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It was just this past Friday that we took an in-depth look at Digital Tales’ Battleloot Adventure, a new action-focused RPG, and really enjoyed what we saw in our preview copy. The game had been submitted to Apple and we were hopeful that the final version of the game would be available sometime this week. Well, the Apple approval gods must have been shining down on Digital Tales, as literally the very next day Battleloot Adventure [99¢/HD] appeared in the App Store.

Our preview of Battleloot Adventure should give you a pretty good idea of what to expect based on our limited time with the game, but we’ll definitely be curious to see how the experience holds up through the entire game. We’ll be putting Battleloot Adventure through the ringer to test out that very thing, but all signs seem to point to a quality offering with a stellar art style and presentation, wonderfully simple combat mechanics, and the usual character leveling elements that come with an RPG. You can grab Battleloot Adventure from the links below, or check in on our forums for even more impressions.

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At GDC 2012 we got a preview of two upcoming titles from Scottish game studio Digital Goldfish, the guys behind Bloons.

Chip Trippington and the Kwiff Frizz Quiz

One of the most unique and perhaps even bizarre titles I saw at GDC this year was the upcoming point-and-click adventure Chip Trippington and the Kwiff Frizz Quiz for iPad and iPhone.

The game is the story of poor Chip, the office Liquid Rejuvenation Manager, who has a big heart but is more often than not the butt of his officemates’ gaffs. Chip just wants to be one of the guys, and so joy it was when he got an invite to the company party. Sadly, when he went to get ready for the big night out, Chip discovered he was out of Kwiff Frizz, the structural component that holds his mighty hair aloft. Out to the shop then, goes Chip. But, little does he know that the quick run to the corner store is about send him through a series of unimaginable events that just might put the fate of the world in his big, clammy hands.

Chip Trippington starts out with the simple challenge of getting Chip to make a cup of coffee for his co-workers, but then the quest for a hair product begins, and it’s one adventure after another. Gameplay involves point-and-click puzzle solving and multiple-choice text interactions. In the few minutes I spent with the title, I came to love its sometimes warped sense of humor.

World’s Strongest Man

Another coming game that the Digital Goldfish folks showed us was an iOS take on the TV license World’s Strongest Man. The game will be an iPhone-specific release that challenges you to be come the world mightiest athlete. Getting that done involves balancing Energy and Morale levels during visceral competitions such as Keg Toss, Overhead Lift, and Truck Pull.

In preparing for The Big Day, there’s much training to be done in the game’s training area, building strength and improving skill. These involve seven different mini-games (with an eight coming in an update after launch), all designed to push muscles to the max.

Getting to the glory seat requires a bit of strategy on top of the raw muscle element. Career choices factor in, such as determining which promo events to take on, and just how to structure training to maximize your build.

The game features a Career mode that is a 10-year run to become the World’s Strongest Man, as well as a Free Play mode that is conducive to quick-play sessions.

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In early February, EA finally launched Battlefield 3: Aftershock in the App Store with nary a mumble of hype. The reason for the silence was likely because Aftershock was a buggy, barebones, borderline-unplayable mess. This poor effort was extremely puzzling too, not just because Battlefield is a flagship IP for EA and one of the biggest brands currently around, but because we had seen previews of Battlefield 3: Aftershock at various points for the better part of the past year and saw a very different title with lots of promise.

The version that released didn’t have any of the single player campaign stuff we had previously seen, and consisted of a single online multiplayer mode on 1 map, with just 4 weapons to choose from. It was free to download, but came with unremovable ads as well as heavy branding for the recently released movie Act of Valor. To top it all off, the online matchmaking – basically the single thing the game was supposed to be able to do – was barely functional.

Gamers were not silent about their feelings towards Battlefield 3: Aftershock across the web and in iTunes reviews, and just a couple of weeks following release EA pulled the game from the App Store to “re-evaluate” it. The verdict of that re-evaluation is in, as The Verge has learned that EA has decided to drop development for Aftershock and put those resources towards other projects. EA released this statement to The Verge:

“In the interest of bringing consumers only the highest level of quality mobile entertainment, EA Mobile has decided to suspend development and support of Battlefield 3: Aftershock and refocus its resources on other titles. The Aftershock servers will be live through March 31st, 2012, and customers who have already downloaded the game can continue to play until then.”

