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The App Store is home to some seriously weird games. Whether you're playing a bear driving a car around the forest in Enviro-Bear 2010 [99¢] or a cat inside a ball shooting at a giant cup of noodles in Meow Meow Happy Fight [99¢/HD], there are many strange experiences to be found on the iOS platform. The latest one that I've come across is called Font Monsters [$1.99/Lite] from Japanese developer Muu Muu, who have previously released the similarly strange and generically named Block Guy [$2.99/Lite] to the App Store. Font Monsters is a text-based shooter (literally, you shoot text) that has a really wacky style, with interesting character designs and catchy music, and it requires some fast reactions to engage in its challenging gameplay. It's also completely unlike anything else available on the App Store.

In Font Monsters, a series of monsters comprised purely of different keyboard characters come marching towards your first-person perspective. You defeat the monsters by shooting fonts at them one by one using your keyboard until there is nothing left of them, and the text characters you shoot must be the same type that the monsters are made up of. If you shoot a character at them that's not a part of the monster, they will fire back a random character at you that must be quickly typed to shoot it down before it hits you. If the monster gets to where you are then he (or she?) starts beating on you mercilessly, deducting life from a gauge at the top of your keyboard.

It's a totally odd concept, but also satisfying and fun to play. There are 5 levels to play through in Font Monsters, each one more difficult than the last. In each level you must defeat a certain number of monsters in a row to complete it, from 15 in the first level all the way to a whopping 50 in level 5. If you fail to beat a monster and they deplete your life gauge to zero, you must start the entire sequence over again. The monsters also become more difficult with each level. In level 1 they approach you in a fairly straightforward manner, allowing you to inspect them pretty easily to see what font characters you should shoot at them. In later levels they start to flip, stretch, and skew all over the place making it much harder to tell what fonts they are made up of.

You earn a score for defeating each monster which goes towards a cumulative score at the end of each level. Although it's not explained in the game, it appears that the quicker you beat a monster the better score you earn. Unfortunately, the top score for each level is only saved locally, as this would be a perfect game for online score tracking using Game Center.

One of my favorite things about Font Monsters is how cleverly designed all the enemies are using just font characters. There are 60 different monsters in the game, some fairly basic and some quite complex but all of them are interesting. A very cool feature in the game is a catalog that lets you view all of the different monsters that you've faced and even select them individually to do battle against them in one of the 5 difficulty levels. The catalog is definitely a nice touch and gives you incentive to keep playing and “collect 'em all” for future practice or admiration.

One big problem with Font Monsters that is kind of unavoidable is that as you keep playing you start to recognize what font characters make up the different enemies. Once this starts happening, the game can be a bit easy as you face these monsters over again. I was originally pulling my hair out shooting “O”s and “I”s at a particular monster before I finally figured out it was actually the percentage sign (%) I should have been shooting. Remembering this the next time I faced him, he was much easier to defeat. It's still a challenge to figure out the monsters the first time you face them though, and even if you recognize them they can be difficult to kill on the later levels.

Font Monsters is one of those quirky titles that must be experienced to really understand. Luckily there's a lite version so there's no risk in at least checking out the game to see if it appeals to you. I found that I was having way more fun playing the game than I though I would after just watching the video, and players in our forums are liking the game as well. Sure, it could definitely use some kind of online high score mechanism, and possibly even a greater variety in monsters. What would really be cool is if you could create your own monsters using the available keyboard characters and have them be added into the regular rotation in the game. But even as it stands now, Font Monsters is a totally unique experience that offers a good challenge with plenty of content.

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Last month we previewed some screenshots from the upcoming real-time tactical strategy RPG Battleheart from developer Mika Mobile, of Zombieville USA [$1.99/Lite/HD] and OMG Pirates! [$1.99/Lite] fame. Battleheart is unique in that it uses an interesting line-drawing mechanic to control players during the real-time combat. You'll tap a character from your party to select them and then drag a line out to a location that you want them to move to, or drag to an enemy that you want that particular character to attack. With multiple enemies attacking at once, you can send off a character to attack one of them and while they are battling select another member of your party to take on one of the other enemies.

It sounds like an easy enough mechanic to use, and should provide for some frantic battling during the game. This first gameplay video of Battleheart does a great job at demonstrating the battles in action:

There are some other details about Battleheart that Mika Mobile has divulged in the upcoming games thread in our forums. You'll choose a party of 4 characters from a selection of 8 different classes. Each class will have a selection of abilities that you assign your character based on damage, survivability, control, or a mixture of abilities. In addition, there will be passive traits for your characters in what Mika describes as a simplified "talent" system. Each class will have about a dozen powers of traits of which you'll be able to select roughly half for each character.

