TouchArcade.ru

Turn-based strategy can get a little fiddly. It’s all position this, attack that. Depending on your point of view, Rune Raiders [$0.99], the first release from Retro64, could be the genre’s lowest common denominator, or a delightfully straightforward distillation. I’d put my money on the latter.

Rune Raiders couldn’t be much more simple. You take a small party of adventurers—six at the most—each with a single ability and a unique attack pattern. Then you run them straight down a hallway, one grid square at a time. Orcs and minotaurs attack, orcs and minotaurs die. Simple, right? But in that simplicity there hide enough layers of complexity to keep things interesting.

The first layer holds the twelve heroes. For creatures confined to square tiles they’ve rather rich personalities, or archetypes at least. The elf, an archer, is arrogant and image-obsessed. The healer is quite the feminist when it suits her. They’re two of the first, unlocked early on. More come with time.

The elf shoots in a wide circle, a dead-zone all around him. The healer heals things immediately adjacent to her square. Each hero has one ability and a certain range, and the ability triggers at the start of any turn something is in range. Like chess, all you need to do is put the pieces in the right place. It’s just that there’s an awful lot of strategy involved in that simple task.

Layer two is the force you’re up against. There are 15 enemy unit types, and all of them have unique attack patterns. Here’s what you do: you figure out where to put your heroes so you can attack them and they can’t kill you. Each time you move you start a new turn, whether you’re moving your entire team forward or repositioning one hero. And there’s no going back.

As you progress through the game’s 15 levels the enemy formations get more and more complex. But your team also gets stronger. Occasionally an enemy will drop an item that lets you apply a perk to a hero of your choice. Those perks can change the game drastically. They can make a weak hero one of the strongest, or make a tank pull double duty as your best healer. Strategy isn’t something you can simply settle in to, it has to evolve with your team. Let’s call that layer three.

Then there’s the matter of economy. You pick up gold for each enemy you kill, but each hero you bring with you has a cost each time you bring them out. Later heroes cost a mint. Want to assemble a dream team of all your best units? You’ll have to pay for it. Early on you’ll need to learn to do more with less, and that can pay off well in the long run too. You can grind old levels for more gold, and go back stronger to max out your star ratings. That’s where things fall apart, just a little.

Rune Raider’s balance is a bit off. Eventually you can narrow your strategy down to just a few heroes that are the best for every circumstance, and they’ll carry you through any situation you get thrown into. Maxing out their perks is quick work when you focus and with enough gold you can bring them out whenever you want. There are three difficulty modes to play with, but eventually you hit three stars in all 15 levels and that’s that. That, and a strangely scored Survival mode.

So it’s a little rough around the edges. The sound effects are bland, there’s some choppiness when Game Center is enabled, and there’s an outstanding crash that hits when it’s not (a fix is already en route). You can break the game for yourself, so you might end up needing to throw challenges in your own path by restricting your team size. Not ideal in a strategy game, which really ought to hold up to min/maxing on some level. But for a few hours of casual fun? It will certainly do.

Rune Raiders is simple, but it isn’t mindless. It packs several layers of strategy into a casual frame. More than that, it’s rather charming, with characters and quips to make you smile. This is light fare, maybe too light for the serious strategy nut. But it’s also fun and engaging, and just challenging enough to keep its hooks in you till it’s done. Give it a shot, and stop by our forums to share your thoughts.

TouchArcade Rating:

[source]

Over the last few years, I’ve seen a great number of strange things done to George Romero’s slavering, brain-dead antagonists. They’ve been assaulted by botanical artillery, transmogrified into office workers, made into soccer players and stuffed into a pizzeria. I’m totally okay with that, by the way. Amorous zombies, on the other hand, I’m not so sure about. Google Warm Bodies. You’ll understand. Still, were it not for a certain major flaw (we’ll get into that), Akaoni Studio’s frenetic arcade style shooter Zombie Panic in Wonderland Plus [Free] could have made me into a convert.

Steeped in cherry blossoms and highly destructible architecture, Zombie Panic in Wonderland is the story of a rather troubled land. Once a tranquil environment populated by a mishmash of copyright-infringing characters, Wonderland is now the epicenter of a ghoulish infestation.