Since the game was free, and there was no way to spend money in the game, the only thing gamers who downloaded the title have lost is time. Granted, with all the dropped games and long connection times that can add up to a lot of time, but at least no money is involved. If you were “lucky” enough to snag Battlefield 3: Aftershock while you could, then you have the next month to enjoy staring at the match connection screen until the servers breathe their last breath, and I really hope EA puts this behind them and brings their best effort the next time they attempt to bring Battlefield to iOS.

[Via The Verge]

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Ever been BASE jumping? Yeah, me neither. The closest I’ve come is with AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!! (Force = Mass x Acceleration) [$2.99] by Dejobaan Games and Owlchemy Labs (the folks behind Snuggle Truck [Free]). This is the latest in a series of extreme BASE-jumping titles from Dejobaan, but it’s the first to come to iOS. As we mentioned in our preview, it’s a somewhat shortened port of AaAaAA! for the Awesome, and it’s pretty fantastic.

I’ve messed around with the PC AaAaAA! titles, but they’ve never really clicked for me. Now I know why: I wasn’t playing with tilt controls. There’s a world of difference between controlling a fall with a joystick or mouse and peering down over a massive drop, diving over and holding your fate in your hands. Not quite the difference between playing a game and actually jumping, but it’s still pretty great.

Tilt controls are a turn-off for a lot of people, and I’m no exception. I like the idea of being comfortable playing a game while out in public, and that’s a lot less possible when you’re thrashing around like someone who’s never held a controller before. I set that prejudice aside for AaAaAA!, and I have no regrets. The tilt controls are precise, kinetic, and massively immersive.

AaAaAA! is BASE jumping in a fantasy land. The acronym stands for buildings, antennas, spans and earth, and those are the things you’ll jump from here, but they’re structures designed by a madman in a world without physical constraints. Hundreds of towers floating and merging on top of one another, highways that spiral in and out and around each other in endless stacks, ventilation shafts with dozens of fanblades leading into great tunnels of rings – these are just some of the pathways and obstacles encountered during the game’s many journeys to the ground.

This take on BASE jumping also ratchets up the difficulty from reality. The sport is incredibly dangerous, but much of that sense of danger would be lost in a straight digital translation. Most levels would be a quick fall with a brief landing. Instead of being ranked by distance traveled, here players are ranked by how much risk they can take on without breaking every bone in their virtual bodies. Scores are determined by kisses and hugs: a kiss is a structure near-missed, and hugs are earned by holding close to any single structure. This is, as one might imagine, extremely likely to end in maiming, and should never be tried at home.

The result is a very tense game. I found myself gripping my phone tightly, jerking it out of the way of this oncoming girder or that platform I hadn’t noticed. A prayer under the breath seemed suitable after some tight escapes. It was more than enough to convince me I’m not cut out for BASE jumping, but I sure enjoy the facsimile.

AaAaAA! comes equipped with a few dozen levels, and you can choose how you want to approach them. You begin with a small supply of teeth (and has there ever been a more disturbing currency name?). These aren’t a premium currency, you earn them in-game. You can unlock any level beside, above or below one you can already access, using a thousand teeth or so to open each of the first few. The costs increase from there. So do the rewards: you earn up to 1300 teeth per star, and each level awards up to five stars.

To get top marks, you’ll need to use the unlockable tools you can find scattered in the level map. One gives you the ability to interact with spectators. Fans stand on blue girders in some levels, and protesters stand on red ones. You can give your fans the thumbs-up for extra points, and you can flip off your foes. It’s a particularly satisfying way to earn bonus points. There are also bonuses to be earned for spraying graffiti on government buildings, if you want to be a little extra subversive.

Otherwise earning the big scores just requires good performance and a bit of understanding of the level layout. Each level comes with a training blurb to help you find the best approach. Sometimes that’s whipping around collecting kisses, other time it’s aiming for bonus score plates. Once in a while it’s hitting birds on the way down. The game can be a touch gruesome, but the looks are always sterile and unbloodied.

You don’t need to do extremely well to unlock all the levels—an average of three stars or so should do. It’s just more fun to go for five. Also worth noting is that 21 of the levels are leaderboard levels. Game Center’s restrictions don’t allow for all the levels to come with leaderboards, but there’s a nice representative mix that you can compete on.

