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A couple of years ago, Brandon and Cody Pollet formed F5 Games as a clever way to sneak into Electronic Entertainment Expo and experience the gaming event firsthand. Both were college students with big ideas, and they ended up leaving it with even bigger ones. E3 gave their studio a soul. When the App Store exploded later, the duo discovered a direction.

In 2011, Brandon and Cody went back to the Los Angeles-based event that got them dreaming big in the first place to reveal Pocket Heroes. They describe it on this week’s bonus episode of the TouchArcade Show as the game they’ve always wanted to make, and it’s been a long time coming. Pocket Heroes hits either later this month or early June, almost a full year since the duo initially showed off their idea.

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Pocket Heroes is a little like what would happen if Words With Friends [$2.99] and Dungeons & Dragons were slammed together repeatedly. In Pocket Heroes, you’ll battle foes and explore dungeons alongside other users asynchronously and level up and manage the skills of your priestess, Dwarven mech, rogue, or paladin in the process. As you’ll see, it’s also rocking a gorgeous lo-fi art style, but with specific enhancements that make it feel new and relevant on phones.

Demoing the game for the first time at the event wasn’t an intentionally poetic move. It also wasn’t a coordinated reveal drawn up in an elaborate, year-long marketing plan. Brandon and Cody just wanted to see if people liked their idea before they committed to it. They needed a push to believe in what they had. Their idea was big, bold, and it seems like they knew it was going to push them creatively.

“We were pretty hesitant to show it off,” Brandon tells TouchArcade. “We made Independence Night [Free] and then we made IncrediBlox [$.99]. They weren’t huge successes on the App Store.”

“We were kind of at the point — do we have what it takes to figure this thing out, do we know how to make something that people are going to like? So, we decided to go to E3 and show it off. This is the game we’ve always thought we should be making. Let’s show it off and see if people are interested.”

“We did, and then we got this huge response,” Brandon says. “I don’t regret showing it off as early as we did. I don’t think it would have ever been made if we hadn’t gotten that feedback from everybody.”

It’s been a heck of a ride for Pocket Heroes fans, in part because Brandon and Cody didn’t realize what they had, but also because what they had planned was too ambitious for its own good. Brandon explains.

“When we first started mapping out Pocket Heroes, it was called The Black Fortress. We had a very specific idea of how it was going to play out.” Brandon and Cody soon discovered that having underpowered heroes tackling tremendous evil in what would have been an end-game dungeon wasn’t, in fact, awesome. The game needed progression, and it needed to be more consumable.

So, the game has been split into simpler, more digestible parts. What you’ll see in a couple of weeks is the just first of four chapters. The rest will be added over the year. The last chapter will be, roughly, the game Brandon and Cody originally designed a year ago. They’ll see their original vision through, though it might be close to next E3 before we see it all. How fitting, right?

On this week’s bonus episode of The TouchArcade Show, Brandon and Cody talk freely about all of this and further elaborate on the delay between sneak peek and reveal of Pocket Heroes. They also dive into what sets their apart from the rest of the RPG herd. Other topics include the games that inspired the development of Pocket Heroes and what F5 Games’ name actually means. Feel free to grab the audio version above or subscribe to us on iTunes.

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If there’s anything I’ve learned after pouring several days of my life into the latest installment of Com2uS’s action-rpg Inotia franchise, it’s that no amount of Engrish exposure can truly prepare you for that strange moment when a gorgeous brunette clad in diaphanous silks informs a ‘pretty boy’ of an anti-hero that he is squirting blood.

This awkwardness informs a lot of the dialogue in Inotia 4: Assassin of Berkel [$2.99 / Free ]. While relatively free of the grammatical errors that usually plague such games, Inotia 4 has a rather, uh, unique way with words. Here, you’ll find imposing-looking orcs declaring that things are “kinda awkward” and villains that order their lackeys to “allure” helpless souls to a nefarious end. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, mind you. Unless you’re totally adverse to the idea of peculiar phrasing, the accidental humor actually offers a light-hearted touch to what otherwise feels like a stereotypical jaunt.

The story in Inotia 4: Assassin of Berkel is one built out of familiar tropes. For example, the protagonist’s an effeminate-looking but curmudgeonly chap who also happens to be young, gifted at the art of assassination and a member of the Shadow Tribe. His star-crossed love interest? A young woman who bears more than a passing resemblance to Final Fantasy heroines like Rinoa, Garnet and Yuna. Needless to say, this sort of sets the pattern for the rest of the game. Inotia 4 is a little bit of everything you’ve ever encountered in an RPG from the Orient. There are warring factions, magic, subterfuge, hidden pasts, and even an arrogant stranger with an overpowered weapon. If you were looking for something new, this isn’t the KRPG you’re looking for.

