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Regardless of whether you typically buy things with iTunes gift cards or if you’ve just linked your credit card up to your iTunes account and forgotten about it, Best Buy has a pretty great deal going that lasts until 7:00 PM Eastern tonight. iTunes gift cards are 20% off, and they’re available in values ranging from $15.00 (for $12.00) all the way up to $100.00 (for $80.00). Better yet, these gift cards are delivered digitally. So, if you’ve got a way to funnel money into the Best Buy web site, they’ll just instantly email you a discounted iTunes gift card code. How’s that for convenience?

Mash this link if you’re interested in taking advantage of the deal. You should see all the available gift cards. If the link isn’t working for you, just search their site for “iTunes (Digital Delivery)”. These 20% off deals aren’t anything to scoff at either, as buying $100.00 worth of credit for $80.00 could potentially net you nearly 20 free 99¢ games out of the deal depending on your local tax rate.

How much are those of you who are taking advantage of this dumping into the deal? I know people who buy stupid amounts of iTunes credit when these 20% off sales roll around, as that’s not only about as cheap as iTunes credit ever gets, but it’s also definitely a “the more you buy the more you save” kind of thing.

[via 9to5Mac]

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It’s 2012, and I’ve had a few years to conjure a snappy explanation of what Eufloria is and how it rolls. I haven’t. So, before I even get into how much I dig it on iPad, I’ll let my main man Rudolf Kremers — one of the handful of dudes behind the original release — do the talking. In our latest “bonus” podcast, he cheekily broke it down like this:

“Eufloria is a game of space, conquest, and exploration based on themes of plant life and flowers rather than space marines and spaceships.”

That’s the thing about Eufloria: it’s an RTS that goes against the grain. It doesn’t have any big dudes in big armor smashing space orcs in the face with apartment-sized space maces. It also doesn’t subscribe to any particular feel or taste, or really, any action-y RTS conventions. It’s a minimalist strategy game that has some cool, laid-back creative touches, and it’s all wrapped up in a sensitive production overhead that conveys the game’s core design ideals and gentle pacing well.

This much has been proven in past iterations. And for the most part, what you’ve seen is what you’ll be getting Day Zero on iPad. Eufloria on iPad still looks gorgeous, it still runs as smooth as ever, and all the little technical touches on the movement, placement and execution phases of the game have made it over. But, on the other hand, I’m not seeing a major adjustment on anything anyone has complained about before — the balance appears to be still a little touch and go, and in some of the levels I’ve been playing, the pacing is brutally, brutally slow.

What the iPad port does bring, though, are new ways to interact more intimately with the experience. Pinch and zoom can be used liberally to explore every little nook and cranny of each level. Satisfying drag, hold, and swipe gestures take care of the rest. It’s all good stuff.

I asked Kremers after the show to explain what he was shooting for with this version’s controls. He said that the main idea was to strip “all barriers between playing the game and the device you play it on.” Mission accomplished as far as I’m concerned. This is appears to be as much of a lean-back experience as ever before, and delightfully so.

Here’s a breakdown for those of you just seeing Eufloria for the first time. This is a game about asteroids, trees, and tiny, winged seedlings. In almost every scenario, the goal is to take these seedlings to an asteroid, build a tree or two, and then usher even more seedlings on to other asteroids. The tech tree is simple: trees build seedlings and asteroids have one of three different effects on seedlings, either making them strong or fast or energetic. As trees age, they become more potent and harder to kill. Eventually you’ll see some variations on unit types as well as a defensive tree that’ll keep enemy seedlings off of your rock.

The strategy factors into the picture in a variety of ways. You can’t hit up an asteroid unless you have an asteroid connected to it. Also, most asteroids are inhabited, so you’ll need to kill the enemy seedlings and then destroy their trees, which are jacked into that asteroid’s core. Cracking the core boils and tearing down an impromptu space settlement boils down to a numbers game: basically, whoever has the larger wad of dudes wins. Much later in the game, you’ll be given very specific tasks, like say, defending or finding a path through a system.

On our show, Kremers explained where these ideas came from. Eufloria proper is based on a proof-of-concept called “Dyson,” which is named after a british physicist who theorized that you could explore space by growing mechanical trees on asteroids. It’s neat to see this crazy idea living on in a game.

The beauty of Eufloria is in its simplicity; it’s artfully stripped of graphical clutter and is fairly bare-boned on the UI and sound front. It’s also strikingly easy to play for a strategy game since most of the action happens on a macro-level: clicks, drags, and drops compose all you’ll need for galactic takeovers. This type of game feels great on iPad, and it seems like Team Eufloria and Tunatech pulled it off.

