virtual analog stick, with no tilting required at all. I forced myself to get used to the original tilt controls just because I love the Skate series so much, and in the end I found that they actually weren't that bad with enough practice. But this new control stick option is just so much more approachable, and means I don't have to be sitting in a certain position to play the game as I had to before.

Another nice control change in this update is the ability to perform different grabs by just tapping and holding certain areas of the screen. Before you had to first get airborne using one of the Flick-It gestures and then quickly perform a second gesture while in midair to do a grab. It was a little too complicated and imprecise, and I never could pull off the correct grab moves that I had intended to. Now you just need to get airborne and tap on a sector of the screen to pull off a grab from a selection of seven of the most basic ones. You still have the ability to perform the more elaborate grabs using the original methods, but these new options give you a quick and easy way to do a surefire grab when you need to.

Finally, this update is said to include various bug fixes and enhanced stability. For the most part I can't really tell much of a difference, as the game runs really well on my iPhone 4 and admirably on my iPod touch 2G. Owners of first generation hardware may see a marked improvement if they were experiencing problems with the game before. The trick recognition of the Flick-It system is still spotty, although not in a detrimental way. The big news in this update is definitely the nifty new controls, and if this was a source of frustration with you when the game was first released, it's definitely recommended that you check out this new update to Skate It as you'll likely find the game much more enjoyable now.

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Adult Swim's Robot Unicorn Attack [$2.99 / HD] has been somewhat of a cult classic, both on the iPhone and iPad as well as online with their free flash version of the game. The game follows a similar gameplay model to so many games that involve running to the right for as long as possible, with two distinct differences. First off, you play as a rainbow colored robotic unicorn, and secondly the entire game is set to Erasure's Always. Following the success of the first, today Adult Swim released Robot Unicorn Attack Heavy Metal Edition [99¢], a heavy metal reskin of the original.

Erasure is a thing of the past, in his place is Blind Guardian singing their epic metal ballad Battlefield. In addition, all the fanciful rainbows and the fantasy motif has been replaced with fire, brimstone, and pentagrams. Also, Instead of three dreams, you get three nightmares to score as high as you can before submitting your score online via OpenFeint.

It would have been cool if the Heavy Metal Edition would have been released as DLC for the original Robot Unicorn Attack so I didn't need to keep two seperate games on my phone to enjoy both modes, but at the launch price of 99¢, I can't complain too much. If you love Robot Unicorn Attack (and who doesn't?), you need the Heavy Metal Edition. It will bring the same stupid smile to your face as busting through purple stars while you bop your head to Always. Much like people in our forums, I hope Adult Swim keeps expanding the Robot Unicorn's adventures to other genres.

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Matt Rix's Trainyard [99¢ / Free] has actually been available on the App Store for quite a while now, but it wasn't until the recent Retina Display update that it popped up on my radar. Trainyard is a puzzle game which, as the title hints, involves routing trains around.

The games begin with a long tutorial (almost too long) that goes over all the basics of the game. In a nutshell, everything takes place on a 7×7 grid which begins filled with two or more train stations, one that the train comes from and one that the train needs to go to. Initially routing these trains around only involves drawing track between each color coordinated station, but before long you'll be routing multiple colored trains from the same originating stations through various switched pieces of tracks to several different stations. Some puzzles even involve combining trains. For example, one of the levels has a red and blue origin station and a purple destination station. On this puzzle, you need to lay track so the trains collide (oddly enough making one purple train instead of crashing), then send it to the purple station.

All of the elements of Trainyard go together very well, and the variety of the different included puzzles is impressive. What I like most about it though is that unlike a lot of puzzle games where there is usually only one solution (or a slightly more difficult solution to collect whatever bonuses some games have), many Trainyard levels have hundreds. I know this because of yet another clever feature in the game that allows you to submit your solution to an online solution database that shows all the unique solutions to each of the levels that have been submitted. This is useful not only if you're stuck, but also if you beat a level and want to see if someone did it more efficiently (or in some cases, much more convoluted).

Trainyard is currently the target of a limited time 99¢ sale, and I really recommend picking up the game if you've been looking for another great puzzler to sink some time in to. Unlike many train routing games, Trainyard doesn't require fast reactions at all, making it perfect for even the most casual gamers. Also, if you're interested in a behind the scenes look at what went in to Trainyard Matt posted an incredibly comprehensive blog post on his adventures in game development that's also worth checking out.

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The New York Times confirms rumors that started last week that iPhone game company ngmoco was on the verge of acquisition. Japanese company DeNA will indeed be acquiring iOS game developer ngmoco:

DeNA, the Japanese social gaming giant, said Tuesday that it would acquire Ngmoco, a Silicon Valley iPhone game developer, for $400 million — one of the largest deals ever involving an iPhone application developer and another sign that the iPhone is fast becoming the hottest gaming device on the market.

Ngmoco had previously received about $40 million in funding throughout its existence. The acquisition was approved by DeNA's board and is expected to officially close in the next couple of weeks.

DeNA founder Tomoko Namba cites "social gaming" as the big tide in gaming and is seeking to expand into the western market with the acquisition.

Ngmoco was founded in 2008 just as the App Store launched. We first reported on the company's founding back in July, 2008. Ngmoco was responsible for some of our favorite early iOS titles including Rolando, Dropship, WordFu and more. Recently, however, they've transitioned into freemium/social gaming with titles like We Farm, We City, and Touch Pets Dogs.

