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I want to tell you about Do Do EGG! [$0.99], the newest title from PONOS. They're the studio behind Mr. AahH!! [$0.99 / Lite] and several other fine titles, and I'd hate for their newest to get ignored just because it happens to a bit like a match 3. I want to tell you how tangled and twisted my brain got trying to understand this game, where matching too many of the same color is a good way to lose. I want to tell you about the impressive amount of content Do Do EGG! has, with puzzles, an arcade mode and multiplayer right out of the gate.

Instead, though, I'm trying to get this bad taste out of my mouth.

You see, Do Do EGG! is a good game. And what you get for your $0.99 isn't too shabby: 20 puzzles, one arcade mode and both single-device and Game Center multiplayer. You also have the opportunity to unlock three more arcade modes through skilled play. If you look at it in that light, the value proposition is pretty darn good.

Or you can look at it another way. Despite paying for the game, you only get one out of four of the game's arcade modes. You only get one fifth of its puzzles. You can technically unlock three of the other modes through skilled play, but the high score barriers you need to hit are quite high. If you want the rest but can't hit those goals, you'll be paying a dollar more for each. If you want the other puzzles it's going to be another dollar. And an oddly persistent banner ad for PONOS's other games sticks around through most of those purchases. Eventually it starts to feel a bit like a shake down.

It's a shame, because Do Do EGG! deserves to be enjoyed. As much as it may look like one, it's hardly a match 3 at all. Your goal is, instead, to make combos that are as long as they possibly can be. Instead of matching one color of egg, you only need to match the colors of the first, the fourth, and every third egg after that. The pairs in between can be any colors at all. This will leave all your match-3 instincts screaming for a while, but once you get used to the change it's great fun, with all kinds of ridiculous combos to be made.

While you're doing all this, a clock ticks down. As you create incredibly long chains, you earn experience and level up. Each time you reach a new level the time on the clock resets. You have until you run it down to play, so you always need to make more chains and earn more points.

In Normal mode, which comes unlocked with your original purchase, that's all there is to it. You keep going until you can't. 1 Minute mode is the same, but you only get a single minute to play. Mission mode is something special — you only earn points for completing a random goal, which keeps changing up as you progress. There's also endless mode, which is as timer-free as it sounds.

There are also 100 puzzles available, and they're a great way to gain a better understanding of the game if you're still struggling with your match-3 instincts. They provide a slower-paced challenge and introduce players to trickier concepts like stake-outs, where your first egg is also your last.

Finally, there's multiplayer, which thankfully isn't kept behind an extra paywall. Score Attack is the standard way to play, but if you want to stay on one device there's also a quick and dirty turn-based mode where the board clears as you go and the winner is the last to be able to make a move.

If all of this had been included in one purchase I'd have no trouble recommending it. If Do Do EGG! were free up front, the piecemeal lockouts wouldn't be so frustrating. Instead, it's just about the worst combination: pay up front, then again and again — all while ads hang over the action. If you're up for the challenge of unlocking all the modes with their high-score barriers, then I'd say hop in. But if you just want to pay for the game and then play it freely, you'll find far too many dead ends here.

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Orbit1 [Free] is an incredibly minimalistic game. It doesn't have Game Center or achievements, it doesn't have game modes, it doesn't even have levels. If you have an iPad, though, you're going to want to pick this baby up. It's the perfect game for playing around the table with a few friends, and even better — it's free.

Caffeine Monster Software has put together the game I wanted when I first got my iPad. When everyone wanted to take a look and see what cool things I could do with it, this was the cool thing I had in mind. It's an arena game for one to four players, and it has insanely simple one-touch controls. If you're ever in a situation where you need a way to kill time with a handful of people without explaining complex rules and controls, this is your game.

You spend each round controlling a small ship orbiting a red ball of doom. Each player has a button in a corner of the iPad. Press it to move away from the center, release it to move toward the center. Hit anything red and you die and lose a point. Hit anything green and you gain a point. And, most importantly, smash into the back or side of an opponent and you earn two points and take them out for a second. Whoever has the most points when the 2, 3 or 4 minute timers runs out wins.

Sounds simple, no? But that's the beauty of it. I brought this game out at a dinner with family and everyone could jump in and pick it up in a round or two. There is no deeper game to dive into, but that's not the niche Orbit1 fills. I'm thinking about lineups at cons right now, and how easily a game like this could break the ice with fellow geeks if you don't mind having their hands all over your iPad. Or playing with your kids, if you have them. There's really no barrier to entry here.