Another interesting part about the party system is that while your party will consist of 4 active characters at a time, you will have the ability to keep additional characters in reserve as well as encounter new party characters throughout your journey that can be swapped in and out of your party. Only the active party members will gain experience and level up though, so it's mostly in your benefit to keep the same core group active in your party, but the option to mix things up will be there too. Enemies will include various melee, ranged, and support type enemies to battle, and bosses are something that is currently being worked on as well. The enemies will also encompass a simple priority system in how they attack you, so your most powerful and heavily armored party members will generally be the first ones they focus on.

Battleheart is currently about 99% finished, with all of the major functionality of the game already complete. Now Mika Mobile is just focusing on adding content like additional enemies and spells and polishing any rough edges in the game. They are shooting for a December release, though will only release the game once they feel like it's 100% complete and ready to go. Also of note, the game will feature universal iPad support and graphics made for the Retina Display. We're definitely looking forward to the game, as are many players in our forums, and we'll bring you any new info on Battlehearts as the game pushes towards its tentative December release.

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Tokyo's Apple Store was recently host to a "Game Nights at the Apple Store" event where EA presented a slideshow with a surprising amount of information regarding upcoming titles for both the iPhone and iPad. We've known some of these have been in the works for a while, but this is the first time for many that we've either seen any kind of screenshot or any solid release information. Japanese iPhone site 4gamer.net was in attendance, and provides the following photos of the slideshow:

First off, Reckless Racing, formerly known as Deliverace is a game we were following quite a bit before it got picked up to be published by EA. Since then, we haven't heard much about the game aside from wondering when it was finally going to be released.

According to the above slide, it's slated for this month. EA almost always releases their games on Thursdays, so we're likely either looking at a release late at night next Wednesday, or the following week. Next up is NBA Elite 11, a 5 on 5 fully licensed basketball game that takes advantage of the Retina Display:

A client for EA's free flash game portal pogo.com is also on its way. The slide mentions the game will be ad supported, with additional content available via a subscription. We'll have to see how this plays out on the device, and if the subscription they're referring to is Club Pogo or something that will be exclusive to the iOS app:

Much like Reckless Racing, I expect the above two games that EA has listed as October releases to pop up late next Wednesday or the following Wednesday. Moving on to November releases comes Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit. We've been increasingly impressed with the Need For Speed series on the App Store, and I'm thinking Hot Pursuit will continue the tradition:

Next up is Pictureka!, an iPad game that sounds like a fast paced version of Where's Waldo? [$2.99 / HD]. It comes with pass and play local multiplayer for 2-4 people, and promises an art style that's both truly engaging and wacky. I'm not one to pass up on anything wacky:

Monopoly is finally coming to the iPad, which is allowing me to cross off yet another board game from my list of games I want on the device. The iPad exclusive features sound really rad, such as the auto-rotating tabletop mode… And I can't wait to see what in the world the new "cheating" mode entails. A mini game where you steal money from the bank while the rest of the players are getting drinks or going to the bathroom? We'll have to wait until December to find out:

EA Sports Active has been popular on consoles, and now is coming to the iPhone and iPod Touch. The following slide isn't really clear how involved the app will be, but hopefully it includes some cool GPS or accelerometer integration for tracking your performance instead of being yet another calorie/workout logging app. The features list upcoming post-launch gyro support, so we'll have to see how that all works:

Last, but certainly not least by any means is Dead Space 2. This confusingly named third person shooter is apparently going to bridge the story between Dead Space and its sequel, making this something more along the lines of Dead Space 1.5 than Dead Space 2. (This confusing sequel numbering reminds me of the Angry Video Game Nerd episode on the subject.)

I can see Dead Space being absolutely amazing on the iPad, and if they do it right, an iconic example of just how good and immersive an iPad game can be. It's not entirely clear from the slide if the game is going to be iPad exclusive, or for the iPhone as well since the header mentions the iPhone, but the bulleted list below mentions it being graphically enhanced for the iPad. Either way, Dead Space on the XBOX 360 was incredible, and I have a feeling it's going to be either just as awesome on iOS devices, or just as disappointing as Mass Effect Galaxy [$1.99]– I'm not sure there's much room in between.

Of course, we will post more as soon as we get any more information on any of these games.

[via 4gamer.net]

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It's hard to think of anything better for long time gamers from the 80s and 90s than iOS. Classic games from our childhood have been reborn on the iPhone platform, and another one appears to be on the way.

Tower Studios and Vivid Games, in association with The Bitmap Brothers, have announced the imminent release of Speedball 2 Evolution for the iPhone and iPad. The Bitmap Brothers were the original developers of Speedball, a popular Amiga sports game that was a cross between handball and ice hockey.

