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We all saw some sort of legal drama incoming, right? The creator of Dragon Shout [Free], a brilliant map app for Bethesda’s radical open world RPG The Elder Scrolls 5: Sykrim, has received a copyright infringement notice from ZeniMax Media. In an e-mail to us, Blalock says that Apple isn’t making him remove the app, as “ZeniMax didn’t specify what the app is specifically violating.” Blalock hasn’t received a C&D yet and notes that he’s e-mailed ZeniMax several times to try to clarify what the app is violating.

“I did my best to ensure the app was not violating anything,” creator Blalock tells TouchArcade. “I looked up US trademarks and copyrights for ‘Dragon Shout’ and at the time there wasn’t any. I had the map hand drawn. I intentionally didn’t use any graphics or wording that would possibly be owned by Bethesda. So, I’m still not sure what they say the app violates.”

And it’s hard to tell from what Blalock says he’s received so far. But, ZeniMax does its best to protect its brands. Earlier last year, the publisher squabbled with Mojang over the name “Scrolls.” This April, ZeniMax filed trademarks for the phrase “Fus Ro Dah,” Skyrim’s most Internet-popular dragon shout.

In much lighter news, Dragon Shout is now freer. In version 1.5 , the social add-on — which includes database searching, marker sharing and chat — is available free of charge.

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Sega’s Flick of the Dead is a real thing, and it appears to be exactly what you think it is: a legitimate Typing of the Dead spin-off, except for mobile phones. Earlier today, the publisher released the title on the Japanese App Store at the celebratory price of free. As of right now, it features over 25,000 words, a boss rush, and “a drill mode,” according to Siliconera. Eat that, Texting of the Bread.

In all seriousness, we’re absolutely stoked that Sega even bothered considering making a new version of this memorable title to iPhone. We’re doubly stoked that it managed to do so in a meaningful way. Unfortunately, it’s up in the air if an English version is in the works. We’re in the process of asking, so stay tuned — and play Texting of the Bread [$.99 / HD] in the meantime.

[via Siliconera]

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Need more CCG action in your life? Great! You and Ubisoft are on level. Earlier this morning, the publisher finally popped the lid off of Might & Magic Duel of Champions, a free-to-play card game set in the Might & Magic universe.

Ubisoft didn’t divulge hard mechanical details in today’s announcement materials for whatever reason, but it has confirmed the following about the game: (a) Duel of Champions will have collectible cards, (b) players will fight each other with these cards, and (c) users will also be able to buy these cards. So, yeah… this sure is card game.

More information will be coming to the game’s official web site, and apparently a beta is open right now in France. We’re doing our best to dig up some more substantial details so stick with us. If the Assassin’s Creed card game proved anything, it’s that Ubisoft knows how to fund decent tabletop experiences.

[images via PocketGamer]

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You don’t see this often. Brink developer Splash Damage is stepping into mobile, but it’s doing it with a newly created in-house publisher, WarChest. Consisting of staff sliced and diced from the Splash Damage team, WarChest is primed to deliver quality free-to-play games across iPhone, iPad, and other handsets. We spoke with a Splash Damage marketing dude at the studio the other night, and he seemed revved about the opportunity and the change of pace this represents for the studio. It as a whole, however, will continue developing games in the triple A space. In fact, there’s a PC-exclusive free-to-play game and a separate free-to-play console game in the works right now.

At the moment, WarChest is buckling down on a game called RAD Soldiers. It’s an asynchronous multiplayer strategy game with a beautiful look and a great premise. Set in London after an evacuation, you and a team of “collectible” mercenaries battle for control of the territory. As you play, you’ll assemble your group of ruffians, as well as customize their gear, outfits, and special abilities. It’s free-to-play, so you’ll be using in-game currency to unlock stuff, including new soldiers, equipment, and customization.

“Turn-based combat means there’s no rush, allowing you to ponder your next move at your leisure, and giving you ample time to unleash your inner tactical genius” WarChest CCO Richard Jolly said in a statement, “and you’ll earn valuable experience for your soldiers whenever you play, leveling up your squad commander to unlock new abilities”.

