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Remember this time last year? We were heaping dump trucks full of praise on Superbrothers' Sword & Sworcery EP both in our initial hands-on, then again a few days later as we further reflected on just how impressive the whole experience was. Since then, our forums have been going wild with speculation, especially as Superbrothers' kept slowly releasing details and commenting on possible release dates.

So what's been taking so long? Well, now that the game is officially nearing release, Superbrothers' were willing to open up on just what it is that they've been up to. Here's the terrible secret of Sword & Sworcery: What we saw back at GDC 2010 was basically a polished prototype, what we played was quite literally all there was that was completed at the time. While you could shake your fist at the sky and damn Superbrothers for hoodwinking you, you could realize the entirely too clever thing this has allowed them to do.

So many games that we preview are either completed or very close to it. From a developer's perspective, all you can really do then is listen to feedback and try to mitigate what people don't like or criticize either in future updates or last minute changes before the game is released. Getting the world excited for Sword & Sworcery when it was just an incredibly intriguing prototype has more or less flipped this process completely around.

The vague previews and trailers have resulted in a hurricane of comments as people post what they hope the game will be. Superbrothers has been following this discussion like a hawk, and through the year that the game has been in development, seemingly implementing things from the various "wish lists" people have had. They also admitted throughout the conversation we had that there were several times in the development process where they debated releasing what they had, but decided to continue development until the game was at (or as close as humanly possible) to 100% in their eyes.

Superbrothers' weren't willing to let me shoot any video of the game yet, but the good news is that next week we'll have a full hands-on of the final version of Sword & Sworcery. Until then, what I can say is that I'm blown away by how much better the game looks since our last glimpse at E3 last year. They've added tons of lighting effects, and if you're crazy about parallax scrolling, you're going to be in heaven. The art of Sword & Sworcery now still is blatantly minimalist pixels, but the crazy amount of parallax layers in the game gives it a fantastic looking almost-3D effect.

I've likely said too much already, but please stay tuned for our preview next week. I absolutely cannot wait to play the final version of the game in its entirety and see whether or not this backwards development cycle worked for Superbrothers.

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The golden gate bridge is in sight, the aroma of Moons Over My Hammy fills the air, and an army of people wearing name tags are wandering about town. This can only mean one thing! Well, I suppose it could mean many things but in our case it's the kick-off of GDC in beautiful San Francisco, California. First held in 1988, GDC seems to have grown exponentially and has changed with market trends over the years. With the advent of the App Store, the conference has substantially shifted gears to be surprisingly iOS-centric, filled with developers from all over the world anxious to sit in on iOS talks and meet fellow iOS game makers.

But what does this mean to you, faithful TouchArcade reader? It just so happens that all of these developers absolutely love meeting with people like us to show off their up and coming games, share ideas, and otherwise just spill their guts on what they've been up to and what they plan on doing in the future. Looking back at our GDC 2009 and GDC 2010 coverage, we saw tons of cool games. Judging by our meeting schedule, which couldn't possibly be more insane, we're going to have even more cool stuff to write about this year. (Particularly so as Apple seems intent on crashing the event by unveiling the iPad 2 this Wednesday barely a block away from where GDC is taking place.)

If you're a developer, we look forward to meeting with you. If you don't have an appointment with us yet, it's not too late, but we'll likely need to get creative with when and where we meet. Send me an IM via AOL Instant Messenger. My screen name is ioburn [Status: ]. If you don't have an AIM account, signing up is easy and only takes a second. Alternatively, AIM even connected to Facebook and Google Talk, if you would rather use that. Of course you can also email at tips@toucharcade.com, it just won't be anywhere near as fast. (Be sure to put "GDC 2011" somewhere in the subject for email filters.)

Also, don't forget about our party on Wednesday night at Bin 55 in the lobby of the Marriott. We're going to kick things off at 8:00 PM and go until they kick us out, which should be sometime between 11:00 PM and midnight. Find someone from TouchArcade and we'll trade you your business card for a fancy schmancy TouchArcade tyvek bracelet for free drinks. (If you don't have a business card, a GDC pass will suffice.)

