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Apple’s iPad Media Event recently drew to a close and TouchArcade was fortunate enough to have been sitting ring-side to watch the iOS phenomenon further unfold.

During today’s event, Apple CEO Tim Cook took the stage to announce, first and foremost, the third generation iPad (which is known as, simply, “iPad”) as well as related iOS apps and a new and improved third generation Apple TV.

It turns out that the rumors leading up to the new iPad’s unveiling were true; the new unit sports an improved Retina display with four times the number of pixels as the earlier iPads. The new screen has a resolution of 2048×1536 pixels and features notably improved color saturation as compared to the earlier devices. In order to push so many pixels around the screen, Apple has utilized their new A5X processor, a more powerful unit than the earlier A5, that features a quad-core GPU, bringing twice the number of graphics cores of the iPad 2 to bear on pixel- and polygon-pushing tasks. Given these specs, the A5X GPU configuration should be virtually identical to that of the Sony PSVita. Presumably the A5X features two CPU-cores, as did the A5 before it.

During the event, Cook brought several guest speakers on stage from various software studios, including Namco Game Design Director James Shelton and Epic Games President Mike Capps. Shelton demonstrated Namco’s upcoming aerial combat game Sky Gamblers: Air Supremacy, while Capps took the audience on a tour of Epic’s upcoming Infinity Blade: Dungeons. Both titles were an impressive demonstration of gaming on the new, twice-the-resolution Retina display of the new iPad. (Well, as much as they could be on a studio projector with a lower resolution than the new iPad, itself!)

After the main event, attendees were given the opportunity for a hands-on with the new iPad and to chat with several high-level figures, including senior VP of Worldwide Marketing Phil Schiller, about the latest iOS device.

Upon picking up the new device for the first time, the thing that strikes you right away is, unsurprisingly, the clarity of the screen. Indeed, the experience of using the new iPad is much the same as using an iPhone with Retina display as compared to an earlier iPhone or iPod touch. It’s striking, and in the best of ways. The jump in resolution, I noticed, was most visible in bringing up web pages in Mobile Safari, where content had the clarity of pages in a magazine. To me, the new iPad feels physically identical to the iPad 2, as far as weight and size.

I spent a short period of time with Air Supremacy and, there, saw high framerates with numerous aerial enemies on-screen, rendered quite a bit more sharply than I am accustomed to from an iPad game. I think that Infinity Blade: Dungeon might actually be a better demonstration of the design intricacy and minute detail that the screen can deliver, but I did not see that title, in person, unfortunately.

The device unveiled today brings unprecedented video fidelity to what was already one of the best gaming platforms out there — the iPad. It’s four times the pixels, with twice the graphics power of the iPad 2. All of us here at TouchArcade are anxious to see what developers have in store for Apple’s new flagship iOS device.

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I love it when a logo explains it all.

You put on your shoes, and turn on the app. In the background, you hear the throaty hum of an engine and the voice of a pilot speaking into her comm. As you walk out the door, she tells you that you’re on a mission. She doesn’t know what kind, and she doesn’t seem to care, either. Your target is Abel Township, one of the last two remaining strongholds within 100 miles of this area. This is weeks, maybe years after a zombie d-day. Right as you hit outdoors and start an honest jog, the story takes a turn. A missile slams into the helicopter. You hear the crunch of metal, warning beacons, and gears grinding.

You’re three miles out of Abel, and maybe a quarter of a mile out on your run. You’re told to jump, so you do. And then you hear the groans of the undead.

Horror and athletics don’t usually mix, but with a heaping of pure passion, these two things can gel just as well as sweat and iron. Zombies, Run, is an exciting fitness app from London-based studio Six to Start. Its goal is to tell you the story of a fractured world as you jog, and put you firmly in the thick of it. You participate as a silent and athletically gifted protagonist that the survivors of Abel dub “Runner 5.” Runners have a single job: run — run to find new materials, or pick up packages, or trade with others. Each mission in the game presents a new piece of scripted story. Each segment is broken into chunks that are cleverly bookended by your own workout playlists.