Here's a teaser video they released last week:

Only a few details are available and Vivid Games has posted in our forums about the upcoming launch.

We have been working very hard over the past few months to bring this classic title to modern systems in glory it deserves. Expect very Amiga experience!

The game will be released in 20th Anniversary of Speedball 2 Brutal Deluxe.

And yes – there will be multiplayer included + many more features added on a top of original game!

While an Xbox Live Arcade version of Speedball 2 was released in 2007, Vivid says they are "far from the XBLA version". A video of the Amiga version of Speedball 2 can be viewed here.

Perhaps the most exciting part of the announcement is that they report that Speedball 2 Evolution is just the first in a series of remakes of classic Bitmap Brothers games.

The Bitmap Brothers were also responsible for Xenon, Cadaver, Gods, Magic Pockets, and The Chaos Engine.

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Typically I'm not a big fan of the sim-management type games. Back in the day I was hopelessly addicted to SimCity on the SNES, but future iterations of that game and of similar franchises just never appealed to me. They all seemed a bit too complicated, or required a hectic style of time and resource managing that turned me off to them, and nothing has quite captured the particular mix of simplicity and subtle depth from that classic SNES title. That changed yesterday when I discovered Kairosoft's Game Dev Story [$3.99] on my iPhone. It offers a sim-management experience that's not overwhelmingly complex, but at the same time has a lot of different elements that meld together well to create compelling gameplay. Plus, it's just a ton of fun to create your own games and see them go on to be huge successes (and sometimes total flops).

In Game Dev Story you'll play the president of a fledgling game development company as you direct your crew of designers, artists, and coders in an effort to create a string of successful video games over a 20 year time period. Beyond just making games, you'll need to grow your own brand name by running a game convention booth, attending awards shows, advertising, and managing an ever-changing fan base. As your company expands, you'll have the opportunity to move into larger offices and hire a bigger team of employees, all of whom can be leveled up and trained (at the expense of  higher salaries) so as to create better games. If you really become a big company, and have employees with the right skill sets, you can even create your own console and compete with the well established big boys in the hardware game.

To start off, though, you're just a tiny company with a few employees and a small amount of start-up capital to work with. You can choose to make games for home consoles or PCs, but each console requires you to purchase a license before you can develop games for it. To earn some extra funding for licenses or projects, outside contract work can be accepted. It's not the most exciting work, but it will pay the bills and help you earn enough money to make games of your own. Once you have the money to make a game, you'll choose which platform, genre, and style of game you want to make. Your own employees can be used to create the story, graphics, and sound, or you can source out that work to other professionals for a fee. A number of factors can affect how your game sells, including your fan base, what time of year you release (holiday season is best), and how the media reviews the game.

One aspect I especially liked about Game Dev Story is how it parodies every major console released for the last 20+ years, and loosely mimics their individual success levels. So when Intendro introduces the first portable game system the Game Kid, you can bet it will be a really popular system to support given the Game Boy's history. However, when they come out with the newfangled Virtual Kid, with its headache-inducing 3D goggles, you'll see it disappear from the market fairly quickly. These are the types of things that you must consider before shelling out the dough for a console license, although one extremely popular game can rewrite the history of a failed console as well.

While the gameplay in Game Dev Story is fun and engaging, the overall presentation falls a bit flat. The 16-bit style pixel graphics are charming and certainly get the job done, but they are a far cry of what is capable from even the oldest iOS devices. The screen size is also oddly small, with plenty of wasted space on the top and bottom. It almost seems as if it's a port from a different device, like an older smartphone or PDA, but I couldn't find any information to that effect. The menu navigations work just fine and the game is still very easy to play, it just seems strange. Another minor annoyance is that despite having an in-game manual hardly any of the game mechanics are explained very well, although the game is simple enough that you catch on after playing for a bit.

Game Dev Story won't impress you with stellar visuals or an iPhone specific feature set, but it is a well thought out and thoroughly enjoyable time sink, and is even more intriguing if you're familiar with the last few decades of video game history. It took me roughly five hours to play through the 20 year career of my company, and at the end of that time your highest selling game and biggest profits serve as the final score, though you can keep playing beyond that time period indefinitely if you choose. There really is just something about this game that keeps me coming back for more over and over again. Further impressions and help discussion are taking place in our forums, and if you've ever had a hankering to create your own video games then Game Dev Story is one you should definitely check out.

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I must mention this in every post that has anything to do with single device iPad multiplayer, but two (or more) player games on the iPad are almost always universally awesome. Everything from elaborately crafted ports of board games like Small World [$6.99] to the simplest of games like Omium [99¢] are a ton of fun when played with another person. If for whatever reason you've disregarded my previous encouragement to try out two player gaming on the iPad, you really need to download any or all of VersusPad's free games. They're all fairly simple, but serve as an excellent example of just how well two player gaming works on the device.