There are a few extras to be found in the journey, but I won’t spoil them. Suffice it to say that Dejobaan has a quirky sense of humor, and there are oddities to be found around every corner. Some are obvious, like entertaining splash screens and odd vocal cues. Others can be unlocked, and ought to be experienced at least once.

In fact, I’ll go ahead and say the whole game ought to be experienced at least once. I’ve had a ridiculously good time with it. AaAaAA! is an excellent game, and for me, at least, this is the definitive way to play it. The quirkiness goes overboard from time to time, but it’s easy to skip past to get to the good stuff: the white-knuckled dives straight down to near-certain death. It’s almost enough to make one want to BASE jump. Or maybe skydive—if AaAaAA! taught me anything, it’s that my extreme sport career would be short-lived. If you’re also into armchair sports you should pick this game up, then drop by our forum thread. We’d love to hear about all your close calls.

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Inco is alone. His parents are dead, and so is his universe. He’s the last living human, and a survivor of a horrible, no-good, very bad event that turned his universe’s suns to char. He doesn’t brood, which is a good thing since no-one likes a crybaby, but I really feel for the guy: he lives among broken toys and dwells in total darkness. When Incoboto opens, you’ll see him peering into an especially black space with his telescope, perhaps searching for answers.

He finds one in a curiously sentient, but obviously mad sun named Helios. Helios is babyish and overexcitable. He giggles like an infant and devours like one, too. But he is also odd and knowing in the way that he floats about pointing to the things he can fix if, and just if, Inco can find more fuel for him.

They’re as perfect of a fit as Inco is going to find considering everyone is dead and all, so the two strike up a friendship set off across the universe. Helios wants stars, while Inco just wants to find someone. Conveniently, when Helios gobbles a star, he gains enough power to turn on the world’s contraptions.

This is the premise of Dene Carter’s imaginative 2D side-scroller Incoboto, a game that we’ve had our hands all over for the last week or so. Carter is an ex-Lionhead Studios veteran, and you can see that studio’s creative spirit all over it. It’s the end result of hundreds of different ideas that have been mashed together into an imaginative romp that has things to say about death, living, corporate control, adventure game design, exploration, and many other things.

Breaking it down mechanically into a snappy phrase isn’t easy. In our audio interview this week, Dene said he gave up trying to pitch the game. Incoboto is too odd, too much its own game.

“I kind of gave up doing all of that,” Dene told us. “While you’re developing a game, of course, what you’re trying to do the whole time is try to emphasize the fundamental thing that makes your game, your game, and not a game. It’s so easy to describe your game as other games, with bits of this and bits of that or whatever else, as soon as you start doing that it’s very easy to get distracted.”

“After literally a year doing that and just kind of going ‘god, this is ridiculous, this is turning to Nethack, this is turning to god-knows-what-else. How the hell did we get here?’ And my wife literally beating on my ass for about three weeks, I just said you know what, this is a strange, strange game and I will just make sure everything that I do with this game from now on reflects that.”

The core components of the game’s overall structure and design seemingly owes a lot to the small creative team at Nintendo behind the original Super Mario Galaxy. Incoboto is the end result of what would happen if that team squashed that experience into 2D, and in the process of torturing, manipulating, and cleansing it, injected new features and the bent, almost dreamlike signature whimsy of a Lionhead production.

I don’t want to sell this short; Incoboto clearly is its own title. But its core action revolves around loosely adapted concepts and mechanics popularized by Galaxy. It plays around with physics a lot, and you’ll find yourself pulling a ton of levers and scaling a lot of oddities in a quest to collect stars across a series of interconnected globes that you can travel to and from freely.

If you’re still lost, take a gander at this trailer. This should put you in the right head space. Note the almost total lack of UI:

The game’s camera acts as a rod, slowly spinning the world as you move around it. One of the coolest elements of Incoboto is its one-touch controls. To run, press a finger in a direction. To jump, press that finger down again. It’s really simple, and it works. One of its other cool elements? The Corporation. In the game, you’ll discover that everything in Inco’s world has been created by an overly-observent mega-company that seemed to exist simply to create the most inane things ever invented, and then post PR-friendly signs about them everywhere.

