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Spiderweb Software, the studio behind the fiendishly old-school isometric, turn-based dungeon crawler Avadon: The Black Fortress [$9.99], have announced a new game that looks like a pretty faithful follow-up to that aforementioned title.

The new game is called Avernum: Escape From the Pit, and it’s being billed as the “first chapter” in an RPG saga. This one in particular will span around eighty different towns and dungeons filled with, of course, unique races, magic, mystery, foes, and artifacts to discover.

One of the coolest things we know about the title so far is that it’ll support plot branching of some sort. Spiderweb says that there are three distinct “game-winning quests” in which you will either be given the opportunity to escape, seek safety, or get revenge.

It appears as if the Mac version of the game is the lead sku. So, Avernum for Mac will see a release much later this year, while the iPad port will see Q1 2012 release shortly after. I guess the best part about waiting, though, it that it’ll give you enough time to travel Avadon again. Game is, like, mad huge and complex. Also, a bit dry, but hey, this is a niche title.

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Ragnarok Online is getting a mobile companion in the states, too. Creator Gravity Interactive just announced an oh-so creatively title called Ragnarok Violet. In brief, it’s an offline, iOS-specific version of the MMO that features a lot of the sights, sounds, and monsters that compose the ridiculously popular free-to-play game’s universe. This announcement is coming on the heels of two offline Maple Story releases, which have performed extremely well.

Specifically on the familiarity front, Gravity cites that Porings, Spores, and Marins will compose the base monster cast. It also name-drops Empty Bottles, Honey, colored herbs, and standard knight fare as the loot. As you play, you’ll also pick up monster cards, which can be used to modify your dude and make him stronger.

Violet appears to be a fairly faithful port of feature phone game with the same name, if this is all ringing a bell, that's why. The best we can tell is that it debuted at some point in 2008 or so. We've also seen indications that a US iOS version has been floating around seedier circles for a bit, too.

Anyway, Ragnarok Violet will appear on the App Store this coming Friday, August 5 (which seems wrong to us; most games hit on Thursday). It’ll launch for free, but if you want some hot drops quick and dirty-like, you’ll probably want to pony up the cash in its in-game store. As standard with these stores, it'll allow you to buy weapons, armor, and items. What? You didn’t see that coming?

Speaking of seeing stuff coming, we’ll probably see many more Ragnarok Online releases on mobile platforms moving forward. As of right now, there are eight out in the wild, and most of them can talk to the proper game in a rudimentary fashion, which is something this one will not even attempt to do. I always wonder how much more successful these F2P games could be if they actually could meaningfully touch base with the community and the proper game.

On a totally different note, it'll be interesting to see these Korean-centric apps as a whole chart in the future. According to Bloomberg, the Korean government just tossed out the government rating requirement for mobile games, which in return, also potentially means Apple and Google will open up their app stores in the region. Talk about hurdles.

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Every time I dip my head into the hardcore world of chess I feel like an idiot that has stumbled into a Mensa meeting. I'm not referring to actually playing the game of chess, but all the crazy competitions and other events which surround the game to take it to whole new levels. Today, I'm specifically speaking of the World Microcomputer Chess Championship, the World Computer Chess Championship, the World Chess Software Championship, and the World Computer Speed Chess Championship. All of these events are different flavors of the same type of event where hardcore Chess AI developers all bring their electronic chess-playing babies to compete for fame, fortune, and I assume a heck of a lot of bragging rights amongst certain circles.

Stefan Meyer-Kahlen, seen in the photo above, first brought Shredder Chess [$7.99 / Lite / HD] online in 1993, and since then has placed first at twelve of the various world chess software tournaments, doing particularly well at the speed-centric variety. The iOS version is no slouch either, with tons of functionality that will both provide some significant challenge if you're adept, as well as help you be a better player if you've got a smarmy older cousin like me who always insisted on beating you at every family gathering with a chess set nearby.

It does this through a shockingly adjustable AI engine that adjusts its strengths to yours, calculating your Elo rating along the way. If you're just starting out, you can even move the difficulty slider all the way down and Shredder will even make deliberate novice mistakes. Aside from that, there's a coaching functionality which allows you to analyze your games to see and learn from the mistakes you've made. My favorite feature is the little gauge at the bottom (seen in the screenshots) which shows what Shredder thinks the current winner will be, with some crazy accuracy, regardless of how hard I try to prove it wrong.

In addition, there are 1000 different chess puzzles, the ability to load and save games, and even export these games via the open "Portable Game Notation" format which is email-centric, and can be opened in full-fledged versions of Shredder. Also, by buying the iOS version you get a $10 off coupon which can be put towards the Mac/PC/Linux version which sells for €49.99 or €99.99 depending on whether you spring for the standard or the "Deep" variety.