We’ve got the first trailer available for viewing just below, and we think it’ll give you a great idea of what to expect. RAD Soldiers is slated for a June 2012 launch across iPhone and iPad. Many map, solider, and weapon updates are planned to follow. We’ll be getting our hands on this soon, so stay tuned. Oh, and if that video got you jumpy to play, go ahead and register your name now.

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“I’ve kind of been the driving force behind this.” Chris Ewington describes what board games mean to him in passionate bursts. “It’s who I am. It’s what I do. It’s what I was meant to do.” Chris is the head honcho at Codito Development, an outfit that specializes in securing licensing and then reproducing tabletop games on iPad under the banner of Sage Games. Chris’ experience with porting the tabletop experience stretches long before iPad came into our lives. He used to make “homegrown” computer versions of his favorites to share with friends and family.

In a lot of ways, he’s the perfect guy to be doing this. His studio has the talent, and he has an astounding amount of reverence for the art form and what it does differently in today’s modern gaming landscape, which is dominated by stupid games like Angry Birds.

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“There’s a lot to be said I think in terms of entertainment value for things like Angry Birds and those huge hits out there where you can go play for 10 seconds and get some fun out of that, but with board games there’s a little more thought involved,” he tells us on this week’s bonus episode of the TouchArcade Show.

“They offer a lot of the other great things that some of those hit titles have, and particularly these euro board games have really great theming. You can kind of get into the world of the game if you will. They also have the replayability and fun factor — there isn’t just one way to win this game,” he says, picturing a title. “If I play it again, even with the same people, it’s going to be a completely different experience.”

Before iPad was even announced, Chris was thinking about iPad. He and his pals had been talking about playing board games on something just a little bit bigger than an iPhone or iPod Touch. He describes the announcement of iPad as an “Apple Saves The Day” kind of moment, as it gave him a legitimate outlet to take his passion and put it into a series of digital products. The list of official ports since is long: Chris has had a hand in Puerto Rico, Ra, Medici, and most recently, Tigris & Euphrates.

In a weird twist, the growth of the App Store has given Chris a calling. The majority of App Store consumers are casual-leaning, so they aren’t familiar with titles like Puerto Rico [$7.99] or Tigris & Euphrates [$4.99]. Chris says its his studio’s mission to get people to play these kinds of games, to show them that games can offer so much more than cheap thrills.

“…it’s part of our mission to open some eyes and introduce people to the joys of it. You can sit down and play a game like Puerto Rico or Tigris and you don’t know what’s going to happen. You have a rough idea how to play the game, but you don’t know what the interactions are going to be.” Chris says that the fact that most board games don’t have a single win condition is one of the most interesting things about them. The high-level strategy, complex theming, and even proximity are several of his other favorite aspects on his personal list.

His goal is lofty, but Chris is still grounded. He realizes that the world of gaming has moved on from tabletop. Much more visceral games like Pong, Mario, and Call of Duty have been re-defining what games are. It’s a new landscape, new audience, new world. But the things he most celebrates about board games are what he thinks will keep people around.

It’s also why he’ll continue doing what he’s doing.

“Board games are a natural fit for my interests and personality. I think more in 2D than 3D. And so, it’s not just … experiencing this big 3D world and trying to blast people. It’s more cerebral than that. It lets you focus more on the interactions between the players and the strategies of the game,” he tells us.

Le Havre

Chris is putting his 2D brain to good use with the studio’s next project, Le Havre. This title will mark the first time Codito Development will ever use a board game’s original art in a port. Chris believes this will add to its appeal for older fans, as it’ll be a much more authentic-looking experience than normal. That said, Codito will do the same thing it always does with its borderline masterful board game ports: honor the design and only streamline the mechanical parts of the experience.

Chris explains what Le Havre is all about. ”It’s largely a card-based game where, rather than having little squares or pieces, it’s based on cards you collect. Those cards represent different buildings you can use in the game. Again, the theming, is really what makes these games stand out above other board games and other games in some cases,” he tells us.

“It’s got this really cool feel of being in the harbor and you’re trying to develop your interests and amass the most amount of wealth at the end of the game. And to crush all of your opponents.”