My time with the preview build, for reasons of avoiding anything other than modest scrutiny at this phase in its pre-release form, has been artificially shortened, so I don’t have a verdict for you. You’ll get that later at some point this month when the game sees a release across iOS at an unannounced price. We’re expecting more details to roll in shortly. Fingers crossed.

All the screens in this write-up are from the PSN version of the game. I can’t tell a difference between the two in picture-form.

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I hope NimbleBit believes in the saying “There’s no such thing as bad publicity,” because they’ve certainly been the target of a boat-load of industry drama lately with not one but three individual TinyTower [Free] knock-off “betas” landing on the Canadian App Store in the last week. First there was Zynga’s Dream Heights [Free], then Glu’s Small Street [Free], and this morning we discovered another clone by Glu, Lil’ Dungeon [Free]. The main innovation of Lil’ Dungeon seems to be that you’re building down instead of up. Aside from some new graphics, just like the other clones, all of the gameplay elements are identical.

What’s more interesting than Glu mashing the green button on their copy machines is that Zynga actually has responded to the recent controversy. VentureBeat not only scored a interview with Mark Pincus, Zynga’s chief executive of social games, they also managed to snag a copy of a confidential memo he sent around. The takeaway from the interview is this:

In essence, Pincus is not saying that it’s OK to copy someone else’s game. Rather, he is saying that a company can make a contribution to the canon of gaming if it takes an existing game and improves it. That company can reimagine the game and remove all the barriers that stand between the game reaching a billion people.
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“You should be careful not to throw stones when you live in glass towers,” Pincus said. “When you pull the lens back, you saw that their tower game looked similar to five other tower games going all the way back to SimTower in the early 1990s.” …Read More

In light of this news, I got in contact with NimbleBit’s Ian Marsh for a rebuttal to Pincus’ claims:

It is a smart idea for Mark Pincus and Zynga to try and lump all games with the name Tower together as an actual genre whose games borrow from each other. Unfortunately sharing a name or setting does not a genre make. The games Pincus mentions couldn’t be more different. Sim Tower is a true “sim” with macroscopic management and fine tuning of a buildings facilities. Tower Bloxx is a timing based high score game.

If you take a quick look before “pulling the lens back” as Pincus suggests, you’ll find an innumerable number of details in the game that were painstakingly crafted to be identical to Tiny Tower. These are core gameplay mechanics and rules, not similar settings or themes that games in the same genre might share.

Why are there 5 different business types like Tiny Tower? Why do 5 people fit in an apartment instead of 4 or 6? Why are there VIP elevator riders that perform the same functions as Tiny Tower? Why do businesses employ exactly 3 workers and produce exactly 3 products that are stocked in exactly the same way as Tiny Tower. Even the tutorials at the beginning of the game follow the exact same steps.

All of these things are poorly hidden underneath an uninspired veneer which has become Zynga’s trademark.

It’s hard to disagree with the NimbleBit guys on this one, and it’s equally difficult to find the “improvement” Zynga claims to have packed into Dream Tower. From where we’re sitting, it seems that the main “improvement” that they’re seeing is the Zynga dog in the top left corner of the Dream Tower app icon.

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Also at Macworld this year was ZigZaGame Inc, the developers who are bringing Adventure Bar Story to the App Store. We’ve already gone pretty in depth with Adventure Bar Story in our hands-on preview, but another title that they were showing off is their Pokemon-style game Dragon Island.

Dragon Island has you exploring a huge world, battling and collecting over 200 different species of monsters. Each one can be evolved several times, and you can even collect recipes which will allow you to combine two different creatures to create a new hybrid version. Also, you’ll be able to battle bosses and claim their spirits in order to summon them in future battles.

Another interesting feature is that there are no healing spells or items in the game. You can return to the main town hub to heal, but if you’re out in battle and one of your creatures dies, then they’re gone for good. I kind of like this as it adds an element of suspense and risk, and should affect how you go about tackling battles and completing the many dungeons in the game.

To balance this, even though you can only battle with 3 monsters at a time, you’ll be able to bring more than that with you as you play. So if you do end up losing one, another monster from your queue will take its place. As you level up in the game, you’ll gain the ability to carry more and more monsters with you.

An example of 3 evolutions of a dragon

The world which you can explore in Dragon Island is massive, with tons of points of interest to discover. These include towns, forests, random battles, and dungeons. When you come upon a dungeon, it is randomly generated and turns the game into more of a rogue-like, and there will be one infinite dungeon where you can grind and discover monsters and items, as well as compete on a leaderboard for how many floors you can descend.