Sure, there's tons of cheaper (or free-er) chess apps available on the App Store. And really, if all you want to do is play some casual games with friends, Chess With Friends [Free / $2.99] fits the bill perfectly. However, if you're a expert in need of a challenge or a novice actively looking to improve your game, Shredder Chess is where it's at, and has a shelf full of real-world trophies to prove it.

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Com2uS loves to party, apparently. The App Store publisher and owner of the trademark ‘tower defense’ isn’t above cutting the costs of its games in celebration of every single calendar holiday. But it also drums up weird reasons to price slash its games when there isn’t one on hand. Take now, for example. The publisher is 13 years old now and because of that, it has decided to drop a bunch of its games to 99 cents. Neat, I guess!

• Caligo Chaser – $2.99 → $.99
• Chocolate Tycoon – $1.99 → $.99
• Crazy Hotdogs – $1.99 → $.99
• Heavy Gunner 3D – $2.99 → $.99
• Heavy Gunner 3D HD – $2.99 → $.99
• Homerun Battle 3D – $4.99 → $.99
• Homerun Battle 3D HD – $4.99 → $.99
• Inotia 3: Children of Carnia – $4.99 → $.99 [Universal]
• Third Blade – $2.99 → $.99
• Trapped: Undead Infection – $1.99 → $.99
• Puzzle Family Starpack – $1.99 → $.99

Just as a little FYI, these deals started appearing before the weekend and they only extend into this afternoon. That makes today the last day you’ll be able to enjoy these prices… until Com2uS finds something else to celebrate. My cat's birthday is coming up soon, actually. Surely, Hannibal's name day is worth some good ol' fashion impromptu savings, right? You can thank me later.

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Kids vs. Goblins is an upcoming tactical action RPG being developed by Stolen Couch Games and being published by Crescent Moon. The crux of the gameplay revolves around controlling the 3 different main characters in the game and utilizing each of their unique sets of magic spells. There will be more than 80 spells in the game, and different situations that arise as you travel across the 7 locations in the game will call for the use of specific spells or tactics.

Stolen Couch has said in our forums that they took a cue from Mika Mobile’s Battleheart [$2.99] in regards to controls in Kids vs. Goblins, with what appears to be a similar line drawing-esque approach to moving and dishing out commands. Since Battleheart is one of the finest games around, I fully endorse this decision. It also employs similar real-time combat, and I’m looking forward to seeing just how deep the magic system is and how extensive the RPG elements are.

At the very least the 3D graphics are sure looking nice, and I’m really liking the general art style and character design used in the game. The developers plan on releasing Kids vs. Goblins in September, and I’m sure we’ll be bringing you plenty more details about the game in the weeks to come.

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The line-drawing genre has long been dominated by Firemint's outstanding Flight Control [$0.99 / HD]. It is the standard by which all similar games are inevitably judged, and with good reason — it's the granddaddy of the genre. But maybe there's room for new games in the market, and in our hearts. It's been over two years since Flight Control was released. Could it be time for a break, time to see other line-drawing games?

If so, you won't go wrong with Chillingo and Infinite Degree's Pollen Count [$0.99 / HD]. It's a game that didn't sell me with screenshots or trailers — the art is a bit clumsy — but it comes through where it counts.

By drawing a line on screen from bee A to point B, you direct your bees to collect pollen from flowers and deliver it to the hive. They need to reach both targets without running into anything en route. Though the obvious comparison is Flight Control, this is more in line with Harbour Master [$1.99] – you're moving cargo from place to place with a limited amount of space to deal with. In this case, there are only a few flowers to go around, and often bees are forced to wait in the wings. Managing the scarcity of the flowers adds a layer of strategy to a familiar formula.

Pollen Count distinguishes itself in progression. Rather than throwing down a set of maps for players to challenge themselves on, Infinite Degree has put together a series of unlockable levels that give the game a more traditional difficulty curve. To unlock them, you need to earn at least one star in the previous level. This usually isn't easy, and even the most experienced Flight Control fans will find earning a full three stars a challenge on most levels. Unlocking stages also gives less experienced players something to work toward, if the top of the leaderboard looks completely out of reach.

So how do you keep 24 levels fresh when you're dealing with a single-screen drawing game? Pollen Count handles that challenge by bringing in obstacles, powerups and other clever elements. Spiders, birds and zombees are all out to get your bees. While you're busy guiding them to avoiding those enemies and deliver pollen, you'll find environmental obstacles to deal with. And some bees are just plain picky about the flowers they'll harvest. It all contributes to keeping the game from getting stale.

