TouchArcade.ru

While iOS has become a haven for a large variety of strategy games, good RTS titles seem to come few and far between. Enter Amoebattle [$4.99], the latest title from Intrinsic Games and Grab. Hitting all the cues, Amoebattle does a good job providing a full RTS experience while making its own mark on the genre.

Amoebattle’s tale centers on your role as a new microbiologist exploring the microscopic world with the Amoeba Control System along with your AI assistant AMI. After some introductory research, you encounter rogue amoebas disturbing the ecosystem, which leads to a quest to discover the origin of these hostile beings. The overall narrative does an adequate job moving the story forward while not detracting from the overall experience. For most RTS titles, that’s all you can really ask for.

When it comes to gameplay, Amoebattle implements the standard RTS mechanics while infusing it with some novel elements. Missions are primarily linear advancement, with some stealth, defense and open-ended objectives thrown in for good measure. Amoebattle is also very unit-centric – there aren’t any buildings to produce units or gather resources.

Instead, your amoeba can simply replicate if they have a full ‘Food Point’ (FP) meter and sufficient power. FP can be acquired in a variety of ways depending on if your amoeba is an omnivore, carnivore, or herbivore (each classification also affects other attributes). For example, carnivores gain FP exclusively through attacking other units while herbivores can eat various plants to build FP. While you can use a full FP meter to reproduce, it also bestows increased stats, adding to the strategy.

Power, meanwhile, is a secondary resource that is slowly produced in the background (but can be sped up by capturing fossil artifacts). Players can utilize power to replicate or to launch a variety of probes onto the battlefield. Probes range from slowing down opponents to infecting them with a long-term poison and work well in providing additional battle options.

In addition to replication, your amoebas can also mutate into a variety of different units. Initially the unit pool is small, but as you journey through the campaign you unlock stronger and more varied units, each with their own stats and appropriate strategies. Mutation also requires power, meaning you can’t just wield it arbitrarily.

The above elements lead to a surprisingly deep gameplay experience. Each mission provides suggestions for completion, but as you unlock more options players can begin to experiment with different play styles. Whether you choose to bum-rush with close-range carnivores or utilize a balanced approach with ranged and support units, Amoebattle certainly keeps your options open.

Props also go to the control scheme, which offers an intuitive approach that works well on both iPad and iPhone. Amoebattle uses a combination of taps, drags, and scrolls (single and two-fingered) to control all aspects of the game. Admittedly, it’s a bit tougher to control on the smaller iPhone screen, but it still works surprisingly well. As expected, the game works best on the larger iPad screen.

There’s something to be said about Amoebattle’s difficulty. In short, this is one challenging game. The tutorial and introductory levels do an excellent job introducing core concepts, but once you reach the middle tier of missions, the game quickly stops holding your hand and leaves you to figure out the increasingly tough objectives. It’s important to note that despite the challenge, Amoebattle’s levels are fair. Just don’t expect to steamroll through all the levels with relative ease (especially if you’re new to RTS games).

Amoebattle’s other weaknesses are few, but do hold the game back from RTS perfection. The lack of a skirmish mode hurts replayability, as the game certainly has a deep enough system to make it enjoyable. The same goes for multiplayer, which would be perfect for this style of RTS. As it stands, Amoebattle has a decent amount of content with its campaign, but it would have been nice to have more to do outside campaign completion (besides achievement hunting).

Regardless, Amoebattle succeeds wonderfully at creating a touch-based RTS for iOS. When you take into account the deep gameplay, beautiful visuals (iPad-retina compatible, no less) and approachable control scheme, Amoebattle is a title well worth checking out and joins the short list of great iOS RTS titles.

TouchArcade Rating:

[source]

Late last month we caught the first video for Everplay’s upcoming hack ‘n slash platformer Spellsword, and thought it looked pretty darn cool. It’s an arena-style game similar to Super Crate Box but with larger environments, more enemy types, and many upgradeable items. It also features a more structured campaign with 90 levels in addition to unlockable endless arenas. In case you missed it before, you can check out Spellsword in action in the following trailer.