At its heart, Incoboto is a puzzle game. Collecting stars allows Helios to open brand new passageways to other worlds. However, most of these stars are tucked out of reach, or require some fanciful solutions to get to.

You’ll run across puzzles that will have you lining up rods to complete an electrical circuit. In one specific case, we rotated a physics-based puzzle box with a ball on the opposite end of where it needed to be. Sometimes, you’ll be smacking switches with rocks or explosives. Other times, you’ll be scaling a world in a precise way to reach a star.

The puzzle design is lightly schizophrenic; there’s a lot of ideas floating around in the game, and you’ll see a lot of different puzzles as a result. The kickback is that you’ll hit a lot video game logic walls. New puzzles just don’t jive with the old. I got stuck within the first hour, and then again in the second, and then big-time during the third.

Seriously, Dene says this is basically the point: he wants you to get stuck or feel funny, and then to have to probe your friends for answers. He views this as a mechanic in an age where everyone wants to hold your hand. How indie.

As you progress, you’ll find tools and other objects that expand what you can do while digging for stars. Early, you find a glove that allows you to throw rocks at springy targets. The first item gives you the power to find hidden buttons and switches with a gentle pinch and zoom motion.

My time with Incoboto has been short, and I got stuck a lot. It’s a discouraging kind of feeling, so I’m not quite sure what that says about me or how I’m clicking with some of the fundamental design. It’s nice to have an actual challenge, I guess, but I don’t want the difficulty to keep me from seeing everything Dene has created. This is a beautiful, beautiful world with music that blends into the atmosphere as smoothly as a smooth thing.

I’m eager to see more in the final version, which by the way, should appear at some point this March on iPad. If you’d like to hear Dene talk about his game, consider checking out our most recent podcast. If you’d like to see more of the game, there is a really, really thriving discussion in our message board right now.

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I can hardly believe it’s been more than 6 months since we first told you about Incoboto, the upcoming iOS game from one man development studio Fluttermind. A running theme through that entire preview was that I hadn’t a clue what the hell was going on in the game, but the art style was so fantastic and the possibilities so intriguing that Incoboto has been near the top of my most anticipated games list ever since.

In a feeble attempt at description, Incoboto is a 2D open world-ish exploration and adventure game with puzzle elements and a heavy storyline tying it all together. Whew! In fact, I don’t know how accurate calling it a “game” in the traditional sense really is, since everything in Incoboto is so non-linear and there is such heavy emphasis on the mood and atmosphere of the world it takes place in. So, maybe it qualifies more as an experience? I’m not totally sure just yet, but Fluttermind has finally released a video of Incoboto in action so you can try to make sense of it all for yourself.

Well, I don’t know about you, but that video left me with more questions that answers, actually. One thing I do know however is that the Incoboto game world is absolutely beautiful, even more so due to the incredibly moody soundtrack. If you’re like me and are totally digging the look of Incoboto, but are dying to know what it’s all about, then I have some good news. Our own Brad Nicholson has had his muscle-laden hands all over the title for the past couple of weeks, and we should have a hands-on preview coming for you really soon.

I’m not 100% sure that even he’ll be able to explain Incoboto, but I’m all for anything that will pass the time until the game releases sometime next month. Also, you can check in on our forums for more Incoboto discussion.

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There’s a reason MMORPG players use the term “trash” to describe the stuff that leads up to raid bosses: it’s missing all the great rewards, and it’s almost always lame. It’s junk, in other words, junk that pads the time between the good parts. Red Zebra Games clearly knows the score, because Raid Leader skips right past the trash to bring us nothing but the good stuff—intense, white-knuckled battles.

As we pointed out in our preview, the big picture will look familiar to Battleheart [$2.99] fans. But it’s the little details that get this recovering World of Warcraft addict’s heart a-fluttering. There was a time when damage number spam, health bars and massively telegraphed attacks were my bread and butter, and boy do they come out in force here.

Before I get your hopes up, though, let me be clear. This isn’t the next Battleheart, and it’s not raiding in World of Warcraft. It’s far, far simpler than either. If you’re looking for a deeply strategic RTS-RPG, this might be a bit casual for your tastes, but it’s a potent combo for those of us nursing fond memories of raiding.