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I must mention this in every post that has anything to do with single device iPad multiplayer, but two (or more) player games on the iPad are almost always universally awesome. Everything from elaborately crafted ports of board games like Small World [$6.99] to the simplest of games like Omium [99¢] are a ton of fun when played with another person. If for whatever reason you've disregarded my previous encouragement to try out two player gaming on the iPad, you really need to download any or all of VersusPad's free games. They're all fairly simple, but serve as an excellent example of just how well two player gaming works on the device.

Also, to make things a little more interesting, all of these games were developed in PhoneGap, a cross-platform development framework that allows developers to build their games in HTML and Javascript while still being able to take advantage of the core features of the device as a native app. If you're great with Javascript/CSS, but bad with C++, PhoneGap is a free open source way for you to get started building games and apps on the iPhone. Anyway, on to the games-

Ogs, Free [Gameplay Video] In this game, players dispatch creatures called "Ogs" to defend their own island and attack the opponent's island. A bar at the bottom of the screen slowly fills up, allowing you to deploy more advanced Ogs. The game is over when either player's island is destroyed.

The Roswell Game, Free [Gameplay Video] Up to four players at once buzz around the iPad collecting crystals using virtual joysticks situated in each corner of the screen. The game is over when one player collects 75 crystals.

City Bucks, Free [Gameplay Video] My favorite of the three, players place businesses on to an initially empty city grid to lure customers in to buy things. Earning money unlocks more expensive (and attractive) buildings. Monster attacks and disasters like meteor strikes spice gameplay up, and add an element of risk to saving up for one super-expensive business. I'd love to see this game concept fleshed out a little more, as it seems like it is on the verge of something really cool.

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Yesterday we made a post listing several titles that have gone on sale for a limited time. We wanted to pass along a heads-up on a few more sales and price drops for titles we think readers may enjoy.

Soosiz, Free Ahh, Soosiz. [ review ] Touch Foo's rotational 2D platformer is one of our very favorite iPhone games, and is one of the first titles to which we gave a five-star rating. Soosiz is a stylized cartoonish platformer that challenges your brain to keep up with all of its twists, turns, and inversions. It's incredibly well executed with excellent controls, has a ton of content and is a lot of fun. And it's free this weekend (regularly $1.99). There's no excuse for missing this one.

Need For Speed™ Undercover, $1.99 [ review ] Electronic Arts' Need for Speed Undercover (down from $4.99 for a limited time) is the studio's first iPhone release in their long-running racer series. It's a mission-based racer (as opposed to the "'round the track" variety) that puts you in the role of an undercover wheel man infiltrating a series of street racer / chop-shop gangs to try and bust an auto theft ring wide open. It's a very well-done title that, at the time of its release, was perhaps the most visually impressive game on the platform.

ROCK BAND, $4.99 [ review ] EA's Rock Band, which recently hit the 2000 downloadable song mark, is one of the most immersive rhythm games in the App Store. The game sets you behind a guitar, bass, or drum kit, or lets you take the lead vocals in playing through any of the myriad songs available through its in-game song store. The game features 32 free songs and offers Facebook integration to help jam with your friends. Rock Band is, for a limited time, down from $6.99.

Rogue Touch, $0.99 [ review ] ChronoSoft's Rogue Touch (normally $2.99) is an iPhone adaptation of Rogue, the classic dungeon crawler that dates back to 1980. It's highly faithful to the feel and mechanics of the well-loved early platform releases, but has expanded the game nicely. It's my personal favorite iPhone dungeon crawler and is one of our long-time favorites here at Touch Arcade.

Worms HD, $2.99 [ review (iPhone ver) ] First there was Worms for the iPhone [ link ], then came Worms HD for the iPad. Well, actually, first there was the Worms for the Amiga, which Team 17 released back in 1995. Whichever way you look at it, it's classic turn-based artillery action in the Scorched Earth vein. And the iPad version has been reduced in price, from $4.99.

2XL TROPHYLITE Rally, $0.99 [ post ] 2XL Games' 2XL TROPHYLITE Rally (down from $4.99) is a highly impressive looking desert rally racer featuring 15 different races, WiFi and Bluetooth multiplayer, multiple vehicle views, five control schemes, and leaderboards. The iPad version has also been reduced in price ( $7.99 down to $.99 ).

Enigmo, $0.99 Pangea is running a sale on all of its multiplayer titles, physics puzzler Enigmo (down from $2.99) being one of the three games affected. Starting its life as a Mac game, Enigmo is a physics puzzle game that was voted Best iPhone Game at WWDC in 2008. In the game you move various objects around the game board to direct water droplets to their destination. Levels start easy and get so hard you will be desperately searching Google for the solution.

Nanosaur 2, $0.99 Another Pangea multiplayer title on sale is Nanosaur 2 (down from $2.99). Also starting as a Mac game, Nanosaur 2 was ported to the iPhone in late 2008. It hasn’t aged very well compared to Pangea’s other games, but the premise of piloting a massive dinosaur from the future who is equipped with a massive arsenal of weaponry couldn’t get much more ridiculous and/or awesome.

Cro-Mag Rally, $0.99 [ review ] One of the early iPhone cart racers, Pangea's Cro-Mag Rally (down from $2.99) won the 2008 Best App Ever Award for Best Racing Game. Cro-Mag Rally puts you behind the wheel of a caveman's cart in a bid to cross the finish line first through nine different race tracks, using 11 different vehicles with nine types of power-ups there to help you. The multiplayer system was recently entirely rewritten to ease the auto-matching game process.

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