The stylish Zombies, Run! poster that was given to its backers on Kickstarter.

The effect is sort of like what would happen if Stephen King’s The Mist 3-D ever melded with Nike Plus. The narrators, who hiss into different sides of your earbuds as you run, provide a rough context as to where you are and what you need to do. They bump out pieces of story intermittently, as you picture wandering through the bowels of a messed up hospital or explore an air drop outside of Abel base. After each mission, the app turns into something similar to Fallout’s radio stations; it plays your music alongside radio-style commentary and news from two Abel survivors.

There’s a much more mechanical game part to Zombies, Run, too. As you run, you’ll pick up items that can be used to boost Abel Township’s hospital, food stores, communication station, armory, residential areas, or recreational facilities. It’s a simple mechanic, but it feels like a treat after an awesome run.

Sometimes, you’ll hear the groans of the undead in your ear and have to run faster in the real world to get away from the game’s zombies. This specific part of the experience is its interval training, which is an important element that sets this apart. Most fitness games are horrible at getting you to new heights. Even the good ones like EA Active are bad at this. Band exercises have limitations, and running in place isn’t going to get your bigger or stronger or faster. Pushing yourself safely with intervals in a real world scenario is an important component to any kind of serious training, and Zombies, Run has that.

That’s a great element, but what I really think makes Zombies, Run work, and work so well, is its soul. The studio has one experienced runner with a history of using fitness apps and a staff filled with people who dig and understand proper storytelling. They want to deliver something special. As an organization, Six to Start seems like the perfect fit for this kind of app.

The Origin

Adrian Hon is one of the brains behind Zombies, Run. He’s the runner of the office. He tells me that he’s wanted a better kind of running game since the iPhone made its debut. He’s used a lot running apps, like Nike Plus and Runkeeper, as well as a couple of more visual-oriented apps. The problem he sees with these apps is legion. Running while looking at a screen is dangerous, stopping to see your progress is counterproductive, GPS can send you to bad places, and there’s not an element of fun.

Hon says he used to hate running when he was younger. He, literally, “Couldn’t think of a worse thing to do.” This all changed when he discovered Garmin GPS, which added an element of fun to the mix. Because of this app, he still runs, although its more of a seasonal thing because no-one likes getting out on ice.

There's a Zombies, Run store that sells these.

“One of the things I really liked about the Garmin was the ‘ghost mode,’ where you could race against yourself.” Hon says. “It made me think there was quite a lot that could be done with fitness games. And I think that physical activity — and of course, sports — is inherently fun and good, so it really shouldn’t be that hard to make a game out of them.” He laments what studios are doing now with their fitness games.

“However, developers have been more focused on the more reliably profitable, yet massively competitive, genres of casual games lately. And more experimental folk find it more difficult to combine tech and physical interaction in a way that doesn’t make you want to shoot yourself when you try to play.”

Zombies, Run was the answer to Hon’s issues with fitness apps and a riff on Ghost mode. It’s a viable one, too, because it treats your phone as if it were an iPod Nano. It only spits out audio when you select a mission, and it never asks you to take a gander at it while you exercise. Aside from random zombie horde events, it also lets you decide when you want to push yourself. A lot of fitness games, if they’re not taxing, they’re just screaming at you. It can be a really counterproductive factor in a workout. It’s easier to get hurt this way. Zombies, Run allows you to take care of your body while also torturing your mind.

Zombies, Run was a project that floated around in Hon’s head since his Garmin days. He and Six To Start had a lot of ideas bouncing around, but they settled on this one, as it artfully combines super simple play alongside an actual story. The narrative is something Hon obviously enjoys, too. “It’s a shame that so few developers have made more than a token effort to put proper stories in their games,” Hon says. “I understand that Triple Town and Bejeweled don’t need stories, but then again, I quite liked Puzzle Quest, so there’s a lot of room in mobile for innovation, but we’re still seeing the same old stuff, even from indie developers.”

