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It's no secret to anyone that the App Store is crammed with word games — they're hard to miss. Considering how simplistic the genre is and how it appeals to such a wide variety of different types of gamers, it's no surprise everyone wants to make the word game that people can't seem to stop playing. To do that, you either have to execute the original formula very well, or find a way to give it a twist. With DooWaru [99¢/Lite], it's the latter, and I'm happy to report that the experiment was a great success.

As with most word games, DooWaru makes it simple to jump right in and play. You'll start off with a grid of letters and a field up top which acts simultaneously as the space where the words you type appear and as the button you submit your word with. Your score racks up in the bottom right corner, and your time ticks away in the bottom left. As you successfully spell words, you fill up a progress bar at the top, and once it's full, you've completed a level. It's all standard, actually … so what's the twist?

What makes things get all wacky is that the letters in the grid are on 3D blocks. And they rotate and reveal new letters. Oh, you think to yourself, I get it … I just have to think a bit faster! And then as soon as you get that learning curve down, the blocks start to speed up. Soon enough, two new blocks are introduced: one that blows up the blocks surrounding it, and one that freezes them. You can tap the latter whenever you like to buy yourself a few moments to think, but you can't control the bomb blocks, only race to beat them before they blow up that letter that you need. When I tell you that by the time you pass level ten you're going to have to be quick to spell anything longer than three or four letters, believe it. This is where the challenge and the fun come in. Think fast!

There's also an additional mode called Quick Play that gives you two minutes to spell as many words as you can, and adds a few precious seconds to the clock for each word you spell. Whether you play in this mode or in arcade mode, the game keeps track of your scores, so you can aim to beat your own scores or those of others if you like (no Game Center compatibility though – boo!).

DooWaru is very simple, but what it does, it does very well. I found that I enjoyed it more than most word games I play because the constantly changing board gave me more options. Sure, you have to learn to play fast because of the bombs, but I also found myself coming up with more creative, longer words because I had a large board to choose from, and if the letter I needed to complete a word wasn't there when I needed it, it might turn up in a second or two once the board changed again. It also didn't increase in difficulty to the point where it became frustrating, offering accessible gameplay  that I imagine a wide range of people could get down with.

The only negative thing I can say about DooWaru is about the music. It's some sort of frenzied Indian melody that sounds as if you've stumbled into a bad Bollywood video and repeats over and over, and it doesn't fit the game at all. Luckily, you can hop in the menu and turn it off with a single tap. Unless you're into the whole Bollywood thing, that is, and then maybe you can practice your belly dancing in circles around the kitchen while you get your spell on.

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Word Fighter is a cool upcoming — wait for it — word fighting game from the wonderful dudes over at Feel Every Yummy. We went hands-on with an alpha build earlier this year at GDC, and now you can see the game in its more finished glory. Feel Every Yummy has just released a new look teaser showing off its next-level Street Fighter-Meets-Scrabble action and also a few of its new-look characters. Depressingly, none of them are TIME-award winning Brad Nicholson, but what can you do, eh?

In case you missed our earlier coverage, basically the game goes like this: you spell a word from jumbled letters on a 5×5 grid over the course of three timed and turn-based rounds. Letters have point values, so the more points, the more possibility that you’ll live through the man-on-man conflict.

If you’re going to be around at PAX Prime, you’ll be able to go hands-on with the game, too before its eventual Fall 2011 release on the iPad, iPhone, and the Android operating system. If you won’t be in attendance, well, you’ll just have to wait like the rest of us.

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It’s not very often that I manage to play a game that not only offers an enjoyable and compelling gameplay experience, but also manages to make me laugh at the same time. FlyBoy [$0.99 / Lite / HD / HD Lite], a whimsical skydiving simulator, manages to do just that.

Gameplay in FlyBoy is relatively simple: you choose from one of six different stages (and three different difficulties), stabilize your iOS device, and then use the accelerometer to steer your skydiver past a variety of barriers while racing against the clock towards the finish line. Tap on your screen to dive and shave off a few seconds at the cost of control. Should you go splat by hitting something, you are taken back to the last checkpoint, which definitely loses  you valuable seconds.  In addition to avoiding obstacles, a variety of power-ups are littered throughout the path which can do everything from give you a burst of speed to making you temporarily invincible, allowing you to dive right through any barriers. At the end of every level, you are rated based on your completion time.

Levels in FlyBoy range from volcanoes to Mayan temples to the inside of a fish. While each  level is well done and definitely offers some variety and increased difficulty, in the end the core gameplay changes very little. Thankfully, harder difficulties are balanced well and actually require a good deal of concentration in order to beat them in record time. Still, I really wish FlyBoy offered more levels, as the limited selection means you’re going to run out of content very quickly. Also, the lack of Game Center support is surprising, as I imagine folks would love to compete with their friends in speed runs.

