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Orbit1 [Free] is an incredibly minimalistic game. It doesn't have Game Center or achievements, it doesn't have game modes, it doesn't even have levels. If you have an iPad, though, you're going to want to pick this baby up. It's the perfect game for playing around the table with a few friends, and even better — it's free.

Caffeine Monster Software has put together the game I wanted when I first got my iPad. When everyone wanted to take a look and see what cool things I could do with it, this was the cool thing I had in mind. It's an arena game for one to four players, and it has insanely simple one-touch controls. If you're ever in a situation where you need a way to kill time with a handful of people without explaining complex rules and controls, this is your game.

You spend each round controlling a small ship orbiting a red ball of doom. Each player has a button in a corner of the iPad. Press it to move away from the center, release it to move toward the center. Hit anything red and you die and lose a point. Hit anything green and you gain a point. And, most importantly, smash into the back or side of an opponent and you earn two points and take them out for a second. Whoever has the most points when the 2, 3 or 4 minute timers runs out wins.

Sounds simple, no? But that's the beauty of it. I brought this game out at a dinner with family and everyone could jump in and pick it up in a round or two. There is no deeper game to dive into, but that's not the niche Orbit1 fills. I'm thinking about lineups at cons right now, and how easily a game like this could break the ice with fellow geeks if you don't mind having their hands all over your iPad. Or playing with your kids, if you have them. There's really no barrier to entry here.

I'd like to see a few small additions. Minimalistic or not, Game Center leaderboards couldn't hurt. You can play solo and track your own high score already, but that's of limited value without an online leaderboard. I also wouldn't mind seeing a mode that's even more minimalistic. When you've got all manner of red things to dodge and green things to collect, it can be a bit difficult to focus on the real fun: obliterating your opponents. A simpler death match might also ease non-gamers into the experience.

But those are just thoughts for improving what is already an excellent experience, one that does exactly what it needs to do. Orbit1 is a cleverly designed ice-breaker, a minimalistic but social time killer. It pulls you into the fun with such conviction that you'll be hard pressed to find people who can resist. And you know how I mentioned that it's free? I meant really, truly free. No ads, no in-app purchases. I'm not sure what sort of madness compelled Caffeine Monster Software to be so generous, but don't waste this chance. If you haven't got someone to play with, grab Orbit1 and go make new friends. It seems like it might just be good for that.

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We’ve been working pretty hard in the background on the site this week preparing a cool and helpful new way to discover iCade games: toucharcade.com/iCade. We’re using this now instead of our front page in order to give you a much more comprehensive look at quality titles that support the device. As you’ll see, each game has its own “blurb” as well as links to relevant content, including its original review, its “iCade Angle” write-up, and its forum thread.

That page will forever be a work in progress. Not only are older games rolling in support, but so are fresh games. You can click “refresh” on it to your heart’s content, but we’ll also do round-up posts every once in awhile pointing towards the new additions.

Speaking of that, actually, several games have added support for the iCade. Here’s a small listing of the games we’ve added since you last saw our list:

Orange Pixel

• Super Drill Panic [Free]

Claymore Games

• Plum Crazy [$.99]

Angry Mob Games

• Muffin Knight [$.99]

Llamasoft

• GoatUp [$1.99]
• Minotron: 2112 [$1.99]
• Deflex [$1.99]
• Minotaur Rescue [$.99]

If you know of other awesome games that support the iCade or if you're a developer of an iCade-supported game, feel free to visit our support thread and add your game to the growing list. We'll catch it and definitely roll it in. Oh! And just as a house-keeping note, here, Orange Pixel says its Meganoid [$1.99] is also iCade ready, but as of right now, the support doesn't work.

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Here’s a bit of neat news for old-school RPG nerds out there: Rocketcat Games’ lo-fi RPG, Mage Gauntlet, is presumably worming its way through the Apple approval process as you read this post. The studio notes on the game’s web site that it has re-submitted this afternoon after having to, unfortunately, yank a build that was also submitted today, too. If all goes well this go-around, we should be happily plucking away at the Secret of Mana-ish title later next week at the earliest, but the possibility of delay is always there with these things.

Considering its delightful look, its inspiration, and Rocket’s pedigree, it’s no surprise to us that its had a share of buzz among our community. Let’s add one more trailer to the drool-inducing pile. In addition to sharing the aforementioned news with the world, Rocketcat has dropped a new trailer that you can view just below this text stuff:

One of the coolest things about Mage Gauntlet is that it’s subscribing to the “more action, less grinding” school of design, meaning you get to spend more time doing meaningful things in the game. Also, it seems pretty self-aware of the genre and that’s expressed mechanically, which is a fourth wall-breaking twist a lot of studios say away from. Needless to say, we’re excited about this and definitely want to give you more details as soon as possible. Stay tuned!

