TouchArcade.ru

I’ve made no attempt at hiding my love affair with the Azkend series of puzzle games. The original Azkend [$2.99 / $4.99 (HD)] was (and still is) one of my favorite puzzle games of all time. It had a great difficulty curve, a constant stream of unlockables to keep you interested, and did a fabulous job at dangling the next unlockable in front of you to endlessly keep you playing one more game. Oh, and the chain-forming matching mechanic is pretty sweet too. Not too long ago, Azkend 2 [$2.99 / $3.99 ] hit, and I was ready to shout out my window and tell the world how incredible it was… That is, until I got a little deeper into the game.

As Nissa explains in our review, the sequel features everything we loved about the original Azkend, and provides some great first impressions. Then the difficulty curve ramps up, and the game introduces more types of tiles. It’s at this point that Azkend 2 turns into the best part of any LMFAO song, which, in a puzzle game, is not a good thing. In other words, you’d reach a point where there were just too many types of tiles, leaving no available matches, forcing the game to re-shuffle the tiles. Sometimes you’d even get multiple re-shuffles in a row.

Well, an update hit earlier today which seems to totally fix this. The puzzles are now rebalanced in a way that you’re not hunting for the single match before the board reshuffles. If you were (understandably) holding off on the game after reading our review, it’s safe to pick up now. Or, if you were like me, and just shelved the game after getting frustrated, snag the update and give it another shot.

They’ve made some other tweaks and bug fixes too, including doing some logging to potentially further improve game balancing as well as adjusting the colors of some tiles to make them more distinct. The one down side of this update is that I’m pretty sure that Azkend 2 is now going to completely suck up my free time this evening.

I’m OK with that, I think.

NOTE: Right now I’m only seeing this update for the universal HD version, but it’d make sense that the iPhone-only version should be following very shortly.

[source]

Hungry Game released Fly Kiwi, Fly! [99¢] in early 2010, and I liked it quite a bit. It’s one of those “see how far you can go” flying games with all sorts of upgrades, all themed around the hit YouTube video “Kiwi!“. Well, in the meantime, Hungry Game merged with NGD Studios, and they’ve been working all sorts of other non-iOS things before shifting to the sequel to Fly Kiwi, Fly!. The difference between the original and the sequel should be immediately obvious:

It sounds like it’s going to be a pretty standard sequel. The big feature is the new 3D graphics, combined with more gizmos to equip the Kiwi with to fly even further. If all goes as planned, we should by flying as Kiwis in 3D sometime this summer.

[source]

I had originally met Zarksoft at Macworld 2011 when the industry veteran turned iOS developer showed me a demo of Empire of the Eclipse, a massive online multiplayer 4x strategy game created from scratch for the iOS platform. At even that early state, the scope of Empire of the Eclipse blew my mind, and considering Zarksoft was comprised of just a few people I had my doubts whether the team could pull off the kind of game that they envisioned.

At GDC that year I was able to get an even more in-depth hands-on demo with the game, which had been coming along quite nicely in the months since I’d last seen it. Initially the developers had hoped to have the title done by the end of that same month, but in April we got word that after some feedback from folks who saw the game at GDC they decided to make some changes to the game which would delay their intended submission date.

Their new goal was to have the game shipped by summertime, but that never came to be, and aside from the update in April pretty much everything on the Empire of the Eclipse front had gone totally silent.

(Zarksoft’s YouTube channel has a bunch of tutorial videos if you want to get into the nitty gritty of how the game works, and this beginner’s overview one is a good introduction to the very basics):

Earlier this week, however, Zarksoft posted in our forums stating that at long last Empire of the Eclipse had finally been submitted to Apple. They explain that after starting the beta testing process, many more things came to light in the game that required changing, and in fact they performed a pretty major overhaul on some of the main components of the game.

Obviously a game of this scope takes a lot of work to tweak, balance, and get just right so that it offers a great competitive experience, and that work can take a significant amount of time. Even though it’s nearly a year after its intended release, and more than 3 years of development time total, I’d rather have Zarksoft make the game the best it can be rather than release something that isn’t ready for primetime.

Empire of the Eclipse has been in submission for a few days now, and it’s really anybody’s guess how long it will take to go through the Apple approval process. But we’ll be all over it when it releases to see how it turned out after such a long journey, and in the meantime there is a discussion of the game in our forums that you can check out.

[Thanks to everyone that emailed this in!]

[source]

If you’re a fan of things that are awesome, you should be intimately familiar with Robot Unicorn Attack [$.99], Adult Swim’s popular Flash game that rainbow dashed itself onto the App Store in mid-2010. If you aren’t familiar with the title, well, I’m not so sure we can be friends. Robot Unicorn Attack is an endless runner that is chock full of robot unicorns (duh), magical fairies, a pod of leaping dolphins, and colorful visuals that would make any 7-year old girl (and myself) squeal with delight. All set to a looping soundtrack of Erasure’s Always.