One of the things that I think FlyBoy nails is its sense of humor. If you manage to only nick the side of a wall while diving, odds are you’ll end up decapitating a limb (instead of dying instantly). You can continue to play, but you lose a bit of control as your unfortunate diver starts bleeding out. You can actually continue playing with multiple decapitated limbs, which is both hilarious and horrifying at the same time. In fact, you can even earn an achievement for having your skydiver survive as nothing but a torso flying towards the finish line.

Maybe it’s simply my juvenile tendencies, but I just thought this decapitation feature added a whole lot of personality to the game as a whole. However, it’s not all just fun and gore, as the more limbs you lose, the easier it is to dodge the myriad of barriers coming at you. If you collect one of the many health packs littered along the path, you can regenerate any limbs lost. If bloodied limbs are too much for you (or your child), an option exists to turn off some of the gory content.

Despite the relatively light amount of content, I still think FlyBoy does a pretty good job creating a well-rounded ‘quickie’ game. There’s enough strategy within each of the levels in order to keep you coming back, as well as all the usual competitive features to make sure that you aren’t simply playing against yourself. Sure, FlyBoy isn’t going to win any rewards for deep gameplay, but if you’re looking for an amusing game to kill some time, FlyBoy is worth checking out.

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When Mighty Fin [$0.99] first hit the App Store back in June, it was a fun but flawed experience. The levels were bleak and a bit samey, the music was repetitive and the endless levels were dull, dull dull (something that was fixed in the game's first big update). Still, we enjoyed what there was of it at the time, so learning that Launching Pad Games is releasing a major update this week that addresses literally every remaining concern we had is, well, pretty awesome.

The game is going Universal, so all you iPad owners can finally get in on the fun. Mighty Fin looks fantastic on the big screen, and its one-touch control works just as well on whichever device you choose. New music has been added for each area, all in keeping with the game's original sound. Oh, and I should probably mention that the game's level count will literally double when the update hits, and the new levels are super cool. Interest piqued?

Where the game's first eight areas were largely dark and gloomy, this new batch is exploding with color. I suspect Shady Sal slipped Fin some high-grade hallucinogens to brighten his vacation up, because the little dude ends up swimming through places with names like Candy County, Ninjaville and Tomorrow Town. Ninjaville looks like something right out of Hokusai's The Great Wave off Kanagawa. It's glorious. And no worries about the game being too easy — these levels are vicious. Regular mode is tough enough, and Survival is downright killer.

Seriously, if you haven't picked Mighty Fin up yet, you should mark this Thursday, August 18 on your calendar. If you have it, pull it out again. If new levels alone aren't enough to reignite your interest, then think of the costumes — 32 new ways to dress Fin up. Could we ask for anything more?

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EA has made another move to bolster its position in the casual and mobile space. Fresh off a $750 million (or more) acquisition of PopCap, the publisher has acquire Bight Games, the creators of a few notable iOS IPs, the Facebook free-to-play and iOS resource game Trade Nations [Free], and the helping hands behind a gaggle of licensed titles, including NBA JAM [$.99 / HD] port and Legends of Wreslemania [$2.99].

While this acquisition comes as a surprise of sorts, the space EA continues to buy itself into shouldn’t. EA has acquire numerous social and mobile developers over the last year or so, cementing the fact that it wants in on the emerging digital market in a bad way.

The purchase price hasn’t been made public, which according to Venture Beat, indicates that EA didn’t have to pay much for the Canada-based developer. But how much is “not much” after a $750 million dollar acquisition, right?

In an EA.com bog post, EA executive Barry Cottle suggests that EA’s familiarity with the studio and the growth of the F2P model factored into the decision.

“At EAi, many of us already know Bight as a partner — we have worked with their talented team to develop several of our successful mobile games to date.

“Bight deepens our expertise in one of the fastest-growing segments of mobile games at an important time. We look forward to having them join our team at EAi when the deal closes later this month.”

In other news, I’ve started my own mobile company. My catalogue is small (0) and my experience in social is “suspect,” but I’m open for a buy-out, EA. Just saying.

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While Nintendo hilariously won’t admit that its struggling Nintendo 3DS is competing against the mobile market in addition to the traditional handheld one, Sony made it clear this afternoon that phones are the PS Vita’s biggest and stiffest competition. How? By confirming tons of support that is typically reserved for phones. Twitter, Skype, Foursquare, Facebook, and Internet browsing will be available as tack-on apps on the PS Vita at launch. Also, the publisher is planning to put every single game that comes to the Wi-Fi and 3G-enabled platform up for download.

This news comes on the heels of news that Sony was loaning PS Vita dev kits to indie devs, which for us at least, indicates that its serious about courting the same kinds of developers that flourish on the App Store.

