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Kotaku is reporting that Crytek, the company behind the CryEngine technology and the Crysis series of visually high-end first-person shooters, is in advanced stages of a new social gaming network that they’re calling GFACE. Yes, GFACE. I’m as baffled as you about the name, “game+Facebook” maybe?

Anyway, what the service known as GFACE actually claims to do sounds pretty cool. It runs completely in the browser and lets you do all the sorts of social things you would expect from your Facebook, Google+ or Twitter – add friends, post about your interests, discover new people, and plenty more. You can also meet up with people online and enjoy media-type things together, sort of like how you can watch a movie with friends in an Xbox Live party.

And of course, you can partner up and play games together. But this is the surprising part – all the game’s are streamed from the cloud on GFACE’s end, similar to how the OnLive system works. There’s a drag and drop party creation system that Kotaku likens to Battlefield 3‘s Battlelog, and then everybody plugs into the game on GFACE’s servers from their individual locations.

The interesting bit is that the type of gameplay seems to scale depending on what device you’re using. Like the graphic above, someone can be playing a first-person shooter on their PC while other players are connected to the game via their mobile devices, but with secondary roles. The person on the iPad has a commander role from a top-down perspective and the person on the iPhone-lookalike is directing a support weapon.

It’s a pretty exciting prospect thinking about being able to play games with people online in this fashion, utilizing different devices and gameplay perspectives all in the same game. I need another social network like I need a hole in my head, but the other features of GFACE sound pretty interesting as well. That name, though. Yeesh.

You can see a video of GFACE in action at the original Kotaku article or the GFACE website. The UI is bananas, everything is so smooth and high-tech feeling. I’m actually eager to check it out. Right now GFACE is in closed beta, but whenever it finally launches it will be interesting to see if it’s able to make an impact in the fledgling streaming game market or the nearly-impossible-to-compete-in social network market.

[Via Kotaku]

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Way back in April of last year, we caught wind of an interesting looking Kickstarter project called Tweet Land. The idea was that Tweet Land would create randomly generated gameplay events based off of certain keywords sent out over Twitter. So essentially, real people tweeting would power what happened in the game.

It’s a really clever concept on paper, but we were a bit skeptical about how it would pan out in an actual game. Well, it looks like we’ll be able to find out later this month as Tweet Land is set to launch on January 31st.

It sounds like the overall plan for Tweet Land will eventually include different styles of games, but when it launches this month the game will center around controlling a car that’s racing down Route 140. As you drive along, tweets from all over the world will trigger events in the game, like a meteor crashing into the road or a giant Godzilla foot stomping down. Your job is to avoid these kinds of hazards and even fight back against them with an array of weapons, which are also generated from tweets.

It’s hard to tell how well this is going to work, but when I think about a game like Scribblenauts Remix [$1.99] with its bank of more than 20,000 words and seemingly infinite possibilities, I’m hopeful. If Tweet Land has even a fraction of the depth that Scribblenauts has then I think it will be a winner. From what the developers have said on their website and on their Twitter, it sounds like the game will have a whole lot of items to generate. Keep your eyes out for Tweet Land when it launches on January 31st for $1.99 with a free lite version to follow sometime after.

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Video gaming icon and goat enthusiast Jeff Minter has just pushed out the latest offering from his development studio Llamasoft, called Caverns of Minos [$1.99], which has just gone live in the App Store. Caverns of Minos offers a similar brand of retro-inspired gameplay and psychedelic visuals, and, just in case you were worried, a hefty dose of minotaur rescuing.

Caverns of Minos is a mishmash of genres – part cave flyer similar to Lunar Lander, part rescue game sort of like Choplifter, and part vertical shmup like… well, about a million games since the dawn of time. Its biggest influence was an old Atari title called Caverns of Mars, which should be immediately apparent to those familiar with that game. Caverns of Minos boasts 4 different ships to pilot as well as 21 different caverns to explore and complete. You’re tasked with rescuing minotaurs as you explore each cavern looking for a special item which must then be delivered back to the mothership. Yep, this game has that great Jeff Minter craziness we all know and love.

