TouchArcade.ru

Combine two cups of freemium with a scoop of time management. Then add a dash of social, mix it together, and you'll get MobCrete's Pucca's Restaurant [Free], the freemium game that's currently devouring my spare time.

Pucca is a massive media franchise that spans animation, console games, fashion lines, and a lot more. If you know absolutely nothing about it (like me!), you'll still find Pucca's Restaurant to be an adorable restaurant sim. If you're a fan, you'll see all your favorite characters come together to help take your restaurant from a tiny diner to an opulent five-star affair.

There are likely hundreds of freemium sim games on iOS, so I'm not going to claim that Pucca's Restaurant is the best or most unique. I can, however, tell you that it's a lot of fun, and I can't stop playing. There are a few things I look for in a freemium game, and this one stacks up well. I never feel like I absolutely need to pay for currency, I'm not missing out by choosing not to harass my friends, and there's always lots to do.

To take your restaurant to a five-star destination, you'll need to manage meals, staff and decor. Cooking meals earns you money and experience, so you can unlock new recipes and items as you level up. You can use those items to decorate, drawing in more customers and earning more stars. As your restaurant gets more popular, you'll need more staff to cook and serve the food.

There's a slight time management flavor to Pucca's Restaurant, as you'll need to plan your dishes carefully to make sure there's always something ready to serve. You also have to make sure your meals don't go bad before you serve them. Decorating feels a bit like Animal Crossing, which is a game that desperately needs more iOS imitation. And hey, if you want some educational content, each dish you can cook in the game includes a full recipe.

I'm really loving the social content. I'm usually wary of letting games use my location data, but I'm glad I threw caution to the wind for this one. Not only is there a Yelp-style list of restaurant ratings, you can also check out a local map and rate your shop against everyone nearby. Or you can travel around the world and check out the top rated international restaurants. Pucca's Restaurant has only been out for a couple weeks here, but it's been around since March in parts of Asia, so you can see lots of crazy-awesome high level restaurant layouts – and they're all different. You can also check out the restaurants of your Game Center friends.

There are a few items you can't get for your restaurant without using Garu points, the premium currency of the game. You earn Garu points for hitting milestones and unlocking secret rewards, but they don't show up often enough to cover every possible purchase. I haven't had any problem going without, though, and my little restaurant is certainly remaining competitive. I am, however, completely mystified about why saving progress to the cloud costs Garu points. You'd think making sure players never lose progress would be valuable enough on its own.

My biggest gripe is that Pucca's Restaurant badly needs a tutorial. I muddled my way though the first few levels, and eventually figured out how to store decor, how to move things around, why I want new staff, but it was a struggle early on. Apparently a tutorial is on the way in the next update, and so far MobCrete has been quick to bring out bug fixes and new content. You can also hit them up in our forums.

If you've got room in your heart for a new freemium game, give Pucca's Restaurant a try. It's super cute, it's fun, and it's free. Is there a better recipe for success?

[source]

Let's get this out of the way, Square Enix's Chaos Rings Ω [$11.99 / HD] is identical to the original Chaos Rings in more ways than one. In fact, its differences are so few, it's hard to differentiate the two and considering Chaos Rings Ω follows the original by a full year, that's going to be a bit disappointing to fans of the first game looking for something new.

By the nature of the narrative in the first game, there is little in the way of expanding the Battle Royale style storyline, which pits you in a fight to the death against a random collection of couples abducted to an arena for the sake of proving their battle-worthiness. Even though this is billed as a prequel, it's still not the "first" time this the tournament has gone down and it's clearly not the last.

Where the first game told the story from several different viewpoints, Chaos Rings Ω decides instead to tell the main story of Vieg (who you'll recognize from the first game, perhaps a bit younger looking). This might be a bit jarring to fans of the multiple viewpoints of the first game, but it does allow Chaos Rings Ω to tell a slightly more cohesive story.

The setting is the exact same and that goes for the dungeons as well. They're varied in layout, but considering the first games dungeon designs were essentially randomly put together screens, that's not really saying much. Since there are different characters, the narrative is tweaked slightly, including a ridiculous mother/child plot involving a not-at-all-pregnant-looking woman who happens to be your wife. Dialogue is on par with the first as well, which is to say, it reads like it's something closer to fan fiction. Because of that, there are plenty of inadvertent jokes — for instance, during a cut scene where your wife is giving birth, an ill-timed achievement called "Pelvic Pummeler" will pop up in relation to a boss fight you just completed.

