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Fans of 2D Minecraft-ing on iOS have had it pretty good with the excellent Junk Jack [$2.99/Lite], but the developers at Bytebin Studios want to know what would happen if you take a similar Terraria/Minecraft sandbox idea, placed it in a steampunk setting, and let everyone connect to one giant persistent world together online MMO style. The result is Deepworld, and you can get a pretty good idea of what it’s like in this new gameplay trailer.

Deepworld is in an alpha state but is close to entering beta, and as the game stands right now it contains procedurally generated worlds, a robust crafting system, a day/night cycle and weather effects, and a limited number of enemies. It will also be coming out for Mac, and since the game world is stored in the cloud, there will be cross-platform play between the iOS and Mac versions.

Longer-term goals for Deepworld are a dynamic ecosystem that can be dilapidated and brought back to health, a steam-based power source for creating vehicles and machines, and social game types like Capture the Flag and Freeze Tag. While the idea of something like Deepworld is certainly intriguing, it’s also incredibly ambitious for an iOS title. I’ll feel much better once the initial product gets released and I can actually try it out, and much like Junk Jack or Minecraft itself, Deepworld will likely evolve over time.

It sounds like Deepworld is set to initially launch pretty soon, and we’ll keep an eye out for a specific release date. Until then you can swing by our forums to talk about the game.

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Galcon [ $1.99 ] creator Phil Hassey, who also released the poultry-themed Galcon parody Chickon [ Free ] on iOS this past November, has revealed his latest upcoming project which is titled Dynamite Jack. In it, you play as a Space Marine who has been captured in battle and enslaved by your enemies to work in a mine. Naturally, you don’t take kindly to this, so you set out to break free from the mine and defeat your captors.

Gameplay in Dynamite Jack is top-down and in “glorious 2D”, and totally looks like a mashup of elements from the classic Bomberman and Metal Gear series, perhaps with a dash of Syndicate thrown in there for good measure. Basically, it looks just about as awesome as you’d imagine that combination of games to be, as you can see for yourself in the game’s trailer.

Right now Dynamite Jack is shooting for a May launch on Mac and PC, but as Phil told me over Twitter, a port of the game to iPad following the desktop version launch is extremely likely, and he even makes special mention of it having iCade support. In another tweet, Phil says he built Dynamite Jack from the beginning with the iPad in mind, so the porting process should hopefully go pretty smoothly.

I’m really loving the look of Dynamite Jack based on the video, and I’ll be anxious to check it out when it hits the Mac and PC next month. As for the iOS port, it sounds like it will become a reality, and I’m sure we’ll have more information on that in the coming weeks.

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Being a fan of Diablo-style loot grinds, I was pretty excited to try DevilDark: The Fallen Kingdom [$0.99], Triniti Interactive’s take on the classic dungeon hack and slash. For the most part, DevilDark actually does a good job recreating the experience with nice visuals and a decent amount of weapons and armor. Unfortunately, simplistic gameplay combined with some general miscues hold the title back from stardom.

DevilDark follows the story of a wandering (and clueless) adventurer that sets out on a journey to save the world from being ravaged by an evil demon, who had been unleashed by a power-hungry king years beforehand. You’ll slowly accomplish this by doing a bunch of quests that involve fetching items and taking down hordes of baddies. An occasional boss battle permeates the monotony, but for the most part, DevilDark stays close to its dungeon crawling roots. While I realize that narrative may not be the priority in such a game, I would have liked something more than the intro cutscene and what little I can glean from quest texts.

One of the keys to a successful dungeon hack and slash is a robust inventory. While DevilDark doesn’t provide the limitless customization of say a Diablo, there’s more than enough loot to keep you occupied. Additional features such as bonuses for wearing groups of armor as well as elemental infusion do a great job adding some much-needed customization. The inclusion of a slot machine that has the potential to toss out some high-leveled gear is a nice touch, as well. However, I wasn’t a fan of the fact that some weapons and armor required currency that could only be purchased via IAP. Suffice to say, these special items aren’t required to complete the game – just expect to grind a lot more to pick up the normal currency items.

DevilDark’s visual engine is another standout feature in the game. The cell-shaded style looks great on Retina-enabled iOS devices. While Retina Display compatibility extends to the new iPad, please note that there’s currently a UI bug that’s been identified and should be fixed relatively soon. It’s also nice that items equipped on your character change his appearance. The music and character design do a decent job reflecting the overall tongue-in-cheek presentation, although the music does get a bit repetitive as you begin playing the same maps continuously.

