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If you were having issues downloading the latest episodes of our podcast, here's some good news: Our iTunes feed is now working. It’s finally pumping out hot pod content just as the gods intended. It's also available on Zune. You’re welcome, ears.

We were having some brief technical difficulties which prevented the feed from being updated, but everything is good to go now. You can now download the second and the third episode of the TouchArcade Show via the iTunes music store. Both are free, so there's not much reason not to.

While I have you, if you could do us solid, I’d love for you to rate us on iTunes. Ideally, I’d love to see a ton of five star “you guys are the greatest, I want to stroke Jared's beard” reviews… but I would understand if you opted to be somewhat sober about the whole thing. Either way, your reviews will help establish the podcast on the store and give us even more listeners and POWER.

As always, we’re easy to reach. If you’d like to blast us a question through the Internet, hit us up at podcast@toucharcade.com. You can also hit us up via the Twitters and the Facebooks, too, if you’re into the whole social media thing.

Oh — and if you’ve got any feedback, let ‘er rip in the comments below.

iTunes Link: The TouchArcade Show
Zune Marketplace Link: TouchArcade.com Podcasts

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Dream:scape [$1.99] is a story of death and redemption, a haunting narrative brought to life with Unreal-powered graphics and pitch-perfect sound design. In it, you play Wilson, a coma patient on the verge of death who is given the chance to explore his own memories and discover the truth of a secret that's haunted him throughout his life.

To help you find your way through Wilson's memories, you're given a diary that notes the memories and images you discover on your journey. It will guide you through his dreamscape, a place of deep foreboding. You'll come across meaningful places where voices from the past will give you pieces of the secret, and you'll feel the world close in around you as you approach the final revelation. For an hour or more, you'll be immersed in Wilson's world.

I wanted so much to love Dream:scape. It has all the makings of a classic, with a thoughtful story and fantastic atmosphere. The sound and music are amazing—you're cheating yourself if you play without headphones—and even the voice acting is strong. If you can go into the game wanting only these things, you'll be impressed.

But if you're looking for a game that's enjoyable to play, you should look elsewhere. Judged only on its technical merits, Dream:scape is a mess. I played it first on an iPad 2. The device can play the game with a high and steady framerate, but the textures look strangely low resolution and the control is abysmal. The on-screen controls are slightly too large and awkard to use comfortably. The camera control can't be inverted, and while you can drag to pan the camera, you'll bump into the on-screen camera control regularly.

The controls feel much better on smaller devices, but you'll probably run into crashes on anything but the newest generation of hardware. If this happens to you, try resetting your phone before playing – this game needs a lot of available memory. Given the option, I'd recommend only playing on an iPhone 4 – they've got the power to run Dream:scape well, and the textures look much better on a Retina display. I suspect I would have enjoyed this game much more if I'd only played it on an iPhone 4.

No matter what you're playing on, though, the gameplay just isn't very inspiring. It can be hard to find your way around, and the in-game map isn't very helpful. Also, a good chunk of Dream:scape's short experience is spent backtracking. For example, I noticed a hammer sitting on a box early in the game. It was obviously important, but I couldn't pick it up. A few minutes later, I found a spot where I needed a hammer, so I had to find my way back, grab it, and return. This sort of thing continues throughout the game, so there's really no point exploring anything other than the area you're meant to go. You'll get through every area by the end, and there are no secrets to find or achievements to unlock.

Worse are the game's few moments of action. They require swipes across the screen that only register if you do them in the exact short, sharp manner the game expects. If you fail, you're sent back to the last checkpoint with no indication of how to do better. This may be more of an interactive narrative than a game, but all these frustrations get in the way.

Dream:scape is so close to being amazing that it's hard for me to say this, but the problems just killed what enjoyment I would have otherwise had. If it receives an update to address the control issues, the crashes and the texture problems, then yes, absolutely buy it and experience it. Otherwise, you'll need to judge whether you'd find interesting story worth muddling through the often frustrating gameplay. It's not perfect, but I'm glad I got to enjoy the audio-visual experience and haunting story.

