Archive for the ‘theme’ tag
‘HypnoBlocks’ for iPad Review – Multi-Touch Matching Action
My first minutes with HypnoBlocks [$0.99] were pathetic, floundering things. I looked at it as a puzzle, with reaching the end of each level as my goal. I didn't make it far, so I tried again. After a few abortive attempts, I reconsidered my approach. Was it about reaching the highest level, or reaching the highest score? That's when everything clicked — this isn't a game about getting the farthest you can, no matter the cost. It's a game about sustaining perfection as long as possible.
Though it looks like one, HypnoBlocks isn't quite a match 3. You are pressed to match colors, but not in lines or patterns. Instead you tap blocks as they form into a rotating cube — it doesn't matter where they are, just that you match them. After a moment, those block disappear. You have a few seconds after that to make another match and build your combo. If you're too slow, your combo fades. If you tap a mismatched block, your combo also fades.
That combo is all that really matters. Not only does it increase the score you earn from each match, but at the end of each level it multiplies the bonus you earn. If you manage to maintain it throughout the entire level but lose it on the last match, you'll lose what may be a ridiculous quantity of points. So perfection is needed, yes. And speed — you also earn bonuses based on the seconds remaining on the clock. Let it run down before reaching the end of the level and you're done, game over, high score noted.
This is made more complicated by the obstacles HypnoBlocks throws in your way. Each block is surrounded on several sides by a dark barrier. In order to see the color of the block beneath, you need to rotate your view around the cube. If you lose sight of the other blocks you wanted to match, you'd best hope your memory is accurate. You'll also need to deal with spikes that plant themselves throughout the cube. Even grazing one will kill your combo.
When all these factors come together, you'll find a fast-paced game with scores that will explode almost exponentially as you improve. Eventually the leaderboards will be dominated by those who can sustain perfection through every level in the hardest difficulty mode, but for now it's still the Wild West out there. You can make a mark just by being particularly good at a handful of levels.
My one wish is for a little more content. There are three difficulty modes, two of which are unlocked while playing, and twelve Game Center achievements. But once you burn through those, there isn't much else to keep you busy when you hit a plateau with your score. This seems like a game that's just begging for more – more achievements, unlockable themes, anything to keep things interesting as you fight for first place on the leaderboards. The game is undeniably fun, but I don't see it having much lasting appeal.
Still, while the experience lasts it's well worth the price of admission. has put together an excellent package, with slick graphics, good sound and perfectly precise multi-touch controls. Once it clicks it becomes hypnotically intense, and rather hard to put down. But do put it down long enough to share your thoughts in our , okay?
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New Screenshots of ‘Star Command’ Surface
Remember that we posted about a few months ago? No? Well here's the deal– War Balloon Games took note of the success of simulations like Game Dev Story and decided to take a crack at releasing something similar, only with a Star Trek-like theme to it. Here's the developer's own description from the :
Players can build their vessel in their own image – if you prefer a scientific, peace oriented game style you can build long rang scanners and diplomatic facilities to encourage peace and information exchange. Players more focused on settling disputes through force can build their Starship with multiple weapon bays and reinforced hull to absorb heavy damage.
Throughout the game players can hire and manage their crew. Crew members have a variety of skill sets and each of these comes into play when performing tasks on board like research, tactical, engineering and more. Crew members gain new skills as the game progresses making them more and more valuable.Players can explore the universe, discovering black holes, nebula’s, new planets and eventually make contact with new races. Diplomacy comes into play as some species are naturally drawn to combat while others may be more willing to join you – even exchanging officers on your crew.
Anyway, here's the three new screenshots to prove the dev team is "still alive and working":
Needless to say, I'm super excited for this. We're huge fans of the Kairosoft formula around here, and really can't wait to see a game that takes those same basic ideas and applies them to something entirely new and original instead of poorly translated ports of existing mobile phone games. If you want to know more about the game, the developers are .
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‘World of Warcraft’ Themed App, ‘Healbot,’ Astounds
Normal people would call Healbot [Free], an app that aims to help people “practice the World of Warcraft healing mechanic anywhere you have your iPhone or iPad,” stupid, but I think those same normal, mildly unaware people would be surprised by how much traction World of Warcraft-anything gains. It’s a big MMO with a huge player base that seems to love absolutely anything that even vaguely relates to it.