Curiously enough, the dude responsible for all this madness has rather little to do with the usual list of suspects (evil corporations, witchcraft, heavy metal – you know the drill). The culprit here is a self-centered prince with an affection for the spotlight. He made a perfume designed to enthrall the masses. As you might have guessed, that didn’t work too well. Consequently, it is now up to you, the heroic and extremely effeminate-looking Mamotaro, to save the day.

Trust me, it sounds easier than it really is. In spite of the unreasonably adorable visuals, Zombie Panic in Wonderland does not hold back the punches. While it starts off on a relatively easy note, the difficulty level ramps up exponentially with every passing stage. Before you know it, you’ll find yourself having dodging putrefied sumo wrestlers, shurikens, demonic energy blasts and an assortment of other projectiles. Along the way, you’re also going to have to gun down everything from desiccated high school children to undead ninja gnomes. As per the grand old tradition set by titles like Time Crisis and House of the Dead, one hit is all it takes to shave off a life from your tally.

Ordinarily, this wouldn’t really be a bad thing but Zombie Panic in Wonderland is infuriatingly tight-fisted with the whole giving lives thing. Unless you make some purchases, you’re only ever going to get a single life and a single continue. That’s it. Good luck. Use those up and you can kiss your progress goodbye. It’s back to the first square with you, my friend.

Fortunately, however, the game doesn’t leave you completely high and dry. Remember what I said about the local infrastructure? It comes down rather easily. While you can always make use of your arsenal, you can also choose to literally bring the house down on your opponents. You even get extra points depending on your aptitude for mass destruction. In addition, there are also a number of exploding figurines capable of assisting you in your quest for total annihilation.

Gameplay-wise, that’s all about it for Zombie Panic in Wonderland. It doesn’t try to be more than what it is really is: a deeply responsive iOS port of Akaoni Studio’s WiiWare title. You progress through levels by filling a meter with your acts of wanton violence. If you succeed, you get to move on. If you don’t, well, you fail. It’s as gloriously simple as that.

I’m going to take this moment to add that the controls are also rather exemplary. To move, you utilize the iPhone’s built-in accelerometer. To dodge enemies, you swipe with a finger. If you want to shoot a barrage of bullets at your foes, you hold a finger down on the screen. To lob grenades, you double tap.

With its eclectic soundtrack (the moderately eerie traditional-sounding Japanese songs are particularly nice), cutesy visuals and approachable gameplay, Zombie Panic in Wonderland should have been something great. It should have been one of those games you openly recommend to your friends. It should have worked in all the right ways. Unfortunately, it doesn’t. Why? The in-app purchase system.

To be blunt, I’m not happy about it. In fact, I’m downright vexed. While it is not uncommon for iPhone games to do their best to entice you into additional expenditure, I have problems stomaching the approach that Akaoni Studio took. $3.99 for the full campaign mode? A little steep but I can deal with it. $2.99 for unlimited continues? $0.99 for a single extra continue? No. Just no.

With but one life and one continue available for free, the message is clear: grow cat-like reflexes or purchase those elusive continues. Take your pick. In all fairness, though, Zombie Panic in Wonderland does offer an all-in-one pack that will bestow every currently available (note the presence of the word ‘current’) asset upon you, but really, all-important consumables should not be exploited in such a manner.

Then again, to abuse a well-worn writer’s trope, your personal mileage may vary. If you’re okay with the way they’ve approached the whole freemium thing, Zombie Panic in Wonderland will probably make you rather happy. If not, steer clear. At the very least it’s nice that there’s no barrier of entry to check out what really is a very cool title, and after playing the included free content you should have a good idea of how much money you’re willing to drop on IAP, if any at all. It’s just a shame to see such a nice game stripped down and sold piece by piece like this.

TouchArcade Rating:

[source]

Most studios shy away from announcing products months in advance, but Square Enix is not a company that seems to get the App Store all that well. Back in May, just days after it released Chaos Rings Omega, it announced the franchise’s first, actual sequel: Chaos Rings II. We’ve seen a couple of Japanese-language teasers since, and well, here’s another. But get this: the game is coming soon. Like, this Thursday soon, according to the footage below. See what they did there?

We don’t know what exactly to expect from the sequel-sequel, but it seems like a safe bet that Chaos Rings II isn’t set to rock the boat. Also, this song, guys. This song.