But if you liked the style and story of the first game, you'll enjoy this one too. Without spoiling things, you'll seen connections between the two games and get a few explanations of how the Ark Arena works and where certain situations and characters from the first game came from.

Combat, movement, the menus; everything else is the same as the first. That includes the ability to turn off random enemy encounters or alternately, to force one into happening. The puzzles are back this time too, but you can skip them if you fail three times. Combat works on the same two-person tactic as the first, which offers entry level RPG fans a clear and simple system to go with and it's mixed with enough complexity that you can take it to some extremes to deal hefty damage, but the game doesn't really challenge you to do so as often as it could. There is also a ludicrously over-done tutorial system at the beginning of the game, which features a tutorial for how to use the "options" menu for no apparent reason.

The same goes for the graphics, which are, to be frank, identical to the first, oftentimes seemingly taking assets directly from the original and changing their color. While Chaos Rings had a bit of a shock-and-awe factor going for it, Chaos Rings Ω doesn't. The weirdly pixelated static backgrounds and poorly textured character designs look significantly dated now. It shouldn't really matter, but as a whole, it looks like they weren't trying too hard.

There are a flurry of post-release updates planned, including increased level caps and bosses (which only makes sense after you finish the game), but based on their descriptions alone, they don't really seem that interesting unless you're an absolute die-hard fan. If nothing else, it's nice to see Square Enix is coming around to the App Store update model, at least a little bit.

By the end of it all, Chaos Rings Ω is solely for diehard fans of Chaos Rings and with the first game currently on sale, you'll be better of starting there if you're just a curious passerby. It's not bad by any means, but it doesn't even pretend to offer anything different or new. More is more — so if that's all you're asking for, you'll be happy with the way the story fills in the gaps of the first, but if you didn't like the first or wanted new battle systems or combat, you'll be disappointed.

[source]

A couple months ago, NimbleBit (creators of Pocket Frogs [Free]) revealed their upcoming Universal freemium title, Tiny Tower. Since then, I've had a chance to get hands on with the game, and so far I really like what I've seen.

Your role in Tiny Tower is part building developer, part elevator operator. You're responsible for the lives of the Bitizens that live and work in your tower, and you're also responsible for building a tower that brings in the big bucks. Tiny Tower is still in beta, so just about anything could change before release, but let me run down how things work currently.

The tutorial walks you through the basics of building. For each floor you add on to your tower, you can choose from hundreds of different production and residential designs. Residential floors hold your Bitizens, production floors employ them. Whether a production floor is a coffee shop or a hair salon, it needs Bitizens to stock its goods or services.

You have two currencies to work with: coins, and Tower Bux. You build your tower with coins. If you want to speed things up, Bux can be used to instantly finish construction, stock an item or move a new Bitizen into the tower. They can also be converted to coins. As you can probably guess, Bux are the premium consumable in Tiny Tower. No word on what the cost will be yet, but much like Pocket Frogs, you can get by just fine without if you'd rather not pay. Bux can be earned a few ways through normal gameplay, so paying will just speed things up.

Early on, most of the interaction is limited to the elevator. You can ferry people up your tower for tips, and special visitors with unique abilities show up occasionally to mix things up. There's also an element of time management as you try to get all your production floors fully stocked. As the game progresses, you'll start to get very busy keeping on top of your tower. This isn't one of those freemium games that's best played by setting things up and walking away, that's for sure.

NimbleBit hasn't set a release date for Tiny Tower, but they hope to release some time next month. After what I've played so far, I can't wait to get my hands on it when it arrives.

[source]

The first time I played Dance Dance Revolution, it was on Dreamcast. I didn't have a dance mat, so I used a controller. It wasn't quite the same experience, but it was still surprisingly fun. That's how it feels to play Step Evolution's first iOS release, ReRave [1.99]. It's like playing a dance game with your fingertips, and it doesn't lose much in translation.

Step Evolution comes from a dance game background, having worked on series that include In the Groove and StepMania. But this isn't a dance game crammed into an iPhone. They put a lot of care into ensuring ReRave makes sense on a touch screen.