This is the first promotional image for the game on the App Store.

Six to Start is all about story. If it isn’t obvious from the fact that it created an audio-based running game about the end of the world, check out its web site.

“We are next-gen storytellers,” the studio proudly states. “Great storytelling and great gameplay is at the heart of what we do. Storytelling is a huge part of the world’s culture, and great stories have always had the ability to move and excite us, whatever the medium. Play means a lot to us, too. We draw inspiration from video games, boardgames, casual games and playful applications and services.”

Six To Start believes that through play, people can learn and discover new experiences. When story and play are combined, it gives Six to Start “the opportunity to deeply engage with our audience get them to do new things — as a large single group or individually.” It’s getting me to run away from zombies, and think about the world they exist in as I kill my body, so this place is obviously doing something right.

Six To Start and Hon’s baby became 3,464 people’s baby, too. Zombies, Run was funded via Kickstarter. The team put up the game’s idea, asked for $12,500 and then received over $70,000 in return. The project was funded in six days alone. Backers received all sorts of neat prizes, including their names in the game’s credits, a poster, or the chance to name something in the game after themselves.

Hon has prior experience with Kickstarter, so it wasn’t a big moment when the idea of putting Zombies, Run on the popular crowd-funding service came to him. However, the decision was also a great way to vet the game’s core idea. “Plus, we thought that the public would be easier to convince Zombies, Run was a good idea than the usual gatekeepers.”

Everyday I Hear Zombies Moan

I usually stick to high-impact weight lifting. I don’t run because I’m afraid that I’ll lose my precious muscle mass. Call it a tic. The truly awesome thing about this app is that it is capable of embracing your routine, no matter how weird it is. I normally use the elliptical for my needs, for example, and I can use Zombies, Run. All I have to do is turn off the GPS features and turn on its experimental accelerometer functionality and I can play just like a runner might. Conversely, I can also just chill with it, and listen to the story, although this method isn’t preferable.

I’m taking Zombies, Run into the gym every day. That’s huge because it’s proving to be a tool. On my calf and thigh days, it’s pushing me, reminding me not to fall into casual or relaxed grooves. I need that because I’m usually only interested in sweating if I’m lifting something spectacularly heavy.

I guess games end up changing a lot when the budget suddenly skyrockets.

Plus, the story is tremendously well told. This isn’t a blown-up, bombastic tale of a few survivors just making do. There’s subtlety to its characters and its world, and just like The Walking Dead, there are moments of intense action, bookended by periods of drama and character building. Zombies, Run wants to actually tell you a story. It isn’t afraid to do so, and that comes across, even if you might be slightly too tired to care in sections. I never feel like an idiot while listening to it, either. It’s told with a straight face and with enough touch to make it feel like an honest story, and not just some weird nerd fantasy running app. There’s interesting stuff tucked into each mission — stuff you want to tune in order to learn more about the world Six to Start is building.

Also, of note, this isn’t a trainer. It doesn’t scream at you. It might nudge you with the zombie horde attacks, but the app doesn’t get in your face. It let’s you do your own thing in your own way. It was designed specifically to do this.

“We want to enhance people’s lives by making their workouts fun, not turn into nagging machines,” says Naomi Alderman, the writer of Zombies, Run. Mission accomplished, I think.

Zombies, Run is available now on the App Store for $7.99. An Android version is coming down the pipes, too. Currently, the game has a total of 20 missions. More missions are slated to come down the line as IAP. Check it out if it even vaguely interests you. I think you’ll be surprised by its purity — and its scares.

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I came to Jeff Minter’s oeuvre late, around the time of the XBLA release of Space Giraffe. I mention this not (only) to display the depths of my ignorance, but to provide context: there’s more to love in Gridrunner [$0.99] than just nostalgia. For anyone who missed the heyday of the Commodore 64, Minter’s iOS titles might seem a bit unapproachable, but consider giving them a shot – they might surprise you.