I'd like to see a few small additions. Minimalistic or not, Game Center leaderboards couldn't hurt. You can play solo and track your own high score already, but that's of limited value without an online leaderboard. I also wouldn't mind seeing a mode that's even more minimalistic. When you've got all manner of red things to dodge and green things to collect, it can be a bit difficult to focus on the real fun: obliterating your opponents. A simpler death match might also ease non-gamers into the experience.

But those are just thoughts for improving what is already an excellent experience, one that does exactly what it needs to do. Orbit1 is a cleverly designed ice-breaker, a minimalistic but social time killer. It pulls you into the fun with such conviction that you'll be hard pressed to find people who can resist. And you know how I mentioned that it's free? I meant really, truly free. No ads, no in-app purchases. I'm not sure what sort of madness compelled Caffeine Monster Software to be so generous, but don't waste this chance. If you haven't got someone to play with, grab Orbit1 and go make new friends. It seems like it might just be good for that.

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We’ve been working pretty hard in the background on the site this week preparing a cool and helpful new way to discover iCade games: toucharcade.com/iCade. We’re using this now instead of our front page in order to give you a much more comprehensive look at quality titles that support the device. As you’ll see, each game has its own “blurb” as well as links to relevant content, including its original review, its “iCade Angle” write-up, and its forum thread.

That page will forever be a work in progress. Not only are older games rolling in support, but so are fresh games. You can click “refresh” on it to your heart’s content, but we’ll also do round-up posts every once in awhile pointing towards the new additions.

Speaking of that, actually, several games have added support for the iCade. Here’s a small listing of the games we’ve added since you last saw our list:

Orange Pixel

• Super Drill Panic [Free]

Claymore Games

• Plum Crazy [$.99]

Angry Mob Games

• Muffin Knight [$.99]

Llamasoft

• GoatUp [$1.99]
• Minotron: 2112 [$1.99]
• Deflex [$1.99]
• Minotaur Rescue [$.99]

If you know of other awesome games that support the iCade or if you're a developer of an iCade-supported game, feel free to visit our support thread and add your game to the growing list. We'll catch it and definitely roll it in. Oh! And just as a house-keeping note, here, Orange Pixel says its Meganoid [$1.99] is also iCade ready, but as of right now, the support doesn't work.

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It's expensive to buy and maintain a real horse, but now you can download a virtual one instead from the App Store– What a world we live in. My Horse [Free] from NaturalMotion Games and MunkyFun is a realistic horse simulation game, which allows you to groom, feed and reward your very own horsey, without ever leaving the couch. Although the true cost of the virtual horse depends on whether you choose to invest in the optional in-app purchases.

The developers goal was to create a horse which is realistic enough for the player to form a bond with. And they've managed to successfully achieve this as the horse graphics and behavior is pretty realistic. It flicks it's tail, grazes, looks around, trots, bucks, walks backwards and neighs. There's no obvious repeated animation loops, or cartoon graphics. You're caring for a real-looking virtual horse.

After meeting and naming your beast (default name was "Beauty", but I chose "GluePot"), Dan the Stable-boy assigns you some tasks, such as "take a photo of your horse" using the in-game camera. Completing tasks or spending time with your horse earns experience (XP) points, which helps increase your overall level.

You can tap the ground to place two markers and the horse will go there, at it's own pace. If a circle appears, you can walk your horse over it to collect XP. However, most of your actions are initiated by opening your leather journal, which has separate tabs for activities, care tasks, work tasks, competing and a marketplace for shopping.

The "Activities" are interactive mini-games, based upon feeding, treating and grooming your horse and caring for the paddock. For example, to groom your horse you swipe dirt from it's body, while feeding it involves buying a recipe and measuring out the right ingredient ratios. You can also buy extra horses. There's eight breeds of horse to collect, but they are all the same generic horse frame (size, shape) with a different texture. You can't make a custom-made mean beast or Shetland pony. You can switch between your horses, but can only play one at a time.

The health and happiness of your animal decrease over time, so you have to complete care tasks to maintain your virtual pet. There's 32 different care tasks to unlock, ranging from mucking out the stall and re-fitting horse-shoes, to giving vaccinations and plaiting the mane and tail. Each task is unlocked by reaching the prerequisite level.

Once you press the button for a task, it counts down to completion, which can range from a couple of minutes to many hours, as done in games like Smurf Village [Free].  Once the countdown reaches zero, the task is completed and you receive XP, while the horse gains health and happiness points. You can use gems (acquired from IAP or from each level upgrade) to immediately complete a task without any delay.