It's exciting that the tiny team at Speedbump Studios was able to put this game together in just a few months. We're obviously seeing the tip of the iceberg of the sorts of interactive 3D experiences we'll be seeing on our iOS devices in the months and years to come. I'm just not sure this one was quite ready for its debut.

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Superbrothers’ Sword & Sworcery [$2.99 / HD] can now be considered a financial success. In a new post on the game’s official blog, Superbrothers’ went on record for the first time about the game’s sells, noting that it has shifted over 200,000 copies on the App Store. The fees and costs incurred over the development have been recouped and, I suppose, the team can now start planning elaborate vacations on forgotten islands.

A lot of games sell big on the App Store, but it’s rare when one like S&S does. It’s an adventurous point and click game that blends old-school concepts with experiential art and musical points of design. It was a risky project from the onset.

I’m not sure if we can point to one specific reason as to how the game managed to rope so many consumers in. But whether it was the social media presence it had, the fantastic critical reception, or the fact that it was just a good game, people obviously took note and went out to grab one of the most fascinating and intuitive titles on an Apple device. And it's only two months in. This thing hasn't peaked yet, right?

On a slightly related note, I think there's something up Superbrothers' collaborative sleeves. Superbrothers' Craig Adams had this to say  on Twitter earlier this afternoon: "Sword & Sworcery news, final: the project launched around the vernal equinox & the summer solstice is just a few weeks away…" I'll leave the speculation to you.

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Today, Apple CEO Steve Jobs kicked off the week of the 2011 World Wide Developer Conference here in San Francisco with his keynote presentation that outlined three major technologies the company will soon be rolling out: Mac OS X Lion, iOS 5, and the iCloud service.

Mac OS X Lion

Jobs and company began running through several of the 250 new features that will arrive with the forthcoming major update to Mac OS X, Lion (version 10.7). Among the many advances it will bring are deeper support for multitouch gestures, facilities to allow easy creation and management of fullscreen applications, and the LaunchPad system that makes for easier browsing and launching of apps — all of which bring Mac OS X's look and feel closer that of iOS.

Mac OS X Lion will be available sometime in July, exclusively through the Mac App Store as a 4GB download at a price of $29.99.

iOS 5

Jobs then moved on to iOS 5, beginning with a look at where we are. Since the original iPhone's 2007 debut, over 200 million iOS devices have been sold, in all, 25 million of which are iPads. There are presently 425,000 apps in the App Store, 90,000 of which were designed specifically for the iPad. And, since its debut less than three years ago, 14 billion apps have been downloaded from the App Store, generating a total developer payout of over $2.5 billion.

Apple intends to grow those already impressive numbers with the release of iOS 5, a major update to operating system driving the company's mobile devices. This new release will bring over 1,500 new APIs for developers to work with and over 200 new features.

Senior VP of iOS Software Scott Forstall took the stage to detail ten of the more notable features that iOS 5 will bring.

1. Notification Center is a new component of iOS that acts as a central notification hub that can be swiped into view, presenting a list of recent notifications and the ability to jump to the application associated with each. Additionally, notifications will no longer pop disruptively onto the screen, but will appear at the top of the screen, taking the user to the originating app with a tap or fading out entirely if ignored. The iOS lock screen will also display a list of the most recent notifications, with a swipe across each taking you to the originating application.

2. Newsstand gathers the many disparate digital magazines and newspapers available on the App Store into one place and allows easy browsing and purchasing. Chosen items will be downloaded into the News Rack, which features an iBooks-like interface that shows the current front page as the item's icon. Background downloads will allow subscribed items to updated themselves for easy pick-up reading.

3. Twitter support has been integrated into iOS, providing single sign-on (no need to re-enter password every time an app wants to access your Twitter account) and a pop-up Tweet Sheet for applications that support the new components. Those with immediate support include Camera, Photos, Safari, Maps, and Contact, the last of which can pull twitter user photos and import them into iOS contacts to put simplify the task of putting a name with a face.

4. Mobile Safari is the most popular mobile web browser in use today; nearly 2/3 of all mobile browsing is done with it. New to Mobile Safari is Reader, which provides a clean, unified rendering of multi-page stories, generated from RSS information. Reading List is an Instapaper-like system that allows webpages to be saved to a list for later reading. And, finally, tabbed browsing support will allow for easier management of multiple sites at the same time.