Gridrunner wears its roots proudly, but it isn’t a dogmatically faithful recreation of the 1982 original. Or, rather, it isn’t only that: both the Vic-20 and Commodore 64 version of the title are present here as optional modes. The real fun is in the remake, which takes the things that made Gridrunner great from the start and runs with them. The grid and its cruel lasers, the little ship that faces them down alone, the flying droids and the missile pods they leave behind – all these things return. This time they bring along retina graphics, power ups, new foes and moments of bullet-pulsing glory.

This isn’t the first time that Minter has revisited Gridrunner—it’s the third in the last decade alone. Gridrunner++ was released in 2002 and Gridrunner Revolution came out in 2009. Both brought in big changes. They were trippy, colorful departures, introducing features like score multipliers and ship rotation. This new iteration hews a little closer to the original, but Minter has clearly brought in much of the game design wisdom he’s picked up in the interim. The resulting game looks and plays like the original – assuming your memories of the original come with a big helping of rose-tinted nostalgia.

This new Gridrunner is a great little vertical shooter, the classic turned on its side. There is only one potential problem standing in the way of enjoying it as much as any retroesque shooter on iOS – its controls. If you play on an iPhone or iPod touch, you might be in for trouble. If you play on iPad, have patience. Once you’re past the learning curve, things will be just fine.

The controls feel quite a bit like Mage Gauntlet’s [$2.99] Pro Stick. As with that game’s superb virtual joystick, you can put your finger nearly anywhere on screen and move your fingertip minutely to move your ship in any direction. This took some adjustment. Most vertical shooters I’ve played use 1:1 movement ratios, and emulating that had hilarious but wildly ineffective results. I had to learn to move gently, and to stop lifting my finger (for goodness’ sake). Once I got over that hump I was very satisfied with the precision of the controls, especially once I switched to my iPad. They’re equally precise on smaller devices, but I can’t find a spot to comfortably rest my finger without regularly blocking important stuff like my ship and the things coming to kill it.

After moving over to iPad, I could finally see what all the fuss was about. It’s hard to survive in the world of Gridrunner. As with any shooter, there’s a mess of enemies to deal with. Centipedes that travel back and forth and diagonally, blobs that travel erratically, shrapnel bombs, ships that hunt you—the list goes on. Some leave behind static pods that must be destroyed before they drop missiles (though those missiles are worth quite a few points if shot down…), and all the while a laser travels across the edge of the grid, firing downward every few seconds.

Defeating enemies is particularly rewarding in this iteration, as many drop rings that power up your shots. There are eight different powerups, and they can be stacked and combined in interesting ways. There are spread shots and directional shots that can speed up, spread out, last longer and ultimately explode into bullet hell when upgraded far enough. This lasts only moments, but it’s an incredibly satisfying few seconds while it does.

Without multipliers or any other finicky scoring mechanics to worry about, surviving is the only real mark of success. With so much out to kill you, you can’t afford to let your focus drift for even a moment. You’ll die a lot, but Gridrunner has that covered: at the end of each level it awards an extra life. This won’t always be enough. Eventually you’ll burn out your last life, and then it’s game over.

For players who are more concerned with seeing all the levels than earning the most prestigious scores, Gridrunner has a casual mode. This saves your best scores and life count every four levels and lets your restart there when you fail. Casual mode is ranked on its own leaderboard, but it’s still worth playing for those of us who need a little help progressing. For the hardcore, Pure mode is where it’s at.

As I mentioned, you can also play the original Vic-20 and Commodore 64 versions of the game. It took me a little while to find them, but I adore the way they’re accessed: just turn your device on its side. Either side will do, as each offers its own alternate mode. Cool, no? Also a bit opaque, but them’s the breaks when Minter’s involved. Similarly, the game is paused by tapping a spot in the middle of the upper half of the screen. There’s an invisible paw/heart shape there, I’m sure you’ll manage to find it.