Le Havre is a fairly recent creation. Publisher Lookout Games released the title in German and Australian English in October 2008. Board Game Geek has a scary breakdown of how it works, but we advise that you not look. The upcoming iPad version, as with all of Codito’s awesome ports, will focus on cleaning up the experience and putting the rules in the background.

“Our challenge is to take care of as much of the mechanics as we can and support the game experience without taking away from it. Let’s get all the other crap out of the way so you guys can just have fun playing the game and have fun with the theme and figuring out how to kick your friends ass without having to remember all the rules and picking up all the pieces and sort them out,” Chris says.

Chris has a lot more to say on this week’s show, so give it a listen. We do podcasts with interesting folks in the iOS space at least twice a month. We’ll be back later this week with another regular episode of the TouchArcade Show.

Oh, and as a special-special bonus to our podcast listeners, Codito is offering up three of its games for $1.99. Here’s some links:

• Reiner Knizia’s Ra [$1.99]
• Tikal [$1.99]
• Reiner Knizia’s Tigris & Euphrates [$1.99]

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This afternoon, Aquaria [$2.99] joined the growing list of iPad apps that support the new iPad’s high resolution screen. And in celebration, publisher Semi-Secret Software is offering it for $2.99 instead of its usual $4.99 price point. Semi-Secret is thinking that this is the first time Aquaria has supported 2048 x 1536, so scribble another note in your “Perks To Owning Aquaria on iPad” column if you’re playing along at home.

Here’s what it looks like now, by the way:

This sale ends this coming Sunday, so you’ve got some time to act before it ends. We suggest you fill this extra time by playing Aquaria so… maybe you should just jump on this now. Or something.

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Eerily similar to getting Samsunged, iPad-owning Tetris fans got EA’d today. iPhone Tetris fans will know this song and dance all too well, as EA pulled it on them late last year. In a nutshell, the Tetris for iPad that you may know, love, and already own now ceases to exist. EA pulled it off the App Store to make room for the “new and improved” Tetris for iPad.

What’s new with this version of the game? A whole hell of a lot of in-app purchase, extending as far as monthly and yearly memberships to the T-Club, which will get you a 15% bonus on top of the lines and T-Coins (the game’s consumable currency) that you earn by playing. Oh, EA’s Origin has also been shoehorned in.

The sad part is that the Retina-ready graphics in this new Tetris look great on the new iPad, and the addition of the “one touch” control method make the game a lot more fun to play. But, again, much like the iPhone version, it makes absolutely no sense why this couldn’t have been an update to the existing game that everyone already paid anywhere between 99¢ and $7.99 for.

It’s really hard to get behind EA as a developer or publisher on the App Store when they’re more than willing to pull these kind of hijinks. It’s one thing to submit new users to a bevy of IAP options, but by pulling the old game from the store entirely, if you lose the original Tetris .ipa file for any number of reasons, getting the game again is going to set you back the full purchase price.

So, if you’ve got the original Tetris for iPad, make sure you keep it backed up in a safe place.

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PlayGround States logo, as it appears on Facebook.

“It’s been an amazing experience,” Double Fine founder Tim Schafer told fans via a live stream that celebrated the closing moments of Double Fine Adventure’s success on Kickstarter. The project generated over three million dollars worth of donations in a month. Double Fine had asked for $400,000. It wasn’t just amazing. It was magical.

Not every studio sees this kind of outcome. Lead artist and the brains behind Playground State, Barry Collins, is walking us through what his studio looks like, and what has happened to his game, after his project failed to receive funding.

Playground State was founded two years ago by Barry and his brother Brad to explore and express the ideas that Barry has had floating around in his head since childhood. If you look closely at its web site, you’ll notice that there’s no physical address. It’s just a collective “willing people” across the globe coming together to build a series of sci-fi titles called Knights. A PC title called Knights: Spiral Islands was to be the first.

Spiral Island became a known project thanks to Kickstarter and a warm reception by PC enthusiast web site Rock, Paper, Shotgun, which featured it in an editorial in February 2011. Spiral Island is described as an episodic online action-adventure game in which you, as a knight in the game’s sci-fi universe, battle evil across the cosmos. Its hook, outside of its UDK visuals, is its lack of boundaries: in one mission, you’ll be hacking and shooting Vikings, in others space bees, mushroom zombies, robots, and large crabs.