5. Reminders is a type of active to-do list system that can setup a "geofence" and trigger reminders based on your geographic location.

6. Camera is getting an update that will bring optional grid lines for better framing, on-device editing like cropping and rotating plus red-eye reduction. The volume up button can also be set to trigger the shutter. Additionally, a camera icon will appear on the lock screen allowing photos to be taken quickly without unlocking the device.

7. Mail under iOS will be enhanced to allow draggable addresses, indentation control, message flagging, full-message search, left / right swipe to / from inbox to message, an integrated dictionary, and support for the newly expanded iOS keyboard that can be slid upwards to split out into two thumboards.

8. "PC Free" changes have been made to iOS to allow it, for the first time, to be fully used without the need to sync to any PC or Mac. Upon first power-on, iOS devices will display a Welcome screen, as opposed to a sync notice. Software updates will now take place over the air via WiFi, and incremental "delta updates" will allow more efficient system updates.

9. Game Center has received several enhancements in this next version of iOS. Forstall indicates that there are over 100,000 game and entertainment titles in the App Store and, in an effort to further iOS as a game platform, Game Center has been expanded include user photos, achievement points, access to friends of friends, friend recommendations, game recommendations from Apple, and game downloads direct to Game Center. A framework for handling the behind-the-scenes back-and-forth needed by turn-based games has been provided as well, to eliminate the need for developers of such titles to handle everything on their own.

It was noted that in just nine months, there are 50 million Game Center users, while Xbox Live currently has about 30 million users after nine years of up-time, as a comparison.

10. iMessage lets iPad users get in on iPhone-style Message app texting. It's 3G and WiFi based, supports rich media, and works on the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. The system includes optional delivery and read receipts with messages pushed to all of your devices.

It was also mentioned that iOS 5 will support wireless mirroring of an iPad 2 screen to an Apple TV display, WiFi-based syncing with iTunes, and will bring all of the resources of Mac OS X's Core Image subsystem to iOS developers.

iCloud

The third piece of today's keynote puzzle is iCloud, Apple's long-rumored online data storage / retrieval system that's designed to make life much simpler for users of all Apple devices.

"Some people think a cloud is just a hard disk in the sky," Steve told the crowd. "We think it's way more than that." iCloud stores content (think contacts, calendar, photos, music), with wireless push to all devices. But the kicker is, it's completely integrated with apps. Everything happens automatically, invisibly. "It just works."

iCloud replaces MobileMe and its core apps — Contact, Mail, Calendar — with completely rewritten version made to store data remotely and sync it with all Apple devices, Mac OS X or iOS-based. But those are just three of the nine total apps that make up the iCloud system. The App Store app has been updated to show your full purchase history from any device, with a download from cloud button that allows such apps to be redownloaded on different devices without any additional charge. Moving forward, any app purchased on any device gets pushed out to all other iOS devices. The iBooks app now works in the same fashion, as well.

A Backup application wirelessly backs up all data on an iOS device to the cloud via WiFi — user data, camera roll photos, videos, books, apps, and music. If you purchase a new iPhone to replace an old, all data from the old device will sync down to the new unit.

Documents in the Cloud is Apple's solution to the complex and unnecessary nature of the filesystem on modern systems. As Jobs indicated, it "completes the iOS document storage story." This component of the iCould system allows applications to manage their own documents, syncing them to the cloud and down to all other devices. Support for Documents in the Cloud is already present in the latest versions of Pages, Numbers and Keynote. iCloud developer APIs are forthcoming that will allow storage of full documents as well as simple key value data. Documents in the Cloud supports all iOS devices, Macs, and PCs, too.