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With how much praise the entire internet has heaped upon Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP [99¢ / $1.99], I find it to be almost impossible to believe that anyone around here hasn't heard of the game… But, in case you've spent the last year on a cave in mars with your eyes closed and your fingers in your ears, you can check out our incredibly exhaustive review that covers everything you'd ever want to know and then some.

The cause for celebration today is the Autumn Equinox, which has resulted in the price of the "micro" iPhone-only version to dropping to 99¢, while the universal version saw a similar drop to $1.99. If for some strange reason you still don't have this game yet, now is a great time to get on board.

Also, Jim Guthrie's fantastic soundtrack that accompanies the game is also on sale. Head on over to his band camp site where you can name your price (or pay nothing, if that's how you roll) to download the album.

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What’s next for Rovio Mobile? Our guess is probably another Angry Birds [$.99 / Free / Lite/ HD / HD Free] since those cash vaults won’t be filling themselves over the long haul, but Develop seems convinced that the studio is setting its sights on publishing indie games down the line. In a chat about this with the publication, Rovio executive Peter Vesterbacka admitted that Rovio does indeed have plans in the arena. He added that its model would be different, if it were to make the grand switch.

“We have some plans for this area, but not ready to announce yet,” Vesterbacka said. “If we do something in the publishing area, you can expect it to be a bit different.”

Angry Birds was initially a Chillingo published joint via their Clickgamer sub-brand. No doubt, the studio has learned some things from that experience and it seems like it wasn’t too stoked about it all to begin with.

We’ve seen Bungie create a publishing label in the recent past, so why not Rovio, too? It’ll be very interesting to see how the studio will differentiate itself as a publisher and use the pull of its brand to supplement, fund, and help out other independent developers. Unfortunately, we'll probably have to wait awhile to see.

[Via Develop]

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Super Mega Worm [$.99] is one of those games I secretly dislike (even though we love it). I totally recognize that any game starring a huge, brown worm who eats babies and bison and can knock over tanks has significant value, but I’ve never been able to get over its digital control pad and buttons. My worldview has changed courtesy of the iCade, and now Super Mega Worm has become one of my favorite iPad games because of the support it throws to the device.

This game is ridiculous-ancient by App Store standards, so I trust you know it. If you don’t, the Cliff Notes breakdown is this: in the game, you control a large brown worm with a literal appetite for destruction; by eating people, animals, and soldiers, you increase the size of your worm and unlock new powers for obliteration purposes, all the while earning a high score that your mother would be proud of.

With the iCade, Super Mega Worm becomes the lo-fi, high-intensity action game that I think the designers shot for when they first put it together. You control the worm with a flick or two of the joystick in any direction, and you can spit and shoot with two of the thing's auxiliary buttons.

The feedback and response on the buttons are there, but the joystick is the thing that really makes the game pop; it allows for some pretty fabulous maneuvers, as well as precision and a sense of fluidity that you can't get with the pre-existing virtual controls. Look at it this way: it's the difference between playing, say, Mortal Kombat on a controller versus playing it on an arcade cabinet. You just get a lot more out of Super Mega Worm with an iCade.

For me, it becomes stunningly entertaining with an iCade, as any proper arcade title should be. I’m playing longer, I’m racking up higher scores, and I’m digging it much more. I’m even getting into the little parts that I couldn’t appreciate before, including the dialogue, the audio, and the brilliant visuals. I suppose the reasoning here is that my fingers are now off the screen entirely, instead of obscuring it as I frantically move about.

It strikes me as odd that I’ve rediscovered a game from 2010 on the iPad, but hey, that is kinda what the iCade does best. You pick up old titles and play them in entirely new ways, and sometimes, you even get more out of them. I highly recommend you pick this up.

Previous games we’ve covered in this series: Mos Speedrun / HungryMaster / Match Panic. Check out our NEW list of iCade titles here.

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It's expensive to buy and maintain a real horse, but now you can download a virtual one instead from the App Store– What a world we live in. My Horse [Free] from NaturalMotion Games and MunkyFun is a realistic horse simulation game, which allows you to groom, feed and reward your very own horsey, without ever leaving the couch. Although the true cost of the virtual horse depends on whether you choose to invest in the optional in-app purchases.

The developers goal was to create a horse which is realistic enough for the player to form a bond with. And they've managed to successfully achieve this as the horse graphics and behavior is pretty realistic. It flicks it's tail, grazes, looks around, trots, bucks, walks backwards and neighs. There's no obvious repeated animation loops, or cartoon graphics. You're caring for a real-looking virtual horse.

After meeting and naming your beast (default name was "Beauty", but I chose "GluePot"), Dan the Stable-boy assigns you some tasks, such as "take a photo of your horse" using the in-game camera. Completing tasks or spending time with your horse earns experience (XP) points, which helps increase your overall level.

