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One of the many features that set Twitter ablaze with the announcement of iOS 5 back at WWDC was AirPlay mirroring. AirPlay had already been around for a while, and in its initial form allowed iOS devices to steam video to an Apple TV or audio to an Airport Express. Mirroring, as the name implies, mirrors the current display of your device on whatever video display you've got your Apple TV plugged into. Crafty developers have even figured out how to output a different image than the one that's being displayed on your iOS device, which is really cool in action.

Initially, AirPlay mirroring required an iPad 2 and when it was first unveiled it was never very clear if or when other iOS would have the same capabilities– Especially since Apple has made it abundantly clear that they still consider the Apple TV a "hobby" of theirs. Well, with the release of the iPhone 4S, which also comes packed with AirPlay mirroring support, it seems reasonable to assume that all future iOS devices will have the capability.

Unfortunately, without some killer software utilizing the functionality, it sort of seems like a gimmick– At least, so far. The selection of games that embrace the mirroring functionality in interesting ways are remarkably sparse. So far the best of the bunch seems to be Chopper 2 [99¢]:

As cool as AirPlay is, its main drawback for gaming seems to be a ever-so-slight but totally perceptible lag. Piloting the helicopter in the Chopper games seems to be almost intentionally floaty (it is a helicopter, after all). This seems to mask the lag very well, and using the iOS device screen for input is done well.

Comparatively, Real Racing 2 [$4.99 / HD] does much more with the actual iOS device screen, but the previously mentioned slight lag in controls makes just playing the game normally without the Apple TV seem much more fun. The multiplayer mode does feel like the future though:

Aside from the small bit of lag, it works really well, almost surprisingly so. I downloaded the game on my iPad 2, flipped on AirPlay mirroring, and hosted a local game. Seeing the same video output on my iPhone being routed through the iPad 2 and rendered on my TV wirelessly seemed like magic, especially as more iOS devices joined the race.

I'm so incredibly torn on this functionality right now. The potential it has is just incredible, especially in future devices and/or developer optimization of these games reduces the lag between the iOS device and the Apple TV. Once this delay goes from barely noticeable but always there to non-existent, I think it'll be totally easy to get onboard, and an Apple TV might even be required hardware for the dedicated iOS gamer to own. Right now though, I wouldn't encourage anyone to rush out and buy an Apple TV specifically to try out this new Real Racing 2 mode.

That being said, the Apple TV is a really cool device that is well worth the $100 if you've got an HDMI port on your TV and don't already have an Xbox 360, PS3, or even something like a Roku Streaming Player hooked up to it. If you've got an A5-powered iOS device, being able to do some neat things with an incredibly small (right now, anyway) library of games is just icing on the cake. Sure, you can duplicate all this mirroring functionality with the Apple Digital AV Adapter as well, but it's incredibly clunky hanging off the side of your device, and at $40, you might as well just spend another $60 and get all the added functionality of the Apple TV.

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One thing that I do quite a bit of for TouchArcade is attend various conferences. We always hit the big ones like E3 in Los Angeles, along with both WWDC and GDC in San Francisco as well as several smaller conventions throughout the year that often don't amount to a lot of coverage– But where it's still great to meet people and have a presence at them. These events (even the mega-corporate ones like E3) have a vibe about them that's really difficult to describe unless you've been to one.

I think the best way to label the feeling would be "inspirational." You're surrounded by game developers who have all travelled from the farthest corners of the Earth with goals to both promote their existing games, as well as improve their future titles. I've seen amazing things come out of game jams, partnerships spring up over coffee, and game ideas being refined via a form of incredibly open peer review over beer and pizza. The whole process is great, and leaves you feeling lucky that you even had the chance to play your small role in witnessing it.

Attendees of these various get-togethers likely know exactly what I'm talking about, and this is wholly the reason why I always encourage developers to attend conventions whenever possible. Sure, they can often times seem like an unnecessary business expense, but can you really put a price on the value of one piece of random feedback that takes your entire project to a whole new level?

Anyway, not having attended GDC Online since 2009 (It was GDC Austin then) I was beyond stoked to take part in the conference. Not very many developers that I've worked with in the past were going, but that was OK– the best part about conventions is meeting new people and being absolutely awestruck when they show you what they're working on.