Photo Stream brings photos to the cloud. Take a photo on any iOS device or import a photo into iTunes on a Mac and it is automatically moved to the cloud and synced with all other Apple devices, and the Pictures folder on Windows PCs. This allows viewing of your Photo Stream on any iOS device — including the Apple TV — or Mac or PC. Photo Stream photos are all stored permanently on Macs and PCs, with the most recent 1,000 stored on iOS devices. Photos will be stored in the cloud for 30 days, long enough for them to make their way to all of your connected devices.

iTunes in the Cloud brings easy syncing of your music across all devices. Any previously purchased music can be downloaded without additional cost on any Mac, PC, or iOS device. Any future music purchase automatically gets pushed out to all connected devices. For music not purchased through iTunes, but ripped from CD or gathered elsewhere, the iTunes Match service will scan your library and allow you to download tracks that are found, at 256 Kbit AAC quality. Any tracks that were not matched can be uploaded to the cloud for access from any device. The cost for maintaining iTunes Match titles in your iCloud library is $24.99 per year.

MobileMe, which was a $99 per year, subscription service is now dead. iCloud replaces it as a free service that provides all of the aforementioned along with a me.com email address and 5GB of document storage, not counting photos, videos, music, apps, or books.

Developers can download a beta of iOS 5 with iCloud support today, and the system will roll out publicly in the fall.

Apple has placed a video of this morning's complete keynote event online.

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In this week’s episode of The TouchArcade Show, we discuss my favorite topic: me. We also take the time to jaw about a bunch of delightful new games and other topics ranging from the use of Discover card in courthouses to serious stuff like the pointlessness of geo-centric MMO games in the US and Gameloft’s Unreal Engine announcement.

Give us a listen just below with your favorite streaming-capable device, or hey, click the subscribe button on our podcast on iTunes. Provided plans move forward, we’ll be on the Zune Marketplace soon, too, so get ready people.

Now, for the show notes and a special message to our first-rate podcast responders:

GAMES

• Cargo Bridge [99¢ / Lite]
• MecaPix
• Monster Hunter: Dynamic Hunting
• Shadow Cities
• Tiny Tower
• Velocispider
• X-Men

DISCUSSION

• 'March of Heroes' To Be Gameloft's First Unreal Game
• We Spend Some Time With 'Shadow Cities' And Think It Has Some Promise
• E3 And WWDC '11 Predictions [Psst, we'll be at both!]

SPECIAL NOTE: Big thanks to all of you who sent us an e-mail or a tweet this week. If you'd like to get in touch with us and, possibly, get name-dropped on the air hit us up on Twitter, Facebook, or at our podcast e-mail, podcast@toucharcade.com.

iTunes Link: The TouchArcade Show

Music credit: 'Castlevania 2010,' a remix by Benjamin Briggs.

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Have you ever signed up for a cheap vacation, only to find the room is half the size you expected and the "beach-front" view is actually a back alley and a pile of dirt? That's pretty much what Fin, the pint-sized hero of Mighty Fin [$0.99], gets when he decides to sign up for Shady Sal's suspiciously cheap Round the World Tour. Instead of dirty sheets, he's dealing with sharks and frigid waters in a vacation he'll be lucky to survive.

Guiding Fin through the deadly waters involves the same sort of one-touch gameplay that made Tiny Wings [$0.99] such a winner. You can press down to make Fin dive, and release to make him jump. He swims toward obstacles full-speed ahead while you react to keep him safe. Along with spikes, jellyfish and other deadly foes, each level is filled with points bubbles. These boost your score and telegraph the best way around upcoming obstacles. Since each level is randomly generated when you play it, this extra assistance is handy.

Mighty Fin has eight levels, with regular and endless modes for each. That doesn't sound like much, but the levels are long and some are quite challenging. Each level also has three hats to earn – one found within the level, and two for getting gold-ranked scores on regular and endless. Game Center leaderboards add a little more replayability.

The levels that Fin visits on his vacation are mostly pretty bleak – Backwater Bay, Teacup Tempest and Shipwreck Strait are as grey and unwelcoming as they sound. So it's a good thing the rest of Mighty Fin has charm to spare. The art is top-notch, especially for Fin himself. He's a goofy, bug-eyed little fish, but he looks so joyous when he leaps out of the water that I just had to root for the little guy. The hats are a nice touch too—it's a little more fun to play with a fish in a top hat or a lady's bouffant. You'll also want to catch the witty quips scattered throughout the game.