You can tap the ground to place two markers and the horse will go there, at it's own pace. If a circle appears, you can walk your horse over it to collect XP. However, most of your actions are initiated by opening your leather journal, which has separate tabs for activities, care tasks, work tasks, competing and a marketplace for shopping.

The "Activities" are interactive mini-games, based upon feeding, treating and grooming your horse and caring for the paddock. For example, to groom your horse you swipe dirt from it's body, while feeding it involves buying a recipe and measuring out the right ingredient ratios. You can also buy extra horses. There's eight breeds of horse to collect, but they are all the same generic horse frame (size, shape) with a different texture. You can't make a custom-made mean beast or Shetland pony. You can switch between your horses, but can only play one at a time.

The health and happiness of your animal decrease over time, so you have to complete care tasks to maintain your virtual pet. There's 32 different care tasks to unlock, ranging from mucking out the stall and re-fitting horse-shoes, to giving vaccinations and plaiting the mane and tail. Each task is unlocked by reaching the prerequisite level.

Once you press the button for a task, it counts down to completion, which can range from a couple of minutes to many hours, as done in games like Smurf Village [Free].  Once the countdown reaches zero, the task is completed and you receive XP, while the horse gains health and happiness points. You can use gems (acquired from IAP or from each level upgrade) to immediately complete a task without any delay.

You can assign your animal to 32 different work tasks, to earn the coins needed for care tasks and tack (horse equipment). For example, your nag can be used for riding lessons, television work, or rides at the fairground. Again, you don't actually complete these tasks on the screen, they are simply count-downs. If your horses energy-levels get too low, he won't be able to work, unless he rests or gets a yummy sugary treat.

There's a series of show jumping events to compete in, so you'll want your nag to be in good shape.  Each competition has "entry requirements" such as a certain health level and training. You can either train your horse by completing a mini-game, or pay a trainer if you're impatient. As your horse moves towards a jump, a line moves across the screen and you have to tap a button so the line stops in the right color. If you're successful, the horse clears the jump, but the more you miss the mark, the worse the jump and the lower your score. You can work your way right to the world championships.

There's a market where items like stirrups, reins, saddles and boots can be purchased using coins and/or gems. You're given a few gems (1 gem per level upgrade, 3 gems for rating the app), or you can buy gems as in-app purchases.  The problem is that many items such as the best colorful equipment can only be purchased with gems. Yet, It seems unlikely that players will earn enough gems, without paying for in-app purchases.

The game features a social component too, as you can visit your friends stables to look after their horses.  One of the early assigned tasks is to visit a friend in your friend list, which helps promote the game, but is annoying if you want to play alone. Fortunately, there's a TouchArcade Forum for people seeking My Horse friends.  Also, be warned, the + GameCenter icon doesn't invite just one friend, it adds all of your friends with My Horse from Game Center.

This universal game has two Game Center leader-boards (total XP and total coins). Unfortunately your progress doesn't sync across devices, so you can't play with your iPad horse on your iPod.

My Horse is a wonderful game for horse-lovers and is worth a free download just to check out the realistic horse.  But if you're planning on playing this game for a long time, be prepared to spend some real money on gems, or accept that you probably won't be able to buy the best looking equipment, no matter how many coins you earn.  But, I guess that's still cheaper than a real horse.

Hat tip to Clint.

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GRL Games is known not only as the studio of one Graeme Devine, it's also developing a reputation for bringing video chat to iOS games. Last month we reviewed Full Deck Hold 'Em [Free] and found its video chat implementation fascinating. Now something word game fans can experience the joy of face-to-face play in the studio's latest, Word Chat [Free; Normally 99¢].

With one update under its belt already, Word Chat should be a well-executed experience. But while its single-player modes are great fun, the game doesn't succeed universally — and it falters, strangely, in the multiplayer experience.

No matter the mode, Word Chat centers around making words out of seven random Scrabble-esque tiles. The words are scored on the letters used, with a modifier added for length. Five letter words are worth double, six letter words are worth triple. For those who manage a full anagram of their tiles, quadruple multipliers are waiting.

Solo, Word Chat offers four ways to play. 200 Tiles gives players (you guessed it) 200 tiles to work through, seven at a time, to earn the highest score possible. Countdown gives players as many tiles as they can work through in 100 seconds. Infinite Play is like Countdown, but additional time is rewarded for words that are four letters or longer.

Word Solitaire was added in the game's first update. It presents players with seven columns of tiles, with only the lowest row exposed. Players must make words with the exposed letters and work up the board until all the tiles are used, at which point they level up and start over. This is easily the most challenging, and potentially frustrating, mode. You can replace up to three random tiles, but in my experience it's not uncommon to reach to the end of a level with no workable words. Having a solid strategy helps, but there's an element of randomness that leaves things occasionally frustrating.

