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Chillingo’s Feed Me Oil [Free / Free (HD)] hit the App Store around a year ago, and our review shows, we had a great time with it. In essence, the game is a physics puzzler only this time around, the physics gimmick you’re forced to harness hinges on fluid dynamics.

Every level features two things: A spigot where oil shoots from, and an area (usually designed as a mouth of a strange creature) where you’ve got to get the oil to. Completing each level involves getting the oil from the spigot to the goal area utilizing widgets you can drag into the game area. For instance, oil flows off simple platforms, it can be curved by magnets, and even blown in a different direction by fans.

Feed Me Oil was shockingly popular when it first hit last summer, so there’s a decent chance you already have it. If this is the first you’ve heard of it though, make sure you don’t miss this freebie.

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It’s a Thursday on the App Store which is as just as good of a reason as any to set your games’ prices to free if you’re an iOS developer, or, at least, so it would seem. It sort of goes without saying, but due to the volatile nature of pricing on the App Store, you better grab these games now if you’re interested in them. Few things are more annoying in the world of iOS gaming than missing a killer freebie.

Get your downloading finger ready:

Beyond Ynth, Free – [Review] – [Forum Thread] – An absolutely fantastic puzzle game where you play as a little ladybug doing your best to survive each level, often by rotating curiously sectioned off boxes. Do not miss this game while it’s free. If you want to give it a go on your iPad, there’s Beyond Ynth HD [ $0.99 (HD)], too.

Braveheart, Free – [Forum Thread] – You probably have a lot of games on your iPhone, but how many of those games have you searching for the Holy Grail? (Not many, I’d guess.) You’ll hack and slash your way through all sorts of normal monsters, boss monsters, and other monsters. If you’re looking for the iPad version, Braveheart HD [ Free (HD)] is what you seek.

Escape The Ape, Free – [Review] – [Forum Thread] – This jumping game puts you to the task of drawing lines to create trampolines for JoJo the monkey to bounce on. While it looks simple, gameplay is deceptively deep especially when you start reaching higher altitudes and need to work harder to collect power ups.

Fish Tycoon, Free – [Forum Thread] – I’m including this game in the list because these dumb Tycoon games are responsible for soaking up countless hours of my time, going all the way back to my Palm Treo 650 days. Or, before that, now that I think about it. …And now, fair reader, I place this curse upon you.

Highway Rider, Free – [Forum Thread] – Have you ever been sitting in traffic when some dude on a motorcycle recklessly lane splits you at what seems like a million miles an hour? Well, in Highway Rider, you can be that jerk. The point system even encourages it, in fact.

Swordigo, Free – [Review] – [Forum Thread] – A side scrolling action RPG that is just fantastic. Imagine if you took something like Zelda II and released it in 2012, that’d be Swordigo. Download it. Play it. Love it. Trust me.

Towers N’ Trolls, Free – [Forum Thread] – I love tower defense games, you love tower defense games, and this is a tower defense game. It’s a pretty good one too, so if you haven’t scratched that whole laying out towers and murdering creeps itch in a while, here’s your chance.

Trigonon, Free – [Forum Thread] – The gimmick of this puzzle game is that it takes place in the factory of your mind. Your thoughts are represented by steel spheres, and you’ve got to get them out. Seems reasonable, and looks cool.

Vermes on Mars, Free – [Review] – [Forum Thread] – An interesting shooter where you control a small squad of robots (which are all upgradeable). You position them, and tap to target. It takes place on Mars, and your enemies are worms. The control scheme is worth giving this game a try.

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Does the name Remedy ring a bell? They’re the Finnish developers behind Alan Wake and Max Payne, but before all that, they released a top-down combat-centric MS-DOS Racer called Death Rally. (Oh, and, Max Payne [ $2.99 ] is also now available on the App Store, check out our review.) Anyway, a little over a year ago the greatly enhanced iOS remake of Death Rally hit the App Store.

To create the game, Remedy partnered up with Mountain Sheep, who is likely best known around these parts for Minigore [$0.99 / $1.99 (HD)]. Minigore saw tons of updates, so, I’m not sure anyone was surprised when Death Rally got similar treatment. Since its initial release and our original review, they’ve added all sorts of unlockables, character tie-ins (such as a guest appearance from the one and only Duke Nukem) and even full online multiplayer.

Yes, the game has been free before, and one could argue that it’s only “free” with air quotes as there’s a variety of optional IAP to be had. Regardless, if you missed the last Death Rally promotion, be sure to hop on this one. Even if all you do is tool around in a few single player races, it’s still totally worth the download.

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The highly anticipated update to Jetpack Joyride [ Free ] which Halfbrick has been teasing us with since we first checked it out at GDC has finally gone live in the App Store. Version 1.3 brings the major new addition of Gadgets to good ol’ Barry Steakries’ arsenal. There are 15 Gadgets in all which are unlocked with coins in The Stash area of the game. You can assign up to 2 different Gadgets to Barry at a time, and each one brings with it a special ability.