While I’m not particularly fond of the virtual d-pad utilized here or its periodic lack of responsiveness, the controls are pretty standard fare. It’s the interface that bugs me to no end. On top of many smaller issues, the deluge of buttons, character portraits, health bars and mana bars can make it literally impossible to see where you’re going. To be fair, it doesn’t happen all that often but when it does happen, you’ll take painful notice.

From an audiovisual perspective, Inotia 4 is neither particularly impressive nor completely humdrum. An odd mixture of Retina quality elements and retro-looking graphics, the game feels a little older than its actual release date. As for the audio, I’m somewhat on the fence. On one hand, the music isn’t too shabby; it’s the kind of stuff you would expect from an RPG. On the other hand, the sound effects left something to be desired for.

So, why play Inotia 4? Why go through strange localization and flighty controls? Why endure the storyline you’ve probably heard a thousand times before? Why did this get a four star as opposed to a plea for you to run away?

Simple. Because it’s actually pretty good.

Like a blind date between mostly compatible people, things can begin on a slightly shaky note. However, once momentum has been built, beautiful things can happen. If you have nothing against grindfests (it IS a Korean RPG, after all) and an obsessive-compulsive need to build the perfect party, Inotia 4 will eventually suck you in and keep you there.

The party system, though far from ground-breaking, is rather commendable. One of the things I liked best about it was the fact that while you can only have two party members (in addition to the protagonist) active at any given time, the game not only allows you to keep a stable of six but also ensures that all of them level up in an appropriate manner as you progress through the game. It’s a small feature but a clever one. Unlike many other RPGs, you can actually elect to mix and match your selection of humanoid minions without having to first devote extensive amounts of time to their personal developments.

Speaking of party members, they will consist of mercenaries summoned from item drops and, from time to time, the odd plot-generated NPC. Most of your time, however, will be spent with the former. Your mercenaries may belong to any of the six different classes available in the game. They also come with as many item slots as the protagonist, their own set of skills and statistics appropriate to the quality of the item that conjured them. While you’re in command of their equipment, you will need to cough up a few crystals if you want to change the rest.

As you can imagine, some of the appeal in the game lies in how you can tailor the composition of your party. Curious as to how pet-wielding classes will do against a stubborn boss? Bring them out and prepare for a crowded rumble. Fancy seeing how well three tanky priests can hold up against the game’s dungeons? Go ahead and test out that theory. Nothing will stop you. The level of micromanagement required is also entirely dependent on you. While you can choose to rely on your A.I settings, you can opt to take control of any of your characters at any given time.

Inotia 4 is also a dream come true for those who just HAVE to have the best gear. By and large, there’s no shortage of equipment to collect. Random beasts will sporadically drop legendary headgear. Fusion machines will occasionally offer the chance to engage in repeatable quests, quests that will grant you access to recipes for absurdly powerful items. You will also find goodies from boss battles, treasure chests and their spoils, side quests and shady merchants marketing what may or may not be the next best thing. Inotia 4 makes it easy to be covetous and is shameless about rewarding those willing to grind their way towards glory.

You know what the best part of all this is? Your party’s appearance will change with every high-priced trinket you acquire.

By the way, I’m impressed with how Com2uS handled one aspect of their IAP system. In Inotia 4, crystals are used for, well, pretty much everything. Have a weapon you really want to make but lack the ingredients for? Pay for its creation with a handful of crystals. Want to resurrect your party instead of restarting from the last saved point? Cough up the crystals. We know you have them in there. While hardly the most unusual approach, Com2uS has made usage of those crystals as enticing as ever. In the grand scheme of things, five crystals is nothing compared to an hour spent scouring the maps for material. You almost find yourself compelled to conform.

In between all of this, crammed between the good and the bad, nestled between the occasional guilty crystal expenditure, that’s where the magic happens. Inotia 4 will have you mashing buttons, switching hot keys, pondering talent points and beating on artillery turtles without so much as a second thought. It will have you gathering ingredients for a powerful new weapon even as you effortlessly transform your glass cannon of a priest into a shield-wielding bastion of power. It will keep you trucking towards the next level, determined to see how your new weapon will do against the latest dungeon or how well your latest collection of party members will hold up. Inotia 4 isn’t the most original title out there but it certainly knows which buttons to press.