Multiplayer throws you up against a Game Center opponent in Countdown mode. Both players use the same pool of words to keep things fair, so you're kept from seeing your opponent's words. This results in an oddly disconnected experience where the two of you play in parallel until a winner is presented at the end. You can't really take the time to chat, either, since you're on a tight timer.

Worse, there doesn't seem to be any way to decline video chat – at least not while playing with a friend (I wasn't able to find a random match to try it in). You'd best trust any Game Center friends you play with to stay on task. At least you can toggle your own camera on or off.

In Full Deck Hold 'Em, video chat makes a lot of sense. Seeing the expressions of your opponents adds another level to the poker experience, and the game is slow paced enough that you can have a conversation while you're playing. In Word Chat, it's a gimmick. A few tweaks could help, but when it comes down to it short-form word games probably aren't ever going to be very well suited to video chat.

The single-player content of Word Chat is worth the asking price alone (or lack of asking price, in the case of the sale that's taking place as of this writing). I'm particularly fond of 200 Tiles, because it provides a slow, thoughtful experience that most anagram-hunting games avoid. If you're looking for the next Words With Friends [$1.99] you won't find that depth of multiplayer here. But as an inexpensive way to entertain yourself while chatting with a friend, Word Chat will more than do the job.

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It’s not often that a game comes around that can be considered both a deep, strategy-heavy game, and a vertical-scroller. Yet, that’s exactly the sort of game that Elemites [Free] claims to be. Dubbed as a “Real-time Scrolling Strategy (RTSS),” Elemites combines the forced movement of a vertical-scroller with the inherent strategy of minion management and wraps it all together with a robust spell and upgrade system. It certainly sounds like an odd game, but Elemites manages to nail this combination and should definitely be on the list of any strategy fan.

In Elemites, you play as Relph, a wanna-be wizard that stumbles upon a magical book of summoning. In addition to teaching Relph how to summon Elemites, golem-like creatures that will attack anything in front of them, the book also convinces Relph to go on a rampage, destroying every village in the land.

So how exactly does a real-time scrolling strategy game play? Relph stays at the bottom of the screen, slowly moving forward (you can only control whether he goes left or right). Meanwhile, tapping anywhere on the screen conjures up Elemites at that location, which will slowly move forward attacking peasants, fences, buildings – anything in front of them. Summoning Elemites uses mana, however, which also doubles as Relph’s shield. Your goal, then, becomes to micromanage your mana by summoning Elemites at the right place and time, while recouping mana earned by downed foes and avoiding enemies gunning for Relph.

Relph also has access to a wide variety of spells that are progressively unlocked throughout the game. Spells range from damage boosts to your Elemites to life drains to chain lightning. In addition, each spell (as well as Relph and the Elemites) can be upgraded numerous times throughout the game by cashing in ‘Vengeance’ points, which are earned every time an enemy is killed or building is destroyed. Even though there are 16 total spells that are unlocked, you can only take five into battle, which means that choosing which spells to upgrade becomes that much harder.

The beauty of Elemites is that there are tons of different ways to play the game. Sure, summoning your minions is going to be a big part of your strategy regardless, but spell selection definitely affects the way you use them. Will you focus more on resource management and keep your active Elemites out there longer with healing and defense spells, or will you take matters more into your own hands with spells that directly affect your enemies? The upgrade system also opens up the door to a variety of strategies, as you’ll have to decide whether to make your spells more potent or invest more heavily in resource management upgrades.

Of course, variety wouldn’t mean much if the game didn’t play well. Thankfully, Elemites takes care of that as well. I appreciate the way that the developers have managed to boil the controls for what could be a complicated game down to simple touch-based mechanics. In fact, the controls may be too simple occasionally; if you don’t pay attention, you could easily exhaust your mana conjuring up Elemites. However, I’d rather the game be hyper-responsive than plagued with delayed input.

Another aspect I loved about Elemites was its overall presentation. The artwork in particular deserves a special mention, as everything from the menus and story illustrations to even the enemies are just well done. It’s obvious that a lot of effort was put into the overall visuals and it definitely shows. One minor complaint involved some strange graphic artifacting that would occasionally show up while playing, but it did little to detract from the gameplay. I even enjoyed the story writing, which does a good job of weaving the tale while not taking itself seriously. My only gripe is with the banner ad at the top of the screen that is present even while playing the game. Granted, the ad gets removed if you purchase the whole game (as a $0.99 IAP), but it still detracts from what is otherwise a great experience. I would have also liked a universal version of Elemites as well, as I think the gameplay would work well on the iPad.

Considering that Elemites is available for free with the first world unlocked, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t be checking this out. It’s simply an entertaining game that manages to test both your reflexes and strategy IQ and offers enough diversity to distinguish itself from the pack.

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