Mighty Fin's charm helps to smooth out some of its struggles. The music really needs more variety, for one thing. Also, If you're at all skilled with the game, the first couple levels won't make a great first impression – the levels are a bit too long and a bit too easy to start. The challenge ramps up, but avoid the early endless levels if you're finding the game too easy. I had to kill Fin off intentionally a couple times after I cleared a few million points. The later levels fare much better.

If you're not motivated by the high score chase, the game's done once you unlock all the hats. I'd love to see achievements and maybe a (cheerier) future level pack to pad the game out. An endless mode that actually gets harder and faster as you progress would be a nice addition, too.

It's certainly no complaint that I'd like to see Fin safely through another undersea vacation. In the end, I was entertained and thoroughly challenged by Mighty Fin. Reactions are mixed in the forums, but I think this is a winner for Launching Pad Games.

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Feed Me Oil [99¢ / HD], from Chillingo and HolyWater Games, is a game about petroleum. Oil, that is. Black gold. Texas-tea. Bubbling crude. Your role is to guide the expensive black liquid from the broken pipe to the designated area, to clear each level.

Liquids are difficult to render realistically, so I wondered how well the oil effect would be delivered on-screen. And I wasn't disappointed. The oil looks and sounds like a thick, gooey, black substance, either flowing as a stream or breaking into separate globs. The oil is the main character of this title and it's depicted well. While there's other physics-based games out there, the gushing oil effects make this one particularly interesting. The rest of the graphics appear to be heavily influenced by the popular World of Goo, which features similar large-eyed cartoon creatures, shown in profile.

To control the oil, you place objects such as rotating platforms, fans, wind, windmills or oil-magnets in it's path. Each of these objects pushes or pulls the oil in a different manner, such as flinging it across the screen. Scores are based on the number of objects used to help the oil reach it's destination (three stars per level). In most cases, there's no single solution, since you can position objects in any order or location, even on top of each other. However, a hints system is available. Each hint causes a 30-second delay before the next hint can be utilized on that level. Alternatively you can pay to have all hints unlocked immediately, as an optional in-app purchase, although most players won't need to bother.

The gameplay and controls closely resemble Enigmo. You select one of the available objects, then touch the screen to position it. Each object can be rotated and some can be set to turn clockwise or anti-clockwise. A double tap deletes the object. Once you're ready, you touch the oil pipe and watch the sloppy black goop flow, often in the wrong direction via an unforeseen leak, but hopefully towards your target.

The next step involves multiple adjustments and corrections. This game requires trial and error, which is reminiscent of games like Cat Physics from Donut Games, which similarly involves setting objects in place, then adjusting and tweaking them until you're successful. Sometimes the slightest movement of one object can make the difference between level completion or watching your precious oil supply disappear off-screen. The controls in Feed Me Oil work well for making quick and frequent adjustments, then re-testing.

Feed Me Oil includes 49 levels. This includes three chapters, with fifteen levels per chapter. Each chapter is initially locked, until the previous chapter is completed. Four bonus levels are unlocked once 50, 90 and 130 stars are obtained or if you gift the game via the Crystal network. The bonus levels differ slightly from normal levels, but i'll leave that for you to discover yourself and of course, the developers have mentioned that more levels are coming soon. Chillingo has integrated their own social gaming network solution, Crystal, for 31 achievements and high scores which also piggybacks on top of Game Center like most of their recent games. Separate leader-boards exist for each chapter and for the bonus levels.

While the graphics and gameplay are successful, some of the music falls short. The music-box soundtrack became so irritating that I deployed the mute option. Another track is a few bars long and loops repetitively. Fortunately there's a few different sound tracks, some of which are relaxing and enjoyable, and better suited to the oily gameplay.

Overall, this game is definitely fun and it's always satisfying to watch your black oil slurp it's way into the mouth of a strange, big-eyed, oil-craving cartoon land-creature. Hopefully they deliver on the additional levels, but any game that mixes elements from Enigmo, World of Goo and Cat Physics is sure to do well.

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Ever felt like stomping your way all over Paris or San Francisco? Zilla has you covered in Demolition Dash [$0.99 / HD]. Smash and run action will take you all around the world, to eight major cities where you'll rip down trees, kick pigeons, blow up billboards and destroy the military forces that try to stop you.