Also, what World of Warcraft player wouldn’t like to get better? Raids are fun and all, but if you or your pals are causing boss wipe after boss wipe because of poor or unenlightened play or performances, you’re going to be looking for help.
At its core, that’s what Healbot tries to do. breaks down the mechanics like this: the game features six health bars, five of which represent your and allies. The top bar is a boss character’s pretend bar. As you play, all of these bars lose health at different intervals, and since you’re a healing wizard as the game’s namesake implies, it’s your job to cast different healing spells to bring up the allied bars as the boss is drained of life.
And, yeah, that’s all there is to it. It’s impossible for me to evaluate if it can actually make you a better healer since I don’t want to give my life away to Blizzard, but I imagine that it can, at the least, give relative newbies a sense of what to do and when in a hectic boss fight.
I wonder if future updates will attempt to add in specific bosses and their attacks? Now that, I think, would probably make this invaluable.
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‘This American Life’ Explains Patent Trolls – Lodsys Mentioned Among Others
If you've never heard of This American Life before, it's never too late to start listening. TAL is a radio show produced by WBEZ and hosted by Ira Glass. You can listen to it by visiting , subscribe in iTunes, or download the This American Life for the iPhone [$2.99] or for the iPad [$4.99]. Each show centralizes around a particular theme, which is explored over the course of an hour through various "acts" which consist of stories often told as first person narratives which are sometimes followed up with a brief interview. It's fantastic show, with a mood that varies widely depending on the topic ranging from incredibly somber to remarkably humorous, with tons of variance in between.
Why This American Life is relevant to the TouchArcade audience today is because , "When Patents Attack" focuses on patent trolls and does an absolutely fabulous job of demystifying all of the confusing US patent law that gives these patent holders the power to relentlessly sue so many people. Recently, Lodsys has been harassing iOS developers with patent claims on in-app purchase, as well as "more games" links inside of iOS titles, and they even get a brief mention in the show.
If you've found yourself following the various Lodsys drama but don't necessarily understand all the nitty gritty how's and why's of what's happening, you'll be totally up to speed after listening to this episode. Heck, if you like it, listen to other episodes, they're all worth your time.
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The TouchArcade Show – Bonus – Interview With Semi Secret Software’s Adam Saltsman
On this week’s bonus edition of The TouchArcade Show, a crew of three — count ‘em! — chat with indie games visionary and creator of Canabalt [$2.99], Adam Saltsman. The conversation kicks off with a light discussion of Adam’s oddly elaborate sandwich and then into other much more hard-hitting topics such as the themes and ideas that went into, ultimately, the creation of Canabalt, what Adam offers the indie games community, and several of his other games including Zits & Giggles and Wurdle [$1.99], one of the first iOS word games to hit the App Store.
You can download this episode directly or stream it via the links provided below or, hey, you can even subscribe to our fair podcast via iTunes or the Zune Marketplace.
iTunes Link: The TouchArcade Show
Zune Marketplace: TouchArcade.com Podcasts
RSS Feed: The TouchArcade Show
Direct Link: TouchArcadeShow-Bonus-006.mp3, 30MB
This is an awesome and honest discussion that I think you’ll like. We’ll be back, of course, with another bonus episode next week with another developer chat. Also, prepare yourself for another flagship podcast this Friday. Yay! If you want to get in touch with us and get your name in the show the e-mail is podcast@toucharcade.com. You can also hit us up on the and the if social media is your thing.
Interstitial for this episode is all via Overclock Remix’s , the man who composed the iconic song for Canabalt. A snippet of Jim Guthrie’s Audio Pepsi opens and closes the ‘cast. Here’s a track list of what we used:
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‘Marvel Pinball’ Coming To iOS By The End Of 2012
is a big deal in some circles. It’s often hailed as one of the best digital pinball translations known to man, which isn’t saying a whole lot since the lion's share of these kinds of games are bad-to-middling. But, anyway, its reach will expand in the near-to-mid future. At Comic-Con in San Diego, it was revealed that the game is coming to iOS and every other console or handheld device (including Android) under the sun by the end of 2012.
No other specific details were noted about any upcoming version, but it appears as if the port work will remain in the hands of — a move that bodes well for the game since Zen knows what's what with digital pinball and pinball physics in general.
Notably, a new DLC pack was announced, too, at the event. It will bring in a total of four new tables later this winter. One of them will be Ghost Rider-themed, as you can see from the above screenshot.