Sword & Sworcery amazed us at GDC '10.

GDC is split into several different sub-categories that they call summits. Of particular interest to me was the Smartphone and Tablet Games Summit, which historically at other events has been fairly interesting with compelling panels and speakers covering a wide variety of topics. Looking back at my last visit to Austin, TX I heard a talk from Imangi Studios on their tips for success as well as the guys from Tiger Style detailing their whole creative and business process. These sessions were educational, and while they both cited specific things they did, the advice was all general enough that everyone could take something away to improve their games or how they make their games.

Somehow, over the last two years, GDC Austin Online seems to have shifted to a convention where you go to learn how to be a better game developer to a convention where you go to learn how juice the absolute maximum amount of money out of your player base. Sessions where you listen to developers give newcomers incredibly useful tips and inspirational advice have been replaced by representatives from large free to play development outfits talking about the chilling precision their in-depth analytics package allows them for real-time tweaking to encourage in-app purchasing rates in their farming games.

Panels on utilizing the touch interface in unique and clever ways have been shifted to presentations on the importance of monetization, and everywhere you look it seems like there's a different middleware provider anxious to tell you all about their new virtual currency, metrics package, or captive pool of freemium players that they're willing to sell you if the price is right.

I felt something was off for the whole convention, until I attended the "Smartphone & Tablet Developer Rant" panel, where Graeme Devine said what I imagine quite a few people (myself included) were thinking: GDC Online isn't a game developers conference, it's a data miner and metrics convention. "We're not game developers here," as a response to the pressure from every direction to monetize every possible avenue in your game where a player might have the opportunity to earn you money in one way or another.

Following the rant, I had quite the discussion with Devine about the current trends in iOS gaming. We both fondly looked back to that initial experience of powering up the original iPhone. According to Graeme, inertial scrolling and pinch to zoom felt "magical," and I'm in complete agreement. We've gotten to the point where this 30+ year veteran of the gaming industry has no qualms describing iOS devices as the best gaming platform, as the potential that the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch have borders on limitless– But the direction that many iOS developers are taking them couldn't be more depressing.

"Metrics are great," says Devine, referring to the ability of always-on and always-connected devices like the iPhone to constantly report all forms of analytics. Now developers can easily tell when you play, how long you play, when players fail, and much, much more. For a game designer actively looking to improve their game, on the iPhone it's easy to see that too many players are falling into a pit in your platform game that you never intended to be a challenging obstacle, for instance. That hazard can be easily tuned, and quickly dispatched via an update. Even though metrics can certainly have a spyware-like feel to them, they can also be instrumental in building a substantially better game. Especially a low-budget iPhone game that likely doesn't enjoy the benefits of a vast army of play testers.

Unfortunately, the way developers are using these tools, and the way far too many business-types are encouraging them to, is to fine-tune revenue streams. Remember, if you're not buying a product, you are the product– With the success of the free to play model on the App Store, projects are now being built from the ground up with maximum monetization in mind. Developers are evolving their business to even stray from in-app purchases as their primary revenue sources, realizing that there's just as much (if not more) value in the larger portion of their user base that never buys anything who can be sold and traded with other developers for cross-promotion deals.

Graeme argues that the word "monetization" shouldn't even be in the game designer's vocabulary, and offers examples of previous creative works that would never have existed in today's metrics-hungry world of live tweaking and over-analysis. He proposes a whole host of ridiculous changes that would've been made to a game like Pac-Man if power pellets could only be obtained through some kind of in-game credit system. These kind of things would have changed gaming history, and it's sad to see how thoroughly similar creativity is being stifled in the name of scientifically extracting the most money possible out of the audience.

As a life-long gamer, I find this trend to be incredibly unsettling. I realize the cold hard reality of the business of video games requires developers to turn a profit, but I just hate thinking that the developer who might have come up with the next Sword & Sworcery or Spider: The Secret of Bryce Manor has eternally relegated that project to the back burner in exchange for spending time pouring over analytics and tweaking their latest freemium time sink for optimal average revenue per user.

