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London-based design studio ustwo created a heck of a game in Whale Trail, but it’s failing as a commercial entity. It’ll never hit the App Store top 10. The face of its bubbly and wide-eyed mascot, Willow, will never grace products like panties or fruit snacks. And at its current pace, it’ll be awhile before it generates a decent profit.

The studio has huge expectations that aren’t being met, and just based on trends, it’s clear that Whale Trail will continue not meeting them. It’s a failure in this life. But will it be one in its next? Again, ustwo is spending money on Whale Trail, giving it a second wind via creative mouth-to-mouth. It’s retooling and redesigning the oddball flying game as a free-to-play title in a high-bandwidth effort to attract the casual audience that the original version failed to reach, but managed to brush.

The hope is that this model, alongside some fresh content, will finally put the game over the top and onto hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of phones and tablets across the world. It’s a crazy plan. Crazy, however, is kinda its project lead’s thing.

On Conversion, Failure, And Journeys

I’ve been speaking with ustwo co-founder Mills about the upcoming transformation. Mills is like a bizarro Clint Eastwood. In the face of adversity he has the same grit and air of determination, but instead of a cowboy hat and a killer squint Mills rocks a long, flowing red wig and eyeglasses with thick, black frames. When he talks to you, even via e-mail, you feel his warmth, energy, and passion. He’s funny, too, and you see a lot of his brand of humor in his game. As we talk, he refuses to call the original Whale Trail a failure despite being able to produce evidence indicating as much. Instead, he calls it a “succailure” and the process of making it a F2P title a “journey.”

“Whale Trail was our first proper game release,” Mills tells TouchArcade. “Full heart, full passion. The launch was a success for our studio, showering loads of eyeballs on us but something didn’t quite click. Although we were hitting 12,000 downloads a day at launch, it tailed off pretty quick.”

In fact, Whale Trail has just hit over 188,000 total sales, and it shifts around 250 units a day across Android and iPhone and iPad. These kind of numbers would be enough for a lot of studios, but ustwo spent oodles of cash on the game. It needed Whale Trail to be up there with the Angry Birds and Fruit Ninjas and the Cut the Ropes of the world.

How those titles manage to stay up top is a matter of debate. Mills doesn’t believe that featuring, reviews, or exposure brings in new downloads. He thinks that word of mouth is now driving sales. As evidence, he notes that the game’s trailers still get around 500 new views a day and the music video for the theme used in the game drives interest, too. Riding on a wave of featuring, however, Whale Trail managed to light up the charts for a short period. Mills shot us the following handy chart, for those of you into the numbers:

Learning about why the game didn’t keep selling at its initial, breakneck pace is an important component of its upcoming transformation. Mills is soaking up everything he can. He frequently frames this entire ordeal as a learning experience.

“We went back to the drawing board and dove deep into the blue waters to understand why Whale Trail wasn’t quite able to take off. We had made a wonderful experience but there wasn’t enough ‘replay’ value in the current game. The new challenge levels added in iteration release two and three helped, but we needed more. Much more,” he adds.

The new version of the game is, indeed, functionally different. As you collect bubbles and travel, you’ll collect an in-game currency called Krill. With Krill, you can buy new powers, “useable treats,” costumes for Willow and its five new playable friends. If you want this stuff without the grind, you can buy Krill straight-up.

“The game is so much better. Players are now in full control of their destiny and each play rewards them. This was missing before,” he says.

If you’ve already purchased Whale Trail, Mills says you’ll receive a “BIG” bag of Krill when you update to the new version. Additionally, you’ll receive a message designed to make you feel “special.” Mills worries about how the current install base is going to react to this massive change, since the regular version will essentially die after this update. Perhaps that’s why this message to fans will be “like finding a bag of money in your house that you can use to pimp it right up 50 style” or “like finding a bag of candy that is so sweet, yet so sticky.”