ReRave uses the full screen for interaction instead of scrolling dots from above. See that power-button symbol in the app icon? Prepare to get very familiar with it. Symbols like it pop up everywhere and start rotating. As each one hits the peak of its rotation, it needs tapping. Or holding. Or tracing. Colored markers indicate which action is needed – a quick tutorial will give you the basics. A good sense of rhythm will help too, as you're doing all these things to the beat of the game's music.

The music is typical of dance games – poppy electronic, club and house tracks. There are three included, and they're certainly catchy enough, but you can pick up free song packs from the app's song store if you're looking for more variety. Currently there are ten songs available before the game starts dipping into paid IAP, and Step Evolution seems to put out new tracks regularly. The premium songs have to be bought in packs, but they all have previews and listed difficulty levels so you'll know what you're getting.

Each song has three tiers of difficulty, ranging from manageable to pretty chaotic. Your performance is ranked with a letter grade and scored on leaderboards. If that isn't enough to keep you coming back, the game has a boatload of achievements to earn. Game Center achievements track your success with accuracy, timing, placement and grades, with a few gimmicky entries (including one for purchasing IAP). Dozens of extra in-game awards track more unusual accomplishments, like quitting songs out of frustration or playing non-stop.

I have to point out a flaw: ReRave's look. The interface is great – clean, colorful and easy to use. But once you're actually playing, the visuals get a little dull. For a game that's pulling so much inspiration from dance games, the lack of background animations is disappointing. Even the symbols seem a little boring and out of place with the game's slick interface. Everything does what it needs to, but without much pizazz.

A bigger concern is how cramped the game looks and feels on the iPhone. Smaller fonts verge on tiny, and it can be hard to see new symbols popping up under your fingers. Like any music game, ReRave benefits from headphones, but the jack really gets in the way. You could get around the problem by rotating the phone, so hopefully Step Evolution will add that option in a future update. At least on iPad everything fits comfortably and plays without a hitch.

Not to be too negative – I've really enjoyed ReRave, particularly on iPad, and I keep sneaking more time with the game to try to get better scores. In the long run, I expect I'll be hoping for an Insane difficulty mode more than I'll be worrying about the game's look. Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got to go back for one more try at "Beep Beep Boom."

[source]

Those of us who grew up with the likes of X-Com and Jagged Alliance have long been waiting for something — no – anything in that vein to come up in the App Store since its inception. We've seen plenty of turn-based strategy games come and go, but nothing has captured the RPG-centric squad-based tactical combat we've been yearning for (save, perhaps for the recent release of Tactical Soldier – Undead Rising). Hunters: Episode One [Free / HD] wants to scratch that slow-moving turn-based itch and does so by offering you a few maps for free.

Hunters uses the same in-app purchase style of recent Gameloft games, you'll get a tutorial and a couple of levels for free and you can decide from there if you'd like to purchase the game. That's not the only quirk, it also has a 24-hour mission cycle — so every day Rodeo Games drops new maps into the cloud for you play through. This is a great idea in theory, but that "always connected" feature also happens to mean there will be ads on the mission select screen, which is a weird thing more than an annoyance. If you're passionate about checking the ads, you'll get some snazzy loot.

Being a turn-based strategy game, the goal is generally to either kill everything on the screen in a nice bloody mess or to retrieve an object and wander away. To accomplish those tasks you upgrade, unlock and beef up your soldiers in a variety of ways. Each move takes away action points and is done through an intuitive and easy to grasp system that works remarkably well on the touch interface. Because of the increased screen real estate, it feels better on the iPad, but it works well enough on the iPhone. You'll wander blindly (and often straight into fire) through a fog of war, trying to gain an understanding of each levels layout without dying. Most gestures you've grown used to work here, including swiping and pinching to slide the map around. You'll double-tap to select your soldiers, which can cause some frustrating moments, but not being in real-time keeps it from causing your teeth to grind.

As you move along, you'll gather up soldiers and weapons and you'll be able to customize them to your liking. Different weapon and skill upgrades allows you to build a relatively diverse crew of killers and the fact you can replay missions ad-infinitum during the 24-hour cycle means you can farm XP and gold as much as you'd like. Since there isn't a linear story-mode, difficulty is shoddy at best. It seems to cater enemy type and variety according to your current level, but at no point is the game particularly difficult — especially when you factor in the lack of perma-death among characters, a feature sure to ruffle the feathers of a few long-term strategy fans.