I can imagine a scenario in which, if this iOS version is significantly late to the party, this update as well as the others is rolled into the overall package. Then again, that doesn’t make the best business sense… Zen Studios would probably love the extra revenue stream IAP could provide. Regardless of the business plan, we'll be keeping a look out for this one out as it creeps towards release.
[Via ]
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‘Battle Slugs’ Review – The Slug is a Tactical Beast
Just a few short months ago, The 7th Guest: Infection [$2.99] emerged on iPad. It was iOS's first great take on 1988's Infection, and it was chock-full of nostalgia for PC players who looked back fondly on 1993, the year The 7th Guest made its debut. But if you lacked that nostalgic view of the subject matter, you might have found the game a bit mystifying. Enter Battle Slugs, [$0.99 / Lite] a reimagining of Infection that has a little more to offer the modern iOS gamer.
In Battle Slugs, players take turns placing their slugs. Each turn, you're given two options: clone your slug to an adjacent hex space, or jump it to one a step further away. Wherever you land, you'll convert adjacent enemy slugs to your team. The player with the most slugs on the board when there are no free hexes left wins.
To keep this formula from growing dull, Battle Slugs offers a few different options for variety. You can play against AI of three difficulty levels, or you can play hot-seat multiplayer. Whichever you choose, you'll have up to 25 different fields to choose from. The layout of the field can make a huge difference to the strategy you'll need to employ to win, so this selection keeps things fresh for quite a long time.
You won't have all the fields available at the start, however. You'll need to unlock them by playing against the computer on previous boards and winning. This is easier said than done — even on easy difficulty, your AI opponent will put up quite a fight. The early fields are small enough that you can evaluate your errors and improve, but later levels get huge. You'll need a strategic mind to master and unlock them all.
It helps that Battle Slugs throws in a ton of character to keep you entertained. The art is well-done and pretty adorable, in a mutated-slug sort of way. The music is also great — I've found myself listening to the title theme with its singing slugs an embarrassingly large amount. Whether you win or lose your matches against the game's AI, you earn experience, and that experience goes toward unlocking locations. Locations are randomly assigned when you start the game, and they give you new backgrounds, loading screens and music to play with.
There are a few things that keep me from recommending Battle Slugs unreservedly. For one thing, like every similar game, this one's hard. Even on Easy, the computer will probably stomp you a few times while you work out your strategy. It's also a bit opaque. You unlock new fields by winning on two prior fields, but the game doesn't make this obvious. Unlocking locations feels like a matter of bashing your head against the AI until you eventually earn enough experience, and even then there's no way to pick where you'd like to play.
But those are minor complaints. is building quite a reputation for great games, and Battle Slugs is no exception. According to their posts in there are more fields coming in an update, along with online multiplayer and Game Center achievements. I couldn't really ask for more, but at the time of this writing the game is free. So there's absolutely no reason not to check it out — it's even Universal. Go grab it, and prepare to break against an army of devilish slugs.
Battle Slugs, Free (Universal)
Battle Slugs Lite, Free (Universal)
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‘Xtreme Wheels’ Review – Xtremely Trialing
Just so we're all on the same page from the start, Xtreme Wheels [$3.99] is whole heck of a lot like Trials series. Actually, it's almost identical, but while many have tried to bring the painfully difficult motocross physics-puzzle-style to iOS, Xtreme Wheels is probably the closest to getting it right.
If you've played , you'll know what to expect from Xtreme Wheels and it gets the job done confidently enough. If you haven't, Xtreme Wheels is a physics based motrocross game that requires you to traverse an environment and get from one point of the map to the other by accelerating and leaning your character and bike in the correct directions to get through a series of obstacles.
That all sounds simple enough, but the joy (or rage) of Xtreme Wheels is in the fact you have to finesse your way up and over exploding barrels, ninety-degree walls and across tiny platforms. Like its pedigree, this isn't a game for the faint of heart and while the first few levels are far too easy, the last ten are truly a pain to get through.
The goal of each track is to get through it alive once, then to head back and improve your time. You'll receive medal awards based on your time and the number of crashes. Usually, you'd spend your time beating friend's scores on the leaderboards, but right now the Game Center boards are pretty screwed up, with the top times listed as zero. For this type of game, fixing this needs to be on the top of Bravo's to-do list.