When I bring up failure, Mills says I have a point, but he describes the experience so far as a “journey.” His studio has had opportunities to sell off the IP or actually make money, but ustwo as a whole is more interested in learning at this point.

“You can look at it as a failure, but I see it as journey,” Mills says. “Each iteration of Whale Trail has created a new buzz and has engaged the players more. It’s been a big lesson for me especially in regards to releasing something I wanted and releasing something that the majority of players want. We were very successful at creating buzz, we were very open about the whole experience and the story of Whale Trail will now be told via Penguin,” he tells us. He means the publishing company, not an actual penguin.

“We had two Whale Trail acquisition offers for the game as it currently stands now, but we were not interested in money. We were interested in better understanding what we could do to make the game better. I couldn’t walk away from it now, knowing it was not the game we wanted it to be. The game we have since built and are testing now with players is the game we should have released back then but didn’t realize it at the time.”

Even though the Whale Trail flopped, Mills notes some positives. It gave his studio new business opportunities, a higher-profile in the development community, and a lot of good will. These things, however, aren’t going to make new Whale Trail sail. A balance of IAP and fun mechanics are the only thing that’ll save it.

“I want to know more about free-to-play,” Mills says. “We are not being aggressive with the monetization potential. Players need never spend, but the joy they feel should allow the game to be pretty viral. We get a small social virility through Twitter right now, but the potential at the higher numbers is unreal. I guess the plan is for Willow to find some real Whales!”

We’ll have to see if the new version of Whale Trail hits the heights that Mills thinks it can reach. Regardless if it does or not, it’s going to be hard to call this iteration a failure. To Mills, success is all about what you do as you try to succeed.

“We didn’t set out to make something generic. Success is about crafting something you believe in and telling that story, granted it may never be a smash hit as the very concept of a little fat flying whale called Willow who lives in a psychedelic land is too far out for many to stomach, but we made something we are so proud of.”

We’ll have hands-on impressions in the near future.

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When you truly adore a game, sequels can be a scary thing. Sure, it’s more of what you love—but what if they mess it up? What if they abandon all the things you love for the sake of novelty? Well, Defender Chronicles [$1.99 / $2.99 / $4.99 (HD)] fans, let us put your fears to rest. We’ve had a chance to spend some time with Defender Chronicles II, and it seems to have everything the original had to offer. And every little bit of it is bigger, better, and sexier.

I spent the summer of 2009 consumed by the original. I had a brand new 3GS and pages of games, but Defender Chronicles – Legend of the Desert King was the one that devoured my time. Its mix of vertical tower defense and RPG conventions was completely irrestistable, and Gimka Entertainment and Menara Games propped it up with massive updates that added to its already substantial content. Defender Chronicles II is looking like it will contain that same potential for time investment, so you might want to clear your schedule in advance.

This game is leagues beyond its predecessor in terms of visual appeal, and that’s an achievement—as we pointed out way back in our review, Defender Chronicles was a looker in its time. But now every unit is more detailed and every animation is more fluid. And crisp—Retina support is in for iPhone, though apparently not for iPad. The game lives up to the rose-colored vision you may have of the original, but it’s much more refined, more up-to-date.

The gameplay has been similarly preserved. You’ll still spend your time turning flags into guilds and upgrading them through tiers of units, archers to rangers, squires to cavaliers. Strategy seems more important than ever before, with enemy units that take advantage of every potential weakness in your defense. Height and range are the biggest considerations as you scroll around massive, multi-tiered 2D maps. There are quite a few of those this time around, and they hit an almost Escher-esque level of complexity pretty quickly.

There isn’t much that’s changed outright, really. Voice actor George Ledoux returns to impress us with his Sean Connery impression, though he also pulls off an impressive lizardman. Heroes Melwen and the General return, but this time they’re accompanied by two new friends: Lovell and Elwyn, an archer and priest. The brand-new story of the heroes and their defence of Athelia against the Orcs and Forsaken is told through gorgeous comic-book cutscenes once more.