Check out this developer gameplay video which shows Caverns of Minos being played on the iPad, and then about halfway through demonstrates its iCade compatibility:

Our resident retro expert and Minterologist Blake Patterson has already spent extensive time with Caverns of Minos, and the consensus seems to be that “the game is great.” We’ll be taking some time to write up a proper review beyond just those four words in the very near future, so definitely keep your eyes peeled for that. However, if you’re a fan of Llamasoft’s previous App Store offerings, or just a fan of retro-style arcade games in general, then it’s probably a pretty safe bet to just go ahead and pick up Caverns of Minos, and you can always head into our forums for even more on the game.

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Call of Duty Elite for mobile, the companion to the companion Call of Duty experience, is coming to iOS tomorrow and Android next week, MacRumors reports. And it’ll bring a few interesting control options with it. Inside the app, you’ll be able to check your stats and other players’ stats, hit up after action reports, scope map information, track your challenge progress, and modify your loadouts all without ever having to look at your console.

While that’s a ton of cool support, fans will inevitably be noting what’s missing. In a conversation with Joystiq, Beachhead Studios Chacko Sonny said Beachhead learned a a few things about Elite’s stunningly bad launch, so it won’t be tossing out features until it knows they’re “at the level” fans actually want.

Speaking to the MacRumors about future features, Sonny said:

“We view this as the foundation. We want to hear from the community: how do they use this? What parts do they like? What parts aren’t as useful? We want to drive additional development going forward from people who play the game every single day. That’s going to help us deliver a better set of iterated features going forward, and for the forthcoming tablet version as well.”

During the rocky launch, we’ve all kinda gave up on Elite. The release of the mobile app definitely gives us reason to give it another shot, so we will. Tomorrow!

[via MacRumors]

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You guys, I had the Worst Christmas Ever this year. No, it’s not because I didn’t get an iPad 2 – I mean, it’s pretty much a job requirement for me to be set in that department – so my (ex-) friends and (former) loved ones are off the hook for that. No, what I can’t get over is the fact that Santa did not leave me a puppy this year. Seriously, I blew up Twitter for weeks with links to dog videos and pet adoption websites and no one picked up on the hints? Collective friends and family, you are dead to me.

Luckily, RagTag Studio’s Puppy Panic [$.99] is here to numb my pain. A cute, well-made endless runner, Puppy Panic helped take my mind off of the callousness of those most dear to me by presenting me with a stable of eight (nine, if you count the secret one) puppies for me to race and play with. Each puppy has special abilities unique to their breed that help it in various ways throughout the game’s two modes. When you start with the Beagle, for example, you can double-jump really high, and when you get the Eskimo, you can bark and clear all the obstacles from your path.

The games themselves are pretty much the same, with slight variations. In Squirrel Chase, your puppy chases a squirrel and must dodge bouncy red balls, jump over tree stumps and duck under low-flying birds in order to catch up with it. In Cloud Surfing, your puppy has to bounce along on clouds to catch up to an airplane while avoiding falling through the clouds or running into birds. (Dog LSD may or may not be involved.) Beating both game types with a puppy breed unlocks endless mode for that puppy, meaning you can continuously chase squirrels or airplanes (which I’m pretty sure my existing dog dreams about on a daily basis).

But I know why you’re really here. You don’t care about catching squirrels or airplanes. You’re here for the puppies, am I right? You want to know how to get your hands on a sweet little puppy of your very own. I feel you. So pay attention, because you’re about to get the lowdown on how to get your hands on a bunch of puppies, and I’m only saying this once.

OK, here it is. In case your parents never told you where puppies came from, Puppy Panic blows the lid right off that secret—they come from vending machines, duh! But, like, really big vending machines that only take puppy coins, which you earn through successfully passing trials with your first puppy. You get your first puppy handed to you by the game, presumably because the prior owner of the puppy coin was already losing his or her mind due to the alarmingly large number of puppies the game gives you, and the thought of getting one more out of the vending machine would have driven them to adorable, floppy-eared suicide.