There are more than a few other Minterisms to be found – odd text splashes as you progress, ridiculous kudos for passing each level, that sort of thing. Still, this is one of the more restrained games of his I’ve played, easy on goat breeding, llamas, wacky visuals and awkward sound effects. I rather miss those things, but I suppose we’ll always have GoatUp [$1.99].

Whether you have reason to be nostalgic for Gridrunner or not, it’s worth checking out. It’s a best-of-both-worlds sort of remake: faithful to its forebearers but filled with clever modern enhancements. If you’re dead-set on believing that the original is best, you can go ahead and play that instead. It even has its own leaderboard. Really, though, newer is better in this case. Hopefully we’ll see an alternative control set for the iPhone and iPod touch crew, but if you’ve got an iPad it’s all systems go. Enjoy, and pop by our forum thread to brag about your high score.

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It’s been over six months since Final Fantasy Tactics [$15.99] hit the iOS scene, and while the port largely survived the move to the iPhone we noted some issues that kept the game back from a universal recommendation. Even worse, the iPad version that we thought was on the horizon disappeared from the radar, leaving the small screen as the only avenue for playing the game for quite some time (iPad 2x mode notwithstanding). Now with Final Fantasy Tactics for iPad [$17.99] here, we can finally see if that half a year waiting period was worth it. While the port certainly improves in a variety of different areas (mainly due to the increased screen space), it’s still far from perfect.

For folks new to Final Fantasy Tactics, I recommend that you read our original review of the iPhone version (along with the recommendation to just check around the internet for the multitude of views on this classic). For everyone else, this is the same War of the Lions version found on the iPhone/iPod touch and Sony PSP (except for the multiplayer in the PSP version). It’s still the same, extremely deep strategy RPG that has kept its appeal even over a decade later.

One of our primary issues with the iPhone version of Final Fantasy Tactics dealt with an inherent limitation of the device. Specifically, the screen just felt too small for the amount of information displayed. Thankfully, the iPad version rectifies some of those concerns. The text is a lot less blurry (something that had been fixed in an update to the iPhone version since our original review), the added buttons and menus feel more spaced out, and the game just plays more comfortably in long gaming sessions. Unfortunately, the larger screen size also leads to a clearer view of just how pixelated most of the visuals are. However, I doubt most veterans of FFT are going to care about pixelated sprites.

Gameplay slowdown, another nagging issue that detracted from the iPhone experience (and has been somewhat addressed in recent updates) has improved in the iPad port. Strangely enough, not all abilities/spells seem to benefit from the additional quickness. For example, jump into the prologue and you’ll see that Agrias’ Holy Sword abilities (as well as Summoner spells later on) are greatly sped up. However, Squire Fundaments, as well as some black mage spells, still seem to suffer from noticeable slowdown. This inconsistency seems to exist across a variety of abilities, although the slowdown seems to affect far less abilities than previously. It’s important to note that despite the speed improvements, there’s still a disappointing lack of smoothness which continues to detract from the experience.

Gamers holding out hope that Final Fantasy Tactics for iPad features a revamping of controls are in for a disappointment. The touch controls, along with the general interface, continue to be a mixed-bag. The larger screen space of the iPad means things are generally easier to read and navigate, but there are still too many button presses, confirmation windows, and virtual buttons to be considered streamlined. Still, with enough playtime to get used to the controls I found the iPad version to be far preferable than the cramped iPhone/iPod touch screen.

Other elements, like sound quality and music, make the transition to the iPad with little change. MIDI effects still continue to occasionally sound odd, most likely due to the porting process. The music, meanwhile, is still one of the strongest suits of Final Fantasy Tactics, and remains one of my favorite gaming soundtracks to date.

