Archive for the ‘Website’ tag
‘Monster Loves You!’ is an Upcoming Tamagotchi-like from Dejobaan and Radial Games
After making a splash on the App Store earlier this year with their quirky and stylish skydiving title AaAaAA! (Force = Mass x Acceleration) [ $2.99 ], Dejobaan Games has at what their next mobile release is going to be.
Teaming up with , the original creators of the Steambirds games on Flash, the new collaboration project is called Monster Loves You! and aims to be an engaging virtual pet-like experience with much more RPG-like depth than what’s currently available.
Dejobaan asked Radial Games’ Andy Moore a bit about Monster Loves You!, including why he was motivated to create a new Tamagotchi-style game: “I think the closest I’ve really come to playing an enjoyable ‘pet’ game is The Sims 2, which was an excellent title but just demands WAY too much of my time. I want a similar experience – something with all that drama, character development, and ups and downs… but that I can play on the toilet.”
That’s certainly something I can get behind, Andy. I’ve always been intrigued by the notion of carrying around a little virtual creature that lives on my device, and there’s been some neat efforts in this area on iOS but nothing that’s really grabbed me and drew me in. With Dejobaan’s fantastic sense of humor and Radial Games’ drive to create a meaningful experience, I’m definitely curious to see more from Monster Loves You! in the near future.
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New ‘Fruit Ninja’ Update Hitting this Week
Everybody’s favorite fruit slicing arcade game Fruit Ninja [$0.99 / Free ] originally launched back in April 2010, and to celebrate its two-plus year anniversary on the App Store the Halfbrick team are currently touring around Australia in search of the best Fruit Ninja high score and they have a big new update releasing for the game later this week.
In the animated trailer below, we meet the merchant Gutsu and his piggy sidekick Truffles who will offer new powerups in exchange for Starfruit, the new in-game currency. These items will allow you to do things like swat away bombs, add additional time on to a game, and cause massive berry explosions.
The Fruit Ninja update is set to hit this Thursday the 24th, and it’s pretty crazy to think of how well Halfbrick has supported the title over the past 2 years, and how far it’s evolved from its initial release. It sounds like they don’t plan on stopping any time soon either, with more new content planned for the future.
As mentioned, Halfbrick are currently jetting around their homeland holding several high score competitions for a chance to compete in a finals tournament in Sydney at the end of the month. Some crazy scores are getting set already, and you can follow the team’s exploits as they post photos and blog about the tour on .
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Retro Dreamer Teases Upcoming Title ‘Duckers’
Today , developers of such titles as the awesome arcade shooter Velocispider [$1.99 / Free ] and the adorable Sneezies [$0.99 / Free / $2.99 (HD)], have announced a new game is on the horizon. over on the Retro Dreamer website, the company has divulged that this latest title will be called Duckers, and then they went on to explain… well, absolutely nothing actually.
Yes that’s right, they’re giving us the old tease treatment. But on the bright side there is the promo art attached to this very post which is both extremely cute as well as intriguing. What’s in that jar? Did it crash land to Earth? Why does that duck have flight goggles on? Can ducks even fly?
In the end we’re left with nothing but questions, however, Retro Dreamer states that Duckers is just about ready to go and should be hitting within a month’s time, possibly even by the end of May if everything goes absolutely perfectly. Until then they’ll be pushing out all sorts of new promotional stuff over the next few weeks for the impending Duckers launch, including a trailer that should hit sometime this week, so stick around to find out more about this mysterious title soon.
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A Selection of Entries from the ‘Sword & Sworcery’ A/V Jam
EA Backpedals on Dropping Support for ‘Rock Band’ on iOS
So, this morning we learned that EA Mobile had sent out a popup notification to users of the original Rock Band [ $4.99 ] for iOS effectively stating the game was shutting down at the end of the month. This naturally drew universal criticism from gamers and left me wondering one thing: why?
If EA wanted to stop the online support for the game and instead focus on the newer and better Rock Band Reloaded [$4.99 / $9.99 (HD)], well I can understand that. But the message clearly said the game would “no longer be playable on your device” after May 31st. It seemed pretty lame to not just leave the game playable in an offline way for those who had bought it and/or spent money on the IAP songs.