Likely the best way to track us down and follow what we're doing at GDC will be via Twitter. Here's our array of Twitter accounts:

• @hodapp – Eli Hodapp
• @arnoldkim – Arnold Kim
• @blakespot – Blake Patterson
• @jaredta – Jared Nelson
• @nicholsonb – Brad Nicholson

Let's get this conference kickin'!

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George Washington’s name day came and went without the dozens of celebratory App Store sales we associate with federal holidays. I’ll admit it; I was ticked about this at first. Not only was George the US’ first president, he was also the tallest, strongest, and best endowed. A dude as great and beautiful as he was needs to be honored by price-slashings. But, hey, now I'm not so sore about the situation. Gameloft realigned my humours and tamed my choler with this beauty of a sale, which sees 30 of its games reduced to less than a dollar.

Here’s the list:

Asphalt 5
Assassin’s Creed: Altair’s Chronicles HD
Blokus HD
Brain Challenge HD
Chess Classics HD
Driver
Dungeon Hunter HD
Fishing Kings
Frankenstein – The Dismembered Bride HD
Gangstar: West Coast Hustle
Hero of Sparta HD
Hero of Sparta 2 HD
Let’s Golf
Modern Combat: Sandstorm
NFL 2010 HD
NFL 2011 HD
NOVA
NOVA 2 HD
Prince of Persia: Warrior Within [and its HD version]
Real Soccer 2010 [and its HD version]
Real Soccer 2011
Real Tennis HD
Secrets of the Vatican HD
Shrek Forever After HD
Shrek Kart
Skater Nation
Star Battalion [and its HD version]
UNO HD
Tom Clancy’s HAWX
War in the Pacific
Zombie Infection HD

That’s a lot of games, and a lot of iPad HD versions for sale, right? Oh, and to be clear, I’ve no idea what Gameloft is throwing a sale for… but I’ll go ahead and keep pretending that its celebrating the greatest man (not named Tesla) who ever graced this Earth.

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Oh, let’s not beat around the bush. Apple is poised to announce the iPad 2 on March 2nd, 2011. The tech giant’s marketing department has been firing off invitations to select outlets, including our very own, for an event scheduled for 10:00 AM at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. As you’ll see in the promotional art blasted our way, Apple is making it plain that it is indeed announcing a second-generation iPad on the heels of numerous rumors indicating that it would.

Not too subtle, eh? That’s why I’m biting the bullet here and avoiding “safe words” like probably, presumably, and all that jazz.

One thing we’re definitely not sure of is what will be included in the new iPad. An on-board camera and a potentially even a SD slot seem like a safe bet, but there’s a lot of speculation over the processor, screen, and potential mystery ports. Some people are suggesting it’ll boast a Retina Display and a beastly dual-core SGX543 GPU, but we won ‘t know for sure until March 2nd. We’ll be there, of course, and we hope you’ll join us for a week of insane coverage both at GDC and now at this Apple event.

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Earlier this month we somewhat predictably announced we will be at GDC 2011 in San Francisco. Since then, we've been receiving a monsoon of meeting requests which has made my usual disaster of an inbox into… something far less manageable. I'm fairly caught up with existing meeting requests, and our schedule is getting pretty packed. However, since we're bringing the entire TouchArcade crew to San Francisco, I still have tons of availability to cram even more meetings in.

For the sake of simplicity, and avoiding the lag in between emails, if you'd like to book a meeting with us please sent me an IM via AOL Instant Messenger. My screen name is ioburn [Status: ]. If you don't have an AIM account, signing up is easy and only takes a second. Alternatively, AIM even connected to Facebook and Google Talk, if you would rather use that. Of course you can also email at tips@toucharcade.com, it just won't be anywhere near as fast. (Be sure to put "GDC 2011" somewhere in the subject for email filters.)

Don't forget our party that we're having on Wednesday night either! We'll be at Bin 55 which is the bar in the hotel lobby of the Marriott near Moscone. If you track down someone from TouchArcade, we'll be giving out fancy little tyvek TouchArcade bracelets which will allow you to gain access to free beer and drinks from 8:00 PM until last call, which I think is sometime around 11:00 PM!