I suppose it's only human nature to try to assign blame for this latest turn of events in the ever-evolving saga of the App Store, but when you think about it, whose fault is it? The ad networks, the virtual currency systems, and the people behind all other forms of metrics-hungry middleware are merely fulfilling a heinously profitable demand. New companies wouldn't be springing up on a seemingly daily basis offering the next big thing in free to play monetization if there weren't a pool of developers hungry to hop on board. Similarly, these developers wouldn't be pulling out all the stops to become fully invested in the free to play model if the money wasn't there from an ever-growing user base eager to pump proverbial quarters into these games to speed a progress bar.

At the end of the day, it's the customer base that is driving developers down this road. Just like middleware providers, they're similarly fulfilling a demand. Since the launch of the App Store in 2008, the value proposition of your typical iOS title has continually sliding towards offering more and more for less and less. Simple games like Moto Chaser launched at $5.99, slid to $4.99, and settled at the rock-bottom price of 99¢ in less than two months. 99¢ became the expected price for games for the next few years, and now– Even 99¢ is too expensive. The talks of GDC are also just reflecting this demand, as the entire event agenda is set by an advisory board who is well tuned into all aspects of the gaming industry.

So what can we do to change this? For the first time, I'm really not sure. This is normally where I'd champion the premium priced "full" game experiences with fabulous production values like Infinity Blade and encourage people to actually try to support developers at higher price points in attempt to stop the toxic "I'll wait for the 99¢ sale" mentality. But, this problem is far bigger than that. The people driving this market are the ones who've never read TouchArcade, who don't follow gaming, and are just downloading the next free to play sensation because the carefully tuned viral aspect of friend recruitment drove them to, they saw it on the charts, or a million other reasons that'd never put them in the same room as someone who cares about a long-winded editorial on monetization as a part of game design.

I think I'd just really like to meet the person who launches one of these games, does their daily in-app purchase to buy a load of in-game currency, spends that all in the course of five minutes, then feels satisfied enough with their purchase to do it again and again and again.

My question to this person is, "Why?"

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Steve Jobs unveiled iOS 5 back at WWDC this year. Since then, those of us with an iPhone 3GS or later device have been anxiously looking forward to the array of new features and functionality introduced in the update. At last week's Let's Talk iPhone keynote, Apple revealed that today was the lucky day for iOS 5, and if you've got a device that'll run it– Plug it into iTunes, make sure you sync, and mash that update button.

My favorite improvement so far has definitely got to be the entirely revised push alert notification system. That nasty blue popup that interrupts everything you're doing when you get a text message, your Tiny Tower is ready for something, or the zillion other things that used that type of been notification is a thing of the past. Now there's an incredibly elegant notification center where all these alerts are stored, and the actual popups themselves simply scroll in from the top instead of stealing focus.

If you've got an iPad 2 (or are getting an iPhone 4S in a few days), you'll be able to do display mirroring via AirPlay. Doing cool things with this is largely dependent on developers utilizing it in interesting ways, but so far Firemint is doing awesome things with Real Racing 2.

In addition, Game Center has seen a few tweaks. One I'm most excited for is turn-based support. If developers utilize it, Game Center can handle all of the matchmaking and turn data management between players. I've heard from developers that this functionality does not degrade gracefully to previous versions of iOS, but once iOS 5 adoption picks up we could see a rush of great turn-based games now that developers can offload their entire online infrastructure onto Game Center.

iCloud isn't something that should be underestimated. Out of the box it'll keep your device backed up to Apple's data centers and in the event of device failure, loss, theft, or whatever else you'll be able to re-download the entire contents of your phone regardless of the last time you synced. Also, once developers start embracing it, you'll be able to seamlessly sync save game data between devices. As someone who often plays games on both my iPhone and iPad, I can't wait for this to pick up steam.

iOS 5 is an incredible upgrade. I've been running the developer version since the gold master hit last week, and much like the upgrade from iOS 3 to iOS 4, my iPhone 4 feels like a totally new device. iOS 5 boasts a feature list of over 200 additions and improvements, so if you want to know everything that is new and different, check out this huge list over on MacRumors.

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If you missed out on our WWDC preview, allow me to calibrate your expectations about Tiny Heroes [$2.99], a new tower defense title from Simutronics Corp. You may have heard that the team behind this game was headed up by David Whatley, the developer of the outstanding geoDefense [$1.99 / Lite] and geoDefense Swarm [$1.99]. Already your brain may be whirring along, thinking about upgradeable towers and mazing. Stop that. You won't find those here. And you won't miss them, either.