Well EA has responded to the situation, issuing the following statement:
“Rock Band for iOS will remain live – the in-app message users received yesterday was sent in error.”
“We apologize for the confusion this caused. We’re working to clarify the issue that caused the error and will share additional information as soon as possible.”
It seems highly dubious that this whole thing could have been one big accident, especially since the iOS Rock Band is as having its connected features discontinued after May 28th, and a comment on our previous post points to an EA representative confirming in a help topic on EA’s website that the game would no longer work after May 31st, but that topic has since been deleted. Perhaps their intention all along was to drop support for the online features, and the strongly worded “no longer playable on your device” message was the mistake. Either way, this reeks of damage control rather than an actual mistake.
Either way, Polygon notes that EA is looking into what caused the error in the first place, and we’ll let you know if there’s any more news on the matter. For the time being it looks like iOS Rock Band-ers will still be able to rock out on the go.
[Via ]
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‘Pocket Heroes’ Slightly Delayed but Gains Some New Features
We’ve been following ’ upcoming social RPG Pocket Heroes since we first saw it back at last year’s E3. The idea behind Pocket Heroes is to let players around the world build up a party online and play through an RPG-style game, taking turns asynchronously. For simplicity’s sake it’s been described as Dungeons & Dragons meets Words With Friends, which sounds like an exciting proposition.
In early April we got an update on the progress of Pocket Heroes which pegged the release date as May 10th for a price of $1.99. Well, in on the developer’s website we get a bit of a good news/bad news scenario. The bad news is that Pocket Heroes won’t be hitting its intended May 10th launch date, but on the bright side the team feels confident that they will still see a release sometime during May or shortly after.
The good news is that the extra time has gone into making some significant improvements to where Pocket Heroes was previously at. First off is a huge overhaul of the UI, including getting rid of the placeholder font seen in the game’s preview trailer, which was a point of contention from some. As you can see in the following screens, the new UI is much more visually appealing while also allowing you to do more. It will also change dynamically to display the pertinent information to whatever you’re currently focused on.
Also seen in the screens above is the new chat interface in Pocket Heroes. It drives me nuts when online multiplayer games – especially turn-based ones – don’t have some sort of chat functionality. In an RPG however, discussing situations and strategizing with your party members will likely be a crucial component of success, so it’s nice to see it being handled well here.
Besides the new chat and UI work, the team has also been endlessly tweaking, balancing, and fleshing out the many details in Pocket Heroes to make sure it’s the best it can be. They sound confident that the game will be launching in May, and we look forward to checking out the full version then. Be sure to for even more discussion on Pocket Heroes.
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‘Chopper’ Developer Majic Jungle Announces 2D ‘Minecraft’-inspired iOS Title ‘The Blockheads’
Developer and all-around great guy David Frampton from , creator of the early App Store breakout success Chopper [$2.99 / Free ] and its greatly improved sequel Chopper 2 [ $2.99 ], has revealed to us his next upcoming iOS project called The Blockheads.
As you can see from the embedded screens, The Blockheads looks heavily inspired by the sandbox game Minecraft, and David isn’t shy about stating as much. However, he notes that during the development process he tried to make sure that The Blockheads let’s you do the sort of things that make Minecraft fun but tried to do them in a different way. For example, there is a crafting component to the game, but David explains the different approach he is taking to that in The Blockheads:
Instead of needing to know recipes and being able to craft everything in one location, there are many different kinds of workbenches, each with a handful of items they can craft. The crafting interface lists what is required and describes what the crafted item can do. This creates a technology tree of sorts, easing the player into the game, and slowly making more advanced items available.
The Blockheads is being built from the ground up with touch screens in mind, and it will try to utilize an non-abrasive freemium approach. Essentially, there will be an in-game currency which you can spend real money to acquire through IAP and speed up certain processes, but it is also earned through play and won’t be required to enjoy the game.