[source]

Today at GDC I spent some time with retro strongman Dan Bliss of BinarySquare, who showed us his latest creation, Puzzle Bebop.

Puzzle Bebop is wonderfully pixellated falling block, match-four puzzle game wrapped in virtual CRT scan-lines, with chippy 8-bit audio to boot. As falling block games go, the core game mission is nothing too new. It’s in the control system where the real innovation of this game lies.

Instead of utilizing on-screen rotation buttons or a virtual D-pad, Puzzle Bebop makes use of TouchCircus, a system of touch control algorithms designed by Bliss, himself. As blocks fall into the game area from above, the player can rotate them by drawing large circles anywhere on the screen with his or her fingers. This approach feels much more natural for rotation than the control systems I’ve seen used in every other App Store falling block game I’ve tried.

The unique control mechanic, the lovey retro aesthetic (standard stuff for BinarySquare), and the lavish, pixellated visual effects that fill the screen during combo eliminations and the like make Puzzle Bebop a game well worth a look. And, stay tuned for more innovative control mechanics from Bliss — he’s spent some real time thinking outside the box about controls, and I saw a taste of his coming games that did impress.

Puzzle Bebop is a universal app (for both iPhone and iPad) that support the iCade controller device. It has recently been submitted to Apple and should be available shortly at a price of $0.99.

[source]

Get Set Games, creators of the tremendously successful Mega Jump [Free], have a booth here at GDC where they’re showing off their follow-up title Mega Run. Just like the endless vertical jumper that Mega Jump is, the auto-running genre is certainly nothing new. But like Mega Jump, Get Set has injected a ridiculous amount of variety and personality into the formula.

Mega Run is not an endless runner, rather it’s level-based with 3 different worlds each consisting of 16 levels. There is a stupid amount of coins, power-ups, special items, and more literally littered throughout each level. My favorite thing about Mega Run is that each level is very non-linear, despite the fact that you’re hurdling to the right towards an end goal. The levels have many branching pathways and hidden areas to discover, and with 3 hidden gems in each along with a 3 star system and time goals there is plenty of reason to go back and explore every square inch.

Mega Run is still a couple of months out from release, but it feels great already and I had a hard time pulling myself away from the demo build on the GDC floor to give other people a chance to play. We’re looking forward getting the release version of Mega Run in our hands soon, and you would be wise to keep an eye out for it too.

[source]

There are a few things I look for in a tower defense game. A good variety of towers, a mix of unit types to keep things fresh and level layouts that force me to be creative are all necessities, but those all come standard. It’s the little spark of something extra that makes a title standout in this otherwise rigid genre.

Elf Defense [$2.99 / Lite] has so many extras that it’s hard to know where to start. Ridiculously adorable style? Check. Special units you can pull out as trump cards? Sure thing. Items you can useto go after the creeps directly? Uh-huh. There’s even an overarching upgrade system so you can control how powerful and effective your towers are. Just one catch—most of these things are tied into a premium currency system. Drat. They were so close, too.

You can ostensibly manage everything with only the holy leaves you earn while you play. You get some for the creeps you kill and some for each level you complete. At first it’s only enough to keep you limping along with a few items here and there, maybe a mercenary or two down the road. Later you’ll earn leaves at a faster clip. It just never feels fast enough to truly take advantage of all the cool things you could get your hands on if you just shelled out money for more.

Still, there’s quite a lot to enjoy with just the initial purchase. Elf Defense has thirty levels, with two tiers of difficulty, followed by a slew of similar “crazy” levels for veteran players. The levels are set across three themes—forest, desert and arctic—with around 100 different enemies. That’s not to say there’s a ton of variety, though. The level layouts vary but stick within close thematic parameters, and the enemies only come in a few broad categories: ground, air, and bosses, with fast versions of each.

All the extras keep Elf Defense’s formula from stalling out early. The game is actually pretty hard, so it makes a lot of sense to save up to unlock a mercenary like Coldy Bear, with his triggered ability to slow down all the enemies on screen, or the poison spewing Peaker. Similarly, using one of your few shovels to clear the right blocked square might mean the difference between surviving a level or failing. With strict cooldowns on pretty much everything, unlimited resources can’t offer that much of an advantage.