In Tiny Heroes, you are the master of a dungeon rich with treasure. In classic Dungeons & Dragons style, where there is treasure, there are heroes. Are you going to sit back and let them take your treasure? Heck no! So you set up defenses in their way, and who can blame you if a few of those defenses are a touch lethal? You have liability insurance, right?

Once you push past the first few levels, which introduce you to the basics a bit too slowly, you'll find a game that has more in common with Plants vs. Zombies than geoDefense. The first clue is in the resource management: rather than profiting from killing heroes, you build mana stones that generate mana every few seconds. You use that mana to build your defenses, which are designed to block the oncoming heroes. Why politely leave a path for them to travel down when you can stop them in their tracks?

As you progress through the game, you unlock all manner of vicious defenses. Spike traps, catapults and barricades are just the beginning. You'll get so many that you won't be able to carry them all into battle. Instead, Tiny Heroes requires you to strategize and pick your poison before starting each stage. You'll need to learn how to combine your most brutal traps with static defenses and creatures to effectively guard your treasure, and you'll need to make sure you have the resources to pull your plan off.

But for each imaginative defense you set up, the heroes are ready to counter it. Knights march in with a single-minded appetite for destruction, thieves dismantle your traps from a safe distance and wizards take out your mana crystals, starving you for resources. Once you get a handle on defeating them, you'll find yourself facing epic versions of each. Your unbeatable combo may be able to take out basic knights with ease, but then an epic ranger will sweep in and keep things balanced.

It's the dungeon layouts and pathing that take Tiny Heroes from Plants vs. Zombies clone territory to something quite different, though. Each level has a unique layout, requiring an original strategy. The level layout can help or hurt the heroes, because they don't travel in the ways we've come to expect. In most tower defense games, enemies use basic pathing logic. They'll travel down the path that takes them to their goal most quickly, to hell with the consequences.

In Tiny Heroes, on the other hand, the heroes are a little more complicated. In their tiny brains they have a drive to explore, to find the best path based on what they can see. While this does occasionally lead to weirdness, like heroes wandering back and forth under fire, it also means that they put up a good fight — and that you can trick them.

For a game about the wholesale slaughter of friendly adventurers, Tiny Heroes is surprisingly adorable. Big goofy eyes can be found on the heroes and more of the defenses than you'd expect, and the animations are similarly charming. The only thing that's missing is music. I've spent hours on end with this game and haven't minded the lack, but if you're auditorially inclined you'll certainly miss it.

But otherwise, Tiny Heroes is a complete package. The two included campaigns are huge and challenging, and there's a third coming as a purchasable update. The Game Center/OpenFeint achievements are done beautifully: you're rewarded with new defenses for completing groups of them, adding quite a lot of replayability to the game. You can play through in Campaign Mode, and then replay individual levels for higher scores and achievements in Quick Play. There are also challenge levels to be had, and these put your skills to a serious test.

There is one in-app purchase available, but let me stress that it's totally optional. The Defense Expansion gives you four new defenses that aren't available in normal gameplay. They are very slightly overpowered, but this is by design: they're there to help people who find the game too frustrating. If you're stuck and you'd rather not pay, the developers have a series of walkthrough videos available on their website, and forums to discuss strategy.

iPad users are currently out of luck, but according to the developers an iPad version is planned. It's expected to have it's own set of levels that take advantage of the extra screen real estate, so it should be worth the wait.

I can't say enough about Tiny Heroes. It's a fantastic game, with few flaws to speak of. Challenging, but rarely frustrating, it had me returning to levels again and again to improve my score. By turning genre conventions on their heads, Tiny Heroes succeeds brilliantly. And you don't have to take my word for it alone — our discussion thread is packed with fans. Who wouldn't want to throw down against a bunch of greedy do-gooders, just this once?

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In further BMX-related news this morning, those handsome Swedish chaps from Illusion Labs have gone and made their multitouch masterpiece Touchgrind BMX [$4.99] Universal in a brand new update. Touchgrind BMX launched back in May and we liked it a whole bunch in our review. It retained the same impressive technological aspects of the original Touchgrind [$4.99/HD] with its 3D visuals and smart use of multitouch, but offered a much more varied set of levels to perform your tricks and a much more favorable behind the back camera angle.