You can assign your animal to 32 different work tasks, to earn the coins needed for care tasks and tack (horse equipment). For example, your nag can be used for riding lessons, television work, or rides at the fairground. Again, you don't actually complete these tasks on the screen, they are simply count-downs. If your horses energy-levels get too low, he won't be able to work, unless he rests or gets a yummy sugary treat.

There's a series of show jumping events to compete in, so you'll want your nag to be in good shape.  Each competition has "entry requirements" such as a certain health level and training. You can either train your horse by completing a mini-game, or pay a trainer if you're impatient. As your horse moves towards a jump, a line moves across the screen and you have to tap a button so the line stops in the right color. If you're successful, the horse clears the jump, but the more you miss the mark, the worse the jump and the lower your score. You can work your way right to the world championships.

There's a market where items like stirrups, reins, saddles and boots can be purchased using coins and/or gems. You're given a few gems (1 gem per level upgrade, 3 gems for rating the app), or you can buy gems as in-app purchases.  The problem is that many items such as the best colorful equipment can only be purchased with gems. Yet, It seems unlikely that players will earn enough gems, without paying for in-app purchases.

The game features a social component too, as you can visit your friends stables to look after their horses.  One of the early assigned tasks is to visit a friend in your friend list, which helps promote the game, but is annoying if you want to play alone. Fortunately, there's a TouchArcade Forum for people seeking My Horse friends.  Also, be warned, the + GameCenter icon doesn't invite just one friend, it adds all of your friends with My Horse from Game Center.

This universal game has two Game Center leader-boards (total XP and total coins). Unfortunately your progress doesn't sync across devices, so you can't play with your iPad horse on your iPod.

My Horse is a wonderful game for horse-lovers and is worth a free download just to check out the realistic horse.  But if you're planning on playing this game for a long time, be prepared to spend some real money on gems, or accept that you probably won't be able to buy the best looking equipment, no matter how many coins you earn.  But, I guess that's still cheaper than a real horse.

Hat tip to Clint.

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GRL Games is known not only as the studio of one Graeme Devine, it's also developing a reputation for bringing video chat to iOS games. Last month we reviewed Full Deck Hold 'Em [Free] and found its video chat implementation fascinating. Now something word game fans can experience the joy of face-to-face play in the studio's latest, Word Chat [Free; Normally 99¢].

With one update under its belt already, Word Chat should be a well-executed experience. But while its single-player modes are great fun, the game doesn't succeed universally — and it falters, strangely, in the multiplayer experience.

No matter the mode, Word Chat centers around making words out of seven random Scrabble-esque tiles. The words are scored on the letters used, with a modifier added for length. Five letter words are worth double, six letter words are worth triple. For those who manage a full anagram of their tiles, quadruple multipliers are waiting.

Solo, Word Chat offers four ways to play. 200 Tiles gives players (you guessed it) 200 tiles to work through, seven at a time, to earn the highest score possible. Countdown gives players as many tiles as they can work through in 100 seconds. Infinite Play is like Countdown, but additional time is rewarded for words that are four letters or longer.

Word Solitaire was added in the game's first update. It presents players with seven columns of tiles, with only the lowest row exposed. Players must make words with the exposed letters and work up the board until all the tiles are used, at which point they level up and start over. This is easily the most challenging, and potentially frustrating, mode. You can replace up to three random tiles, but in my experience it's not uncommon to reach to the end of a level with no workable words. Having a solid strategy helps, but there's an element of randomness that leaves things occasionally frustrating.

Multiplayer throws you up against a Game Center opponent in Countdown mode. Both players use the same pool of words to keep things fair, so you're kept from seeing your opponent's words. This results in an oddly disconnected experience where the two of you play in parallel until a winner is presented at the end. You can't really take the time to chat, either, since you're on a tight timer.

Worse, there doesn't seem to be any way to decline video chat – at least not while playing with a friend (I wasn't able to find a random match to try it in). You'd best trust any Game Center friends you play with to stay on task. At least you can toggle your own camera on or off.

In Full Deck Hold 'Em, video chat makes a lot of sense. Seeing the expressions of your opponents adds another level to the poker experience, and the game is slow paced enough that you can have a conversation while you're playing. In Word Chat, it's a gimmick. A few tweaks could help, but when it comes down to it short-form word games probably aren't ever going to be very well suited to video chat.

The single-player content of Word Chat is worth the asking price alone (or lack of asking price, in the case of the sale that's taking place as of this writing). I'm particularly fond of 200 Tiles, because it provides a slow, thoughtful experience that most anagram-hunting games avoid. If you're looking for the next Words With Friends [$1.99] you won't find that depth of multiplayer here. But as an inexpensive way to entertain yourself while chatting with a friend, Word Chat will more than do the job.