Zilla is our hero, a rather small monster with a great big roar. Following the model of other run 'n guns, Zilla runs full-speed ahead in one direction while you control jumps with one hand and roars with the other. Roaring is Zilla's only attack, but it's super effective, destroying everything in range. Demolition Dash isn't an endless runner, though. Zilla climbs out of the water, runs, jumps and smashes through each of the game's 24 stages, and dives back in at the end—if you survive that long.

Little Zilla is up against an impressive force. Police squads, vans, helicopters and tanks all get in the way, and the only way past is to roar them to pieces. Run into one of them or miss a jump and a chunk of Zilla's tail gets knocked off. Lose all three tail pieces and the next hit is game over.

On top of making it through each stage alive, there are additional challenges to master. Each stage has its own secondary goal, so sometimes you'll need to hunt down 30 helicopters, and other times you'll be gunning for a high score. There are also Game Center leaderboards for each city and 11 achievements to earn. You can improve your score by earning demolition combos and by making smart use of the game's three power-ups: chili peppers that give you mega roar, wings that let Super Zilla fly, and stars that bring out the GodZilla in our little dino friend.

Other than the adorable Zilla, it's the artistry of the game's eight cities that really makes Demolition Dash shine. Each city gets custom buildings and trees, a background featuring a major landmark, and its own arrangement of the game's theme. Clearly a lot of love was put into the music, and it paid off—I just wish as much thought had been put into the rest of the auditory experience.

I turned off the game's sound effects during the second or third city. With Zilla crashing around and roaring every few moments, police squads shouting and sirens blaring, the sound turned into a mess. The audio quality is great, but I was sick of hearing it. Thankfully you can toggle sound effects and music separately.

I also found myself wishing for a quick level reset option. Things get kind of crazy in later levels, and it sucks to lose lives early on. The only way to restart and get back into the action is to quit back to the menu and wait through rather lengthy loading screens. My 3GS struggled a bit with some of the busier levels, making this a bigger problem when I would die early to frame rate drops. A freshly reset phone performed better, though not perfectly, and the newer devices play Demolition Dash smooth as silk. It also looks gorgeous on Retina screens.

Demolition Dash should be getting an update next month to add Endless Run mode, which seems like it will be a perfect fit. Open Feint support and stat tracking are also planned. Weirdly, the game currently gives players a code that can be redeemed on the developer's Facebook page for a discount on t-shirts or web storage, if you're looking for value-added features.

Smashing up cities and making mayhem with Zilla is great fun. Our forum users are enjoying it so far, too. So if you're looking for a little destruction in your life, Demolition Dash is a game you'll want to play.

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I've played a lot of brick breakers, and whenever one claims to reinvent the genre I cringe a little bit. Usually it means they've added crazy paddles or rotation mechanics that turn the game into something totally different. All I want is a really awesome modern take on the Breakout formula. Is that so much to ask?

Apparently not, because that's exactly what Anodia [$0.99] gives us. Functionally, it's a standard brick breaker, with one paddle at the bottom, some bricks to break on top, and a ball that bounces between them. The pickups that drop from broken bricks can enhance your game, making your paddle faster, giving you extra balls, and so on. They can also punish you, with handicaps like a stunned or shrunk paddle. All fairly typical stuff. Aesthetically, though, this game is anything but typical.

The "bricks," in this case, can be almost anything. You'll be bouncing your ball at light bulbs, flowers, and beautiful geometric shapes, many of which move and sway with realistic physics. This can lead to some confusion—sometimes you can't really tell how much damage you've done unless you can spare a glance at the brick's health meter at the top of the screen—but it's worth it. Each level is a new surprise to look at and play with.

The main campaign has 48 levels across 8 themes, like "Colors" and "Geometry," and there's a mini-campaign with 5 extra levels. In campaign mode, you're working toward an overall high score for completing all the levels. You start with 5 lives, and you can buy 5 more with 20,000 of your hard-earned points.  Your overall score and best level scores are ranked on Game Center leaderboards. You also get graded with stars on your performance each level, and you can go back to improve your grade in Quick Play mode.