Yesterday in our forums, Everplay announced that Spellsword has an official release date, which will be two weeks from this Thursday on April 26th. We’ve been anxious to get our hands on Spellsword since it was announced, especially since it’s from the same team that did Terra Noctis so we know they can do platforming right. It all sounds good so far on paper, but the real test will be when we can get our hands on the final version of Spellsword when it hits later this month.

[source]

I love word games, but they have a bit of a PR problem: the vast, vast majority are glorified takes on the word search with a new hook here and a novel mechanic there. And y’know, I don’t really mind—give me a reason to frantically form words and I’m usually happy. Letterbox [$1.99] is a pretty good reason. It’s a game in the word-search mold, bringing in 3D block stacking for its special touch.

Word hunting in 3D is entertaining on its own, but Letterbox goes a step further. Finding words is a means to an end—the real goal is to use those words with a variety of special blocks to tear your tower down. It becomes a game as much about destruction as it is about creating words.

Though ShockPanda is keen to call the game “Jenga meets Boggle” in its marketing material, the Jenga comparison is a bit loose. There is no fear of collapse, here, no tottering physics. Instead, you carve away at your cube with each word you make, letters disappearing and leaving gaps behind.

It’s easy to create precarious outcroppings of letters that become utterly useless. But with a little careful planning, you can carve away their supports and let them tumble down. In Jenga this would be a failure—here it’s a necessity. Once reunited with the bulk of your letters, those left over Ws and Ks that were so useless on their own become powerful tools.

The more awkward letters of the alphabet are marked as orange blocks rather than white, and each one is destructive in its own way. Sometimes they’ll clear a tunnel straight through your tower, other times they’ll clear all the blocks that surround them. That’s great, because your ultimate goal is to clear away 100 percent of the blocks on screen. It’s a high bar to reach, but it’s a lot of fun to try.

There are other special blocks to help you strategize. Some rotate whole rows or columns. Another merges nearby blocks into a single mega-block. I have a love/hate relationship with the one that drops down a new layer of letters. It slows down your climb toward 100 percent, but it may be the only thing to do if you can’t find a word in what you have. And, of course, wild card blocks are always a treat.

Letterbox comes complete with three game modes. In Clear Mode, every word you play drops more letters on the pile. In Panic Mode, they’re added every few seconds. Chill Mode gives you only the letters you start with. They’re minor iterations on the original concept, but they switch the game up just enough to keep it from getting stale too quickly.

Though the fundamentals are solid, Letterbox flubs some of the details. The camera is reined in too tightly, so you can’t always see the letters on top of the tower or deeper inside it well enough to tap them. The interface is uncomfortably reminiscent of SpellTower [$1.99] at times. The soundtrack borders on grating—it’s full of well-executed electropop by Yung Sir, but vocal tracks don’t mesh well with extended play sessions.

It’s fun to destroy your way though each tower of letters, compelling enough to keep an eye on Game Center to see if you can come up with the best word or the highest clear percentage. But ultimately Letterbox is one more play on traditional word game mechanics, and it isn’t quite cool enough to overcome the creeping sense of familiarity. If you’ve been looking for a new word game to pass the time, check it out and let us know what you think. If it would take something really special to convince you to drop one more word game onto the pile, this isn’t the game to get you there.

TouchArcade Rating:

[source]

Since he started making games for iOS, indie developer Jeff Minter of Llamasoft has really been cranking them out. The guy has been making games — and, rather unique games, I might add — for over 30 years, but I don’t believe he’s ever dished out one after another faster than he’s doing for Apple’s platform. And that’s really good news for iOS gamers because all of his iOS titles are rather well done and worth playing. His latest title, Five A Day [link], which just landed in the App Store, comes close on the heels of Gridrunner for iOS, his excellent remake of his original 1982 VIC-20 game and one of the best shooters on the platform.