Raid Leader lacks Battleheart’s big list of classes, levels and loot. Instead it has bosses, and the three things any proper team needs to defeat them: a tank, a DPS class, and a healer (in the forms of the Knight, Hunter and Priest). Each of them has a bevy of skills to unlock and choose from, and choose you must, because each character can only bring two skills into battle. You might want to deal damage, snare and buff with one character, but you have to pare that down to the skills you really need. That’s half the game’s strategy right there.

The other half is the battles themselves. There are fifteen levels in total, with 2 arenas, 8 original bosses and a powered-up heroic version of all but the last. These have minions, lasers, death zones and many other familiar tricks, requiring priority targeting, clever positioning and quick reflexes. Lest you think I’m being irresponsible with my WoW comparisons, by the way, one of those bosses is nearly a one-to-one clone of Karsh Steelbender from the most recent expansion. Not that I mind. It just feels a little too much like coming home, if you know what I mean.

Your survival depends on two things: how well you’ve chosen and upgraded your skills, and how well you can pay attention and perform. It also helps to have a basic understanding of MMORPG-style battles. You’ll have an easier time if you already know that the tank should keep the enemies’ backs to his team, or when to toss a heal-over-time and switch targets. Admittedly, though, knowing too many tricks takes a little fun out of figuring out the right strategies for each fight, especially when kiting works so effectively.

Because of this, the game sometimes fails to straddle the line between too easy and too hard. Executing a strategy is often fairly simple, because the bosses never have more than three or four plainly timed and well-telegraphed abilities. You’ll never have serious trouble figuring out how to handle an encounter when anything tricky is explained on screen.

You’ll still run into plenty of difficulty, though. Two things will conspire to stop you no matter how well you can plan. The first is the somewhat-awkward touch controls. Like in Battleheart, you drag one hero to another to heal or attack, and drag your heroes around the screen to move them. Because those two actions are so similar, you may occasionally find the game mixing up your intent. Worse, though, is the way the controls sometimes lead to deaths-by-Notification-Center. Those probably can’t be helped, but that doesn’t keep them from being frustrating.

The second big roadblock is the enrage timer most bosses sport. This isn’t a problem, it’s a classic MMORPG mechanic. Three or four minutes into a fight, the boss becomes immensely more powerful. This isn’t designed to kill you instantly, but it does keep you from flinging yourself at a boss for ages if you’re not powerful enough to defeat it. In Raid Leader, you’re not going to run down the clock because you haven’t leveled enough or hit the right gear level. Instead, it’s your skills that can fall behind.

The three classes each get eight or nine skills to play with. These include a healthy mix of class-appropriate heals, attacks, buffs, debuffs and so on. You can pay out the coins you earn from defeating bosses to upgrade them up to four times each. If you’re a better player than I am you might be able to get by with nothing more than the coins you earn from each boss. I rather doubt it, though. It gets seriously tough to pump out enough damage to beat the enrage even when you’re doing well. If you hit a wall and decide you need more coins, you have two options: grind or pay.

It’s kind of a lame choice. Grinding is actually fun in Raid Leader, but it’s hard to turn down the comparatively massive number of coins you can get by putting down an extra dollar or two. If you do, you can earn a decent rate in two arenas fighting waves of minions, or you can replay completed boss fights. You can earn Game Center achievements and leaderboard rank for beating bosses quickly, so this isn’t a bad way to go.

I just wish there was more of everything. I want a reason to pull out more skills and level them higher. I’d dread putting hours into WoW at this point, but the few brief hours I put into Raid Leader left me craving a lot more. That’s not a bad thing, assuming there’s more to come. While we’re talking updates, Red Zebra, could you work out the spelling errors and put some clothes on the poor Hunter? She’s literally fighting in a bikini. Not even a chainmail bikini, just a few flimsy scraps of nothing.

Raid Leader isn’t perfect, and it’s not perfectly original. That said, it sure is fun. Any recovering raider will find plenty of great nods and familiar concepts, and anyone who’s wondered why folks make such a fuss about raiding will get a low-impact introduction. Drop by our discussion thread to let us know what you think, and point out how much you want more levels while you’re there. For me. Because even though I can quit any time, I really don’t want to quite yet.