When all is said and done, the iPad port of Final Fantasy Tactics can be summed up in two statements. First, this iPad port, while long overdue, is superior to the iPhone version (primarily due to larger screen) and should be considered the preferred iOS experience (assuming you have an iPad 2). Second, while the iPad version makes improvements, it still doesn’t match the feel of the original PSX version, which has yet to be duplicated on any platform.

For previous fans that haven’t checked Final Fantasy Tactics on iOS yet, your enjoyment will be based on how well you can check your nostalgia and overlook the nuances of porting. For everyone else, it’s safe to say that you should try this classic turn-based RPG any way you can, iOS or otherwise.

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Besides Illusion Labs’ Touchgrind [$4.99/HD] and a fairly solid port of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2 [99¢], the skateboarding genre hasn’t seen a whole lot of love on the App Store. Don’t get me wrong, there have been some decent skateboarding games released, but nothing that ever felt like it gave you a full on experience like what you would be able to get on a home console. Jet Car Stunts [$1.99/Lite] developer True Axis is hoping to change that with there just-announced True Skate game which is heading to the App Store soon. Check out the first rendered artwork for True Skate below.

There aren’t a lot of details for True Skate just yet, but True Axis explains that the game is similar to Touchgrind but uses a pulled back perspective so you can actually see where you’re going. I love Touchgrind a lot, but its strictly top-down perspective made it pretty awkward to effectively put together strings of tricks or adequately aim for the various obstacles in the skate park. True Skate is also said to boast more realistic physics, and should be “much easier” to pull off lots of different tricks, according to True Axis.

True Skate will launch with the one level which you can see in the screens above, presumably with more planned for future updates. It will be coming out later this year for “cheap” on the iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. We’re extremely eager to check it out and will have some more details soon, and until then you can check out some discussion of True Skate in our forums.

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We don’t talk about Nintendo much. The publisher does its best to pretend that the App Store doesn’t exist. On the rare occasions when it does acknowledge the existence of iPod Touches and iPhones, it’s just either to (a) re-state that it isn’t interested in moving into the mobile space or (b) take a shot at the App Store’s pricing model.

On the other hand, you can’t have a conversation about an unofficial Pokemon app without at least referencing the company. On Friday, a clone of Pokemon Yellow hit the App Store, and even though it doesn’t work at all, people have been scrambling over the thousand or so one-star reviews in order to give it a spin. It’s the number three paid app, in fact.

Undoubtedly, most people downloading this know that this game isn’t official. But, this isn’t stopping them from giving it a spin. Bigger picture, this is a great example of how many consumers want Nintendo games on their phones, and how they’ll try to get it anyway they can. Usually, we talk about this in the context of people going nuts over a highly derivative title, like a 2D platformer with plumbers and squishy monsters. This scenario is different.

To be clear, Pokemon Yellow is beating out Angry Birds, Fruit Ninja, Cut the Rope, and the world’s latest darling, Clear. Money is being made here, and it’s the significant variety. Oh, how we wish this could be used to lure the Big N to the Store. We wish we could just scream, “Hey, guys, look at this, you could be making this instead of some guy who couldn’t even release a clone correctly! Let’s do this!”

That’s dreaming crazy dreams. This won’t persuade it to join mobile. It’s too married to hardware, too convinced that continuing to release new platforms and supporting them with the Zelda, Pokemon, and Mario are the only way to be profitable. It’s a bummer, really.

Nintendo or the Pokemon Company doesn’t seem to be too concerned with pulling Pokemon apps, by the way. There are more than a handful on the store, all unsanctioned, and from what we can tell, unchanged since their initial appearances. The chart positioning is ultimately going to get Apple’s attention, however. We expect Pokemon Yellow to disappear within hours of this posting.

Pokemon Yellow on Gameboy.

We gave this a download, and can happily report that it crashes out immediately after its splash screen crops up. Users in its reviews have reported that it crashes on every device under the sun, so please don’t even try this out.