When we first reported that Minter was developing for iOS, about two and a half years ago, we mentioned a Time Pilot-style game that he was working on, set to be his first iOS release. Well, time passed, Minotaur Rescue arrived, and we never saw anything else about that supposed first iOS release. That is to say, not until now.

Five A Day is a shooter (with bananas), but it’s equally an ethereal experience of sorts. It’s a kind of spacey, zen sort of thing. It’s a little hard to describe, so I’ll let the author.

…it should’ve just progressed into a good old banana-oriented shooter as originally intended but by accident it sort of went all New Age and ambient. While still actually retaining the characteristic of actually being any good, of course. It didn’t just turn into a useless ageing hippy of a game that lies around smoking weed and listening to Steve Hillage and burbling on about auras and crystals without ever doing anything useful. Redolent it may be of joss sticks and wind chimes but it’s still jolly good fun and will kick your arse quite handily on the higher levels, just you wait and see.

But what turned the game all auras and wind chimes? Apparently, it’s largely due to the in-game audio which, Minter indicates, lead the way in shaping the game during its development.

It started relatively slowly at first, with just fluffy clouds and the addition of a rainbow trail behind the spaceship. Then I needed some audio and headed out to a site called Freesound, where you can download snippets of stuff and use them in your projects. You can search by keyword so I put in “Space”, and that was it, game was doomed from that point on. All manner of floaty synth sustains, whale noises, chimes and gongs, page after page of them. Once I started putting one or two of them into the game, the game more or less began to shape itself. By the time I got to the first shower of bananas and enumeration of the first end of level bonus the audio was already heading firmly in the direction of “epic New Age”, and that’s how it ended up.

So, there it is. Every Minter game I can think of is rather “out there,” but this one is just a little moreso, perhaps (if you can imagine it).

We’ve got the vibe covered, now for the gameplay. Five A Day puts you in control of a craft soaring through the clouds, forever shooting. The sky is full of baddies that resemble familiar, pixellated villains of video games’ past. Some of these baddies are in possession of fruit. You want the fruit, and you need to destroy said baddies to collect it. There are also rainbow-bejumpered minotaurs floating about. Collecting either of these places them in tow and increases your shield power (which enemy fire drains) and, in the case of the latter, results in a Death Blossom-style weapons discharge that is bad for those around you.

As you progress, other elements come into play as well, such as bosses, sky-mines, homing missiles, and the like. A goal of the game is to finish each round with at least one piece of fruit in tow, as five such completions in a row result in a bonus life for your having been the healthy lad and getting your five-a-day (of fruits and veggies). And the whole thing is set not to a frantic, pumping audio beat-track, but to the whispers and tinkles of a holistic astral massage parlor. It’s an interesting — and fairly odd — scenario.

Your ship can be controlled via touch, by drawing circles anywhere on the screen in indication of how you want to maneuver, as well as via tilt-control. As with most iOS Llamasoft titles, the iCade control unit is also supported. Our gameplay video demonstrates iCade and touch controls. Being a universal app, Five A Day plays nice with both iPhone and iPad.

I’ve been having a lot of fun over the past few days with Five A Day, as I have with every one of Minter’s iOS releases. (The guy’s catalog is outstanding and should be investigated by everyone reading this.) That said, the overall feel and pacing of the game — a bit more relaxed than the typical shooter out there — combined with the ethereal audio stylings deliver an experience that might come across as a bit of an oddity to the typical gamer as compared to most of his other iOS releases, or certainly most other shooters out there. I would recommend Five A Day to any like-minded gamer, but it’s definitely a different sort of shooter experience.

TouchArcade Rating:

[source]

If there’s one thing that can be said about Square Enix, it’s that they’re excellent at the whole production values thing. Chaos Rings II [$17.99/HD] is absolutely stunning. From the gorgeous musical score to the voice acting to the vibrant landscapes, there is a lot to savor in Square Enix’s latest turn-based RPG. However, that’s not really surprising. We are talking about Square Enix, after all. How often have they published a new game that does not make you whistle gently under your breath? The real question is, ‘Is Chaos Rings II more than a pretty face?’