Why are you doing all this, you ask? Well, because shooting things is fun, apparently. There is some ramshackle backstory here dealing with a world of mercenaries and contract-for-hire nonsense, but it doesn't get much deeper than "you've been hired to clear the screen." For most people, that's all well and good, but at the same time, the lack of a narrative of any kind also comes at the price of a cohesive world environment. From a technical standpoint, the graphics are rendered well and function perfectly fine, but there isn't much soul poured into the universe itself. For most people that probably won't matter, but many might find the cookie-cutter science fiction universe and bland, toned-down color scheme a bit of a drag — or at least a disappointment. That's not to say the level design isn't solid, because it is, but the generic art style is a bit underwhelming.

Most people aren't going to care about that little niggling complaint because the gameplay is solid and works well. There isn't a huge layer of strategy depth here, you're only offered a few weapon varieties and soldier types and you can't prone, kneel or sneak, but as an entry-level strategy title it should tickle your fancy enough to keep you coming back. The mission structure is interesting and as an immersive technique does make you sort of feel like you're really a mercenary with daily updated objectives. Once you've figured out the systems and upgraded your soldiers you might find things a bit on the easy end, with the tactical aspect borked down to something like, "eh, I'll just wander in here and shoot some stuff," but don't let that shy you away from checking out the first few levels. It's a good title, but its lack of innovation in anything except its content delivery keeps it from being great.

One thing worth noting is the possibility of multiplayer in the future. Currently, the game is set up as a single-player only experience, but Rodeo Games assures that multiplayer is in the works down the line. They're also claiming a more cohesive story mode is coming soon as well, which might fix a few of the complaints listed above. Either way, you'll be able to spend a reasonable amount of time with it for free and it's most certainly worth that much.

[source]

Let's start by making one thing clear, MaxNick's Spider Jack [99¢ / HD] is Cut the Rope [99¢ / HD] reimagined slightly enough that it will appeal to the rope-cutting fans out there who've been dying for new levels, but certainly won't convert anyone who isn't a fan of physics based puzzlers. It's also impossible to get through this review without comparing them to each other every step of the way.

It's probably easiest to look at the few differences between the two games first before moving onto the similarities. Where Cut the Rope tasks you with delivering a piece of candy to little Om Nom's mouth, Spider Jack wants you to deliver Jack the spider to his dinner. To do this you'll be spinning you spider web out to knobs, using physics to swing around and eventually cutting the web to capture your dinner. The main difference is that you have to create the ropes before they're cut here. Other than that, you'll find a remarkably similar experience.

Spider Jack's commonalities with Cut the Rope don't just lay in its gameplay. The visuals are remarkably close, albeit not nearly as polished and the music is the same, quirky and upbeat style. There are also differently themed rooms where you're tasked with completing puzzles by grabbing up to three stars scattered across the level. Before anyone cries out that it's a clone, consider that Chillingo published both games, so clearly someone out there seemed to think the differences were strong enough, or maybe just didn't care if they weren't.

Unfortunately, the one thing the two don't share is solid level design. Cut the Rope was imaginative and capable of introducing new techniques to keep the game interesting. Spider Jack's 75 levels are considerably easier, which for anyone who struggled with Cut the Rope might be good news, but if you've already three-starred everything and are looking for more, you'll be able to blaze through Spider Jack in around an hour with little trouble. That's partially due to the lack of multi-touch puzzles — no two-finger swipes are necessary here and that alone makes it a considerably easier experience. Of course, in Chillingo style, more levels are supposedly incoming shortly.

If you played Cut the Rope, you're not going to be surprised by the puzzle variety. Blowing air, electricity, timers, portals — they're all here. The tutorial portions are nearly identical too. That said, it has some annoyances with its mechanics. Since you're controlling a spider and not a falling ball of candy, some puzzles rely on you climbing up the web, but Jack moves so slowly and unpredictably it's harder than it needs to be to get your timing right and it ends up feeling like luck more than skill when you do.

For those looking to show off their skills, there is full Game Center and Crystal support as well as the ability to gift levels to friends. This means you'll be able to unlock five levels per stage for your friends if you're in the giving mood.