Despite the overall adorableness of the game, there are improvements I would definitely like to see made. While the two game types are solid and well-designed, I would love to see more made available in future updates. The same two games, over and over, for all eight puppy types is repetitive, and while playing and beating both game types with each puppy unlocks endless running mode for that particular puppy breed, I couldn’t be bothered with it after a while because it all felt the same.

The special abilities each puppy has, too, are a bit unbalanced. For example, the Corgi’s ability to automatically avoid pretty much all birds (because it has short legs!) made the game too easy for me, whereas the Dalmatian’s ability to call a firetruck to its aid never got used.

Even with these small downsides, Puppy Panic is a fun take on the runner genre. For about a buck, you get pretty much endless entertainment, especially since you can pick your favorite puppy out of eight to customize the playing experience. If you’re a fan of runners in general, this is a really cute, family-friendly option. And you don’t even have to worry about your furniture getting chewed up.

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With the holiday season upon us and the iTunes freeze halting any new games or updates from popping up, there’s been a severe lack of hard hitting iOS news to post about this week. So, with that in mind, we’re going to do what any self respecting website would do during a dry spell – post a cute cat video from YouTube. Everybody knows that cats are the dominating force of the internet, but in this instance, there is actually some relevance to what we do here at TouchArcade.

As pointed out by Halbrick on their Twitter, some crazy cat owner has gone and taught their furry feline friend how to play Fruit Ninja. A cat owner after my own heart, really. Check it out:

So here’s the thing: I actually think this cat might be better than I am at Fruit Ninja. I mean, sure, I’ve achieved higher scores than kitty has, but you can see how his (or her?) technique is nearly flawless, and it’s only a matter of time before my score is overtaken. Halfbrick also points out that their Fruit Ninja movie spinoff Fruit Ninja Puss’n Boots stars a cat, and this may possibly be the real life incarnation of that. Did Halfbrick go out of their way to train a cat to play Fruit Ninja in an elaborate scheme to start a viral video marketing campaign? Nah, probably not, but I’m nonetheless happy to be able to share in the cute cat video goodness.

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Normally, I would say “another day, another Chillingo physics puzzle game” as the developer pumps out these high quality iOS titles like it’s nothing, but then I had to take a moment to stop. After all, Home Sheep Home 2 [$0.99] is not just any puzzler, it’s a puzzler starring Shaun the Sheep from the Wallace & Gromit series, and if you have no idea what that is get off this website right now and go find out. It’s that good, and I don’t throw such idle threats around lightly.

The first Home Sheep Home title came out in May and earned a BAFTA award (see review here). Not too shabby since it started out as a free Flash game. Like the first game, Home Sheep Home 2 challenges the player to take charge of the three sheep Shaun, Timmy and Shirley and make their way through a series of levels. Fans of the original game that felt it needed more levels should be delighted that there are 40 in total to be explored here, so you should get more time out of it this go round.

Nothing about the format or controls has changed since the first game: Captivating, simple art with a hand-drawn vibe creates a homey kind of feeling. You control the three sheep and can swap between them with a touch of your finger on each character, or their icons up at the top right corner of the screen. A jump button on the bottom right and the rest of your menu on the top left round it all out, and the placement works well — nothing feels cluttered or in the way.

By figuring out how to get all three of your sheep to the sign at the end, you complete each level. There are collectible items such as socks along the way, which can affect your score, and you’ll also have a time and a star ranking at the end. Each level is quick to play in general, but you may find yourself wanting to go back and give it another go to try to improve your scoring.

Of course, the play is physics-based, so expect to be moving boxes and doing other such things to solve puzzles. The sheep can all jump over one another and even stack (although I do not recommend putting Shirley anywhere but the bottom on that one as she’s a bit large), and the puzzles are a bit more advanced than what the first game offered.

After you’ve plowed through all the levels available, you also earn the chance to check out bonus levels which present a bit more challenge. Each separate area has five of these, and I certainly found they took more effort to figure out, although they never reached maddening levels of difficulty.