I can't wait to see everyone there! This GDC is working up to be even more crazy than the last.

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Well it's Wednesday again, which means many things, but in the world of iOS it means one thing: A tidal wave of game releases. If you recently picked up a Verizon iPhone, and haven't yet experienced a App Store Wednesday, here's how it works- Developers can set specific release dates for their various games and apps on the App Store. Games released today had their dates set to 2/17/11. The trick is, these games are released internationally, as the clocks in each region tick over to actually being the 17th. This allows us to get an early heads-up on what's coming out, before things are actually released on the US App Store at 11:00 PM EST.

Here's what's going to be available:

Starfront: Collision, Free + $6.99 IAP – [Forum Thread] – I've spent many sleepless nights hoping for Blizzard to actually release a legit iOS port of StarCraft, and while I hate to continue using the "Well, at least I appreciate Gameloft bringing a game we'll never see on the App Store as a clone!" excuse… I have to. I'm a little more excited for the eventual and inevitable release of Starfront: Collision HD, but impressions for the iPhone version of the game have been positive so far in our forums. I can't wait for people to start downloading and playing this game, as the online four player multiplayer sounds like it could be excellent.

Back to the Future Ep. 1 HD, $6.99 – [Forum Thread] – Words can't fully express how much I love the Back to the Future trilogy, so naturally, any video game (save that horrible NES game) based on the series gets me totally excited. This game has already been released on both the Mac and PC, and has additional episodes in the pipeline. We're going to be reviewing this ASAP to see how the iOS port is, as Telltale's track record of iOS releases hasn't exactly been spotless.

The Blocks Cometh, 99¢ – [Forum Thread] – We posted a preview earlier, but this game plays similar to The Incident in that your goal is to avoid falling blocks, and climb as high as possible. There is a free Flash version, but it looks like the iOS port is going to be great.

Volcano Escape, $1.99 – [Forum Thread] – This 2.5D platform-shooter has an interesting premise in that in each level you're trying to escape from a volcano. There seems to be a ton of weaponry, power-ups, and even online leaderboards and achievements.

Bug Wars, $1.99 – [Forum Thread] – An arcade style first person shooter of sorts where you must save the world from an invasion of… bugs? (Well, at least it's not another zombie game.) It looks like there's an impressive amount of weapons to use, and I admit, I'm a total sucker for any game that has massive bosses like the one found in the above trailer.

Ridge Racer Accelerated HD, Free + IAP – [Forum Thread] – Well, it's Ridge Racer, on the iPad. I would have hoped that a little more care would have gone in to this port, but judging by the screenshots, these are some seriously low resolution textures for a "HD" game. Regardless, if you can't get enough Ridge Racer, now you can have it on your iPad.

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This might be a long shot, considering this event seems to be overrun by Android and other non-iPhone mobile devices, but I will be at Mobile World Congress all week this week in Barcelona, Spain. In addition, I will be on two panels of sorts this coming Thursday, one announcing the winners of the International Mobile Gaming Awards and a second "live pitching session". If you happen to be in Barcelona either for the event, or just because you happen to live in the area, I'd love to meet up with you if you've got something new, cool, and/or exciting to show off.

If you'd like to schedule a meeting, send an email off to tips@toucharcade.com and be sure to include "MWC 2011" somewhere in the subject so it properly gets filtered in my inbox. Keep in mind, I'm very much a typical American and really only speak fluent English. If you don't (wait, how are you reading this?) I'm still totally willing to meet up, but communication might be difficult.

For everyone else not at the event, I'm really not sure what to expect. I've been told this is the "CES of mobile phones". I sort of thought CES was the CES of mobile phones, but you never know. If I see anything neat on the show floor that pertains to iOS on any level, you can look forward to finding out about it on TouchArcade. The show hasn't even started yet and I've already seen some flat out insane Tegra 2 tech demos, and I seriously can't wait to see what is coming in the next round of Apple hardware if it's anything like that.

Here's Galaxy on Fire 2 running on the Tegra 2 chipset:

That's just crazy for a mobile device.