Finally, the battle system will be a traditional 3-on-3 turn-based affair. Each monster can have up to 4 skills, each assigned a special swipe gesture. Although your character doesn’t get involved in battles himself, you can still level him up as you would in a normal RPG, and then his stats will extend to the monsters under his control. In this way you can influence how you will play the game despite the massive number of different monsters in the game which are actually the ones doing battle.

I was blown away when I saw Dragon Island in action. The amount of creatures in the game, coupled with the ability to evolve them and level up your own character has the potential for just a ridiculous amount of customization and strategy. Along with a huge world to explore, a storyline, tons of items and abilities, and even an infinite dungeon, there will be plenty to keep you busy in Dragon Island. Be on the lookout for Dragon Island to hit in the coming months, or check out the thread in our forums for even more discussion on the game.

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Foursaken Media has made a name for themselves which such quality releases as Bug Heroes [Free], it’s spinoff Bug Heroes Quest [99¢], and the wacky arcade cooking game Mad Chef [99¢]. In fact, they have yet to make a game that I don’t like, and it looks like they aren’t interested in breaking that trend anytime soon as their newest upcoming game Sky Gnomes looks like yet another winner. Rather than go into too much detail about Sky Gnomes, check out the hands-on video below where the developer does an excellent job of explaining all the ins and outs of the gameplay:

Sky Gnomes looks like it’s going to be a ton of fun, and I’m really digging how you’ll be able to race against the ghosts of other players. Also, it’s a really attractive game to look at, something that doesn’t quite show through as well in the above video. Further down the line, Foursaken is also in the beginning stages of a sequel to their first iOS title N.Y. Zombies [99¢]. They’re aware of how overdone zombie games are in the App Store, but they also know that the original game has quite a following of fans, and they’re eager to put everything they’ve learned through their last several releases to work on the N.Y. Zombies sequel.

Sky Gnomes is just being wrapped up, so shouldn’t be too long of a wait, and beyond that keep your eyes out for the sequel to N.Y. Zombies to hit sometime in 2012.

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In April of 2009, the world was treated to Ow My Balls! [Free], the “Citizen Kane of iPhone gaming” according to our own Eli Hodapp. Ow My Balls! is a simple but powerful arcade game where you kick a hapless gentleman off of a rooftop and try to rack his, ahem, family jewels let’s say, against as many painful objects as possible before hitting the ground. Aiding you in this noble quest is the use of flatulence to keep you afloat and carry you towards some hard to reach objects in the environment (like unicorns), which will ultimately lead to higher scores.

So yeah, Ow My Balls! probably won’t be the next favorite past time of high society, but it’s an immensely fun and funny game for those who can appreciate its lowbrow humor. At last year’s Macworld I talked with Ow My Balls! developer Josh Michaels about a huge version 2.0 update to the game which went live the following month and expanded the game with Retina Display visuals and a whole roster of new characters, as well as dropping its price to free.

This year at Macworld 2012, I again met with Josh to check out the upcoming Ow My Balls! XL for iPad. The iPad version will include everything from its iPhone counterpart, as well as a number of new enhancements. There’s a brand new politician character to play, as well as other subtle nods to current events like the hippie Bobby Surreal “occupying” the starting rooftop in his tent. New swiping controls have also been added which are both simple to use and more effective, ensuring that even your grandmother could play this game (something I could sense was a concern on everybody’s mind).

Finally, there is some fresh new title screen music and some new character dialogue, both of which you can see in this hands-on video (FYI if you’re somewhere that’s not blaring fart sounds friendly, you might want to check your volume):

Unfortunately, despite reaching nearly 5 million users, Ow My Balls! wasn’t exactly a financial success. Josh’s other project, ironically, is the classy and beautiful Magic Window [99¢] app that brings amazing time-lapse scenery to your iOS device. It’s as gorgeous as Ow My Balls! is silly, and it’s currently the one putting the Cup O’ Noodles on the table. No, Ow My Balls! XL isn’t meant to make money, though it may offer some sort of in-app purchase as more of a donation type of thing. Instead, Josh draws satisfaction just from knowing he’s made people laugh with his work (and about an equal number of people angry, as the iTunes reviews have always been roughly equal parts 1 and 5 stars).

If everything goes according to plan, then Ow My Balls! XL should be launching on Valentines Day for free, and I can’t really think of a better gift for your loved one. Also, in the very near future the iPhone version will be getting updated with all the additional features found in the iPad version. Sadly, once that’s completed, that will likely be the last of game development for Josh as he focuses solely on Magic Window. Sometimes you gotta do what pays the bills, even if it means putting your farting, nuts-kicking game to rest.