All this is to say that Spider Jack does get the job done and if you find yourself itching for more slicing, cutting physics-based games, it won't be a disappointment. The final chapter introduces the portal mechanic and even though it's similar to Portal and Cut the Rope's magic-hats, it's probably the strongest part of the game. Hopefully in future updates MaxNick will take the unique portions and expand on them to create something wholly their own.

[source]

Pulse: Volume One [$4.99] is a new iPad-exclusive game by Cipher Prime, the developers who created the award-winning Auditorium [Free]. Like Auditorium, Pulse is a simple and elegant music game. This time around, Cipher Prime has moved away from puzzles and into the rhythm game genre.

Pulse is an immersive experience right from the start. Even in the tutorial, the game provides no external feedback. You can learn by experimentation, noting what works and what doesn't with the game's visuals to guide you. You're presented with a series of concentric circles and a musical beat. Glowing rings pulse outwards from the center in time with the music, and dots appear with the beat. Tap the dots as they're hit by the pulse and you'll be rewarded with explosive visuals and the next musical note.

Hit them too soon or too late, and that note is marred with dissonant noise, and the color and beauty leech out of the game. Played successfully, Pulse is a visually exciting experience. Birds and butterflies fly from under your fingertips with each successful tap, and colors light up the screen. It's a game that really shows off the elegance of the iPad's touch interface, an impressive feat for the developer's first time self-publishing on iOS.

Pulse includes eight levels that showcase original music composed by the Cipher Prime team. The music is atmospheric, and ranges from slow ambient tracks to upbeat electronica. As the music gets faster the game gets more difficult, and you'll need to use both your hands and have incredibly nimble fingers to keep up with some of the later tracks. Getting 100% on each level is a challenge, but the music is enjoyable enough to stay fresh through repeat plays.

Unfortunately, eight tracks are all that the game currently has to offer. In total, a single play-through of all the tracks makes up less than twenty minutes of play time. The game doesn't include leaderboards, achievements, or any other way to share your progress, so once you're satisfied with your performance, you're done. That's not great news, but Cipher Prime has at least six months of regular free updates planned, with original music that will showcase independent musicians from Philadelphia. It's also taking music submissions on its website. Upcoming content includes songs from an eclectic mix of genres, including chip-tune, nerdcore and death metal, so there should be plenty to look forward to if you decide to jump in now.

Ultimately, if you're looking for strong gameplay hooks and replayability, Pulse:Volume One won't hit those notes for you. But if you're interested in elegant rhythm gameplay and an immersive audio-visual experience, you'll find lots to enjoy.

[source]

Piclings [99¢] from Pan Vision Games is one of the most interesting uses of augmented reality in gaming that I’ve seen. It’s a simple platforming game that can take any picture and turn it into a playable level filled with coins, items, and enemies. The tech works surprisingly well, and it’s undeniably fun to think of new and silly pictures to create levels from. Unfortunately, the underlying gameplay mechanics aren’t the greatest, though they’re serviceable. Despite this, Piclings is still a unique enough experience that’s worth checking out.

The game includes 7 levels to play including a tutorial which walks you through the basic controls. A touch anywhere directional stick moves you character left and right, and you can float like a helicopter in the air for a limited time by pushing up. The floating mechanic is pretty awkward to use, and I would have much preferred the ability to just do a standard jump. Tapping anywhere on the screen will drop the Picling through the surface he’s currently standing on and down to the next.

There are a couple of enemy types to worry about too, like one that will slowly follow you around and one that constantly wanders the surfaces in each level. The only way to kill these guys is by luring the follower into another enemy, killing them both, or by grabbing an invincibility butterfly that lets you kill every enemy that you touch. Trying to make enemies collide to get rid of them is another awkward part of the gameplay, and again I’d prefer if it was just a standard “jump on their head to kill them” method.

In addition to the 7 included levels, you can also import any picture from your device or use a picture taken directly from the camera to create a new level. Piclings will intelligently determine what parts of the picture act as walkable surfaces, and for the most part it works really well. You can also go into any created level and edit your own surfaces in or out in order to get the level just how you want it. Enemies, coins, and special items are also automatically placed in your created level.