The Touchgrind BMX berry only became more plump and juicy with updates that we detailed when we sat down with Illusion Labs at WWDC this year, namely proper Retina Display visuals and TV-Out support. Now you can add Universal iPad support to that list as well, and this is actually the very first Universal game from Illusion Labs. I wouldn't mind seeing this trend continue.

Like the iPad version of the original Touchgrind, Touchgrind BMX isn’t just blown up to fit the larger size of the iPad screen. Since your fingers remain the same size no matter how big the screen is, then the bike models on the iPad need to remain pretty much the same size as their iPhone counterparts. This means that the game can be played in landscape orientation on the iPad without any compromises, and in fact, this opens up a whole new wide angle that lets you see way more of the environment. Check out the two screenshots below from each version of the game to see the drastic difference:

Other than the expanded gameplay angle, everything appears to be pretty much the same with Touchgrind BMX on the iPad. It feels great having a large surface to use for the multitouch gestures, and I definitely don’t feel like I’m blocking the action as much which I occasionally feel with the iPhone version. Best of all the Universal update is free for existing owners, which means there’s no separate HD version to worry about. Shame you can’t sync your progress between devices though, but I guess you can’t have everything.

If you’re a Touchgrind BMX’er with an iPad then definitely grab this latest update, as I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised with just how great the game feels on the larger screen.

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Earlier this summer at WWDC 2011, we chilled with Get Set Games and discussed its plans for a huge new update to its money-printing machine, Mega Jump [Free]. That update is now available on the App Store and we’ve grabbed some details that’ll whet your appetite while you wait for it to download.

The headliner of the overall package is, of course, the brand new world. “Magica,” as it’s called, is a conglomeration of 20 brand new stages that provide more challenges with fresh backgrounds. A new character, Rolf the Wolf, has also been added to a steadily growing cast of freakishly cute and enlarged animal-like… things. One of the finer additions being pointed out is the fact that free MP has returned. The sticking point is that you’ll have to “watch videos” in order to participate.

Naturally, bug fixes and the promise of even more to come, including more worlds content, are also being teased.

Love it or hate, Mega Jump is certainly becoming one of the more pleasant and refined free-to-play experiences out there when you factor in updates like these. We’re excited to see where it’s going and how its own model evolves as more and more content gets tacked on.

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One of our very favorite not-a-game-itself-but-is-still-gaming-related apps in the App Store is Zell Application’s Joypad Game Controller [Free]. We reviewed the Joypad this past February, and in short it turns your iOS device into a customizable virtual control pad for playing games on your computer. You just run the app on your device and then it very easily connects to a desktop client on your computer over Bluetooth or a local WiFi network. You’re then free to map the virtual buttons of the Joypad to the keyboard controls of whatever game you’re playing, or choose from the many preset configurations, and just like that you’ve got yourself a competent little game controller.

Naturally, it’s not quite the same as having a physical controller, but if you like to travel light or find yourself needing to get your game on in a pinch it more than does the trick. Heck, I use the Joypad exclusively to play old emulators on my laptop simply because it works really well and I’m too lazy to bust out my USB controller. Ah, technology, always facilitating my laziness.

Anyway, back at WWDC this year I sat down with Zell Applications who explained how they had just released a Joypad SDK, which anyone can use to add native Joypad support in games on both desktop computers and iOS devices. We first saw this officially in action with the platformer Lars [$1.99/Lite], and recently the Mac App Store version of Mos Speedrun [$2.99] was updated with Joypad support, too. No need to pair the Joypad app with desktop software with these, rather just fire up either game along with the Joypad app on your device and everything just works, and it rocks.

During that WWDC meeting, Zell also revealed that the Joypad would be getting some retro skins packs in the near future, and that update has just hit the App Store. As you may know, Joypad was originally a paid app when it launched in March of last year, but in order to entice more people to use it the developers launched a separate free version back in January. As a way to support their efforts and put food in their bellies, the new retro skins are being sold for 99¢ each, or you can grab all 8 of them in a pack for $5.99 and save a couple of bucks.