You'll have four different control schemes at your disposal, two styles of analog sliders, a digital pad and tilt controls. For the most part, the analog slider is going to be the go-to for Trials fans, but newcomers might find the other controls more to their liking.
Whichever control scheme you chose, you'll be rolling with it over the course of 25 levels in five themed areas. Again, if you played Trials, you know what to expect here — the level progression, although a bit slow at first, ramps up considerably and awkwardly at the mid-point (like Trials, actually). If you haven't played a game like this before, you're going to run into some serious trouble early on because the game doesn't do a particularly good job of teaching you how to play it. Simple things like bunny-hops are going to frustrate newcomers pretty quickly and even old hands will have a little trouble getting the hang of them with the control schemes.
That actually brings up one of the problems with Xtreme Wheels, the physics are a little loose compared to the responsiveness of the controls and since the level design facilitates some ridiculous situations, the physics don't always respond as you'd expect. It's only jarring because the controls are so reactive, your character will lean and move exactly as you'd anticipate, but the bike doesn't always respond. Then again, that might simply be the sixty-plus hours I've poured into Trials HD tainting my view a little.
One of the other major problems comes in the form of framerate hiccups. Both on a 3GS and an original iPad the game has serious slowdown after explosions and in some of the more complex areas. This isn't a good thing in this type of game and it's almost impossible to recover from. There are a ton of checkpoints throughout each level to keep this from being too aggravating, but for those looking to go gold on every level it'll only make the game even harder. The same goes for your inevitable fail animations, which seem to drag on as the system stutters.
From early screenshots, the game looked like it was going to be a real stunner. The environments hold up to the screenshots and look great, but the animation on the rider is a little stiff. This only matters because your rider's position is key to getting through tougher parts and it's occasionally a little difficult to figure out exactly where he's positioned. Of course, I'd have preferred a steady framerate over fancy visuals any day, so we'll see if they can scale the graphics down to add some smoothness in the future.
Despite those flaws, the game is a faithful rendition of a Trials-style game, but it would have been nice to see a little more innovation in the environmental art or at least more of its own style instead of a nearly direct clone of Trials. Even still, if they can get the framerate up, it'll be one of the better renditions on the App Store, even if it's lacking it's own constitution.
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First Video of ‘Bike Baron’ – A ‘Trials HD’ Style Game with a Sense of Humor
Last March, Minigore [99¢/HD] developer teamed up with and to bring us Death Rally [99¢], a fantastic remake of a classic PC combat racing game. During Death Rally’s development, Mountain Sheep also had another project being kept warm on the back burner that was again the product of a developer team-up, this time with Aqua Globs [99¢/Lite/HD] creator with a little bit of Angry Birds [99¢/HD] music composer thrown in for good measure.
The developers involved in the project announced last week that this new game will be called Bike Baron, and today we have the first trailer for the game. Bike Baron is basically a Trials HD-like motorcycle stunt game, but instead of an industrial themed art style it has more of a cartoonish, lighthearted vibe. The “Bike Baron” himself totally reminds me of crossed with , which is a great mix if you ask me.
The trailer for Bike Baron pretty much speaks for itself, showing off a single play through of a level, and is looking fantastic so far:
There’s no set release date for Bike Baron, though the developers have commented that there’s only a few weeks left of final development and that the game should be out sometime in August at the latest. We also don’t know what the price will be yet, but we do know that Bike Baron will be launching as a universal app and will contain a level editor, which you can see briefly at the beginning of the above video. You can check out more screens, concept art, and info in the , and we’ll be sure to give Bike Baron a "trial" when it launches in the coming weeks.
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Coming Tonight: ‘Deadlock: Online’, ‘Dream Track Nation’, ‘Sid Meier’s Pirates!’, ‘Wooords’ and More
Hey it's Wednesday again and there is a lot going on in the world of Apple. Maybe not specifically iOS, but Lion was released today along with new Mac Minis, MacBook Airs, and a really sweet Thunderbolt-powered LCD that I've been fighting the urge to order for most of the morning. Our sister-site has been doing a bang-up job of covering all this, as well as the Apple investor call yesterday which included some ridiculous statistics on Apple is doing as a company.
Anyway, here's how these Wednesday releases work: iOS developers are able to set future release dates for games. Since the App Store is an international market with regions all over the world, things get released in each region as it becomes the pre-set date they're supposed to be released on. Thanks to its proximity to the International Date Line, things pop up on the New Zealand App Store first, followed by Asian markets, then European markets before appearing on the US App Store at 11:00 PM Eastern.