I should mention one powerup that makes Anodia a lot less frustrating than some other brick breakers – the Gravity Field. It's a freebie that you can activate at any time by tapping the screen. Balls will be pulled toward the spot you've tapped, making it much easier to hit the last few bricks in a level. Once you've used it you'll need to let it recharge, but the recharge time goes down as you approach the end of each level. It's a little touch, but it keeps things moving.

You can choose between tilt and touch controls, and they're both fairly good choices—with slight downsides. With touch controls, the paddle feels a bit too slow. It's no faster in tilt mode, but without your finger speeding ahead you won't notice as much. Tilt mode doesn't feel quite as precise as touch, though. You might want to experiment a little to see what feels best.

There's only one serious problem with Anodia: it has no music. Since you can't listen to iPod music while playing, you have the choice of silence or the sound effects alone. There's a toggle for music volume, so I'm hoping to see an update that brings it in eventually. Feel free to chime in with other ideas in the forum thread. I'd also love to see some more color. While Anodia's levels are beautiful, most of them rely on a very muted color palette. Some later levels are filled with color, and it just brings the game to life.

Neither of those things is keeping me from putting a lot of time into Anodia. With star ratings to earn on each level and 32 Game Center achievements, there's plenty to do. As a Universal release with Retina support, Anodia looks lovely on any device. I'm not sure it actually reinvents the brick breaker, but it's certainly an exciting and beautiful example of the genre.

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At first glance, HotGen's To-Fu: The Trials of Chi [99¢ / HD] looks like a riff on the Xbox Live Arcade game Super Meat Boy, but where SMB was a gruelingly difficult platformer, To-Fu takes a more slow-paced approach. That's not say To-Fu isn't difficult, it certainly is in the later levels, but you can generally take your time with it.

You'll touch and pull To-Fu in any direction and release to send him flying through the air. He'll end up sticking to most surfaces and those he doesn't, he'll bounce off, slide down or move up them. It's helpful then that you can get a view of the whole level and all of its obstacles by touching and scrolling too, which becomes an absolute necessity by the end. If you've ever touched a video game at any point in your life, you're going to know which obstacles to expect because they're all here — every single one of them.

Going back to the Super Meat Boy comparison is easy to do because To-Fu really does look like it took a lot of hints from it, but the problem is that Super Meat Boy took its inspiration from every platformer before it. If To-Fu wasn't a piece of Tofu the inspiration probably wouldn't be as transparent, but both games are certainly deeply seeded in the history of the genre. Spinning wheels of metal, rotating platforms, portals, disintegrating obstacles, lasers, spikes — all designed specifically to make you die.

And die you will — a lot. It's not a big deal, overcoming adversity is what makes a game like this rewarding, but the lack of instantaneous restarts is a tad annoying and having to wait out a death animation can be taxing when you're in the mood to just pick up and play quickly.

Thankfully, the level design keeps up with the ridiculous amount of obstacles and across the course of the 100 levels you'll see a lot of innovation in screen setup. Each level has three separate objectives. Most importantly, you need to get To-Fu to the end, marked by a pink fortune cookie. Along the way, you have two supplementary, but not complimentary directives. Scattered throughout the level are blue orbs, which you'll be trying to pick up by any means possible. Contrary to that is a goal to solve the level in a limited number of jumps. Rarely do these two coincide so if you're the type to obsessively finish a game, you'll have to play through them multiple times.

It's that trifecta of objectives that makes To-Fu a game that's likely going to appeal to a broad range of people. You can get through each level with a limited amount of challenge and enjoy the game as much as someone keen on getting everything. It's too bad there isn't Game Center support as it would give people more of an excuse to reach the 100 percent mark.

Visually, the game gets the job done. To-Fu looks great stretching out and sliding down walls, but the backgrounds start to get a bit repetitive as you move along. The music sticks in the back as do the majority of the sound effects, neither drawing much attention good or bad.

The touch screen controls really do work remarkably well and To-Fu: The Trials of Chi does a great job of working with the touch screen, not against it. The depth of challenges here works well, but it would be nice to have some type of meta-game or leaderboards so you could track your progress against others.

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