If you want more, Pollen Count includes Crystal and Game Center achievements to earn and leaderboards to challenge. The iPad version also includes local multiplayer, both co-op and versus, with configurable levels. If you're really dedicated, you can unlock two special modes — a zom-bee survival mode and an odd 3D racing mode called 999mph — but neither offers leaderboards.

I wouldn't write Pollen Count off as nothing more than a clone. It makes great use of an established mechanic, and I'd have a hard time holding that against it. Running with an existing idea is an App Store tradition by now — the important thing is that it's been done well and it's been done respectfully. Pollen Count is a little rough around the edges, but it has the vital element covered: fun, and lots of it. Check it out, and give our discussion thread a buzz.

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We originally checked out the first Hungry Shark way back in April of last year, and found it to be a really enjoyable arcade game. You played the role of a shark swimming through several interesting sea environments chomping on lesser sea creatures and humans alike in an effort to satiate your hunger and increase your size. Hungry Shark got more than twice as big with a gigantic Part 2 update that was released a couple of months later, and earlier this year in February they brought the series into the HD realm along with another completely new environment to play through with Hungry Shark Part 3.

Back in June, Hungry Shark developer Future Games of London quietly released new versions of Part 1 and Part 2 with the HD graphics treatment as well as some bonuses available as in-app purchases. All of the various Hungry Shark games have been available for free for a while barring Part 3 and the all-encompassing Hungry Shark Trilogy HD for iPad. To celebrate Shark Week this week, they have temporarily made Part 3 free as well and dropped the iPad game down from $4.99 to 99¢.

There may be a confusingly large number of Hungry Shark games to choose from, but as long as you can figure out which features you need then these games are a ton of fun and totally worth grabbing for free. If you have a Retina Display device, you’ll want to pick up Part 1+ or Part 2+ to take advantage of the high resolution graphics. Owners of 1st and 2nd generation devices will want to grab the original Part 1 or Part 2. If you’re looking to play on the iPad, then the HD trilogy is a steal for just a buck, as it includes all 3 episodes in one app and has high resolution assets. Whichever versions apply to you, make sure to at least pick up one of the Hungry Shark games and assert your oceanic dominance while watching all the cool shows during Shark Week this week.

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Back in March, Bow Mobile and Brizo Interactive released their remake of the classic arcade beat ‘em up DoubleDragon [$1.99]. As a huge fan of these kinds of games for most of my life, I actually really enjoyed this new DoubleDragon quite a bit in our review. In fact, the biggest negative for me was the poorly thought out virtual control area that was basically an unnecessary gigantic panel that blocked about a third of the screen. My other problem was the fact that the Game Center integration in the game didn’t seem to be working at all.

Well, several months later and DoubleDragon has received its first update, and at least one of these problems has been partially corrected. Game Center still seems to be defective, but the developers have tweaked the obnoxious control area to be just slightly less obnoxious. The default setting now has the same control panel but it’s translucent, so enemies or deadly pits can still be seen if they’re at the bottom of the screen.

The second option does away with the decorative panel altogether, and just shows translucent buttons only. There’s still about a third of the screen that is basically dead space, most likely to keep a certain aspect ratio of the gameplay screen, but both of these options are much better than they were originally. You can see the new translucent controls in the left screen below, compared to how it was originally on the right. The "no overlay" option can be seen in the large screen above.

Another nice change is an increased hit box for the whip, which actually makes it a usable weapon now. Before it was nearly impossible to line up with an enemy correctly to hit them with the whip, but now, especially with its reach, the whip is a formidable weapon. There are a couple of other minor fixes to round out this update, but the improved control display is definitely the big one. It would really be nice if Game Center could get fixed too, but at least the game keeps track of your high scores and achievements in-game too so you can still get some enjoyment out of them.

If you are a fan of beat ‘em ups and haven’t checked out DoubleDragon yet, now would be a good time as it’s currently on sale for half off at $1.99. Hardcore purists may scoff at the new graphics, but the brawler gameplay is actually really solid and is worth having a look at if you're a fan of the genre.

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On this week’s episode of The TouchArcade Show, we fight through the appeal of talking about weird people who use library computers in ‘interesting’ ways in order to bring you discussion of the latest and hottest on the App Store. I think Groove Coaster takes center stage, but we also end up talking a little Angry Birds, and again, the “masocore” genre. The latter is due to Jared’s inability to play fun, wholesome games. Dude likes to lose — a lot.