Speaking of repetition, gameplay is quite simplistic, even for a dungeon hack and slash. There’s little in terms of additional abilities (which are tied to which weapon you wield) beyond simply attacking. In addition, DevilDark has a few quirks that, while hardly significant, still detract from the experience. For example, there are a lot of reused maps and assets which quickly become boring with the amount of grinding you’ll have to do. Navigation is also done via a static overworld map, which feels a bit disjointed.

Another annoyance is the fact that the game doesn’t warn you when you accidentally exit a map (and thus end the mission). Considering the camera angles can occasionally block the ‘world portal’ I had a few instances where I wandered into the exit and lost all of my mission progress. The lack of iCloud support is disappointing as well.

The pacing also feels a bit off. ‘Story-based’ missions seem to drastically jump in difficulty with the completion of each previous objective. While DevilDark offers plenty of optional missions to earn coin and experience in order to prepare for said story missions, I’m not a fan of the sheer amount of grinding necessary.

It seems silly complaining about excessive grinding when the goal of games such as DevilDark are to, well, grind. However, there’s a lot of ways to implement the grind that keep it interesting without messing with the core formula. If DevilDark had a more cohesive story accompanied by randomized maps and a little more complex battle system, it would be at the top of my list on iOS. As it currently stands, the visual engine and sense of progression are enough to merit a recommendation, but there is potential for it to be much more.

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Ladies and gentlemen, fire up your speculation machines, as this one is a doozie. According to Apple Insider, Apple CEO Tim Cook was spotted wandering around the Valve headquarters in Bellevue, WA earlier today. What his purpose was for swinging by is basically a game of Apple rumor whack-a-mole. Valve got involved with the Apple community when they released Steam for the Mac, and since then have even released Steam Mobile [ Free ] for iOS devices.

The possibilities are endless. An expanded collaboration between the two companies could be in the works which could mean more Mac games, or potentially Valve even getting into iOS development. Either way, something strange is afoot. Of course, Tim could just have flown up there to go out to lunch with Gabe, too. Or, maybe he’s just a fan of the greater Seattle area.

Speculation time… GO!

[via Apple Insider]

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We’ve been looking forward to Ravenous Games’ upcoming Burger Cat since it was announced in late March. Not just because it’s a game featuring an adorable cat, which is reason enough to be excited in my book, but also because it looked like a clever puzzle platformer that was a casual-focused departure from the grittier League of Evil series.

In our hands-on preview of Burger Cat, we found the gameplay very approachable but still with a nice progression in both challenge and depth of each level. Plus, since it’s a complete overhaul of the original Flash version, the production values in Burger Cat are second to none. Definitely give the preview a read for the full skinny, and check out the first trailer for Burger Cat which Ravenous has recently released.

We’ve also learned that Burger Cat has been pushed back from its original release, which would have been this week, but we won’t have to wait long since it’s already rescheduled to hit next week on April 19th. Good thing too, I can already hear my cat’s stomach growling.

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After suffering a bite from the clone bug back in January 2011 from Capcom’s MaXplosion, everyone was curious if developer Twisted Pixel would layeth the smack down by officially porting their critically acclaimed XBLA platformer ‘Splosion Man to the App Store. The team seemed pretty soured on the idea after the whole MaXplosion thing, and they had their hands full with a sequel to ‘Splosion Man set to hit XBLA that summer. Fans of exploding iOS platformers collectively shed a tear.

That sequel, Ms. Splosion Man, did hit Microsoft’s downloadable game service in July of last year to much critical acclaim much like the first title. However, with that project out of the way, Twisted Pixel could focus more on what kind of options might lie ahead for their franchise. As they’ve just announced today via the awesome trailer below, Ms. Splosion Man is indeed heading to the App Store along with a version for Steam, Games for Windows Live, and Windows Phone 7.

What we know about these upcoming versions of Ms. Splosion Man is that the PC versions will be more or less direct ports with some additional features, but the iOS version “will be a unique experience built specifically for those devices with familiar content but all new features, objectives and gameplay modes” according to the developers. They note that they’re keen on taking full advantage of the iOS hardware and are already planning plenty of post-launch support in the form of updates with new content.

More details on pricing and a specific release date for Ms. Splosion Man will be coming soon, but the release window is slated for summertime. If you’re lucky enough to be at PAX East this week, then a playable iPad version of the game will be on hand for you to check out for yourself.