Also, to make things a little more interesting, all of these games were developed in PhoneGap, a cross-platform development framework that allows developers to build their games in HTML and Javascript while still being able to take advantage of the core features of the device as a native app. If you're great with Javascript/CSS, but bad with C++, PhoneGap is a free open source way for you to get started building games and apps on the iPhone. Anyway, on to the games-

Ogs, Free [Gameplay Video] In this game, players dispatch creatures called "Ogs" to defend their own island and attack the opponent's island. A bar at the bottom of the screen slowly fills up, allowing you to deploy more advanced Ogs. The game is over when either player's island is destroyed.

The Roswell Game, Free [Gameplay Video] Up to four players at once buzz around the iPad collecting crystals using virtual joysticks situated in each corner of the screen. The game is over when one player collects 75 crystals.

City Bucks, Free [Gameplay Video] My favorite of the three, players place businesses on to an initially empty city grid to lure customers in to buy things. Earning money unlocks more expensive (and attractive) buildings. Monster attacks and disasters like meteor strikes spice gameplay up, and add an element of risk to saving up for one super-expensive business. I'd love to see this game concept fleshed out a little more, as it seems like it is on the verge of something really cool.

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There are few things that send me in to a Wayne Knight nerd squeal than the complete over-analysis of ridiculous things. Today's example of this comes from Wired physics guru Rhett Allain who geeked out in a major way over Angry Birds [99¢ / Lite / HD], not obsessing over collecting every star, or topping leaderboards, but instead looking at the raw physics of the game. Or, as Rhett put it:

But what about the physics? Do the birds have a constant vertical acceleration? Do they have constant horizontal velocity? Let’s find out, shall we? Oh, why would I do this? Why can’t I just play the dumb game and move on. That is not how I roll. I will analyze this, and you can’t stop me.

Using video tracking software, Allain loaded up one of the many solution videos on YouTube to record the velocity of the bird and the acceleration of its vertical motion. Armed with these figures, and assuming that Angry Birds takes place on Earth, through the magic of math he was able to determine that the launcher in Angry Birds is about 5 meters tall. Once he figured this out, it was trivial to measure the birds themselves using the launcher as a ruler of sorts. If the launcher is 5m tall, the standard angry red bird is around 70cm (or 2 feet and 3.5 inches) tall.

That's one huge bird.

[via Wired]

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TUAW's Mike Schramm is all over GDC Online this week, and managed to snag a preview of WINtA, an up and coming rhythm game from Masaya Matsuura. While that name might not be immediately recognizable, his creations surely will. Matsuura designed PaRappa the Rapper, a PlayStation game which was among the first rhythm games and featured gameplay that involved tapping various buttons along to the beat of songs. In fact, PaRappa was so catchy that I can still bust out most of the raps from the game in their entirety. (And I doubt I'm alone in that.)

WINtA is an abstract rhythm game which will be released on the App Store for free later this year. Unlike most (all?) rhythm games on the App Store, WINtA has gameplay that matches up with the lyrics of the song rather than just the beat itself. Each syllable requires its own tap, and playing the game is comparable to Elite Beat Agents in that you tap various areas of the screen at the right time.

The following video from the presentation at GDC shows a bit of gameplay:

The game will be monetized via DLC packs of songs with 100% of the profits going to charity. It all sounds pretty great to me, especially with the man who essentially created the genre developing for the iOS with all the proceeds going to a good cause. I can't wait to get my hands on it.

[via TUAW]

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Late last month we posted some spy shots taken on the streets of Manhattan of what appeared to be Angry Birds [99¢ / Free / HD] plush toys. Today we got tipped off to a YouTube video showing a much smaller version of these toys in action:

These toys seem to be somewhat similar to the Woot screaming monkey toys that are often sold during Woot offs. I was excited for a set of plush birds, but knowing that they actually do something, I'm even more excited. Judging by the reception when we posted the previous photos, I'm not alone on that either.

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We still don't know much more than we did when we posted the gameplay video of Heroes Lore: Stigmata of Gaia, but EA released a set of screenshots this afternoon of their upcoming RPG:

The Heroes Lore series has roots in Asian markets and exists in a few iterations as J2ME games. EA hasn't released much information about Stigmata of Gaia, but looking at how they have handled game releases in the past, these five images are likely the screenshots that will appear in iTunes. This hopefully means the game has already been submitted and will be released soon, but it's difficult to say for sure.

Either way, we're looking forward to Heroes of Lore: Stigmata of Gaia, and plan on pumping out a full review as soon as we get our pepperoni-greased thumbs on the game.

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