For example, the “Air Barrys” Gadget gives Barry a pair of sneakers that let him immediately jump into the middle of the screen, rather than waiting for the jetpack to slowly raise him to the same point. Or the Missile Jammer which will cause the missiles that target you from offscreen to come at you wobbly and slow. Or the X-ray Specs, which lets you see ahead of time what vehicle is waiting for you in the icon, as demonstrated in this latest teaser trailer.

As you can tell, these new Gadgets can dramatically change how you play the game, and if you thought you’d had your fill of Jetpack Joyride before there’s now a bunch of new items to unlock and use to reinvigorate you. There’s also new Game Center achievements and new mission types that tie into the use of the new Gadgets. And of course Jetpack Joyride is free to download and play, so if you somehow still haven’t gotten on board yet then what are you waiting for?

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Today, at The Gadget Show Live in Birmingham, four teams of student developers will bring Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone’s Fighting Fantasy series to the iOS audience in a brand new way. We’ve had the chance to look at the games in development, and they’re looking pretty hot.

The Make Something Unreal Live competition is the sort of opportunity most folks who’ve dabbled in game development would kill for. It’s organized by Epic Games and Train2Game. Student teams were given access to the Fighting Fantasy IP and, basically, told to go nuts with it. They’ve spent the last few months building games based off that IP using the Unreal Development Kit. Working with industry mentors, they’ve created new interpretations of the beloved books. Now they’ll go on stage and put the finishing touches on their titles with help from some of the industry’s biggest names.

If you don’t know the Fighting Fantasy IP, it’s a series of roleplaying gamebooks that were super popular in the 80s and 90s. A number of them have been brought to iOS in classic interactive fiction form by Big Blue Bubble, but this is the first time they’ve been reimagined for the platform as full 3D games.

There are four teams of students competing in Make Something Unreal Live, each with members with expertise in art, design, programming and QA. Each team set out with a different title: The Warlock of Firetop Mountain, Armies of Death, The Citadel of Chaos and Deathtrap Dungeon. We’ve had some time with each of the titles, and they’re shaping up nicely.

Digital Mage is the team responsible for Armies of Death: Rise of Agglax. It turns the tale of Armies of Death on its head. Players will command the undead forces of Agglax as they travel down lanes destroying the heroes and defenses of the kingdom of Allansia. Defeating enemies releases their souls, which provide the power needed to raise the undead.

The levels of the game are inspired by events from the original book. Though we were only able to try out the early stages of the game, Digital Mage says that the final product will boast a lovingly crafted story that expands of the tale of Armies of Death.

Indigo Jam showed us its take on Deathtrap Dungeon. Like the book, the game pits players against rooms of devious traps and vicious enemies. It’s a first-person action adventure with areas and traps designed on a grand scale. From what we’ve seen so far, stealth will play a large role in the game, and sneaking around unseen is the surest way to survive while you try to solve the deadly puzzles of the dungeon.

The Citadel of Chaos: Dire Consequences is a wave-based first person action game built by Derp Studios. Players are tasked with protecting Dree Village against waves of monsters. You begin with a sword and shield, but with each wave you survive you’ll have the opportunity to purchase and upgrade spells with the souls you earn in combat. Players who survive 10 waves unlock new levels, and ultimately win after 20 waves.

Derp Studios plans to bring in a story mode as well. This will take place after the final moments of The Citadel of Chaos.

Finally, we took a look at The Warlock of Firetop Mountain: Lost Chapters, by Commando Kiwi. Though we won’t know which game takes the grand prize at Make Something Unreal Live until next week, this one really caught our attention. Built as a third-person RPG, it already has a progression system in place and some promising looking item collection. But the combat system is where it stands out.

Lost Chapters uses an active-time style combat system, with a selection of abilities that operate on individual timers. To capture the element of luck that the Fighting Fantasy titles so relied on, blocking is left to good fortune. Each time an enemy attacks the player is presented with three cards. Each has a shield on the other side, one red, one yellow and one green. If the green card is drawn, damage is escaped. The red card hits twice as hard.

The four teams will show their games off today at The Gadget Show Live, and they’ll receive feedback from the advisory board. The judges include Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone themselves, as well as industry leaders that include, no joke, Peter Molyneux and Cliff Bleszinski. Teams will work to bring the games to their full potential over the course of the show, providing regular updates and showing their work off to an audience of over 100,000 attendees on the show floor. The winning team will be announced on Sunday, and it will get to take home a commercial Unreal Engine 3 license.

The games should all be heading to the App Store soon, though it sounds like the winning team might have a leg up on the others. The builds we played were still far from being ready for release, but they had real potential. Here’s hoping the final releases follow through, because we’re pretty jazzed about seeing more original RPGs and action-adventure titles on the App Store. So good luck to all the teams—we’ll be keeping an eye on what comes next.