The level creation is where Piclings really earns its stripes. I’ve already spent an embarrassing amount of time just trying out different photos to make levels with, and I’m impressed every single time by how well it works. It’s not perfect, but it’s pretty close, and the ability to edit custom levels means you can spend the time to perfect it if you wish. You can also share your created levels, though this is only by way of emailing your photo to someone so they can save it to their device and use it in their copy of the game.

Taking Piclings as strictly a platforming game, it’s a fairly weak offering. The control mechanics are odd and probably would have worked better if modeled after a more traditional platforming game which has been done well many times on iOS. There also isn’t much to do in the game, as there’s no real story or campaign progression and the only real goals are earning Game Center achievements and uploading scores for each level to the leaderboards. Despite this, Piclings is still a lot of fun based solely on the ability to create your own levels. This novelty alone means I’ll be playing the game for a good long while until I run out of funny ideas for levels.

If that sort of thing sounds interesting to you, then Piclings is easily worth the purchase, and players in our forums seem to be enjoying it as well. But if you’re looking for the next great iOS platformer, then you’ll want to look elsewhere.

[source]

Originally released in Japan in summer of 1997, fellow North Americans would have to wait another half a year to get their hands on Final Fantasy Tactics, which is still regarded by many to be one of the best turn-based strategy games available. The game opens with a curious almost How I Met Your Mother story telling session where a historian tells you a tale of the past regarding the world of Ivalice, warriors, swords, swords, and stones. It's a little cliche by today's standards, it was just as amazing as all of Square's other RPG's when it was originally released.

Next, you're guided through a somewhat unconventional character creation process where you create your hero and choose a birthdate. It isn't immediately apparent, but the zodiac symbol that corresponds with that birthday actually plays a massive role in the game. (Arguably too massive.) Practically every action you take in battle can be either strengthened or weakened by what amounts to a game of zodiac game of rock paper scissors running in the background as some enemies are weak or strong to attacks that align with a certain sign.

With that out of the way, you're thrown into a tutorial battle where the game teaches you the basic mechanics that will be used throughout the rest of the game. In a nutshell, you learn about units having different movement ranges, how the active turn system works, and how you usually want to avoid attacking units from the front as you almost always do more damage attacking from the side or rear.

Final Fantasy Tactics is really a game of menu mastering. Menus and sub menus are everywhere that allow you to execute all kinds of strategies as units can be equipped differently and can hold different jobs which unlock new/varied abilities. The depth of all of these sub-systems is impressive, and while you can coast through the early parts of the game mostly ignoring them, actually completing Final Fantasy Tactics requires delving deep in to the job system.

I'm not entirely sure how much more of the gameplay is actually worth mentioning in this preview. Final Fantasy Tactics served as a fantastic foundation that has been imitated by countless other games. It combines all of the mechanics you'd expect in a Final Fantasy games such as magic, loot, and experience with a turn-based system that focuses the entire game on combat. There's "world map" but it really only serves as a cleverly disguised menu to get you to your next battle. Needless to say, if fighting is your least favorite part about Final Fantasy games, feel free to skip this one.

The controls of Final Fantasy Tactics work well, although it feels a little backwards that the X button cancels while the circle button confirms choices. Other than that, hitting triangle brings up the menu, and square allows you to move the camera around. Alternatively, hitting the L1/L2 and R1/R2 shoulder buttons allow you to tilt, rotate, an zoom the camera.

The save system in the game feels a little antiquated, in the modern age of cloud-based storage and all. Regardless, playing the game will require one block on your PlayStation memory card. It also will require a PlayStation itself, as who knows when this game will finally hit the App Store.

[source]

Back in January, Handbook Inc. released an iPhone title that has hovered near the top of my list, but that I hadn't written up, wanting to afford it the proper amount of time for a focused review. I've finally managed to clear out a few days, however, and can at long last share my thoughts on Nude Girl and Witch [App Store].

Once upon a time, there was a strong empire, where a group of beautiful princesses lived happy life.

one day,however,with an ugly witch sneaking into the empire house, everything changed……

Handbook Inc, who also brought us Naked Girl Encircled [link], Super Girl vs Bat [link], and Hot Girl Zombies Crisis [link], in releasing Nude Girl and Witch has attempted to take the find-the-ball game mechanic to the next level. It was a bold move on their part — and I believe Nude Girl and Witch may not be the first take on this formula in the App Store. But, the question is: did they succeed?