The plot here works something like this: an apocalyptic force is threatening Earth with impending doom and there is only one person in the universe capable of stopping it. Can you guess who that is? Yup, that’s you. Sort of. In Chaos Rings II, you’ll play as Darwin, a rather effeminate-looking chap that had been unwittingly pushed into the role of the Nominator. As the Nominator, his job is to sacrifice the Pillars (a bunch of people that were forcibly drafted for the dubious honor), harvest their spiritual energies, complete something called the Rite of Resealing and seal away the Destroyer in order to save the world.

Here’s where it gets problematic for poor Darwin. To begin with, he wasn’t supposed to be the Nominator. Due to a freak turn of circumstances, he acquired the position after he unwittingly killed the original candidate. To make matters worst, he sort of murdered the poor bastard in front of the Pillars. Under normal circumstances, this probably wouldn’t have gone over so badly. After all, one predestined murderer is the same as the other, right? Obviously, that wasn’t the case here. You see, the Pillars in the Rite of Resealing are always composed of those who have some form of attachment to the Nominator. As you can imagine, this makes things a little bit awkward. Not only do you have to murder innocent people, you’ll have to murder some innocent folk that had ties to the dude you unintentionally axed.

(In spite of the religious undertones to the game, the eventual evolution of the plot will probably grab a smirk from any atheists in the audience.)

Intriguing as this all sounds, however, there’s a slight problem. While the Japanese voice acting is rather superb (my best friend, who is Japanese, assured me that the voice acting is also supported by decent lines), the localization is not. Technically speaking, there’s nothing wrong with it. There’s no rampant Engrish, no glaring grammatical errors, no spelling mistakes that may evoke a heartfelt palm to the face. Nonetheless, that doesn’t change the fact the English text feels … lackluster. The dialogue’s also anachronistic in places. Words like “gotta” and “c’mon” pop up from time to time to rattle your sense of immersion. As such, I can’t help but feel as though the full potential of the plot was never realized. Something had to have been lost in the translation. Still, it could have been much, much worse.

Gameplay-wise, those who have any experience with the original game or, JRPGs in general, will probably find themselves in familiar waters. For the most part, the game operates in a fairly linear fashion. You’ll be given a task and told to advance to a certain location. You must then make your way through an assortment of random encounters before achieving your goal. From there, you’ll have to go back to the central hub and begin the process anew. There isn’t much else to do. You get a certain amount of freedom in determining the sequencing of events but that’s pretty much it. There is no open world exploration. There are no mini games to engage in. What saves Chaos Rings II from being completely linear are the side quests that you eventually acquire from the corpulent, cat-like Piu Piu (he’s the only merchant available to you and your party) and and his scantily-clad cutouts.

A lot of your time will be spent moving through the exquisitely presented remnants of your world. Along the way, you’ll stumble across equipment, items and, of course, random encounters. You’ll also get to move through ’shortcuts’ in the world. Once you dive through a portal, you’ll find yourself in this odd little realm that would probably not look amiss in a cyberpunk setting somewhere. Here, you’ll also be called upon to partake in some incredibly light puzzle-solving. Each of the accompanying characters have a special ability that will allow the party to access a part of the world that cannot otherwise be reached. For example, Li Hua is capable of punching through barriers while Connor can shoot at distant targets. Needless to say, once you’ve sacrificed somebody (yup, you’re going to have to kill those people), you’ll lose permanent access to those unique skills.

While it doesn’t deviate too far from the standard formula (you’ll be able to attack, cast magic, defend yourself, occasionally escape from combat and utilize items amongst other things), combat in Chaos Rings II is actually rather entertaining. There are plenty of variables to juggle and even more to worry about. To begin with, you’re going to spend a lot of time deciding if you would rather have your characters acting separately or together. If you choose the ‘Pair’ option, you’ll have access to stronger attacks but will also open your party members up to damage that they would have not taken otherwise. Acting ’solo’, on the other hand, will provide you with more control but less of a punch.