Concept art of a playable Knight. You'll see other Knights in the upcoming preview game.

It has the look and feel of something incredible, especially if it were to be expanded as planned. Spiral Island was pitched to potential donors as game design in motion, as it would have seamlessly integrated new scenarios and enemies in a constant steam.

For whatever reason, it didn’t receive sufficient support. The Kickstarter effort ended with a thud later that April. Playground was looking for $10,000. A hair over $1,500 was pledged across 36 serial donators. One pledger, for example, has backed 48 other projects.

It’s easy to see this as a knockout shot, but to Barry, it’s just a glancing blow, and now the team is looking to iOS and its vast audience to continue.

“The lack of funds was frustrating, but it didn’t really kill our ambitions or desire to make this work,” Barry tells TouchArcade. In the ultimate show of confidence, the studio grew. It picked up an artist, a musician, a sound designer, and a couple of programmers following the failed attempt at funding.

That Playground is reacting in the exact opposite way you’d expect isn’t lost on Barry, and he explains that the reason is tied into how deeply his core team believes in what the studio is trying to accomplish.

“It’s our baby,” Barry tell us. “Amazingly, after maybe an hour or two of rambling with the various team members, they all irrevocably become hooked on the concept and what it has to offer, and slowly but surely begin to own it. Right now we have a team of guys all on the same page and all excited about the small steps as much as the bigger one that will come later — Knights as a whole.”

The crab monster we originally fell in love with, but now fewer polygons for mobile.

While the team grew, so did Knights. It’s now more than a game: it’s a series of mobile titles based in the same universe that spans multiple platforms and genres. Barry has an idea for several projects, some of which are in early stages of development. The most important is an Epic Citadel-like preview title, built specifically for iOS to show off what his team can do.

But even though the team is growing and excited about the games Barry wants to make, it has a horrible issue: it’s hemorrhaging programmers. It can’t keep one on staff, and this is putting a kink in the size and scope of the Knights games Barry wants to make. Barry says they’re in a spiral of simplification, as no one has the expertise to implement complex content into builds. The lack of a revenue stream is undoubtedly one of the culprits here. It’s also the reason why it’s bothering with a showcase project in the first place, and opening its doors for outsourcing work.

“This constant tug of war is what pushed us to our current goals of producing a very basic, free to download visual demo — a means of walking around a crazy environment full of eye candy and talking to basic scripted actors within the world. This will lay the ground work for follow-up episodes to come afterwords,” Barry tells us.

That Knights is blowing up, too, isn’t lost on Barry. He says this game has two goals: to nab exposure and be a launching board. Barry believes it’ll generate new ideas for future Knights games, and argues that the scope in this game is much more manageable than the one he put out there with Spiral Island.

This is how Playground wants to tackle on-screen FPS controls.

Another game is another iPhone and iPad-specific title called Knights: Arena. This is also a victim of the rotunda of programmers cycling through the studio. It’s an FPS that revolves solely around online play: team deathmatch, capture the flag, and so on. Barry, with a lengthy Internet sigh capping off what he tells us about Arena, says the studio’s goal is to establish a revenue stream as quickly as possible. It needs to hire at least one, dedicated programmer. “But that in itself is a Catch 22,” he says. “Need a programmer to make revenue, need revenue to get a programmer.”

Playground State’s ability to keep its legs churning in the mud seems unreal, but it’s a human reaction. With a teeth-gnashing kind of pride, Barry plans to continue marching on beyond his studio’s funding failure. He doesn’t just want to make games — he wants to see his dreams realized.

“I don’t quite know how we managed to grow in quality, strength, and numbers. Faith in Knights among the team is stronger than ever today, despite everything,” he tells us.

“Knights is one of many projects I dream of making. So this is the blood, sweat, tears part of paving the way to eventually being able to produce these with a real budget and fully paid team. This is it. This is what I love. It’s what I want to do for the rest of my life.”