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I was able to stop by Gameloft’s San Francisco offices while at the conference, and chatted with them about some of their recent releases as well as some of the backlash they’ve received over them. First was the issue of how they put advertisements into Hero of Sparta II [$4.99], and after an overwhelming amount of negative feedback they decided to take them out. I think it’s good when a company goes out on a limb to try something, and then can admit they were wrong about it and make things right in the end.

Next we discussed the reception to Dungeon Hunter 3 [Free], which was pretty mixed. The game itself was actually pretty good, but so drastically different from the previous two entries that I think it alienated the established fan base of the series. Had they positioned it as a spinoff rather than a direct sequel, I think the outcome would have been a lot more favorable. Plus, it’s a freemium title, which is the type of thing that will always draw criticism from some folks.

Finally, we talked about their recent release Urban Crime [Free], which was essentially a repackaging of an older Gangstar title into a freemium model. The game has not gone over well with either critics or players, and we didn’t have too many good things to say about it in our review either. The combination of outdated visuals, a rehashed game world that many people had already played to death, and tough freemium restrictions was just a recipe for disaster with Urban Crime.

(Left to right: Hero of Sparta II, Dungeon Hunter 3, and Urban Crime)

So what do these three games all have in common? Well, they’re all examples of Gameloft trying to find out the best way to sell their brands in a turbulent market like the App Store. Honestly, I think putting ads in Hero of Sparta II and making an old game into a freemium game with Urban Crime were just their way of experimenting to see what works, and although neither of those really went over so well with gamers the negative feedback was actually invaluable to Gameloft moving forward. And as for Dungeon Hunter 3, I think they made a good game but just didn’t position it right, which is another lesson learned the hard way.

What I did take away from our meeting is that Gameloft is not going completely freemium with their games from here on out, as some people have been quick to conclude. Part of these experiments is finding the best way to go about selling their future titles, and with nearly all of their development cycles lasting from 10-14 months, it can be hard to keep up with a market that moves as quickly as the App Store. But they assured me that they do have a mixture of the types of premium games that they’ve built their iOS reputation on still coming down the line, as well as titles that take advantage of the freemium model, which seems to be the prevalent model in the App Store as of late.

To wrap up our meeting, they let me get some hands-on time with their upcoming Unreal Engine title, which is still extremely early in development and doesn’t even have a title just yet. I’m sworn to secrecy on most of the nitty gritty details for now, but let me say that I was really impressed with how good the game is shaping up to be, and of course it looks absolutely gorgeous with the Unreal tech under the hood. About all I can say is that it’s a fully 3D real-time action game that will have a full storyline to play through. It will be a paid game, but will have some in-app purchase items. Finally, we should be seeing the game in the second quarter of this year, which should be by this summer.

I’m really hoping to be able to share more on the upcoming Unreal game as it gets closer to release, and after meeting with the representatives of Gameloft in person, it’s easy to see that they’re a passionate bunch who care a lot about putting out products that their customers will enjoy. Their recent missteps really seem like a part of a larger learning experience in a marketplace where traditional rules are pretty much thrown out the window. I’ll look forward to seeing how Gameloft adapts and grows on the App Store this year, and if they’re able to unlock the key to a happy medium between being profitable and keeping their huge stable of fans happy.

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At last year’s Macworld, XMG Studio was showing off Cows vs Aliens [99¢], a game I thoroughly enjoyed when it came out and is still amongst my favorite games. This year, their big upcoming title will be a brand new licensed Ghostbusters game. It’s not really past the concept stage just yet, but the mock artwork and test animation videos I saw are looking pretty sweet.

Ghostbusters will have a heavy social component, as well as some augmented reality gameplay ideas. So, for example, you might wander into Starbucks and get alerted that there’s a ghost on the loose there, and you’ll need to find it using your device’s camera and wrestle it down into one of those fancy traps just like in the movies. Then, you can valiantly hold your device in the air and loudly declare “we came, we saw, we kicked its ass!!” as the entire cafe cheers you on. Or something like that, at least that’s how I’d imagine it going down.

Another upcoming project from XMG is a remake of their incredibly popular Drag Racer: Pro Tuner [Free] series. Drag Racer lets you get super involved with tricking out a vehicle with tons of customization options, from cosmetic stuff to performance improvements, and then you get to take your ride to the streets and compete against other players and their cars. The new version will feature completely redone visuals and a nice UI overhaul, which the team tells me is something they’ve wanted to do for a long time.

Finally, if there are any teenagers in your life, then they might get a kick out of the just released Totally Amp’d! [Free]. XMG has enlisted some actual established actors to create 10 episodes to play through, which let you do things like create your own music videos, record your own songs, and come up with your very own fashion designs for characters in the game. The production values are through the roof in Totally Amp’d!, and you can check out the first episode for free with the remaining episodes available as a $4.99 in-app purchase.