TouchArcade Rating:

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Does the idea of yet another farming game sound exciting to you whatsoever? Your answer would likely be a resounding no, unless you’ve seen that there are still plenty of seeds to plant with Tractor Trails [ $0.99 ], the farming game that is not only fun and exciting but plays more like a puzzle game rather than the next FarmVille [ Free ] clone.

You see, Red is a tractor that needs to plant seeds on his maze-like farm so he can grow fruit trees. Your (and Red’s) goal is to earn a three star rating at the end of the level by planting as many trees as possible (filling the entire board if you can), collecting the groundhog, and doing it all in the fastest amount of time you can. Earning stars allows you to unlock more level sets, with five in all. Controlling Red is incredibly easy, only requiring that you swipe where he needs to go on the farm so he can plant trees and collect the groundhog along the way.

While controlling Red may be easy, the challenge does ramp up quickly meaning you’ll need to learn fast to stay ahead. The initial levels are pretty much on auto-pilot with little or no chance for error, while more advanced levels will all but require plenty of plotting ahead to make sure you’re going to be able to plant as many trees as possible. In fact, a stage not too far into the game left me puzzled for more than fifteen minutes before coming up with a working solution.

The real challenge in each stage is trying to determine where exactly to send Red without screwing up. Sending him down the wrong path means you have to start over, so planning ahead is best when coming up with solutions. Combine that with the time bonus that’s riding on each stage, and you’re in for a brain buster if you’re not in the correct mindset. The more you play though, the more the mechanics begin to click, and you’ll find yourself having fun without too much trouble. On top of that, the payoff of finishing each stage is satisfying, rewarding you with much-needed stars and achievements for completing stages as efficiently as possible.

Spicing up the gameplay in Tractor Trails are the power-ups you can purchase with the corn you collect (or purchase through IAP). You can buy upgrades such as a queuing system, which is a bit of a saving grace to the gameplay (which can be a bit slow once you get the hang of it). Other power-ups include undo and speed upgrades. These don’t do as much to change the gameplay but can help out if you’re finding some stages a bit too challenging. The problem (albeit minor) with these upgrades lies in the pricing system, as you will have to continually purchase most of these items over and over again with increasing prices after each purchase.

Each set of levels does appear to have its own distinct theme, with its own color scheme to go with it. For instance, the first set of levels has a distinct shade of green, meant to represent a sunny, summer style. In the second set, you’ll be seeing a lot of brown as the theme is meant to represent autumn. After spending a good amount of time in each level set, your eyes will welcome the change of scenery each time it happens. The graphical tone seems to borrow a bit from Triple Town [ Free ] but there was never a vibe of ripping off, although the similarities are clear.

Where Tractor Trails really nails the fun factor is in its simplistic, yet rewarding gameplay. A game that you can pick-up and play for a few minutes or up to a few hours is still rare, so it’s nice to see that Tractor Trails stays as fun as it should long after you’ve started.

TouchArcade Rating:

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Today marks the next big step in TouchArcade history, as with the help of Flexbits and Bartelme Design the official TouchArcade App [ Free ] is now available for download on the App Store. We dug deep into all the features of the app last month, so give that a once over while you’re waiting for the app to download.

We’ve put a ton of effort into the development of this app, and aside from providing an incredibly iPhone-friendly version of all the content TouchArcade has to offer, you’ll be able to see a list of the hottest games updated in real time. This list really aids in game discovery, as unlike the Apple featuring process where you’ll see a new crop of games every week, our hot games list is in constant flux and will include new games, old games with recent updates, games with price drops, and tons of other relevant titles.

So give it a download and let us know what you think, and what you’d like to see changed or tweaked in future versions. Also, while this initial launch currently is not universal, we’ve got plans for that on the horizon and the universal version looks incredible on the iPad.

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If you’re like me and have been anxiously awaiting Get Set Games’ Mega Run, the follow-up to their hugely successful Mega Jump [ Free ], then I’ve got some good news for you: Mega Run now has a confirmed release date of May 30th.

I was able to take Mega Run for a test drive at GDC in March, and was really impressed by the game even in its early state. It takes the auto-running Canabalt formula and adds colorful graphics, multiple pathways, tons of secrets and plenty of special items and powerups. Check out this new batch of screens sent over by Get Set, which are looking fabulous.