We actually wouldn’t be too surprised to learn if the game’s code even had anything to it beyond that splash screen and a buggy bit of UI. It makes more sense, if you know that you’re going to get your app pulled, to spend as little time as possible on it. Why bother with more than a splash screen?

We’ll keep our eyes on Pokemon Yellow and the game’s developer, who has a blog right here and has a history of publishing broken apps pitched as clones, as evidenced by its publisher page on iTunes.

Again, though, don’t download this, or hey, even the other Pokemon app that cropped up recently. These people are preying on you, and when you download these blindly or in some silly hope that they’ll magically work, they win.

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I’m going to let you in on a little secret: we’re pretty big fans of SpellTower [$1.99], the clever iOS word game from Zach Gage. Actually, that’s not really a secret at all now that I think about it. We gave SpellTower a full 5 stars in our review when the game launched in November, and an update the following month added Universal support and Game Center achievements, making an already great thing even greater. In fact, we thought so much of SpellTower that we included it in our Game of the Year picks for 2011.

So yeah, it’s no secret that SpellTower is pretty good and stuff. About the only thing the game is missing is some sort of multiplayer mode, but over the weekend Zach Gage posted a quick teaser video showing just that: a local competitive multiplayer mode. Matching words will send letter blocks over to your competitor’s screen, and the grey shading in the backgrounds shows where the other person’s current tile stack is at.

This particular multiplayer mode works over Bluetooth and can be played on any combination of iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad devices. Meaning, iPad players can get down with iPhone or iPod touch players. Zach also teases that this is just one aspect of the planned forthcoming update, and that there are other non-multiplayer new modes in the works too. When talking about new game modes, Zach cheerily states “Expect a few choices when the update hits.” There’s no solid release date for the SpellTower update just yet, but we’ll be sure to let you know when it hits.

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Tim Tebow is a starting NFL quarterback who throws just about as well with his hands as he does with his feet. But he wins games, and he wins them in some of the most dramatic ways you’ll ever see on a football field. His fourth quarter heroics resonate with people. USA Today correctly called him a “one-man cultural blitz” this season.

He also does this thing called “Tebowing,” which probably has a larger hand his cultural blitz-dom than his game-winning drives. Basically, whenever Tebow accomplishes something awesome like, cap off a game-winning touchdown drive or successfully put Gatorade in his mouth, he gets on one knee and bows his head. It’s turning into the new planking, basically.

Since Tebow is so hot and so different at the same time, we suppose it’s only natural that he’s now been further immortalized in an iPhone and iPod Touch game. Developers Ethan Dunlap and Kenneth Kunkel recently debuted Tebit Time [$.99], a game that seeks to capture the essence of Tebow with four in-game mechanics or less.

Yep.

It’s an endless runner that stars a Tebow look-a-like and prominently features a looping 8-bit rendition of the FOX Football theme. With a touch on the screen you can hurdle over an object or opposing player, stiff-arm, or even take a moment to Tebow on the field. Doing this at specific times adds a modifier to your overall score. There is no throwing mechanic, which is probably a good thing.

This is an exceedingly simple game played entirely on a cutesy lo-fi field with a seemingly infinite amount of opposing players and NFL junk to jump over. Scoring revolves around yardage; the more you get, the better. Our best score is 128.

In a lot of ways, this seems like more of a gag than a game. But in a conversation with us, Dunlap seemed genuine about his admiration for Tebow when we asked, simply, why Tebit Time is a game on the App Store.

“I have been in athletics for a great portion of my childhood, football in specific,” Dunlap told TouchArcade. “Despite being on a rather good team, we never managed to win a championship. We made it every year, but always suffered a heartbreaking loss. Even now in my college years a close group of childhood friends and I play in a flag football league and struggle to achieve success, our record is currently 0-8.”

“At first I didn’t buy into the whole Tim Tebow buzz, but after watching a few of his comebacks he started to appeal to me. I saw a player struggling to be successful, but his desire kept him going. After watching him beat Pittsburg on the first play in over time, I knew that I wanted to do something to pay tribute to him.”