Provided pricing stays at sane levels, PSN on the Vita seems like it has the potential to be a really interesting platform in the future. I mean, imagine downloading an Uncharted game for the same price as, say, a Final Fantasy Tactics [$15.99]. That would be competitive, which is a word that we never use when discussing Nintendo’s troubled e-Shop.

But, to be clear, that’s just tinfoil speculation —- our collective, TIME-award winning guts are pretty convinced that even the downloads of retail, package games will continue to sit at retail, package prices. To be fair, though, PSN is definitely the most flexible of the three big platforms, so anything is possible.

We’ll keep our eyes on the $250 PS Vita as its 2012 launch creeps ever closer. The gamer side of me really wants it to succeed, but man, it’s going to one heck of a climb to the top — if it's even possible for it to get there anymore.

[Via 1UP]

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Whether or not you realized it, chances are you're already familiar with COPPA, or the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998. If you've entered your birthday to access something, or have ever checked a checkbox to verify you're over 13, you've seen COPPA in action. In a nutshell, it's a fairly outdated set of guidelines that need to be abided by online when dealing with children. When it was first drafted in the late 90's, the Internet was a vastly different place, and the existing laws have been more or less shoehorned into dealing with all the new technology and types of Internet-enabled applications that no one even dreamed of in 1998.

Broken Thumbs Apps' parent company W3 Innovations recently found themselves under the legal hammer and (so far) is the first company to be investigated for mobile apps. Their "games" include Zombie Duck Hunt [Free], Emily's Dress Up & Shop [Free], Pocket Home [Free] and more. In the complaint, the FTC alleges that W3 Innovations "collected, maintained, and/or disclosed personal information" via these kid-targetted apps. Specifically, W3 Innovations is said to have kept a list of over 30,000 email addresses as well as personal information gathered from both Emily's games.

Aside from being obvious freemium timesink-ware, Broken Thumbs Apps series of games don't really do anything out of the ordinary for many similar games. The source of these complaints seems to be the games asking for kids to enter their name, as well as being given the option to leave comments on a blog related to the games, which of course is all saved online.

W3 immediately agreed to settle with the FTC, ponying up the $50,000 fine as well as deleting all associated data. As much as it sucks to be made an example, iOS developers should take note that the FTC now seems to actively be policing COPPA violations in iPhone apps. It's likely better to be safe than sorry in these kind of cases, so if you're responsible for something that could even vaguely be construed as kid-centric and you're not using appropriate age gates before collecting data, it might be time to think about an update rectifying that sooner rather than later.

[via Ars Technica]

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In case you're not aware (and we can't blame you) chain surfing is an "extreme" street-sport which involves balancing on a hanging chain-fence strung between two posts, for as long as possible, whilst possibly performing tricks.

Words can't do this strange activity justice, so check out the clip below, for a little introductory chain surfing demonstration:

Chain Surfer [$2.99] has been released for iOS devices, so now you can go chain surfing from the comfort and safety of your own sofa. This is the first release from developers 4:20 Digital, but the graphics, animations and sound-track are all pretty solid, which is surprizing as I thought this might be a joke game, given the unusual premise. Mind you, if balancing on a beam and doing flips can be an Olympic gymnastics event, then who's to say that someone balancing on a wobbly chain, outside the supermarket at night is a lesser sport?

The controls are a mix of tilting and gesture recognition. You start by tilting the device lift-and-right to get the chain swinging, then once you're achieving some decent height and momentum, you can bust out some tricks by drawing the appropriate gestures with your finger.  For example, a downwards swipe does a 'hang-10', a left-right swipe pulls a 'front side 360', while drawing a circle performs a 360 degree flip in that direction. Skaters will be familiar with the moves.

The gesture recognition is pretty good, but not perfect, with some gestures needing to be repeated. Although to be fair it's difficult to know if that's my fault, or the game. Perhaps more practice is required. Before playing, you can try-out the tricks in the "Tricktionary" screen (that's right, trick + dictionary = trickionary). This screen lists all 14 moves and the associated finger gestures, some of which involve both taps and swipes. The gesture has to be completed while you're nice and high, or you'll wipe-out and eat some concrete.

There's three modes of play, although only Arcade mode is unlocked initially. Specific tricks are  requested, and the necessary gestures are listed on the screen to help you out. Freestyle mode requires no tilting as the chain sways automatically, letting you focus on gestures and choosing your moves to gain high-scores by doing trick-combos. The hard part is that combos only occur if you don't repeat the same move within 2 tricks. And finally, "Against the Clock" mode gives you two-and-a-half minutes to show-off for points, with extra time awarded for tricks and combos.

The tilt-and-gesture controls are an uncommon combination, because when you're busy tilting your device, it's difficult to suddenly draw gestures accurately. The player must suddenly stop tilting, scribble a quick gesture which ends at the peak of their swinging motion, then quickly return to tilting. Unfortunately, this combination of controls was always likely to feel awkward. And it does.  For this reason I prefer Freestyle mode, which has no tilting.