From our brief time with the game, it really seems like you’re going to be able to put in a ludicrous numbers of hours. There’s so much here for the player that wants to go deep, with heroes to level up and customize, hundreds of artifacts to locate and five difficulty levels and game modes to work through. The difficulty curve also feels a bit steeper, so if you’re already familiar with the game you shouldn’t be underwhelmed. If you’re feeling particularly cocky, you’ll be able to challenge yourself with a huge list of Game Center achievements and leaderboards.

Ultimately, it seems like Defender Chronicles II will be the perfect sort of sequel. It updates already excellent gameplay for a new generation of devices, and brings in all sorts of improvements in the process. It’s hard to imagine any Defender Chronicles fans being disappointed, and folks that are new to the series should be in for a treat. We’ll be taking a closer look at the game over the next couple weeks, and we’ll be back with our review after it hits the App Store on May 24th. In the meantime, the developers are posting regular previews in our discussion thread, so take a peek if your appetite isn’t already whetted enough.

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If you’re looking to spend at least one more dollar in THQ’s so-so wrestling game, WWE WrestleFest [$2.99 / HD], there’s no better time than now. A new IAP pack that includes a new arena and former and past crowd-pleasers Sexual Chocolate, Daniel Bryan, Edge, Mr. Perfect, and Eddie Guerrero is available for purchase.

THQ is branding this as the “Champions Pack,” which strikes us as kind of funny. Is it even possible to name a popular wrestler who hasn’t earned a belt or two over his surely-800 year career? Even Shamrock won championships. Shamrock, man. Anyway, if you’re interested in WrestleFest we highly suggest you read some reviews and community thoughts and check out the demo [Free / HD Free] before diving in. It’s definitely a mixed bag, and for those of you keep track at home, it still doesn’t support iCade for whatever reason.

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In an age where game studios are talking to behavioral psychologists and hiring retention experts and monetization specialists in a rush to juice the most out of free-to-player gamers, there’s at least one studio developing free-to-play games that doesn’t care about metrics, compulsion loops, and user acquisition. Game business never informs game design at NimbleBit. Fun is first, the mechanics of free-to-play are secondary.

Pocket Planes is the next big thing from the two-man studio, and it’s philosophically linked with its other titles. Without shaking a virtual change cup in your face, Pocket Planes gives you a vibrant and customizable world and ownership over it as you ferry a fleet of planes from one airport to the next. Designers David and Ian Marsh believe that these components will be enough to organically drive the free-to-play aspect. No business trickery is required.

The Art Of Good Free-To-Play

“[Our] philosophy is to consider monetization as little as possible during the design of the game,” Ian tells TouchArcade. “The in-game currencies are balanced to be a natural part of the game without the option to even purchase more during design and beta,” he points out. “Adding IAP and deciding how much to charge is always one of the last things we do before launch. We take care to make sure that everything in the game is accessible and achievable without every purchasing IAP.”

Ian and David proved that this approach works with Tiny Tower. The game made money even though monetization aspects weren’t a focal point. The game also did well with critics, earning all sorts of amazing reviews and even a Game of the Year nod in 2011 from the editorial team at Apple. Millions of people played Tiny Tower, too.

Pocket Planes is still deeply in beta, but I’m as hopelessly … hooked on it as I was Tiny Tower. Every ten or so minutes I pick up my phone and plan more flights. When I’m not playing, I spend time thinking about new planes and creative ways to expand my cash and transport flow. Should I grind in my current selection of airports until I can buy New York’s airport? Or should I keep expanding with much smaller airports to broaden my empire, and slowly build up the necessary resources to acquire international hubs? What if I converted all my fleet to four-seat airplanes? How much could I earn then?