It gets even more complex than that, of course. Technically speaking, combat in Chaos Rings II is turn-based but the reality is that things are also highly dependent on speed. This can be a serious problem if your opponent is armed with some truly devastating moves. If they have the opportunity to assault you before you can defend yourself, you can expect to see the ‘Game Over’ screen faster than you can enunciate your favorite obscenity. Additionally, there’s also a layer of ‘rock, paper, scissors’ that you will have to factor in. Depending on what forces are currently in play on the battle field, attacks and defenses may increase or decrease accordingly.

On top of that, there is also the Break Gauge and the Charge Gauge. The former was inherited from the original game. It’s a pretty nifty mechanic that monitors the flow of the battle. When it is marked even, neither parties will receive bonuses. However, when it sways in favor of you or your opponent, the Break Gauge will cause the beneficiaries to increase in potency. As for the Charge Gauge, it functions something like the Limit Break mechanic in the Final Fantasy games. Once it has filled up to a certain extent, you’ll gain access to your ‘Awake’ and ‘Advent’ powers. The latter will allow you to summon a massive being known as, well, an Advent that is associated with the Human Sophia (that thing you get after you’ve defeated the creature born from a dead Pillar) you currently have equipped.

Speaking of Sophias, those form another interesting component in the game. While Pillars are the only ones capable of bestowing the command of a monstrous critter upon you, you can also acquire Sophias from the game’s menagerie of enemies. Each ‘Monster’ Sophia will grant your characters certain atributes and skills. Once you’ve unlocked the right recipes, you’ll be able to acquire even more abilities by combining Sophias in a certain way, something that adds considerable depth to your character customization.

On a more shallow note, I’m going to take a moment to once again remark on the fact that Chaos Rings II looks pretty darn sweet. It is, by far, the prettiest game in the franchise yet. Compared to its predecessors, the resolution in Chaos Rings II is so much higher, the backgrounds more lavishly detailed. Even the characters themselves look more refined. That said, I’m really mostly in love with the little things in the game, things like cherry blossom petals suspended in the air and waterfalls trapped mid-motion.

As for the music, I’ve nothing but good things to say about it. I would buy the soundtrack if the Malaysian App Store would let me do so but I can’t so I’ll settle for assuring you that it’s something that would deserve a spot on most playlists unless, of course, you have an aversion towards soaring vocals and epic-sounding melodies.

In many ways, Chaos Rings II is the quintessential JRPG. You will spend a lot of time grinding. You will be gently but firmly led along the story’s path to its inevitable end. You will see all of the familiar JRPG tropes. However, that’s not necessarily a bad thing, but your decision in regards to whether or not you actually want to purchase the game is going to be dependent on this. For all of its flaws, Chaos Rings II has done more than ample justice to the formula. It’s refined, it’s meaty, and it’s definitely worth the high price of entry.

TouchArcade Rating:

[source]

Kairosoft really got gamers fired up when they released Game Dev Story in Fall of 2010, a sim where you took the reins over building your own game company from the ground up. Then, they realized we liked the formula, and a flurry of other “stories” followed. Pocket League Story. Venture Towns. Grand Prix Story. Mega Mall Story. It was fair to say that most of these games had a lot in common: build a business or town from the ground up. And while I admit I was a major fan, I don’t know that I would have sprung for another title in this series if there wasn’t a little spice thrown in to change things up a bit.

Luckily, Kairosoft also realized we felt that way, and Epic Astro Story [$3.99] is the result. If you take the building sim thing and mix it with some Star Trek and a dash of Phantasy Star for good measure, you’ve got a pretty good idea of what to expect here. Just in case you’ve never played a Kairosoft title before, they give you the reins on building something and managing its growth, much like SimCity.

In Epic Astro Story, you attempt to colonize a planet. The new stuff comes in the form of away missions, which are totally hilarious and buff up the gameplay in a way I really enjoyed. As a solid Trek nerd, I was extremely amused to discover my first residents were “James Turk” and “Jean Vicard.” Later you’ll be joined by Wes Smasher (which cracks me up every single time he says something), Bones Mc Gee, and many more great riffs on the classic Star Trek universe.