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We told you back in February that the newly-formed development studio Ninth Ninja in connection with Pom Pom Games was busy porting the popular PC title Mutant Storm to the iOS platform. Mutant Storm, in case you didn’t know, is a Robotron-esque arcade shooter that originally released for PC and Mac but is probably more widely known for its enhanced re-release as an Xbox Live Arcade title back in 2005 under the name Mutant Storm Reloaded.

While Mutant Storm coming to the App Store is exciting enough in and of itself, yesterday we learned via Twitter that Crescent Moon Games has jumped on board to publish the title. Also revealed is that Mutant Storm is running at 60 frames per second on the new iPad, and digging into the game’s forum thread developer Ninth Ninja goes into even more detail stating that it runs at 60fps on the iPad 2 and a respectable 30fps on the original iPad.

Considering how many crazy graphical effects can get going in Mutant Storm, that’s pretty darn good, and for new iPad owners the iOS version of the game will use the high resolution assets from the PC game to take advantage of the Retina Display screen. You can actually see comparison shots of the game at normal iPad resolution on the left and the Retina Display resolution of the new iPad on the right.

Mutant Storm for iOS is in the final stages of development, so it shouldn’t be much longer before the final version hits. Hit up the forums for some discussion and keep your eyes on this space for any more news related to the impending release of Mutant Storm on the App Store.

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Here’s an interesting rumor: Apple has worked on a controller for its devices, according to a couple of lines in Anandtech’s iPad review. Here they are in all their glory:

I know of an internal Apple project to bring a physical controller to market, but whether or not it will ever see the light of day remains to be seen. As smartphones and tablets come close to equalling the performance of current game consoles, I feel like the controller problem must be addressed.

Play with us for a second and consider this: what would the easiest way to stop all the fracturing inside of fracturing going on in the third-party controller space? If Apple was to do something with a peripheral, we wouldn’t be writing a story every week about a brand new controller that has its own proprietary code that studios’ need to plug into their software. Everyone would just automatically support Apple’s New Thing, and there would be no other viable market.

But, that’s just reading tea leaves inside of tea leaves. Also, there’s a billion ways to read into this, if it’s even accurate, which we doubt, since a controller compromises that vision of iPad and iPhone. These things were meant to be used with our fingers, not with styluses or controllers or other peripherals.

Then again, who knows. Maybe this will be a “one more thing” at a keynote.

[via MacRumors, via AnandTech]

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Penny Arcade On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness Episode Three, the long-awaited follow-up by Cthulu Saves The World developer Zeboyd Games, is coming to the iPhone and iPad, according to a recent Joystiq preview. This version will hit this summer alongside the PC, Mac, Xbox Live Indie Games, and Android versions of the game. These guys have all their bases covered, right?

If you’re not in the loop, Episode 3 is a… change of pace. It has the look, and what seems to be the feel, of an old-school RPG. In a chat with Joystiq, Zeboyd said that its major influencers were Final Fantasy V and Grandia, so go figure.

Zeboyd says this will continue the story Hothead Games and Penny Arcade set out to tell before things didn’t pan out, but it’ll also operate as a stand-alone title, which is a great thing for us. I mean, we didn’t even see the previous two games on our tablet and phones of choice.

We’ll definitely keep our eyes on this as it nears release, but you should definitely go read what Joystiq has to say. Episode Three sounds pretty hip.

[via Joystiq]

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The App Store is a great place to find seedy Minecraft apps. It’s also the best place to find the official Minecraft companion app. Studio 57Digital LLC’s Minecraft Explorer [$.99 / Free] now has the support of Mojang, which makes it a much more stomach-able buy. You can do a lot of awesome stuff with this, by the way, as it functions like an Internet wiki. From the app, you can browse all of the game’s item, enchantment, and crafting recipes, favorite items and server listings, view enemy information, and even watch videos.

… And now you can do more. Specifically, with this latest update, you can now share your character skins and design new ones. It’s also considerably less buggy, if the long list of fixes is to be believed.

Mojang managing director Carl Manneh drew our all-seeing eye to the product earlier today and it’s proving to be a cool tool. We’re thinking that it’ll be doubly useful for the impending Xbox Live Arcade version of the game, since dual-fisting a laptop and an Xbox 360 controller can be pretty rough. Check it out.

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