We’ve been enjoying an excellent 2D Minecraft/Terraria game on iOS for a while now with Junk Jack [$2.99 / Free ], but I still think that there’s plenty of room for iteration in the genre and a chance for a good title to stand out in the sea of the many Minecraft copycats and clones on the App Store. The Blockheads sounds like it has a lot of promise, and I’m very much looking forward to seeing how it turns out.
You can keep your eye on for updates, and of course we’ll bring you any new information that we get on The Blockheads as development continues.
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‘Organ Trail: Director’s Cut’ Heading to iOS Soon
If you’ve ever thought that the classic edutainment title The Oregon Trail was lacking in the zombies department, developer (yes, that is their name) have got you covered. They’ve taken all the core mechanics of the original game and plopped them down into a modern post-apocalyptic setting that is littered with the undead.
Your goal is to make it from Washington DC to Oregon via a long and drawn out route that will take you through a host of cities and landmarks. You’ll forgo a covered wagon for a station wagon, and the looming threat of zombie infection is added to the laundry list of other calamities that can befall your group while on the road.
This unholy combination of historical education and zombies is known as Organ Trail, which was released more than a year ago and can be played via on The Hats’ website. Here’s a few screens from that version.
The reason I’m bringing all of this up is because The Hats are in the midst of porting a Director’s Cut version of Organ Trail to iOS, and they were showing off a playable version on iPad during PAX last week. of the iPad game complete with some commentary from the developer, who notes that Organ Trail on iOS will have several enhancements over the original Flash game, including a reworked interface for the touch screen.
The Hats team hopes to have Organ Trail: Director’s Cut out by the end of May, and in the meantime I’d definitely suggest checking out Kotaku’s video as well as the Flash version of the game, which is a ton of fun.
[Via ]
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Popular PC Military Strategy Series ‘Combat Mission’ Hits the App Store for the Newest iPads
If you’ve been a PC gamer for the past dozen years or so, and you’re into military-themed strategy games, chances are pretty good you’re familiar with the Combat Mission series. Known for its attention to detail and realism, the Combat Mission series has spanned several titles since the first release in 1999 and has allowed gamers to reenact both real and fictitious battles from throughout history.
Yesterday, series developer teased an iPad version of Combat Mission on their website. Given the date of the announcement, we were taking the news with an incredibly enormous grain of salt. However, despite the looming possibility of an April Fool’s joke, it turns out that Combat Mission: Touch [$4.99] is a real, actual game, and it’s available in the App Store as we speak.
One of the hallmarks of Combat Mission is the way it handles its turn-based gameplay. It employs the “Wego” system, which basically means that both sides in a battle set up all of their moves at the same time during a planning phase, and then they both sit back and watch as everything plays out during an actual combat phase. This makes for a great 2-player experience, and Combat Mission: Touch boasts online multiplayer as well as the ability to battle solo against an AI.
We’ll have to sit down and spend some quality time with Combat Mission: Touch to see how the iOS version turned out, but if you’re a fan of the series then you’ve probably already dropped the $4.99 to check it out for yourself. Just keep in mind, it’s only compatible with the iPad 2 and the newest iPad if you’re considering picking it up.
[Thanks Christopher!]
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Cave Announces ‘Bug Princess 2′, Hitting the App Store Next Week for $4.99
The folks at Cave certainly aren’t wasting any time when it comes to releases. Earlier this month we got HD and Universal versions of two of their strongest iOS games, and just last month they released Dodonpachi Blissful Death [$4.99/Lite], which unsurprisingly we enjoyed a lot. Today, Cave has that their next iOS title will be Bug Princess 2, a sequel to their 2004 title Mushihimesama which was brought to the App Store as Bug Princess [$4.99/Lite] last December.
Bug Princess 2 was previously released in 2009 as an enhanced version for Xbox 360, under its original Japanese name Mushihimesama Futari. It’s not clear if any of those special enhancements will make their way into the iOS version, but if the release of the first Bug Princess is an indicator then Bug Princess 2 will likely be a very straightforward arcade port. Not that that’s a bad thing, or anything, especially for the introductory price of $4.99. Sounds like it’ll be Universal too, so if you just can’t get enough of Cave shooters then save up some scratch for Bug Princess 2 when it hits next week.
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