The towers are all pretty great too, even beyond the fact that they start out as little plants and eventually grow into Elven Valkyries. All the classic tower archetypes are covered, and they all feel worthy of their niches. I’m particularly fond of the electrical tower, which shoots out huge bolts of lightning that arc between units. Upgrade it in-game and it gets crazy powerful while targetting more units at once. Spend leaves to research it between levels and its base power and range will increase further. This is true for all the towers, but none are quite as cool as a pink elf that shoots electricity from her head.

Leveling and shopping give players a broad selection of ways to spend leaves, but even without them you can customize the gameplay experience to taste. If the game moves too slow, run it at double speed. Fast waves will flit by so quickly they’ll skip frames. If even normal speed is too fast to keep on top of placement and upgrades, pause the game—you’ll still be in control. This might occasionally make the game too simple, but usually it’s a lifesaver. Even on Easy, you’ll need to plan your strategies carefully—especially if you want to earn the highest leaf rewards.

There is one other way to collect leaves: earn achievements. Each has a reward ranging from 100 to 1500 leaves, enough to keep you in shovels or bombs for quite some time. Sadly these aren’t tied to Game Center, which only tracks a single leaderboard for total score.

I’d recommend Elf Defense on looks alone (those square-headed elves have won my heart), but there’s a good game beneath the glitz as well. It’s just a bit frustrating that its approach to in-game currency is so mercenary, because the game would be more fun with more freedom. Still, if you’re looking for a hefty tower defense title and you’ve got an appetite for darling designs, you ought to check this out. If you do, stop by and share your thoughts in our discussion thread.

TouchArcade Rating:

[source]

EA is continuing down its dark path with The Simpsons: Tapped Out, a free-to-play game that puts you in the shoes of Springfield’s re-designer after Homer blows up the iconic place inadvertently. In an exclusive interview with CNET, EA laid out the premise and it shed a bit of light on the re-building effort, which is set to require the usage of the game’s purchasable in-game currency, doughnuts. Awesomely, the title will use both voice and text provided via the TV series’ actors and writers. Expect some commentary on the genre, as well as the usual goofy stuff.

Sound great, but it’s best keep your expectations in check: EA treats its free-to-play users just about as well as Zynga does. Games like Theme Park, and now the re-designed Tetris, are specifically designed to exploit the people who love the idea of the IP the most. It’s a weird and sudden turn of philosophy for a publisher that, just about a year ago, seemed much more interested in doing meaningful things like pushing the quality bar with games like Dead Space and challenging others to make titles with as much depth as a Madden or FIFA.

That said, here’s what EA’s Bernard Kim told CNET:

“People that don’t want to pay can still enjoy the title. People who are more impatient can throw a little bit of money at it.”

We’ll have to see about that. Tapped Out is expected to hit iPad and iPhone “in the coming works,” and it’ll just be one of many free-to-play titles from EA to come. In another article, CNET estimates that we’ll see a dozen or so by this March.

[via CNET, image via smtexas]

[source]

In January 2010 we learned that Hironobu Sakaguchi, who created Final Fantasy and had a hand in several other landmark Square titles, was working on an iPhone project while also creating what would eventually be The Last Story for Wii. Since then there hasn’t been much info on exactly what was going on with this intriguing mobile project.

When questioned over Twitter for information regarding what he was currently working on, Sakaguchi answered that he had “around 3 titles” in the works for iOS, according to Andriasang.

Sakaguchi hasn’t offered any further details or clarification on what he means by multiple titles. In this age, it isn’t hard to imagine him talking about some sort of episodic content, or 3 sort of bit-sized kind of experiences scaled for on-the-go play.

Andriasang notes that Sakaguchi is currently traveling Europe promoting the release of The Last Story in that region and returns to Japan on March 1st, when perhaps we can find out more about these mysterious iOS projects.

[Via Andriasang]

[source]

The Corpse Party series of video games have been loitering around my “I really should play these some day” game list since I first heard about them a few years ago. The games have some crazy roots behind them, as the first title was made in RPG Maker, a point and click game studio that was responsible for countless terrible ultra-indie RPG games. My personal favorite of these RPG Maker games was Chef Boyardee’s Barkley, Shut Up & Jam: Gaiden, Chapter 1 of the Hoopz Barkley SaGa. (Yes, that’s a real game, watch the trailer. No really, watch it.) Anyway, Corpse Party has had two different remakes since then, the most recent of which landed as a downloadable title for the PSP in late 2010. A sequel arrived around a year later, and there have even been two manga adaptations. One was even published by Square Enix.