The away missions are handled very smartly by a little bar across the bottom of the screen, which takes up very little real estate but makes you feel involved with what is going on. As the team encounters question marks, they will experience events, which can be good (finding money) or bad (finding monsters). If you do find monsters, you’ll go into a battle mode. You can actually get a peek at your enemies and their hot points before you start a battle, and it allows you to equip your team accordingly and choose their placement on the field before a battle. Once it starts, it’s all automatic, but the battles are quick and a great way to earn both money and research points.

If you thought you had a lot to manage in previous Kairosoft games, you have even more now. In addition to building on your land, positioning landscaping for maximum benefit, and keeping an eye on your residents, you’ll also choose when the away team explores new territory and invite people from other planets to come live on yours. Tourists will fly in and out of your Space Port and attempt to make peace with your people. You’ll meet aliens in ships. It’s a lot to manage, but it doesn’t feel over the top or stressful.

On the whole, I think Kairosoft has done a good job dressing up the basic formula. It’s still fun, and the fighting is a welcome addition. I admit I would like to see the company do something completely different in the future, but as far as this goes, it’s my favorite title of theirs yet. Mixing elements of the core simulation gameplay from previous Kairosoft games has worked out extremely well for Epic Astro Story, and if you’ve found yourself enjoying their other titles then this one should be no exception.

However, I’m still waiting for Spock to show up. I pray they changed his name to Glock.

TouchArcade Rating:

[source]

What happens when you take all the block-sliding, switch-flipping, obstacle surmounting goodness of a competent 2D puzzle game and wrap it around a three dimensional, cylindrical frame? As it turns out, you get something like Rinth Island [99¢], of course. A tropical-looking puzzle/adventure with personality to spare, Rinth Island is about as much bang as you can demand from a solitary buck.

Set within the titular landmass, Rinth Island follows the tale of the island’s inhabitants after a moderately cataclysmic storm laid waste to their idyllic lifestyles. Okay, to be fair, things aren’t really as dire as it sounds. Here in Rinth Island, you won’t have to fight against the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse or sacrifice your bobble-headed self to save your neighborhood. Instead, you’ll spend most of your time running about fetching things like lamps or strange runic blocks. As you might have guessed, the story is merely serviceable but that’s perfectly all right because the puzzles will keep you amply occupied.

I really, really like what developer Buzz Monkey did with the puzzles. While Rinth Island still would have been a perfectly decent way of spending a dollar, the creative usage of 2D and 3D space is what makes the game so special. To give you an idea as to how it works, try picturing your average 2D level, complete with a panoply of blocks and ladders to navigate, wrapped around an invisible tube.

It’s not an extravagant twist but it’s something that can give rise to some unique situation. Because of how things are structured, not everything will be visible at the same time. Additionally, you’re also going to have to interact with things that exist on the other side of your current platform. Failure to do so can result in you having to reset the level. Before you ask, the answer is no. There is no way you can salvage a mistake. One false step is all it takes unless, of course, you’re willing to invest in the on-off purchase of the ability to undo an error.

Compared to the grandiose amount of stages offered by other games within the genre, the 60 stages currently available in the title can feel slightly lacking. Fortunately, however, a decent amount of replayability can be found in the form of Rinth Island’s three additional game modes and the slick built-in level editor. Festooned with almost every one of the game’s assets and user-friendly enough to teach to a hamster, the game’s level editor is probably one of the best I’ve seen. As an added bonus, you’ll be privy to information like the number of people who successfully met your challenge and so on.

The controls aren’t quite as slick as the level editor. While you’ll be able to select between a virtual d-pad and a more ‘hands-on’ approach, I personally found myself going for the former. Both felt a tad bit klunkier than I would have liked but the d-pad felt slightly more responsive compared to its counterpart.