These are the questions running through my head, in part because the simulation aspect of the experience is so good. But I’m also just straight-up invested in the world that I’m creating, and I want to keep making it bigger and better. There are so many small, yet beautiful touches in Pocket Planes that drive my mania. I can name all my planes and customize each of my pilots. My passengers post their thoughts on an in-app Facebook client called “BitBook.” I can buy any airport that I can afford, and I can also upgrade it to make it bigger and better. I can build my planes and when I watch them fly, I can collect the game’s two currencies randomly floating in the air. Pocket Planes also knows when I’m flying. The day and night cycle is synced to the real world. When I receive a Push notification, my phone emits a soft airplane cabin ding.

These are the aspects that David and Ian believe drive users to spend. These are the things it spends all of its time developing. There is no conversation about loops or feedback. The duo spend their time making games with character, real progression, and meaningful stuff. Their games have a soul.

“I’m not sure if there is some kind of secret sauce, but we definitely focus a lot of time on adding lots of things to our simulation games that make them feel like a functional little world inside,” David tells us. “I think the stronger the feeling that there is a buzzing simulation going on inside the game, the more fun it is to influence it and use your actions to mould and direct it.”

“I agree with Dave completely,” Ian says. “The more detail and emotion you put into these little worlds the more immersed players become and the more they enjoy spending time with it.”

“I think the customization has a lot to do with it as well,” he continues. “That isn’t just a plane flying in the game, it is your plane that you named yourself and spent time finding the perfect paint job for. In Tiny Tower, it isn’t just a generic bakery, it’s Brad’s Bread with interior decoration of his choosing and hand picked employees that took work for him to recruit.”

David explains that Tiny Tower and the feedback blowing up NimbleBit’s inbox is actively informing the development of Pocket Planes. Users are lauding their game design ideals and are actually thanking David and Ian for making a fun game first.

“I think we definitely are trying to strike the same balance and attitude in all our future free-to-play games because it resonates with players and matches the type of games we prefer to play ourselves,” David says. “The other thing we have learned from Tiny Tower and also Pocket Frogs is that the more we can stimulate players imaginations the better. The kind of fan art and fan communities that have grown around those games is amazing and that is a target we are always aiming for.”

Pocket Planes is shaping up to be a tremendous game and my praise is coming at a time when more and more new free-to-play games continue to feel like skinner boxes instead of fun things to play with. Ian and David are doing important work here, proving that free-to-play doesn’t need to inform fundamental game design.

“Even without spending a dime, players become heavily invested in these worlds because of their character and charm — not some carefully crafted compulsion loop. That is what keeps them coming back,” Ian says.

Fun doesn’t need to cost a penny, and that’s what NimbleBit strives to make a reality with each release.

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It seems like the thing to do nowadays is release a mobile companion app for your big time AAA console release. Whether it’s the Call of Duty Elite app [ Free ], the Mass Effect 3 Datapad [ Free ], or the Dragon Shout app for Skyrim [ Free ], each offer a way to assist or otherwise immerse yourself further into a console or PC game using the second screen of your mobile device. It’s like the digital revolution of the strategy guide.

The newest of these companion apps is the Prototype 2 Official Sidekick [ Free ], which hit the App Store right around the time of the console game late last month. Prototype 2 is an open-world action game that received fair to positive reviews when it released.

The iOS companion app focuses mostly on allowing you to explore that large open world and aid you with finding all of the game’s collectibles. It will track your collection progress and you can filter out the specific parts of the world you’re interested in by zone or item type. Besides the maps and tracking, the app also contains additional in-depth information about the mutations in the game and how to get them.

The Prototype 2 Official Sidekick is free to download and lets you check out the map and features for the Yellow Zone in the console game. For a $1.99 in-app purchase you can unlock both of the additional Red and Green zones in the app. I haven’t given Prototype 2 a spin yet myself, but if it’s a game that you’re currently enjoying you might as well check out at least the free portion of the Prototype 2 Official Sidekick app.

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On this week’s episode of The TouchArcade Show, we power through conversations about smart gyms and wearable heart monitors in order to bring the latest, greatest, and the best in iPhone and iPad. At the top of the show, we dive into oral reviews of a bunch of cool games, including Brainsss and King of Fighters 2012. Later, we ponder if the free-to-play market is about to collapse and dig into the realities of development in a market that only wants 99¢ stuff.