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It’s not often that a game comes around that can be considered both a deep, strategy-heavy game, and a vertical-scroller. Yet, that’s exactly the sort of game that Elemites [Free] claims to be. Dubbed as a “Real-time Scrolling Strategy (RTSS),” Elemites combines the forced movement of a vertical-scroller with the inherent strategy of minion management and wraps it all together with a robust spell and upgrade system. It certainly sounds like an odd game, but Elemites manages to nail this combination and should definitely be on the list of any strategy fan.

In Elemites, you play as Relph, a wanna-be wizard that stumbles upon a magical book of summoning. In addition to teaching Relph how to summon Elemites, golem-like creatures that will attack anything in front of them, the book also convinces Relph to go on a rampage, destroying every village in the land.

So how exactly does a real-time scrolling strategy game play? Relph stays at the bottom of the screen, slowly moving forward (you can only control whether he goes left or right). Meanwhile, tapping anywhere on the screen conjures up Elemites at that location, which will slowly move forward attacking peasants, fences, buildings – anything in front of them. Summoning Elemites uses mana, however, which also doubles as Relph’s shield. Your goal, then, becomes to micromanage your mana by summoning Elemites at the right place and time, while recouping mana earned by downed foes and avoiding enemies gunning for Relph.

Relph also has access to a wide variety of spells that are progressively unlocked throughout the game. Spells range from damage boosts to your Elemites to life drains to chain lightning. In addition, each spell (as well as Relph and the Elemites) can be upgraded numerous times throughout the game by cashing in ‘Vengeance’ points, which are earned every time an enemy is killed or building is destroyed. Even though there are 16 total spells that are unlocked, you can only take five into battle, which means that choosing which spells to upgrade becomes that much harder.

The beauty of Elemites is that there are tons of different ways to play the game. Sure, summoning your minions is going to be a big part of your strategy regardless, but spell selection definitely affects the way you use them. Will you focus more on resource management and keep your active Elemites out there longer with healing and defense spells, or will you take matters more into your own hands with spells that directly affect your enemies? The upgrade system also opens up the door to a variety of strategies, as you’ll have to decide whether to make your spells more potent or invest more heavily in resource management upgrades.

Of course, variety wouldn’t mean much if the game didn’t play well. Thankfully, Elemites takes care of that as well. I appreciate the way that the developers have managed to boil the controls for what could be a complicated game down to simple touch-based mechanics. In fact, the controls may be too simple occasionally; if you don’t pay attention, you could easily exhaust your mana conjuring up Elemites. However, I’d rather the game be hyper-responsive than plagued with delayed input.

Another aspect I loved about Elemites was its overall presentation. The artwork in particular deserves a special mention, as everything from the menus and story illustrations to even the enemies are just well done. It’s obvious that a lot of effort was put into the overall visuals and it definitely shows. One minor complaint involved some strange graphic artifacting that would occasionally show up while playing, but it did little to detract from the gameplay. I even enjoyed the story writing, which does a good job of weaving the tale while not taking itself seriously. My only gripe is with the banner ad at the top of the screen that is present even while playing the game. Granted, the ad gets removed if you purchase the whole game (as a $0.99 IAP), but it still detracts from what is otherwise a great experience. I would have also liked a universal version of Elemites as well, as I think the gameplay would work well on the iPad.

Considering that Elemites is available for free with the first world unlocked, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t be checking this out. It’s simply an entertaining game that manages to test both your reflexes and strategy IQ and offers enough diversity to distinguish itself from the pack.

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Simogo’s Bumpy Road [$2.99] is one of the most inventive, intuitive, and refined experiences on touch devices, so we’re pretty stoked to hear this bit of news: against the odds, the game has hit 100,000 downloads. This is a pretty big deal for the independent outfit, which doesn’t have the same name recognition as, say, a Firemint and is, obviously, competing against tons and tons of other independent studios for the mass market’s dollar.

In more practical news for those of you who aren’t interested in milestones, Bumpy Road will go on sale soon thanks to this accomplishment. Starting this Wednesday and rolling until late this Thursday, you’ll be able to grab the game for $.99 instead of the usual $2.99.

You can read our review of Bumpy Road at this handy-dandy link. Spoiler: we liked it. Oh, and just as a side-note here, we’re in the process of trying to grab an interview with Simogo for another bonus episode of our podcast. As soon as we can, we’ll get that out to you.