And that’s my only real complaint about Rinth Island. Everything else is pretty spot-on. The art style is bright and happy, the music suitably atmospheric. Characters are cute and reasonably well-rendered. For those willing to spend a little extra, there’s a variety of outfits and pets that you can acquire for your chirpy looking avatar. But even without frivolous add-ons, Rinth Island is a solid and satisfying puzzle game with a big unique twist, and is worth having a look at.

TouchArcade Rating:

[source]

When you’re looking for a simple, compulsive time waster, do you look for something that lets you grind to your heart’s content, or a game where you can dominate a high score board with skill alone? This is an honest question. DogByte Games’ 8bit Ninja [Free] has a free-to-play model that doesn’t get in the way of simple good times, but it pretty much throws the whole leaderboard thing out the window if you don’t want to pay. Other than that little problem it’s a great way to lose a few hours to that good ol’ craving for just one more game.

Consider 8bit Ninja a companion piece to Halfbrick’s Fruit Ninja. In that game, you are a bodiless ninja with a sword and a penchant for murdering fruit. In this game, you’re a nearly unarmed ninja with a good reason to fear bouncing produce. One’s about the thrill of the attack, the other’s all about avoidance. They make a great pair, but where Fruit Ninja is a one-and-done sorta game that focuses on hitting peak performance, 8bit Ninja holds its big rewards back for the patient player who puts time into its substantial upgrade system.

If you have a weakness for levelling things up, 8bit Ninja is going to eat you alive. Just playing lets you level up your ninja, improving his special ability and shrinking its cooldown. You also pick up coins while you play, and those can be used to unlock and upgrade a whole list of powerups. You can equip three of those powerups in a given run. Eventually you can unlock new ninjas with better abilities and level them up too. It’s the sort of grind that goes straight to your head.

The game is simple: run left and right dodging increasingly aggressive bouncing fruit. Every so often a powerup drops from above. Depending on what you’ve equipped it might give you a few coins or boost your XP, or it might slice up some fruit. Splattered fruits drop coins and the occasional coveted egg.

As we mentioned in our preview, the IAP system is largely inoffensive if you just want to play. You can get by without ever making a purchase and never know the difference. Coins and eggs can be earned by playing, but eggs are quite rare and are more easily acquired with IAP. Purchasing any egg pack has the side effect of removing ads. So far, so good.

You can use eggs then to unlock new ninjas and scenery. They add small bonuses, but nothing outrageous. You can also use them to level up your ninja faster, or swap them for coins to upgrade your powerups. That’s getting a bit dicey from a high score point of view, but you’ll earn your way up there eventually. Things get messy with the last option, though. You can use eggs to purchase one extra life each round if you’re willing to keep plugging in dollars. That’s a pretty big hit to your potential if you don’t want to pay up.

Assuming you’re cool with that situation, 8bit Ninja is otherwise pretty solid. The only real problem is, as with most linear arcade titles, that the early part of the game gets dull and runs get uncomfortably long as you improve. But the game is extremely accessible and its touch controls are great. Between the thrill of random egg drops and the desire to level up and score higher, it’s probably going to get a hold on you.

So ask yourself what you’re looking for. If you want serious competition without hitting the IAP, this probably isn’t the game for you. If you want an entertaining time waster with cute pixel art, go nuts. Just don’t say I didn’t warn you when you’re desperately hunting eggs in the hope of catching up to the rest of the pack.

TouchArcade Rating:

[source]

I am undoubtedly a cat person. Although I only own one, I have some close friends that own six, and going over to their house is always like a peek into some magical wonderland I wish I lived in. Suffice to say that any game featuring cats is bound to catch my eye, so when a colleague poked me and said, “There’s a new puzzler called Kitten Sanctuary [$1.99/Lite], and you need it!”, I figured I could be in for something good.

At a peek, it looked like a cute match three puzzler, but after spending some time with the game, you get to see that while the game is simple, it’s really got quite a bit more to it than your average match three game.