It looks like many of you really looked forward to this title on the forums, and I can say that it’s taken all the concepts from the first game and made them bigger and better, and it doesn’t disappoint in its execution. While I did not encounter them personally, it’s worth noting that other players did report crashes on the iTunes shop page, but that fixes are already on the way.

Whether you wait for that to pick it up or take your chances, either way, this is a solid buy and one that will keep you smiling at your phone or iPad for hours. And as an extra touch, this is a Universal build — cheers for that!

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The App Store is home to a ton of unique ideas, and we’ve seen all sorts of games come along that started out one way and evolved into something entirely different due to content updates that are often spurred by feedback from gamers in our forums. It’s one of the neat aspects about iOS gaming, and something that sets it apart from most other traditional gaming platforms.

However, Bryan Perfetto, creator of the awesome endless high scoring game Kitty Up [99¢] (the second title this morning that has previously been featured on the Kitty Korner segment of our podcast) is taking the app updating facet of the App Store to the extreme. He has just released Rocket Bits [Free], his latest game that’s not really much of a game at all… yet.

The idea behind Rocket Bits is that he’s soliciting any and all ideas from users and will try to implement them into the game the best he can. Right now, the game isn’t much more than an extremely basic cave flyer with very little to do. You can control the dual thrusters of a tiny rocket by touching either side of the screen, and putt around an expansive randomly generated map, bumping into walls and… that’s about it.

But just because there isn’t much to do in Rocket Bits doesn’t mean it’s not off to a pretty good start. The thruster controls feel great, the retro-styled pixel art is quite nice, and the chip tunes in the game are fantastic. Since the game isn’t much right now, it’s being offered for free, and eventually after some updates have fleshed out the experience then Bryan plans to raise it to “the outrageously expensive price of one dollar.”

If the concept of Rocket Bits intrigues you, you can send your game ideas via email to bryan@regularkid.com, on Twitter at @RegularKid, through his website www.regularkid.com, or just blurt them out in iTunes reviews for the game. The plan is to update the game weekly, though that will depend on how difficult the ideas are to implement and Apple’s review process. If he uses your idea, you’ll get your name forever emblazoned in the game’s credits section.

It’ll be interesting to see how Rocket Bits shapes up over time, and how well the developer will be able to use the ideas given to him. We’ll keep our eye on its progress, and there’s no reason not to grab the game for free to check it out and send along some ideas of your own.

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One of Skyrim’s greatest strengths is its ridiculous amount of content. But that also ties into one of its biggest weaknesses: unless you’re insane, you’re going to have to pass on some of what the game has to offer in order to retain a measure of focus. The in-game map functionality adds to this pain since doesn’t let you jot down notes or throw up readily identifiable markers for areas you’d like to go back to.

An unofficial companion app, Dragon Shout, is looking to provide just that — and more down the road. Dragon Shout is basically a fully interactive Skyrim map that allows for annotated markers for anything, including even alchemy components. In later updates, it’ll become a social hub, of sorts, for Skyrim adventurers, as it’ll add in marker sharing, party or app-wide chats, pictures, and more. It’s an ambitious project.

To be clear, here’s what’s in the first release, which has just been submitted to Apple.

“The first version of the app contains an interactive map where you can drop annotated markers / journal entries down,” the developer told us. “For example, yesterday I played Skyrim and left a bunch of dragon scales and bones on the side of a mountain because they were too heavy.

I will come back and get them some other time so I marked it on the map so I know where it’s at in the future. Another example is I’m always looking for the right ingredients for potions, so when I come across an important ingredient, I mark it on the map so I know where to get it next time.”

Dragon Shout should be out within the next couple of days on iPhone and iPad for $0. You can follow its progress on the app’s website or this handy-dandy forum thread the creator started.

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Highline Games have released W.E.L.D.E.R. [$1.99] which stands for ‘Word Examination Laboratory for Dynamic Extraction and Reassessment“, The amusing game trailer (below) suggests that words are at risk of becoming extinct, but that’s not really part of the gameplay. It’s just more interesting than saying: “Move letters around to form words”, which might sound dull and done-to-death;  but this intriguing word game is neither of those things, it’s unique and will activate your brain.