Robot Unicorn Attack was such a success that it saw two follow ups on the App Store, Heavy Metal Edition [$.99] and the festive Christmas Edition [$.99]. A few months back, all 3 RUA titles were updated with Retina Display visuals, something fans had been clamoring for since the release original release of the iPhone 4. Today, the original Robot Unicorn Attack got another dose of update love, turning it into a Universal build and improving its performance on all devices.

If you recall, the Retina Display updates to the 3 RUA games were kind of staggered, taking about a month for all 3 to finally receive their updates. This means that it’s possible the other 2 RUA games will be getting a similar Universal treatment, though I haven’t heard confirmation of this just yet.

Also, in kind of a strange move, the iPad native Robot Unicorn Attack HD has disappeared from the App Store. It makes sense with the new Universal version to not have 2 iPad versions, but I don’t really know what that means for previous owners of the HD iPad version. We’ll be getting to the bottom of this query as well as what’s in store for the other Robot Unicorn games, but for current owners of the original release make sure to grab the latest update, throw that bad boy on your iPad, and rainbow dash your way to ultimate happiness.

[source]

I created my Yelp profile in early 2010. I’d used the site for years before then, but for whatever reason, I didn’t feel compelled to start writing reviews until a few years ago. Yelp, in the off chance you’ve never heard of it, is a massive community-driven site which primarily focuses on offering honest customer reviews for all sorts of businesses. It’s equally useful to find a place to get lunch, somewhere to get your hair cut, a cool shoe store, or a million other things. Taking a step back, there’s tons of similarities between Yelp and the App Store, but Yelp does two things that make a massive difference.

Just like how you can find listings for anything from a roller-skate repair shop to a studio to learn fencing, you can equally come up with just about anything on the App Store. Both feature an insurmountable amount of content that’s hard to even imagine, and both Yelp and the App Store orbit around an equally important customer review system. Sure, sites like ours provide a more “official” venue for long-form reviews, just like a proper newspaper columnist would offer restaurant reviews, but I’d argue that a platform for legitimate customer reviews is just as useful.

“Legitimate” being the key word here. Developers on our forums have encouraged players to leave reviews for their games since, well, the birth of the review system. This sort of vague motivation generally results in reviews which I’d describe as both thoughtful and extremely useful for fellow App Store shoppers. Whether the particular review has a positive or negative slant usually doesn’t matter, as people who are leaving reviews just for the sake of leaving reviews often form at least a semi-intelligent argument for why you should (or shouldn’t) download something.

Then two things started happening.

Developers started putting these sorts of annoying pop-ups in game, interrupting gameplay to pressure players into leaving a review. Also, they forged this strange ultimatum of sorts, dangling the potential promise of future updates in exchange for five star reviews. In my opinion, both of these things taint the entire review process to the point of bordering on complete uselessness.

If you’re already into the second world of Ragdoll Blaster 3 [99¢] and you get this confusing pop-up asking if you like the game, why would you tap “no”? So, you hit “yes,” but at this point your head isn’t in a “alright I’m going to sit down and write something useful” space, you’re thinking, “I just want to get back to the game.” Similarly, if you’ve got a game you even vaguely enjoy and you notice the all-too-common update text that mentions something along the lines of “your five star reviews keep updates coming!” you’re not leaving a review because you want to assist in the purchasing decisions of the iOS gaming community, you’re doing it because you like free stuff.

I can’t really fault developers for this behavior either. It’s difficult to keep your head above water on the App Store, especially when there’s only space on the top lists for around couple hundred apps/games to be even making a decent amount of money at a time. Deciding you’re going to take the moral high ground and not beg for reviews could make the difference between keeping the lights on in your studio or not.

So, anyway, switching gears back to Yelp, if you’ve used it at all you’ve likely noticed that nearly all reviews you come across are at least somewhat useful. You almost never see reviews like these on Yelp:

You might stumble across the occasional funny but vague review, or reviews that are as simple as “Try the tacos!” but I’d argue that both of those are more useful than “love it” or “hate it” with an accompaniment of one to five stars.

Yelp accomplishes this in two interesting ways.

First off, there’s a real motivation to build your own profile up on Yelp. They’ve done an outstanding job of making your Yelp profile something you’d link your friends to show them what sort of things you enjoy locally, or maybe places you went to on vacation. It features all the social networking tropes that make it feel like home, complete with a basic avatar system and space for superfluous personal details such as “favorite thing.” As a Yelp user, you don’t want to leave a useless review because the profile creates a feeling of ownership to your reviews, and provides a record of all the places you’ve been. Comparatively, this is about the closest thing you have on iTunes.