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I can hardly believe it myself, as the past year has just flown by, but GDC is once again right around the corner. Taking place in San Francisco, California starting February 28th and running until March 4th, GDC is basically the event to be at if you're a game developer of any kind. In recent years, GDC events have almost completely been taken over by iOS developers. If you're a TouchArcade reader, expect an overwhelming avalanche of cool iOS gaming news and previews that week just like in 2009 and 2010.

If you're an iOS developer, read on.

First off, if you're on the fence regarding whether or not you're attending GDC, I really can't think of a better event to go to as an iOS developer. The amount of networking there is to be done there is absolutely insane, as the event is absolutely loaded with many different media outlets and oodles of like-minded developers eager to share and discuss ideas. It's also not too late to register, find a hotel, and score some plane tickets that aren't ridiculously expensive yet.

If you're an iOS developer and already plan on coming, awesome. We'd love to meet up with you if you have something new, cool, and/or exciting to show us. Shoot us an email at tips@toucharcade.com with "GDC 2011" somewhere in the subject so it gets picked up and properly highlighted by our email filters. We'll set up a meeting, likely at or near The Marriott, and we'll see you there.

If you just want to say "Hello!", or you enjoy drinking, we'll be hosting a get together (or "mixer" I suppose the cool kids are calling them now) at Bin 55. Bin 55 is the bar right inside the previously mentioned Marriott's lobby, you can't miss it. We'll be there from 8:00 PM Wednesday night until they kick us out. When you get there, track down someone from TouchArcade and we'll give you a fancy TouchArcade tyvek bracelet which will get you access to all the beer and/or mixed drinks you can (safely) drink.

We're totally excited for GDC this year, and can't wait to see everyone there. Incidentally, the first day of GDC is also my birthday, so if you schedule a meeting with us after the 28th and I suddenly seem wiser, that's likely why.

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We've seen our fair share of cringe-worthy Gameloft clones over the years, but this one takes the cake. StarFront: Collision seems to be directly "inspired" by StarCraft, complete with Gameloft's version of the Terran, Protoss, and Zerg. These three factions wage a war over Xenodium crystals on the planet Sinistral in realtime strategy battles that actually look pretty decent in the following gameplay trailer:

What's definitely got my interest piqued is the inclusion of four player online multiplayer, which potentially could be loads of fun. I'm also curious how the game actually plays on the iPhone, as RTS games on the device all have fairly cluttered UI's, and it seems like StarFront does as well. StarFront: Collision will be available this Thursday, and it will be interesting to see if Gameloft sticks to the Sacred Odyssey method of payment where the game is free with an IAP to unlock the rest of the game.

Also, according to the description of this trailer, StarFront is also only going to run on 3rd and 4th generation iPod touch and iPhone hardware. Is this the end of Gameloft supporting older devices?

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Just a quick heads up here on a major weekend sale that's underway on the highly popular Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness, Episodes One [$0.99] and Two [$1.99], both down from $7.99 for 87% and 75% price reductions, respectively. Both titles are also available on XBLA, PSN, and Windows, but these are the lowest prices we've seen for them on any platform.

As described by creators Penny Arcade and Hothead Games,

On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness is an RPG-Adventure game set in the comic-book-meets-pulp-horror-meets-H.P. Lovecraft deranged 1920s universe of New Arcadia, delivering mature and compelling entertainment to gamers via accessible episodic delivery. The creative collaboration between Penny Arcade creators Mike ‘Gabe’ Krahulik and Jerry ‘Tycho’ Holkins, legendary game designer Ron Gilbert and veteran producers Hothead Games results in a 100% authentic Penny Arcade experience that pushes bizarre characters, outrageous combat, and adult humor to the precipices of darkness.

Players join Gabe and Tycho, the crime-solving team of the Startling Developments Detective Agency, to combat savage enemies and solve mysteries hidden deep in the sinister heart of New Arcadia. The ominous 1920s landscape features distinct artwork and characters designed exclusively by Krahulik and brought to life by the Hothead team.

Gamespot called the adventures well worth the initial XBLA price of $20 USD for any Penny Arcade-loving gamer. Any Mac user who meets that description should find this weekend sale an absolute steal.

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