The game features an 8×8 grid which is full of letter tiles. The idea is to form words with four or more letters, by moving letter tiles around in various ways. The “Basic Swap” involves tapping any two neighboring letters (horizontally, vertically or diagonally adjoining) so they swap positions. The words must be written from left-to-right or top-to-bottom, much like a crossword puzzle. There’s no time limits (thank goodness), although a certain number of words must be formed to complete each level.

As you play, you can unlock three other types of swap:  A “Reverse Swap” is done by selecting a bunch of letters, then double tapping to reverse their order. “Group swaps” involve selecting some letters, then dragging them over one space. And finally, the useful “Jump swaps” let you tap any two movable letters on the board (even if not adjoining) and they’ll exchange places, as if teleporting. But you only have a limited number of each swap type.

When you form a word, those letter tiles disappear, and any letters above cascade down to fill the gap, including some new letters. Therefore, it’s wise to form words near the bottom of the screen, so more letters fall from above, increasing the odds of creating another word by luck. Although, this is definitely a game of skill, where a puzzle-loving wordsmith will triumph.

At the start, you’re only given 25 basic swaps to achieve the target number of words for the level. Once your swaps are depleted, the game ends. But if you form valid words, you earn points, and receive more swaps, allowing you to play longer. Five basic swaps are given for each 250 points, with special swaps given each 500 points. Little on-screen meters display how close you are to receiving the next batch of swaps.

There’s also some special tiles: Words which incorporate gold tiles double the score, there’s diamond encrusted 3x score multipliers plus a 4x multiplier. Blank wooden tiles can be stamped permanently with any letter by double tapping, but this costs one swap and scores no points. Red-hot letter tiles are apparently too hot to touch, so you can’t swap them, but they fall like regular tiles if you form words below. Broken tiles can’t be moved either, but these don’t fall. The un-moveable tiles can be removed by forming a word around them.

Like Scrabble, each letter has a different point value and bonus points are awarded for forming multiple words in the same turn. At the end of the level, bonus points are also awarded for any unused swaps. Final scores are fed into five Game Center leaderboards, along with a healthy 47 achievements. The game also supports iCloud game saves, allowing players to switch devices and resume playing.

The dictionary word-set seems reasonable, although some valid words are declined. Rude words are not permitted and this extends to some body parts. And the word “Mens” (with a diamond M) was declined. But overall, the game has correctly identified almost all of the words entered. If you’re not familiar with a word formed, you can tap it to view the definition. And the developers plan to add support for additional languages  in future. And you can submit words to the developers.

The in-game music is unusual, yet strangely soothing and deserves a mention. It sounds more like ambient background noise; almost a mixture of white noise, an old fashioned oxygen machine, with the occasional fan.  At first I thought the music was faulty, then I wondered if it was using monotonous sounds to hypnotize me into a trance, to hold my attention …and if so, it’s working, because the more I play this game, the better I become and the more enjoyable the experience.

There’s a couple of things to watch out for.  As soon as a word is formed, it’s scored and removed, so if you plan to make the word “Toaster”, and form it from left to right, the game would recognize “Toast” as a word and the letters would disappear before you wrote the full intended word. Therefore, long words should be formed from the outsides in, to avoid accidentally spelling any small words.

It’s also easy to move letters unintentionally. Firstly, because the “C” and “G” characters start looking similar after a while. Or secondly, by tapping the screen without realizing another character’s already selected, wasting a precious jump swap. These recurring human mistakes are frustrating since one bad move can end your game. Lastly, the game rules button takes you to a website, which is fine …providing you have WiFi access.

W.E.L.D.E.R. has twelve levels, which grow longer and use more challenging tiles as you progress. The games become quite slow and considered once your supply of swaps dwindles and you search for an elusive swap, but that’s a good thing because this game challenges you. The developers advise other gameplay modes are planned, so we’re curious about what comes next. For this initial release however, W.E.L.D.E.R. is one word game that has captured my attention, and is worth checking out.

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