Let's take a look.

The first thing you'll notice in launching the game is the ethereal title screen depicting a beautiful girl gazing off into the distance, as if in contemplation of both the darkness that has befallen the empire house and of the hopeful day sometime in the future where things will be as they once were, when she and the other princesses can again live happy life. Accompanying this title screen is a lovely melody that evokes a sense magic and wonder, underscoring the sentiment of optimism and hope for better things to come.

Upon tapping the 16-pointed start button (five points concealed off-screen), you are presented with the game screen and ushered into a brief tutorial that illustrates the mechanics of the title.

Nude Girl and Witch takes place in an elaborate room bathed in purple light and adorned with pillars, presumably a hall of worship deep inside the empire house. In the center of the room are three cloaked figures standing abreast — several of the aforementioned beautiful princesses. Or, so it would seem — for, an instant after the start of the game, one of the figures reveals her face. And it's no beautiful princess, let me tell you! It is, in fact, the ugly witch who has done the sneaking detailed in the backstory! And, no less quickly than she revealed her face, she conceals it once again.

As the player, you must do your absolute best to remember which of the cloaked figures has revealed herself to be the witch, as a dance of rearrangement designed to vex and confuse ensues just moments later. And, when this dance has come to an end, it is up to you to point out which of these figures is the behaggled imposter.

I will pause here to say that, up to this point, surely Nude Girl and Witch must seem like the perfect game, with no flaw to speak of. This was certainly my feeling as I played through the game for the first time. But, it is here that I must begin to point out the numerous ways in which this title falls flat.

With but three figures to track during the dance of rearrangement, you will likely succeed in fingering the witch through the first few levels. Upon tapping on the figure of your choice, that figure's robes are thrown wide and you will then know if you have exposed the witch. But, as the level number increases, so too do the number of figures presented, as well as the number of rearrangements that take place. And, before long, you will inevitably pick the wrong figure and, in your failing, you will be witness to an uncloaked princess.

And you will come to realize that this girl is not nude.

Seeing the backstory and knowing that this is a game about a witch that has infiltrated a cloister of beautiful princesses, and noting that a decloaking is the mechanism of revelation in this game, I assumed that the non-witches were, in fact, unclad beneath their robes. (And the name of this game is Nude Girl and Witch.) But, it is not so. When you miss the witch and tap upon a princess, you will see that she is clad in a grey bikini. There can be no mistake — she is not nude. In years long past, this might have been considered nude, but not in the world of Retina displays and gigahertz mobile processors. And, frankly, she looks nothing like the beautiful girl on the game's title screen.

If the game had been entitled Naked Girl and Witch, I might be less jarred by the lack of nude girl, as "naked" may be interpreted as unprotected. Vulnerable. Undisguised. But, with "nude," there can be no mistake of what is promised, here.

Because of the outside possibility that only most of the princesses are clad in bikinis under their robes, with a nude one here and there, I spent much of my 39 hours with this this title clicking — knowingly — on those I knew not to be the witch. At no time was I ever presented with an actual nude girl in my time with this game. Not once. It is this wanton bait-and-switch tactic Handbook has taken here that is my main complaint with this title. But, I'm afraid the negatives don't end there.

Another way in which this game disappoints is in the area of difficulty progression. As mentioned previously, as the levels mount, so too do the number of figures onscreen and the number of times they switch position. But this is only up to a point, as the following data plot illustrates.

As the chart above reveals, at level 13 the number of onscreen figures and rearrangements cease to increase, leveling out after just a baker's dozen progressively harder levels. This dramatically impacts the enjoyment of several-hour bouts of witch finding.

Sadly, the lack of nudity and difficulty ramping issues aren't the end of it. Nude Girl and Witch offers no native iPad or Retina display support. And, definitely no shader support. There's no online leaderboard or achievement system and no multiplayer support of any kind. The brief tutorial (with its haunting dismembered finger) must be endured for every game started from the main menu. The game also fails to visibly benefit in any way from the dual-core PowerVR SGX543MP2 graphics processor, as played on the iPad 2.

Taken all together, the weaknesses of this game turn what might have been the perfect iOS game into a title that I have no choice but to advise gamers to avoid. If $.99 is burning a hole in your pocket, you'd do well to spend it someplace other than Nude Girl and Witch.

[source]