Since GDC the team has added an entire new world, bringing the total up to 4 worlds each with 16 stages to complete. Mega Run will also launch as a Universal app with Retina Display support. Be sure to check out the previously released trailer and mark May 30th down on your calendar if you’ve been looking forward to Mega Run.

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Despite the majority of the gaming world wishing otherwise, Nintendo seems pretty dead-set in not bringing any of their beloved properties to other platforms. Which means, if you’re standing in line at the bank and get a sudden hankering for some Mario Kart, you’re mostly out of luck if you aren’t sporting Nintendo hardware.

However, video games are an iterative pastime, and Mario Kart is far from the only kart racer around. On the iOS platform, Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing [ $1.99 ] is widely considered to be the finest answer to Mario Kart currently available, and we’d tend to agree. It pits a cast of Sega characters against each other in the power-sliding, weapon-laden, arcade-style racing we’ve come to expect from a kart racer, and it does it extremely well.

Throw in fantastic course designs, a full single-player campaign and challenge mode, and both local and online multiplayer options and you have a seriously good kart racer, even with the lack of everyone’s favorite plumber.

Over the weekend, Sonic All-Stars Racing got just that much better with its first significant content update since being released in June of last year. The big ticket items in this update are two brand new characters: Shadow the Hedgehog and Knuckles the Echidna. These are two extremely popular characters from the Sonic universe and are a great inclusion here. In addition to the two new characters there is also a brand new track to race on.

The other big feature in this latest update to Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing is native video-out support either wirelessly using AirPlay or through an HDMI hookup. I checked out this feature back at GDC and can say that his game in particular scales up to the TV screen extremely well. Finally, iCloud progress saving has been implemented as well as some UI changes including character faces on the mini-map during single player and Game Center avatars for when playing online.

If you’ve got kart fever on-the-go and don’t have a spare copy of Mario Kart handy, Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing should do the trick and is an even better game now thanks to the latest update.

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While dwindling on consoles, RPGs of all shapes and sizes are flourishing on mobile devices. There have been some truly creative and unique RPGs released in the past few years, and perhaps none is capable of tugging at your heartstrings and pushing you to fight just one more battle than Game Stew Studio’s new iOS game, Tower of Fortune (ToF) [ $0.99 ].

Like Puzzle Quest and Sword & Poker before it, ToF infuses a basic role-playing game with mechanics drawn from a completely different genre entirely—in this case, slot machines.

The premise of ToF is pretty simple. You’re a hero. You’ve a lady to rescue. You need to gather coin, get loot, and defeat evil incarnate. A “game of the year”-winning story, this is not, but the simple framework provides enough context to the game to make it work.

Before you even get to the gameplay, though, you’ll be hard-pressed to ignore ToF’s eye-catching retro art style and ear-pleasing chip tunes. Both the game’s quirky, NES-era visuals and strong selection of catchy music make the game visually and aurally simplistic and yet undeniably charming, like the greatest Gameboy games of yore.

Presentation is all well and good, of course, but how does the game actually play? Surprisingly well. ToF succeeds in blending the requisite RPG features with the mechanics of a slot machine, albeit with only one truly noteworthy quirk.

Currency is central to ToF, and it’s what powers all of the game’s subsequent systems. To progress through the game’s world, you’ll need coin. To battle, you’ll need to spend (and potentially lose) coin. To upgrade your hero, you’ll need coin. To heal after battle, you’ll need coin. To buy items… you get the point.

There are two ways to earn coin in the game: through fairly nonintrusive microtransactions or by fighting monsters. Given that the combat is the star of the show, most will be content to get their hands dirty and earn money the hard way, and it’s not hard to do so willingly as prices aren’t as exorbitant as they are in similar games.

This is where the game’s slot system comes into play. When you enter combat, you’ll be greeted with a simple one-line, three-reel slot machine. The reels are filled with icons that represent doing damage, taking damage, gaining XP, and gaining coin. Whatever icon appears on the left-most reel determines what happens during the turn, and the more like icons matched, the more significant the effect. In addition, the effect is multiplied by repeat matches, so if you get XP one spin and XP again the next, you’ll get an XP bonus.

One more level of both gambling and depth is added to the battle system by way of a simple “Bet” button. Prior to a spin, you can bet your coin to enhance the effects of the spin. Every effect is doubled after a bet, so you’ll be crossing your fingers in hopes of avoiding taking damage icons and screaming in joy when you hit a full three-match of XP or coin. This becomes critical as bad guys get harder and have more health.