As usual, you can hit us up just below through all of these fancy links. Additionally, you can support the show by subscribing to us on iTunes or the Zune Marketplace and then rating us sixteen stars out of five. We’re good like that.

iTunes Link: The TouchArcade Show
Zune Marketplace: TouchArcade.com Podcasts
RSS Feed: The TouchArcade Show
Direct Link: TouchArcadeShow-010.mp3, 37MB

Here’s your show notes! And prepare for another bonus podcast this coming Monday, as well as the regularly scheduled show this Friday. If you’d like to get in touch, podcast@toucharcade.com is the best way to do it, but you can also hit us up via the Twitters and the Facebooks.

GAMES

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If you haven't been following general gaming news lately, Nintendo recently shocked 3DS early adopters with a significant price cut to the system in the wake of troubling hardware sales figures in their recent earnings report. Globally, both Wii and DS sales are down 50%, which wouldn't be that big of a deal if the 3DS was flying off shelves. However, in the previous quarter, Nintendo has only managed to move 710,000 3DS units, worldwide. Total, they've sold less than 1 million units in the USA, which traditionally has always been a massive market for the gaming juggernaut. Taking full responsibility for the 3DS, Nintendo president Satoru Iwata has taken a 50% pay cut with other executives taking similar 20-30% pay cuts.

But surely you're asking yourself, "Why is this relevant on TouchArcade," as you mentally prepare your scathing comment to this story. Well, as we discuss in this week's podcast (which will be posted shortly) we're reaching a point where comparing the portable iOS family to dedicated gaming devices is totally appropriate. The era of the App Store where games were described as "good" with the requisite suffix of "for a cell phone game" is over. This last year has been filled with incredible game release after incredible game release. Unity and similar engines are advancing at incredible rates, and through the Unreal Engine we're even starting to see games simultaneously releasing on the PC as well as iOS devices.

So let's look at what's going on with the big N. The 3DS launched with what initially seemed like a strong game lineup that was oddly devoid of first party titles, which historically have amounted to the "system sellers" of the Nintendo hardware family. In fact, the closest thing to a "system seller" to many core gamers was the port of Ocarina of Time, a 1998 Nintendo 64 game, which came months after the launch and wasn't even developed in house. Since then, the 3DS has been plagued with delays and cancellations from third party developers, instilling even further doubt in the platform.

Further yet, Nintendo has taken an incredibly puzzling stance towards indie developers, with Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aime flat out saying that they have no intention of doing business with "garage developers." Comparatively, Apple has fully embraced the so called "garage developer," and for $99 a year has facilitated titles like Tiny Wings [99¢] and Doodle Jump [99¢] that have gone on to make millions upon millions of dollars while still providing a place for high-end show pieces like Infinity Blade [$4.99] to thrive.

The era of "traditional" portable gaming as dictated by Nintendo's vision seems like it could be coming to a close if they don't begin to adapt to what the instant accessibility of both development and distribution of current mobile games has provided gamers. While the 3DS's new $170 price tag is undoubtedly cheaper than even a refurbished iPod touch, the $40 price point of 3DS games flat out feels archaic in comparison. Wired's Chris Kohler raises a point that I could not agree with more: Once you've gotten a taste of the App Store, $40 is not a price point where you'll ever say to yourself, "Eh, what the hell, I'll try it."

Furthermore, as a kid, that price point means getting games only on special occasion. Birthdays, Christmases, or even as Kohler suggests, "maybe after getting a root canal if you cry enough." Comparatively, a pair of $20 iTunes gift cards could potentially buy 40 different games. Not only that, but non-stop freebie promotions has turned the iPod Touch into a portable gaming system with so much content that's available for free that it's an impossible task to download and play it all.

Nintendo is even dissuading customers further from buying these full-priced 3DS titles by bolstering their eShop with a full array of NES and Gameboy Advance games which likely will all sell for less than $10. Furthermore, they even seem to be distancing themselves from 3D with Nintendo's chief game maker Shigeru Miyamoto quoted as saying that playing with 3D disabled is "a perfectly acceptable way to play the games."

With previously successful hardware platform sales down 50%, their new flagship portable struggling to gain any significant marketshare and Nintendo executives taking pay cuts, it's safe to say that Nintendo is in dire straits. As Kotaku's Stephen Totilo puts it, "the 3DS era may not be over, but the era of untouchable Nintendo handhelds is now a thing of the past." Despite all this, Nintendo's Iwata has reiterated that Nintendo has no plans to sell its games to other non-Nintendo platforms.

Sega said the same thing.

I'm not sure anyone (including Nintendo) truly can predict the fate of the 3DS and Nintendo's future portable hardware, but it seems like this is the time for Nintendo to react to the App Store instead of dismissing it at every opportunity. As the lines between smartphones and "dedicated" gaming handhelds blur to near non-existence, Nintendo is going to need to take drastic measures. The 3DS price drop seems to be the first, and as a life-long Nintendo fan I can't wait to see what they do next.

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