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Swordigo [$1.99] shouldn’t be as refreshing as it is. We were playing through better hack and slash adventures twenty years ago. But the genre has stumbled en route to the App Store, and we’ve been left waiting for a classic of the mobile era. Swordigo might just be the one.

Touch Foo is building a reputation for impressive games. Soosiz [$1.99 / HD], the studio’s first release won our hearts with a combination of novel design and great controls. Swordigo has all the things you’d expect from a good hack-n-slash: boss battles, sword combat, spell slinging, character upgrades and a ton of exploration. We’ve seen it all before. So why is it so utterly satisfying?

Scarcity is part of the reason. But Touch Foo has done more than create a game in an under-represented niche. It’s done an outstanding job of building it in the process.

From the controls to the upgrade mechanics, nearly everything in Swordigo works better than you might expect. On-screen directional controls are so often awkward, but they’re flawless here. In the eight hours I spent with the game I only bungled one or two jumps with my hand out of place, a better than reasonable margin of error. And that eight hours of content? That’s just for the main game. If you’re inclined to hunt down every last treasure chest (and earn the related Game Center achievement), expect to put in more time.

The art might be a problem for some. I’ve never been comfortable with Touch Foo’s style. The critters and character design in Soosiz grated on me, and the transition to 2.5D hasn’t helped. The environments are decent if repetitive, but it would be generous to say the character models have the detail of a Playmobil figure. You might be inclined to skip the game because of that. Don’t. The hero looks better as the game goes on, and you won’t notice the look when you’re knee deep in rock-solid gameplay.

You also shouldn’t look to this game for an original story—Swordigo goes well beyond nodding to Link and his crew. I’m not saying that like it’s a bad thing—it’s a charming homage, and it’s also unobtrusive. Touch Foo clearly spent its time elsewhere, designing an impressive platforming experience and a fun set of customizable upgrades. Some of the latter can be bought with the not-rupees dropped by enemies and unsuspecting bushes. Others are found tucked away in secret treasure chests.

Early on, there isn’t much to do. You’ll have a sword and a jump button and can only do so much with the combination. But your toolbox expands as the game’s four spells are introduced. Three can be used against enemies, and all four let you interact with the environment in new ways. You can shoot switches with your magic bolts or blow up hidden walls with bombs. Boss fights take advantage of those abilities, and there are unique challenges in nearly every new area. Because of this, Swordigo stays novel for its entire length, never relying on familiar tactics for long.

If a challenge can be defeated using spells or objects from the environment, the game plays beautifully. Sword combat, on the other hand, is a bit stiff. Your attacks run in a pattern, and you’ll often need an overhead swing at just the moment you slash forward. Enemies seem designed to exploit that weakness in the most frustrating ways, firing just over your sword’s reach or swooping down and hitting you in the face. Thankfully death is rarely a problem—falling takes you back to the last ledge with a sliver of health lost, while anything more permanent drops you at the most recent checkpoint. You can also teleport between checkpoints, so it’s trivial to take a trip back to town to shop or heal.

So while there are frustrations and a handful of small bugs, they’re blips in a solid eight hours of entertainment. Whether it ends up as a hidden gem or a genuine hit, Swordigo will have earned its place in any number of hearts. Touch Foo may be treading familiar ground, but it does so with great skill. If you’re up for a good old fashioned adventure, this is where you want to be. You might also want to be in our forums—it’s dangerous to go alone.

TouchArcade Rating:

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This week on The TouchArcade Show, we battle through discussion about staph infections, broken necks, and other off-topic stuff to bring you the latest, hottest, and best in iOS news, reviews, and commentary. At the top, we do a new iPad check-in just to see if everyone is still digging Apple’s New Thing. Later, we dive into discussions on Swordigo, Hunger Games: Girl On Fire and Angry Birds Space. Of course, we also get to your user questions.

If you’d like to listen, feel free to do so via the links below. Additionally, you can subscribe to our weekly radio show via Zune and iTunes. It’s the easiest way to get our stuff the second its uploaded to the Internet, so consider your options!

iTunes Link: The TouchArcade Show
Zune Marketplace: TouchArcade.com Podcasts
RSS Feed: The TouchArcade Show
Direct Link: TouchArcadeShow-044.mp3, 42.7MB

And now your show notes:

GAMES

• Angry Birds Space [$.99 / HD]
• Hunger Games: Girl On Fire [Free]
• Sky Gamblers: Aerial Supremacy [$4.99]
• Fireball: SE[$.99 / HD]
• Swordigo [$1.99]

JARED’S KITTY KORNER

• Nyan Cat Adventure [$.99 / Free]

FRONT PAGE

• Zynga buys ‘Draw Something’ Devs
• Mobile ‘WOW’ Could Still Happen

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