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Only in the indie space do we see games like Pizza vs. Skeletons. Bright and humorous, as well as off-the-walls, it’s a 2D action game that stars a 10-foot tall pizza. It has a knack for catching you off guard by design; delicately crafted to avoid the mechanical monotony so common in its space, it’s an adventure that re-imagines what it is in almost every level. Sometimes you’ll save puppies. Other times, you’ll ski. Or butt heads with gigantic skulls. Or just bash skeletons because, hey, that’s fun.

You just can’t pitch this game to a major publisher. This will never be a blown-up, $60 retail title. It’s too free-wheeling, too idealistic. It’s too … different.

I’ve had my paws all over a pre-release build for the last week or so, and I’m OK with saying that it’s looking every bit as awesome as its name implies it will be. Sure, it might not have any ultra-familiar trappings to draw connections to, but that’s kind of the point: this thing is bananas, man. It’s as far-out as a quasar.

Take the mechanics, for example. In the game, you control a house-sized pizza that can roll, stomp, and jump. Rolling requires a simple tilt of the device. Tap the screen and the pizza jumps. Tap again while in the air and the pizza unleashes a devastating stomp.

Rolling automatically obliterates enemies into plumes of grave dust — provided they aren’t hoisting an over-sized, pizza-skewing spear in front of their bodies. If this is the case, a physics-bending jump and stomp will do the trick. As you play, you’ll start running into a few enemies that twist this basic combat model. There’s a flying skeleton that requires a bit more touch, as well as other minor iterations on this specific idea.

If that was the game, I’d still be as into it since, you know, you’ll be controlling a giant, grimacing pizza on a quest to kill all the skeletons ever. But that’s not all there is. Pizza vs. Skeletons is like a conga line of levels and different systems, each one bolting onto the back of the last and making the stream stronger and crazier.

In the first chapter, you’ll be introduced to a skiing mini-game that doesn’t task you with killing. Instead, the objective is to hit the ramps perfectly in order to collect the most currency possible. Later, you’ll be balancing the pizza on the top of a huge skull while crossing a pit of spikes, pummeling telltale Angry Birds structures into oblivion, or even bouncing on rocks in a timed adventure that has you knocking skulls off of the tiny platform you’ll be forced to work with.

There’s a lot more, and I won’t spoil it all. I will say, though, that nothing I’ve been doing is striking me as particularly interesting. Everything in the game exists in the service of fun, kinda like a Rock Band. You’re just playing to act out weird power fantasies, and that’s cool.

Also, while there’s a level of schizophrenia inherent in this kind of design, Riverman ties all of the bits and bobs together into a coherent whole; the sound design is as kooky as the game, and the art direction? It’s like something Tim Burton would do if he could (a) draw and (b) chill out every once in a while. The game is bent, but lightly so; its style and its tone fits well with the oodles of off-the-wall content.

There’s a good story about this game’s design in this week’s show. Riverman is composed of two brothers, Jacob and Paul Stevens. Jacob, the art dude, dreamt up the scenarios. Paul, the programmer, then had to figure out a way to not only make it work technically, but also make them fun.

The prototyping phase took awhile and the duo had a lot of back and forths on the subject of dreams vs. the reality of having to make solid, fun-to-play content within the technical parameters of the game.

“There are a few levels that have the theme of your sort of crushing a structure in a way like how you fling birds in Angry Birds at something and destroy it. We thought could we make that fun as a pizza? Well, if you actually physically control your character and just crush, say, the Great Pyramids, that could be interesting.” Paul told us earlier this week.

“Jake’s ideas probably come from a totally different place than mine do. In mine, I was thinking what’s fun being a huge, powerful character? Crushing structures.”

Another fun thing that comes hand-in-hand with the conceit of driving around a huge pizza is topping customization. As you beat levels, you earn currency which can be dropped into extra vegetables or meats, new faces, new glasses, and even hats. Each is lovingly animated, and most are pretty hilarious. I’ll go on record here and say that nothing comes close to being as cool as a 10-foot tall pizza with a top hat.

I’ve held back my progression in the game so I wouldn’t get too review-y in this, but I think it’s pretty obvious that I’ll be embracing the game with open arms when it hits a little later this month on the 16th. We’ll be bringing you more around that time, too.

For now, though, keep your eyes on this and Riverman. The studio has never attempted a game this ambitious, this out-of-the-mold, and it seems like it has hit a new stride in the process. I’m excited, and I think you should be, too.

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