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Smappsoft is another company that I had the pleasure of meeting at last year’s Macworld, when they were readying the release of their clever matching game Look Again! [$1.99/Lite]. We liked Look Again! quite a bit in our review, and a child-friendly spinoff was released later in the year called Look Again Jr [99¢] which takes the core gameplay of the original but adds in all sorts of learning-centric things for young kids like spelling and counting. It’s actually really well done, with brightly colored visuals and some solid voice work, and is something I’d suggest checking out for any of the parents out their with little ones.

One thing you might not realize about Smappsoft though is that they have a fairly large presence in the world of professional poker. Their Chinese 13 Card Poker [$4.99] has an almost cult-like following in the competitive card playing world, and a day doesn’t go by where I don’t see some kind of professional poker star tweeting about playing the game or looking for new online opponents.

Smappsoft is sticking with the poker theme for their next game, and are looking to turn video poker on its ear with the upcoming Pokertini. I was able to spend some quality time with Pokertini during our meeting, and let’s just say I had a pretty hard time giving them their iPad back. Pokertini looks like your average 3-hand video poker on the surface, with brightly colored visuals, a clean interface, and some jazzy background music. Video poker games aren’t anything new on the App Store, so initially it might be hard to see what all the fuss is about with Pokertini.

This is where the twists come in. There is a list off to the side of the screen that is filled with various types of powerups and game augmenters. Using coins you earn from playing, or by purchasing more through an in-game store, you can use these twists to change up some of the aspects in the game. Things like multiplying your bet amounts because you drew a great initial hand, or blocking high cards from being drawn from the deck because you’re trying to go for that low straight. The twist menu adds all sorts of crazy strategy to how you go about playing each hand, and is a really fun way to mix up the tried and true video poker gameplay.

The other big addition is a badge system that works almost like the mini-missions in Jetpack Joyride. At any time you can click the icons in the upper right of the screen to check which badge you’re currently on and what types of things you need to fulfill before advancing to the next badge. These can be tied to things like getting certain hands, winning certain bets, and more. This is the real carrot on the string for Pokertini, and I can already tell I’ll be spending an unhealthy amount of time chasing missions to upgrade my badge status.

Pokertini was a lot of fun during the time I spent with it, and it looks like it’s very near completion so keep your eyes out for it to hit the App Store soon.

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After releasing their first iOS game back in mid-December, I got together with Resolve Digital at Macworld to discuss what they have planned for the future of the game. It’s called Fathead [99¢], and it’s a 2D side-scrolling motorcycle game. This is kind of a tough sell in the App Store, as there are already dozens upon dozens of similar games, but Fathead’s distinctive feature is that it’s entirely controlled with just one touch. This means it’s extremely important to keep tabs on your acceleration as you tackle the terrain, as there’s no braking or reversing if you happen to mess up.

This also takes place on one, gigantic, continuous level. There is actually an end to the level, but very few people have reached it so far. Checkpoints spread throughout the level mean you won’t have to start from the beginning each time, and the more checkpoints you can cross on one continuous ride without crashing then the more your score multiplier goes up, opening the door for some nice scoring strategy. Fathead really feels less like a normal motorbiking game and more like something akin to Tiny Wings, in that timing and finesse are the keys to playing a lengthy, high scoring game.

As for what’s next for Fathead, Resolve Digital has an update coming in just the next few weeks or so that will add 3 new environmental themes to the game, which you can see below. One is based off of the developer’s homeland of New Zealand, one is a desert theme, and one is a city at sunset which is loosely based off of San Francisco. I’m told that the new environments won’t change the layout of the current level, and are just cosmetic, but it’s nice to have some differentiation in the visuals. Also, new levels are a possibility down the line as well, if the success of the game warrants it.

After the new themes come out, another new update is in the works which will add a currency system and two brand new motorcycles to buy. The currency will be stars that you collect during your run, seen in the screen shot at the top of the page, and the two different bikes will each have their own unique attributes to give a different gameplay experience for each one. I didn’t get a chance to check out the new vehicles as they aren’t quite ready just yet, but I’m looking forward to them as well as the new environments coming in the next couple of updates.

It’s hard trying to justify having yet another 2D motorcycle game on my device, but something about Fathead just keeps bringing me back to try and get just a little bit further and increase my score just a bit more. If you aren’t totally up to your eyeballs in motorcycle games, then give Fathead a look and keep your eye out for the new updates to hit over the coming months.

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