Here's what's coming tonight:
A Cloudy Adventure, 99¢ – – Apparently, a gang of evil squares have stolen a bunch of wheels of cheese and because of this you need to help a cloud on an adventure? Even though the premise doesn't seem to make a whole lot of sense, I love wacky physics-based platformers, and have high hopes for this one.
Allied Star Police, Free – – This free game is the latest from Popcap's 4th and Battery. Better yet, it's the product of 9-year-old game designer, Owain Weinert who helped Popcap make the game via the Make a Wish Foundation. It's a lane-based battle game, and I'm expecting it to be just as much fun as 4th and Battery's previous freebies.
Back to the Future Episode 5 HD, $6.99 – – The exciting conclusion to the Back to the Future series of adventure games. If you've managed to make you way through the previous four installments, you might as well snag this one too, in the interest of not being left hanging on what happens.
Deadlock: Online, Free – – This dual stick shooter has a number of interesting twists: It's universal, played online with up to 8 players in multiple game modes, oh and it's free. There's daily tournaments to play in, 5 maps with more on the way, and tons more.
Dream Track Nation, 99¢ – – This physics-based sidescrolling stunt-centric racing game just looks awesome. Really, this is the kind of game I'd have been happy to spend $10 (or more) for on Xbox Live Arcade available on the App Store for a buck. I hope the game is successful enough to spawn a community of track makers, as Dream Track Nation could have infinite replay value.
Feed The Duck, 99¢ – – I think forum member Nullroar described this game the best in its thread: "It uses the wildly successful 'physics-based' genre, combines it with equally acclaimed 'cute, flightless birds-as-projectiles that you control' trope and introduces some clever twists." Yeah, I don't know how this one won't do well either.
Hero Teams, 99¢ – – This game looks an awful lot like Worms, but I've got to admit, I'm totally digging the art style. Hopefully gameplay follows suit.
Jet Set Go, 99¢ – – Crazy about time management game? Well, this one is apparently made by the team that had their fingers all over Sally's Spa. Themed with a travel agency, you'll need to make sure all of your customers happy through typical time management style actions and mini games.
Leap Worm, 99¢ – – In this game, you jump from planet to planet collecting stars. Yeah, the gameplay mechanic has been done more than a few times before, but Igloo Games always seems to make great games, so I've got high hopes for this one.
Mega Bad, 99¢ – – It seems like this game is a cross between Tilt to Live and several weird themes ranging from Zelda to Star Wars. Yoda, apparently, even is a boss in the game. Curious.
P-47 – The Phantom Fighter, $1.99 – – This game has a heck of a lot of history behind it through various ports and arcade machines, and I'm happy to finally see it on the App Store. Heck, now I can play it for eternity for what amounts to 8 plays of the old arcade.
Pet Society Vacation, Free – – EA's latest free to play game revolves around cute looking endlessly customizable pets. It doesn't do much for me, but I wouldn't be shocked at all to see this high up on the top grossing lists in a few days.
Qvoid, $1.99 – – This clever puzzle game centralizes around moving a cube around to clear colors from each level. Check out the above trailer, it looks really cool.
Sid Meier's Pirates!, $3.99 – – The Pirates! series has been amazingly popular, similar to basically everything Sid Meier touches. In the game, you take control of one of 27 different included ships, and do various pirate activities. Oh, it's even optimized for the iPad 2.
The Jolly Gang's: Spooky Adventure, $1.99 / Lite / HD / Lite HD – – I had a great time with Hamlet, even though some portions of the game involved puzzles that were beyond insane. I'm hoping for a similar adventure with The Jolly Gang.
Wooords, 99¢ – – Alright, so there have been a ton of similar word making games in the life of the App Store, but I really like the style of this one. Who doesn't love refrigerator magnets?
Zombie Gunship, 99¢ – – The coolest levels in Call of Duty games are always the AC-130 shooting levels (alright, and the sniper levels). Zombie Gunship takes that similar AC-130 gunning gameplay and puts you up against zombies, and I'm all for it.
8 Ball Pool, 99¢ – – 8 ball pool on a timer, and you've got to pocket as many balls before the time runs out. apparently has been played over a billion times as well.
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