You can listen below via these handy-dandy links or, hey, you can subscribe to us on iTunes or Zune. The latter is the only way to get our stuff the very second it comes out and lord knows you want us immediately so do it!

iTunes Link: The TouchArcade Show
Zune Marketplace: TouchArcade.com Podcasts
RSS Feed: The TouchArcade Show
Direct Link: TouchArcadeShow-050.mp3, 42.7MB

Here are your show notes:

GAMES

• Brainsss [$2.99]
• Flight Control Rocket [99¢]
• The King of Fighters-i 2012
• Tower of Fortune [99¢]
• DreamWorks Dragons: TapDragonDrop [$1.99]
• Junk Jack [$2.99]

JARED’S KITTY KORNER

• Cat Sliding [Free]

FRONT PAGE

• ‘Draw Something’ Is Losing Dudes Like Whoa
• Tiger Style Reveals Lifetime Sales Numbers
• Jason Citron Forming Games Studio

The original Soundtrack by Jim Guthrie (of Sword & Sworcery fame) for Indie Game: The Movie is available for pre-order now on Bandcamp and iTunes. The 24-track album featuring music from the award winning documentary chronicling the journeys of independent game developers by filmmakers James Swirsky and Lisa Pajot will be released in full on May 15th. It will also be available on double LP exclusively through Bandcamp. Pick up a pre-order copy of Indie Game: The Movie: The Soundtrack today on Bandcamp and iTunes.

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I’ll be honest, I’m wary of any games I download onto my phone these days that promise any sort of physics-based fun. I’m burned out on that scene, plain and simple. However, I do like cats, as you may know from my past reviews, and I like the idea of forcibly launching a cat out of a cannon (in safety gear, of course, folks). So I caved for Cannon Cat [ Free ], and I admit, now I’m really glad I did.

Cannon Cat has a flimsy premise, as most iPhone games do — something about skyfish being imprisoned in bubbles by a guy named the Evil Emu. I think that it’s cute fluff, but I didn’t pay it much mind before I jumped headlong into the game. We’re not here for deep stories, after all – I came here to put a cat in a cannon and rocket him across the skyline. I mean, who doesn’t want to do that?

Good news: that, my friends, is exactly what you are going to do, over and over. Cannon Cat is diced up into into two worlds, Kapalua Islands and Cedaria Reef. Apparently a third world called Stratos is coming soon as well. Each of these worlds holds roughly 40 levels to work your way through, which sounds like a lot, but if you factor in that each level takes you less than a minute to play, you could finish Cannon Cat in just a couple of hours. And I found that mildly frustrating, because I wanted to play more.

Each level contains a series of cannons, and your job is to guide Cannon Cat from one to the next, collecting the skyfish along the way. As you can imagine, this starts simple and becomes challenging with the addition of obstacles. Each cannon moves when you are inside of it, so you can choose the directions to send your cat flying in. Choosing alternate paths may mean collecting all the level’s fish, so you don’t always want to go in a straight line, as you could be missing out. You go through a ring at the end of each level to complete it.

When you finish each level you’ll be ranked on whether you got all the fish, and if you didn’t, you lose out on bonuses that would have improved your score. You also have a handful of cool powers at your disposal, such as a shield, an option to use “cannon time” (which causes slow motion), a boost that makes the skyfish bigger so they are easier to pick up along the way, and an autosave that automatically zips you back to the last cannon you were in before you failed.

These are all optional power-ups, and you can use an in-game currency called sparks to buy them. At first you’ll have some free ones, but if you use them all, you’ll need to spend some real life money to get more. It’s not at all necessary to enjoy the game, though.