If this is the first time you’ve heard of Corpse Party, Joystiq’s JC Fletcher put together an awesome description of what the game is all about. In essence, it’s your typical 16 bit JRPG that jumps the rails in a big way. You quickly find yourself in a nightmare dimension where no one can see each other, doors don’t work, windows are blocked by human hair, and evidence of countless child murders are everywhere. (Making you wonder how this is getting by the App Store approval department, eh?) There’s a cast of characters who are subjected to the torture of this environment, and you sit by and watch what unfolds.

What interested me about this crazy game is that there’s tons of “bad endings,” like a Choose Your Own Adventure book. I’ve always really liked games that divert from a linear roller coaster ride to letting you screw up, and then showing you the consequences. The PSP version is even constructed with selectable chapters to allow you to go back and explore all these different outcomes.

According to Andriasang, Corpse Party will be hitting the Japanese App Store this week for ¥2,200 which in US App Store pricing would be $29.99. No word yet on a localized English release, but I figure if the game will be available for iOS devices with Japanese text, an English adaptation can’t be that far off, since presumably the translation already exists from the PSP game.

Fingers crossed, anyway.

[Famitsu via Andriasang via Joystiq]

[source]

Bean’s Quest [$2.99] from Kumobius launched in July of last year, and it was kind of awesome. Actually, it was kind of really awesome. It was just one of many platformers on the App Store that nailed the neo-retro aesthetic, harkening back to the days of 8 and 16 bits. However, there was one key element that separated it from other iOS platformers – you’re constantly bouncing. Picture a sideways Doodle Jump mixed with Super Mario Bros. 3 and you kind of get the idea.

The automatic nonstop bouncing was easy enough to get used to if you’re just trying to make it through the game, but the real brilliance of Bean’s Quest was that it kept track of the number of your bounces and tasked you with completing each level within a certain number of them to maximize your reward. Along with diamonds and a hidden toy creature that had to be collected, Bean’s Quest had come up with an excellent little system for maximizing replay value.

But, you can read all about this stuff in our original review of Bean’s Quest, and there you’ll also find our biggest issue with the game – its severe brevity. At release, Bean’s Quest was a mere eight levels long, all of which could be completed together in just a few minutes. Developer Kumobius had promised that more levels were planned for updates, and in fact seemed to have a pretty ambitious road map for where the game was heading. But as I’m sure many of you have experienced before, it can be dangerous buying a game based on promises of future updates.

However, an update the following month did appear, and added a whole new world with 9 new levels. Then the month after that another update hit adding yet another new world and 10 brand new levels. Bean’s Quest was finally starting to get fleshed out, but for the following several months things went quiet, with no new updates and an “Under Construction” banner in the level select screen teasing that the game still had yet to be finished.

Today, we found out just what Kumobius had been up to for so long as the final massive update to Bean’s Quest has hit the App Store. This time around, the game is getting two new worlds – Dusty Desert with 10 new levels and Wizard’s Lair with 12 new levels. There’s a new intro movie now too, which explains the all-to-frequent problem of having your girlfriend stolen by an evil dude, setting the stage for Bean to traverse the crazy levels and lands. At the end of it all, you’ll square off against the final boss, and then the credits roll, signaling the end of Bean’s Quest.

It’s sad seeing the end of such a fun game, but there’s a positive side to this as well. Bean’s Quest has done well enough that Kumobius is able to push forward with a new project, which I’m sure we’ll be hearing more about once the time is right. It’s crazy to think how far Bean’s Quest has come, initially offering a meager 8 levels and now with today’s update boasting 50 including the final boss fight. Aside from those major additions, this update also tightens up some UI elements and eases the difficulty of bounce requirements across the board, as well as lots of other minor tweaks and optimizations.

If you initially passed on Bean’s Quest because of its length, then I think it’s safe to say you’ve got nothing to worry about any more. It’s a fantastic platformer that puts a twist on the gameplay of more traditional platformers, while offering a huge amount of replay value and an overall stellar presentation. Definitely one that was high on the recommendation list before, and even more so with this new update.

[source]