I’m not much of a gambler, and random elements in games tend to annoy me to no end—here’s looking at you, Crisis Core. But after hours of playing, I’ve found that ToF manages a fine balance between feeling cheated and feeling lucky, and hard battles are nail-biters as a result. As you begin to fight more difficult monsters, the high wrought by a good string of luck and the stomach-sinking disappointment wrought by a bad one make the game quite compelling.

In practice, the system works surprisingly well. This is largely thanks to the game’s simple loot and upgrade systems, which allow you to upgrade your character periodically with simple items and stat boosts, you can do a decent amount to prepare for battle and tip the tide in your favor.

If there are any complaints to be had, they would revolve around the game’s sense of progression. Progression is a critical component of any RPG: it’s what keeps the genre’s fans playing, even when everything else—from storyline to graphics and beyond—may falter. ToF struggles a little bit in this regard, as progression is too random and too fleeting to feel rewarding in the long run.

Moving through the game from area to area requires paying escalating “unlock” fees. This means that you’ll need to amass a substantial purse. This in-and-of-itself wouldn’t be that bad, but when combined with the game’s rougelike treatment of death, you can find yourself frustrated.

Should you die, you’ll lose all the equipment, levels, and upgrades you earned as you play—you keep only your unspent coin. As a result, some may beat the game in a day while others could theoretically play it indefinitely and never see the end.  This near-complete randomness makes it hard to feel any sustained, substantial, and satisfying feelings of progression.

In spite of this issue, though, the game never stops being fun to play. The game’s ability to produce such a wide spectrum of emotional highs and lows is no small feat for a game, and additional elements, like the game’s fun mini-quest system that introduces small objectives that reward XP when completed, do wonders at keeping things fresh.

Ultimately, Tower Of Fortune may not have the progression elements, compelling story, or depth of its meatier RPG brethren, but it has all the stats, levels, loot, triumph, and tragedy a RPG fan needs for on-the-go gaming.

TouchArcade Rating:

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One of the great indie success stories on the App Store was last year’s mega hit Tiny Wings [ $0.99 ] from lone developer Andreas Illiger. While the core gameplay hook wasn’t entirely unique, it was executed to perfection, and literally anybody who was capable of tapping a touch screen could pick up Tiny Wings and get hooked. Beyond just the gameplay though, Tiny Wings had that special, indescribable “something” that allowed players to connect with it on an emotional level, something we noted in our review of the game.

The kind of overnight success that Tiny Wings saw must have come as a pretty big surprise to Andreas Illiger, who seemed to shy away from all the newfound attention. He released several updates for Tiny Wings during the course of the year, but remained mostly silent about any future development plans.

Recently during the A Maze Festival in Berlin last month, Andreas chatted candidly with fellow developer Flow Studio in an interview the company has posted on their blog. In it, Andreas talks about some of the inspiration behind the creation of Tiny Wings, how its sudden rise to the top was actually very scary, and how becoming an overnight sensation hasn’t really changed him. Andreas sounds like a very humble, artistic individual.

Also mentioned in this interview is that Andreas has been hard at work for the last 10 months on his Tiny Wings follow-up, and that it is just a few weeks from being finished. It will again be an iOS title and again he’s developing the game all on his own, but beyond that he isn’t divulging any details about what the game is.

We’ll be waiting anxiously for any more news regarding Andreas Illiger’s latest release, which sounds like it will hopefully be soon, but in the meantime check out the short interview for some insight into one of iOS’s most beloved titles Tiny Wings.

[Via Flow Studio Blog]

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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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Nearly a month ago we got into all the nitty gritty details of what the upcoming TouchArcade app was going to do. Our initial plan involved launching the following Monday, but some unfortunate events put that in limbo. We’ve since gathered our forces, and are completely prepared for a Tuesday launch of the app.

We’ll be pulling the level manually early Tuesday morning, so keep an eye on the site and/or our Twitter to know the second it’s available. I’ve been using the app daily for quite a while now. I love it, our beta testers have loved it, and I can’t wait to get it into everyone’s respective hands.

Strap in for Tuesday! Oh, and here is the iTunes link, if you want to bookmark it to obsessively mash over the weekend like hitting the refresh button on a package you’re tracking even though you know it won’t arrive for a few days.

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