[Via @simogogames]

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Rovio Mobile’s Angry Birds [$.99 / Free / Lite / HD / HD Free] is a big deal. It and its various iterations have been downloaded collectively over 350 million times, advertisers and marketers are licensing the property’s characters and mechanics at will to promote products like nuts and phones, Wal-Mart is selling official toys in kiosks, and now at least one enterprising retailer is set to start offering a gigantic line-up of dreadful Halloween costumes based on the IP.

Fulfilling the world’s fantasy of being a Pig King for a day is Costume Discounters. The company is now taking pre-orders for a host Angry Birds helmets, baby costumes, and regular costumes based on the brand. It’s hard to tell at a glance if these are official goods, but that point doesn’t drown out the fact that Angry Birds demands a level of awareness so great that retailers reckon people will wrap their babies in it. This is wild stuff.

Anyway, if you’re into looking like a doofus an Angry Birds character this Halloween, you can grab a costume for around $30-$50. Look how happy these people are! You could be happy like them!

[Via MacTrast]

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Monsters Ate My Condo [99c] is a super-crazy vertical match-3 game, from Adult Swim and New Zealand developers PikPok, which features intentionally high-energy, cheesy, over-the-top Japanese-style graphics, music and sound effects…and obviously, monsters. There's basically three things to do:  Keep the monsters happy, score points and try to stop your condominium from toppling over. If you can do this, you'll score (quite literally) billions of points.

Four colored monsters are hanging around your residential high-rise. There's a blue unicorn called 'Reginald Starfire' who wears a leotard, a red crab with a boat on it's head,  a green Japanese business-man with one eye and a yellow chihuahua called Lord Ferocious with it's brain hard-wired into a robot-body.

There's always two monsters present, one standing on each side of your tower. You need to keep these monsters happy because when a monster's happiness meter gets low, its mood becomes increasingly agitated, until it eventually attacks your tower.

To keep the monsters happy, you can feed them a floor from your tower, by swiping it in their direction. For example, swiping a blue floor over to the blue monster, will help cheer him up. Whereas, swiping a mis-matched floor color onto a monster will make it less happy. As you swipe floors out of your building, new floors drop down from above. The only controls in this game are swiping floors left or right.

Keeping the monsters happy protects your building, but you still need to score points. By swiping certain floors out of your building, you can position three (or more) floors of the same color together, to earn a combo. The combos are evolutionary. First you place three floors of the same color together to  create a bronze floor. Once you have three bronzes together, they become a silver. Three silvers make a gold and three golds make a diamond. So you're always working your way towards the diamonds.

If you get three diamonds in a row… well, I haven't achieved that yet, but apparently your screen and score go crazy. Each combo earns you points, straightens the tower a little, and if your combo color matches a monster on the screen, that monster will be swapped out with a different colored monster.

Each monster has a special super-power, which is triggered by feeding them a "Shiny condo" (ie: a Bronze, Silver, Gold or Diamond floor). For example, the blue unicorn has the super-power 'Solid Tower', which straightens your tower with a rainbow and ensures it won't topple while the super power is active.  The duration of each super-power depends whether you swiped a bronze, silver, gold or diamond onto the monster.

Concrete floors and bomb floors occasionally drop into your tower, but these can't be swiped out (unless the unicorns power is activated). They need a combo formed beside or around them to be removed.  If you take too long to defuse a bomb, it counts down to detonation, which can destroy your tower, or leave it leaning precariously like the Tower of Pisa. But, if you match three annoying bombs / concrete floors together, it's actually helpful, as all of your shiny condos will upgrade.

As your tower gets more levels, it can become unstable. This forces you to be careful about which floors you swipe out, least you cause a collapse, ending your game. When your tower gets wonky, the trick is to complete a combo, or use the unicorns super-power, to straighten things out.

There's two game modes: Endless and Time-Attack, which are both based on the same game-play, with the later having a 2-minute time limit. This game is universal so will run on iPad, iPhone and Ipod.  OpenFeint and Game Center leader-boards are provided, plus there's in-game achievements / missions, but these are listed inconveniently on the game-over screen only. The first release has a bug with the leader-boards, but the developers are releasing a fix.

Monsters Ate my Condo is a casual, but clever game, because it gives you conflicting goals. For example, if you swipe floors away to form a combo, you often make the monsters less happy which puts your tower at risk. When you feed floors to the monsters to keep them happy, you're often throwing away combo scoring opportunities. And when you activate a monsters super-power, you're using up a shiny condo which could have been used to get a diamond. So you have to constantly choose which goal to focus on, to keep your condo upright and score millions and millions of points.

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