I think the best way to appeal to a gamer who grew up in a time period when games were at their most challenging is to use some of the same structure in current games. It hooks us, and I admit that little touches like that really work on me. Cannon Cat is not radically unique, in fact it’s very similar to another iOS title Land-a Panda [$0.99 / $1.99 (HD)], but there’s something about the structure of it that also reminds me a bit of golden era platformers like Mega Man and Sonic the Hedgehog.

That’s probably because like those games, Cannon Cat is precise and easy to play, it’s fast, and it’s a lot of fun. Also, it’s free, and it looks like the developers plan to expand on it, so it’s well worth your time to grab this game and spend some leisure time sending your feline friend in search of flying fish.

TouchArcade Rating:

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On this week’s episode of The TouchArcade Show, we battle through conversations about muscle retention and HHH’s taste in order to bring you the latest and greatest in the world of iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad. We get off to a running start by discussing the hottest real-time strategy game at the moment, Total War Battles, and then quickly dive into a flurry of oral reviews courtesy Mr. Hodapp. Later, we pan Kickstarter again, talk about Rovio Mobile’s weird IAP plans, and the themes of Minecraft.

If you’d like to listen this week’s episode, please do so via the handy-dandy links just below. If you’d rather get our podcasts the second they hit the Internet, consider subscribing to us on iTunes or Zune Marketplace.

iTunes Link: The TouchArcade Show
Zune Marketplace: TouchArcade.com Podcasts
RSS Feed: The TouchArcade Show
Direct Link: TouchArcadeShow-049.mp3, 41.9MB

Oh! And if you have interest in joining our Minecraft server, send us another e-mail, as we might end up opening our stuff to all. E-mail podcast@toucharcade.com. Thanks!

Here are your show notes:

GAMES

• Total War Battles [$6.99]
• SpellTower [$.99]
• Polymer [$.99]
• Escape from the Age of Monsters [$.99 / HD]
• Bubble Pig [$.99]
• Aby Escape [Free]
• Ballistic SE [$1.99]
• Ski Safari [$.99]
• Wormholes [Free]
• Bus Turbo Racing [$.99]
• Marvel Vs Capcom 2 [$2.99]

JARED’S KITTY KORNER

• catnapper [Free]

FRONT PAGE

• ‘Minecraft – Pocket Edition’ Now Supports Crafting
• Robert Bowling Announces His New Studio
• ‘Angry Birds Space’ / ‘Jetpack Joyride’ / ‘Sword & Sworcery’ / ‘Anomaly Warzone Earth’ Updates

Aralon: Sword and Shadow HD, $0.99 Aralon: Sword and Shadow by Crescent Moon Games is a huge open world action RPG. It has more than 30 hours of gameplay in a massive 3D world, the biggest landscape ever to grace a mobile device. A full night and day system, complex quests, crafting, swimming, fishing, pipe smoking, pick-pocketing, and much, much more. Play as an elf, troll, or human, pick various classes, and go on an epic journey through the Kingdoms of Aralon.

Aralon: Sword and Shadow is now available for the discounted price of 99 cents, over 80% off for a limited time only!

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It’s been sort of a slow news day, so while we’re busy plugging away at busting out reviews from yesterday’s release onslaught, here’s two great deals you should be aware of. Actually, before you get either of these you should take a good long look at Ballistic SE [ $1.99 ] as I’ve been having a blast with it since it came out last night. But, anyway, on with the show.

Smash Cops, Free – [Review] – [Forum Thread] – Normally $2.99 and free for a limited time, Smash Cops is a really cool driving game where you (get this) play a cop, and smash into other cars. It’s worth checking out for the controls alone, because the way you drive the car is by “pushing” it with your finger. It’s hard to explain, and feels a little weird as first, but once you get into it you’ll wonder why more top-down games don’t employ similar controls.