That’s why Barry is up for using Kickstarter again. He has at least two in the works right now. One is for an extensive indie bundle that features developers in the Vancouver area. The other is for Knights: Arena or a single-player variant of that idea, which he wants to launch “at the same time that we launch the free demo, so people can see or play it and discover it that way.”

Barry talks about Knights: Spiral Island in his Kickstarter promo.

Spiral Island’s crowd-funding failure didn’t come without costs in terms of people and revenue. There were lessons learned, though. The first was scalability. “No need to come out of the gate with a massive universe to embark on hundreds of small stories in other universes. A single story is good enough, or if finances and or programming get in the way, as we are discovering, there are still options,” he tells us.

“We did not go into this expecting it to be quick and easy, and it has not been quick or easy either,” he says.

And let’s say these Kickstarters don’t pan out? Barry isn’t worried. “We will keep pushing along until we are earning revenue on our own, find the right investment deal or get the attention of a publisher that wants to work with us.”

“But no matter what, this project will see the light of day, and as a series of mobile games to start.”

Towards the end of our Barry conversation, we pressed “pause” so we could ask what makes him so idealistic. His vision for these Knights games still seems almost too ambitious considering the lack of funding. The risk of what will happen if these ideas die could be monumental to the studio’s future and Barry. These games are the realization of his dreams, after all.

Honu are a species you'll be able to talk to in a preview. Here's one in a warrior outfit.

“Knights in general is an extremely ambitious concept,” he says. “It started big and the scope of the games we want to tell based in this setting have been cut back for the sake of getting something to market sooner. “

“The concept of Knights being so grand just means we always have room to grow. We realize that we may only ever produce the Knights preview or only ever get as far as Knights: Arena because there’s a real possibility that Knights is lame and we are all crazy people working away on an idea nobody else likes. “

“For me this would just be a continuation of exactly what I have done for 11 years, which is to just hire myself out to whatever studio wants to pay me, and doing so in mass with others is old hat. The grind of tracking down clients and deadlines, milestones, massive delays in payment and so on… it’s all a part of the job. But, Knights, to me, is a way out of this, to finally get all the ideas my brother and I have been brewing up for decades. It’s time we produce things we want rather than the things that pay the bills.”

Barry says that he likes to focus on what could happen with some success. He could hire programmers, no more lost time on contract projects, and the people he’s surrounded by could be supported.

“I just really hope people want to play a game about the Knights — the ultimate saviors of all things, the definition of heroic. Not a bad bone in their bodies, watching them take on any bad guy we can dream up and throw at them, across all history in any universe and time. I really want to play that game.”

When a Kickstarter fails, it’s not necessarily a catalyst for disaster. Barry is idealistic, and maybe too ambitious, but he’s not a quitter. He’ll keep creating. The success of Double Fine was magical, but the intensity of at least one man who didn’t win big is special, too.

While Barry’s story stands on its own, we are covering something larger here. This is part one of a two-part series of articles. In the next, we’ll introduce you to three more studios who haven’t had the greatest experience on Kickstarter. We’ll also discuss why we don’t normally cover games on the service and why we’re not certain of the long-term viability of crowd-funding sources like Kickstarter.

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Last year at E3, we got our first taste of F5 Games’ upcoming Pocket Heroes, and we were definitely intrigued by what we saw. Pocket Heroes looks to take a party-based adventure RPG and give it the asynchronous multiplayer treatment. In fact, it’s strictly online-only, with each player controlling a party member in the game and taking turns making moves asynchronously, with push notifications letting everybody know when it’s time for them to go.

It’s been described as Words With Friends meets turn-based RPG, and is probably best understood by watching the trailer below.

So, as you can see from that video, Pocket Heroes is a really cool idea. Since we first saw the game at E3 last June, F5 has been continuing to toil away at the project, and we got another chance to see where it was at during GDC last month. It had come a long way since E3, and actually looked very close to finished.

Earlier this week, the game’s publisher Ayopa Games posted the official game page for Pocket Heroes along with an official release date and pricing info. We can expect to get our hands on Pocket Heroes May 11th for the reasonable price of $1.99. Sweet! You can also see some brand spanking new promo art for the game and learn more about the different classes by visiting our forums, and we’ll definitely have more on Pocket Heroes as it nears its release next month.

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