“And that is pretty much where the idea came from. I was already working on a runner and just needed to switch a few things and get the graphics in place. Besides, who wouldn’t want to “Tebow” in a video game?”

Who wouldn’t? Whether this was its purpose or not, Tebit Time is worth your time for the laughs alone. On the other hand, it’s also not so great in the most important places; the hit boxes on players and on-field obstacles need some work, and the menus freeze randomly. Buy knowing this.

Also, we can’t shake the feeling that this project is probably destined to earn Dunlap and Kunkel a cease and desist notice. Here’s to Tebit Time flying under the radar in a very un-Tebow-like fashion.

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Munch Time HD is another heart meltingly cute game headed for the iPad “soon,” according to the game’s developer, Gamistry. From what we gather, Munch Time is a family-friendly puzzle game split across 40 levels, all of which will task you with swinging on multi-colored flowers with the game’s protagonist, Munch the chameleons’, Gene Simmons-esque tongue.

Different flower types “react” differently to being tongued. But also, each flower color will require the chameleon to match it by finding “special” color-turning flies. This is what the puzzle part of the game hinges around, though to be frank, it looks like Munch will be heavily weighted towards kids. Don’t expect Braid here.

The “HD” part of the titling convention has convinced us that this will also see a release across iPhone and iPod Touch, too. While we investigate the pricing model check out a real-time video of the game in action:

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Diggin’ Dogs [99¢] from Soap Creative and Chillingo is already being compared to Disney’s popular release Where’s My Water? [99¢],  since both games use the same “swipe-to-dig” mechanism. But the inspiration for Diggin’ Dogs actually came from Soap Creative’s online Flash game Truffle Hunter, which you can try on your computer. Personally, I didn’t think much of that Flash game, but I’m diggin’ Diggin Dogs with its noisy little puppies.

The easy-to-use controls involve a mix of swiping, tapping and tilting. You drag to dig burrows for the dogs to clamber down and swipe to make the dogs jump. Tap to activate and deactivate objects (such as changing gravity orientation), and tilt to make the dogs, coins and various in-game items slide left or right. If you’re not a huge fan of tilt controls (like me), don’t worry your fingers do most of the work.

To keep the dogs safe (and alive) you must make sure they avoid various enemies and objects, like wailing pirate ghosts, wasps, bats, poisonous toadstools, icicles and – perhaps most harshly – steel gin-traps with sharp teeth. You can also use the traps against your nasty enemies as you clear a path downwards. But don’t dig too enthusiastically, because once the screen scrolls downwards it never scrolls back up, so any objects you leave behind are unreachable.

Power-ups come in the form of hats with special powers. Like a magnet-hat that attracts coins through walls, a mushroom hat which transforms toadstools into collectible coins or a spray-can hat for easy pest eradication. Sometimes the dog with a specific hat must assist the other dogs to pass through a level, so you’ll need to split the dogs into their own tunnels.

The five chapters (Forest, Snow, Junkyard, Jungle and Volcano) are unlocked by collecting enough bones, and they deliver 60 levels in total. Each setting has different graphics, sound effects, cinematic music and enemies. Alternatively, you can purchase the “golden bone” as an optional in-app purchase to unlock all levels.

Scoring is based on the number of dogs that remain alive when you reach the golden boot at the bottom of the level, plus the number of golden coins collected. Your score is converted into a gold, silver or bronze medal and can be stored in Chillingo’s Crystal rankings, but there’s no Game Center integration provided this time.

Chillingo have a track record of publishing cute and entertaining casual games and with Diggin’ Dogs they’ve done it again. Although surprisingly, it’s not Universal and there’s currently no iPad native version (but you can play it in 2x mode). For iPhone and iPod touch owners though, Diggin’ Dogs is as entertaining as Where’s My Water?, which is a pretty big compliment.

TouchArcade Rating:

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