Ascension: Chronicle of the Godslayer, $0.99 – [Review] – [Forum Thread] – Normally $4.99 and recently slashed to 99¢, Ascension is a deck building fantasy-based card game. I had some small gripes with the mechanics of the actual game itself in my review, but as far as a paper card game to iOS port, Ascension is flawless and worth checking out just to see how well it translates. 99¢ is also a stupidly good deal considering the physical version retails for $39.99. An expansion with new cards is available in game for $2.99, which sells for $29.99 in the real-world paper version.

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Back when Supermono released EpicWin [$2.99], its to-do list RPG, we spent some time contemplating whether adding game mechanics to productivity apps would really help people be more productive. That’s the question that rests at the heart of all discussions about “gamification”—do carefully tuned game mechanics drive us to perform tasks we might otherwise ignore? Has Farmville claimed so many man-hours because it’s fun, or because it’s designed to feed on impulses that could be better used for good?

Don’t count it as a blow against gamification, but, personally, EpicWin never quite clicked. I found the experience bars and loot rewards intriguing, but the work I had to put into maintaining my tasks outweighed the benefits. More recently I’ve found myself back in the world of gamified productivity with the help of a to-do app that doesn’t look game-like on the surface at all: Realmac Software’s Clear [$1.99]. Beneath all its lovely minimalistic design you’ll find the potential for a compelling game experience. With today’s update, Clear realizes some of that potential—and it brings a few easter eggs for the discerning iOS gamer along for the ride.

Clear launched with a bang, thanks to plenty of well-placed hype. Reviews at the time noted the simplicity of its design asthetic, the elegance of its colors. Those colors were customizable with a few built in theme options. Within a few hours of release, though, buzz started to build around secret unlockable themes people were finding tucked away in the app.

If you’ve ever felt the urge to master a game, to earn 100% completion on something, you might understand the effect that had on me. At first I only hoped to unlock a theme that was a little different because I wasn’t too fond of the baked in options. Then I had to have them all. The first two were easy—and I’m about to get into details, so stop reading and just grab the update if you want to go in unspoiled— one is unlocked for having Tweetbot [$2.99] installed. Another, Scorched, opens up if you follow any of the app’s creators on Twitter through the app’s menu.

The third is the one that made me realize gamification could work for me. The Socialite theme is unlocked by completing 100 tasks and then posting about it online. As soon as I heard that I starting using Clear obsessively. I added every important deadline, chore and errand and diligently checked them off. By the time I hit 100, I’d formed a habit. Sure, I unlocked the theme I’d been waiting for, but I also found myself more organized for it.

Then there was the letdown: with nothing left to unlock, Clear went back to being a pretty little to-do app that was great to use but not particularly game-like. Today’s update brings a return to that early entertainment with seven new themes to discover.

Three of the themes mirror the original set. There’s a shameless self-promotion option, which rewards you with a theme for gifting Clear when prompted. It’s called “Gifted.” The Path theme is a reward for having Path [Free] installed, just like the theme for using Tweetbot. And then there’s the self-improvement theme: Ultraviolet unlocks when you use the app each day for 7 days straight.

There’s a fundamental rule of any productivity system: you have to actually use it for it to do any good. Ultraviolet could provide that little tick of motivation someone like me would need to keep up the effort that requires, just like achievements might make you play a game longer than you might otherwise intend. There’s also a fourth unlockable theme, Night Owl, that encourages you to be productive after dark, between 12 and 3 a.m.

Now here’s the cool part, the part that reveals Clear’s affinity for games. Today’s update has within it the seeds of three other unlocks. Each one ties into a game: The Heist [$2.99], Temple Run [Free] and Bumpy Road [$2.99]. Those games will need to update before this works (The Heist’s update should come mid-week, and the others are on the way), but once they do we’ll get new themes in Clear for each of those games we have installed.

We’re pretty fond of all three of the games—hit the links to read our reviews—and any of them would be well worth the download with or without the theme. So far, the apps that accompany Clear themes seem hand-picked for quality, and these games are definitely no different. This update also brings in a selection of fixes and features, but the best thing here is using a to-do app that really is all fun and games.

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