Both versions of Joypad are functionally identical, but if you already owned the original paid version, which is now called Joypad Elite, then you’ll get the entire 8 pack of retro skins included for free with the update. The skins are beautiful and feature 8 of the most classic console controllers ever, and are perfect for getting the full effect when playing with emulators. Also, inside of the in-app shop there is now a list of Joypad compatible games. So far there is built in support for Lars, Super Mega Worm [99¢/Lite], Emerald Mine [Free], and Mos Speedrun for Mac. Upcoming supported games will include Meganoid [$1.99], Arcade Jumper, 8-bit Rally [99¢], and Marathon [Free].

Finally, inside the store there is a link to order the Fling Mini, another cool control peripheral that we took a look at during WWDC and works really well in conjunction with the Joypad app. As a bonus, if you use the in-app link to order the Fling Mini then you’ll get 10% off the regular price. Not a bad little deal at all.

In case you couldn’t tell, I get pretty stoked talking about the Joypad. I just can’t help it. It’s clever, it works surprisingly well, and it's completely free to use. I actually game way more on my laptop since discovering the Joypad than I ever did before. It’s just really convenient. If you haven’t yet tried out Joypad for yourself, give it a download, you’ve got nothing to lose except your dependence on a dedicated physical gamepad.

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This past June at WWDC, we sat down with the folks from Illusion Labs to dish on all things Touchgrind [$4.99] related, and the team revealed to me that their original iOS mega hit would be coming to the Mac App Store this Summer. Illusion Labs showcased a proof-of-concept video in January of 2010 showing Touchgrind being played on a MacBook Pro using the multi-touch trackpad, which led to our speculation that the game would come to the Mac with the announcement of the Mac App Store last October.

It may have taken a while, but Touchgrind has indeed launched in the Mac App Store, and it’s currently completely free. The game controls well with the multi-touch trackpad, though it definitely feels different than the iOS touch screen and does take some getting used to. The view is nice and zoomed out, similar to the iPad version Touchgrind HD [$7.99], which makes it a whole lot easier to tell where you are going while cruising around the skatepark.

If you’re a trackpad-equipped Mac owner, there’s really no reason not to head on over to the Mac App Store and grab Touchgrind while it’s free.

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App Store fads come and go, and I think it's safe to say that the endless runner has been on its way out for a while now. These days it's all endless flying, jumping and swimming. So consider me officially surprised that Temple Run [$0.99], a brand new endless runner by Imangi Studios, has captivated my attention for days.

As we noted in our time with the game at WWDC, part of the appeal is the third-person chase view. Temple Run isn't unique in employing this point of view, but it does add a delightful sense of urgency to the game. You never quite know what will be around the next corner — until it's about to smack you in the face.

Corners are something you see a lot of in Temple Run. The game eschews the more traditional one-button jumping control of most runners for a swiping method that still allows for one-handed play . You can swipe up to jump, down to slide, and left or right to turn. This control setup is risky — it's much easier to mess up a swipe than a tap — but it works. Though the world is randomly generated, the addition of twists, turns and crossroads makes it feel more organic, like more of an adventure.

An Indiana Jones aesthetic extends that sense of adventure even further. You control an explorer who has just claimed an ancient idol. The guardians awaken and prepare to devour you — so you run. In your journey, you'll travel across the remnants of ancient temples, leap over flaming statues and dive beneath the roots of massive trees. A slip up can kill you, but even a couple minor stumbles can give the guardians the chance they need to catch you. It's basically a chase scene that would fit into any Indiana Jones film — though it probably wouldn't end with Indy's gruesome death in that case.

While you're dodging death, you can tilt your device gently to collect coins that appear on either side of the path. You'll collect hundreds each time you set out for a run, and they actually go to a good cause: powerups. There are four powerups to unlock, and each one adds something fun to the game like invisibility or bonus coins. They can each be upgraded to become stronger or more valuable. You can also purchase a resurrection item that you trigger by double tapping on the screen. Once you do, it will save you from your next death.

The coins you earn in-game should be more than enough to purchase powerups and upgrades at a reasonable pace. If you really want to get ahead of the pack on the Game Center leaderboard, you can pay cash for coins — but it isn't remotely necessary.

Any endless runner worth the name will give you high-tension situations and that "one more time" compulsion. But Temple Run is probably the only one that also makes you feel like a daring archaeologist with a penchant for deadly situations. So yeah, it's good. Check it out, and stop by our discussion thread when you do.

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