Chain Surfer has Game Centre and Openfeint integration for the three game modes and two difficulty levels plus 25 achievements.  The difficulty levels are amateur and professional, although let's get serious, there's no professionals; surely no-one is getting paid to chain surf out there! (…Are they?) Although, next time you see a chain fence, I bet some of you will be tempted.

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This morning Time Magazine released their yearly feature, "The 50 Best Websites of 2011," where they "honor the scrappy newcomers and established players that make the Web so useful, entertaining and just plain indispensable." I'm not sure if we're technically a scrappy newcomer or an established player, but it's awesome to see TouchArcade getting this kind of recognition.

TIME cites our reviews, the forums, and our recently rebooted twice-weekly podcast The TouchArcade Show as reasons for inclusions. (And speaking of podcasts, this is probably a good time to subscribe if you haven't already.)

Anyway, I suppose this is an excellent time to thank the whole team here at TouchArcade who work their collective butts (fingers?) off wading through the ever-thickening jungle that is the gaming section of the App Store. We've got some awesome people at work here between Jared who stays up all night like an old bearded man in a light house, Brad who takes time out of his busy weightlifting schedule to manage and produce the podcast, as well as our team of freelancers both new and old who tirelessly crank out reviews all week long. So seriously, thanks guys, and thanks to everyone who makes the forums an awesome place to hang out.

[via TIME]

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The auto-running genre is one of the most saturated on the App Store, and although there are many excellent games that use that particular formula, there are far more mediocre or just plain bad games trying to cash in on the genre’s popularity. It’s because of this that it’s hard to get excited when I see new running games released, similar to how I throw up a bit in my mouth every time another match-3 rears its head.

Cynical attitude aside, when a new running game comes out that’s actually good, it deserves to get some attention, even if it’s the billionth one I’ve played. This brings me to Brain in Jar [99¢], the debut title from independent developer Java Soda Games, a new auto-runner that qualifies as one of the good ones. It doesn’t really reinvent the genre in any way, but it has a great visual style and the gameplay mechanics are honed near-perfectly, making it an incredibly fun game to get into. Not to mention, you play as a brain in a jar escaping human capture from a lab, which should be a wild enough notion to pique anybody’s interest.

Brain in Jar isn’t an endless runner, rather it’s made up of 25 increasingly difficult levels that are randomly generated with each play through. Your jarred brain makes its escape by way of a sturdy metal cart which can propel itself through each level thanks to your telekinetic powers. You have the ability to jump and double jump, and a few levels into the game you get the power to control your movement speed, slowing down or speeding up using left and right arrows.

It’s these game mechanics that make Brain in Jar so successful. They’re simple, mind you, but done very well. Jumping is super responsive and has that certain something that makes it just “feel” right. I’d liken it to how jumping and moving in a Mario platformer just feels so much better than similar games. Also, the ability to control your speed adds another layer of strategy that sets this game apart from other runners, and again Java Soda really nails the feel of controlling your character this way.

Another highlight to the gameplay are the obstacles in each level, which get more dangerous as you progress. These are typically science lab-ish items, like computer desks and metal bookshelves. What’s clever is that some of these items can be dealt with in multiple ways. For instance, you don’t have to jump over a desk or table, as some of them you can just ride right under. Or with bookshelves you can just jump right through the open spaces in the shelving rather than trying to jump the entire thing.

These multiple paths come more into play as you get deeper into Brain in Jar. Eventually, as one example, there will be lasers trying to shoot you down in your tracks. You can fire back, of course, but you can also seek shelter under a table in some circumstances. The best part about this is how it tends to all happen on the fly. You might be cruising along and have to double jump a giant bookcase, then slow yourself down so as not to run into a ceiling mounted turret, casually dropping down and racing under a desk as the turret futilely fires at you from above, the desktop shielding you from its blast.

It’s these organic action sequences that really put a smile on my face while  playing Brain in Jar, and help me forgive some of the game’s shortcomings. For one, while the 3D backgrounds and objects look good, they never change, and the scenery tends to feel pretty repetitive. Secondly, there’s no endless mode. The standard Normal mode is certainly challenging enough, and the Hard mode will really test your skill, but with the random nature of the levels and the running gameplay it seems strange not to include some type of endless survival mode. To that effect, Game Center integration with achievements and leaderboards would be a great addition to add some variety and replay value to the game.

While there aren’t a ton of bells and whistles in Brain in Jar, what it does do it does extremely well, almost better than any of my other favorite running games. The developers seem keen on adding more to the game through updates too, as they’ve said in our forums where members are enjoying the game as well. If you aren’t totally burnt out on auto-running games and want one with a comical sci-fi style and excellent mechanics, then give Brain in Jar a spin.

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