Rather than go with the bare bones approach that many iOS puzzlers seem to favor, developers Clockwork Pixels decided to go with a different type of experience, and I really like it. Of course, the heart of Kitten Sanctuary is still a match three. But imagine that cloaked in something like a Nintendogs lite, and you’ll start to get an idea of what to expect here.

In story mode, Kitten Sanctuary brings you to “Kitten Island,” where you must progress through a series of levels to rescue 50 kittens that have been kidnapped by aliens. In each level, you’ll play the match three game to accomplish this rescue. However, the items you match are actually resources, which you will amass on the left side of the board. The goal is to rescue each kitty by making matches over a set of red background tiles, clearing them in the process. Once you’ve cleared the entire pattern of red background tiles the level is cleared, and you can bring your furry friend back to the sanctuary.

You’ll visit your secret kitten hideaway at the end of each level, and when you do, you’ll meet the cat you just rescued and learn something about him or her. This is where the game really shows off its charm. With not only a description of each cat’s background but a funny likes and dislikes list, you really feel like you are building a little family.

The sanctuaries create some depth to the game, and can be a lot of fun to interact with. You can get toys to play with your cats to keep them happy, and you will often find as you complete puzzle levels that an event has happened in the sanctuary, like the cats have colds or need general cheering up. You can check their mood points at anytime by tapping each cat. If they seem down, you can play with them by buying toys from the shop to keep them stimulated.

This would have been an ideal place to throw in IAP, but the game opts to let you earn money in-game instead by matching coins during the puzzle levels. I don’t mind paying for some in-game items from time to time, but I certainly appreciated it here that I didn’t have to spend any real world money to keep my cat family happy.

In addition to toys, you can also earn enough money to add decor to the sanctuary if you have enough. Secret bonus gifts are also available for a higher price, should you want to do some saving.

As far as modes go, you can adjust Kitten Sanctuary to be as easy or as hard as you like. In Easy mode, there is no timer and matching multiple tiles will win you powerups in the puzzle levels. In Normal, you are timed, and in Tricky mode, you have more red tiles than usual to match, but a longer time limit. If you don’t find enough to challenge you there, you can also aim to earn all seven trophies, some of which are very challenging.

Kitten Sanctuary is a very sweet game, but beyond that it’s well-crafted, and the attention to detail shows. For $1.99, it’s simply packed with things to do and feels anything but bare bones, and there’s even a lite version to give you a taste of what you’re getting. It’s a breath of fresh air for a matching game, especially if you want something with a little more to it (but that is also fun to play). The only downside I can think of is if you don’t like cats. Luckily, there’s a dog version for PC, so you’re covered either way.

TouchArcade Rating:

[source]

On this week’s episode of the TouchArcade Show we power… actually, we stay pretty much on topic. At the top, we address a pressing bit of user feedback before jumping into the latest, hottest, and best in iOS. Fibble and On the Wind lead off our games segment, and then we gleefully dive into a bunch of news-y subjects after the break. Topics include the latest rash of 3rd party peripherals and EA being voted the worst company in that one Internet poll.

Feel free to join us. You can listen via one of the links below, or hey, subscribe to us on either iTunes or Zune. If you like us, subscribing is the easiest way to get our new podcasts the second they hit the web.

Also, don’t forget to rate us and be sure to denote your team affiliation.

iTunes Link: The TouchArcade Show
Zune Marketplace: TouchArcade.com Podcasts
RSS Feed: The TouchArcade Show
Direct Link: TouchArcadeShow-046.mp3, 36.8MB

And now, the show notes:

GAMES

• On The Wind [$1.99]
• Towers N Trolls [$.99 / UHD]
• Fibble [$1.99 / HD]
• Sky Gnomes [$.99]

JARED’S KITTY KORNER

• Super Catrio I [$.99 / Lite]

FRONT PAGE

• Controller Round-up: Apple’s rumored device, the BladePad, and An Interesting Camera-Enabled peripheral
• EA Voted Worst Company In America
• Square Releases Puzzling New Game

[source]