There’s no ownership to that page. No customization, and no reason at all why you’d ever link it to someone or include it on the links on the side of your blog, or anywhere else that you’d normally put links you care about. There’s more to it than that. Even with a profile, some people will just flat out never get invested enough into things to put forth that effort to produce good reviews. Similarly, automated review spammers don’t care at all that they can have an avatar. This is where the truly ingenious Yelp review filter comes in to play.

Check out this fantastic video which details how and why it works:

The crazy part about the Yelp review filter is it works so well you don’t even know it’s there. As mentioned, I’ve been using Yelp for years. Yelp explained how the filter worked around the same time I officially joined the site. I discovered that it existed only a few weeks ago when I noticed that I could solve a CAPTCHA at the bottom of a restaurant’s review listing. Doing so revealed reviews of the same caliber of App Store reviews, what have systematically been deemed worthless by the Yelp review filter.

Apple has the resources to make the App Store incredible, and make app reviews just as useful as Yelp reviews for a new restaurant. They’ve already dabbled in building a low-level social network inside of iTunes via the Ping music service. A similar feed or apps that friends of mine are buying (and hopefully reviewing) would be immensely useful. From there, you’re only an avatar, a tidy URL, and a few silly profile data points to having something that people would genuinely want to link people, and in the process, pour effort into maintaining beyond “★☆☆☆☆ sux” or “★★★★★ ownz”.

Genius for apps already exists, and provides great recommendations for things you should try based on your previous purchases. I can’t imagine it being much effort to massage that same algorithm into flagging drive-by low-content reviews from people who can’t be bothered to spend more than 10 seconds typing out a coherent thought, review bots up voting, or people mudslinging with one star reviews of apps/games they don’t like- Especially if it falls out of line with what this customer would typically enjoy per Genuis.

Can you even imagine how different the purchase experience would be on the App Store if reading customer reviews was closer to reading product reviews on Amazon? Comparatively, just think for a second how much a wild west style review system like the App Store currently has would completely ruin sites like Amazon, Yelp, and others that are dependent on honest and thoughtful customer reviews for purchase decisions.

And no, the “Was this review helpful?” system is not a solution. All that seems to have proven is that, in some strange way, the App Store hive mind believes that of the 11,546 reviews for the current version of Angry Birds, this is the most useful:

This is one of the best games I’ve ever played! Plus it extends your time on the toilet by a good 10 hours.”

I rest my case.

The Yelp system is by no means perfect. Yelp has been the the target of all sorts of accusations both from business owners and internet conspiracy theorists. However, the fact remains: When I read Yelp, I almost without fail genuinely feel like the reviews are useful to me. App Store reviews, on the other hand, generally just result in a whole series of face palms.

I’d love if that changed.

[source]

The Corpse Party series of video games have been loitering around my “I really should play these some day” game list since I first heard about them a few years ago. The games have some crazy roots behind them, as the first title was made in RPG Maker, a point and click game studio that was responsible for countless terrible ultra-indie RPG games. My personal favorite of these RPG Maker games was Chef Boyardee’s Barkley, Shut Up & Jam: Gaiden, Chapter 1 of the Hoopz Barkley SaGa. (Yes, that’s a real game, watch the trailer. No really, watch it.) Anyway, Corpse Party has had two different remakes since then, the most recent of which landed as a downloadable title for the PSP in late 2010. A sequel arrived around a year later, and there have even been two manga adaptations. One was even published by Square Enix.

If this is the first time you’ve heard of Corpse Party, Joystiq’s JC Fletcher put together an awesome description of what the game is all about. In essence, it’s your typical 16 bit JRPG that jumps the rails in a big way. You quickly find yourself in a nightmare dimension where no one can see each other, doors don’t work, windows are blocked by human hair, and evidence of countless child murders are everywhere. (Making you wonder how this is getting by the App Store approval department, eh?) There’s a cast of characters who are subjected to the torture of this environment, and you sit by and watch what unfolds.

What interested me about this crazy game is that there’s tons of “bad endings,” like a Choose Your Own Adventure book. I’ve always really liked games that divert from a linear roller coaster ride to letting you screw up, and then showing you the consequences. The PSP version is even constructed with selectable chapters to allow you to go back and explore all these different outcomes.

According to Andriasang, Corpse Party will be hitting the Japanese App Store this week for ¥2,200 which in US App Store pricing would be $29.99. No word yet on a localized English release, but I figure if the game will be available for iOS devices with Japanese text, an English adaptation can’t be that far off, since presumably the translation already exists from the PSP game.

Fingers crossed, anyway.

[Famitsu via Andriasang via Joystiq]

[source]

Check this: footage of Oceanhorn, the Cornfox & Brothers adventure game joint that seems to resemble the best Zelda ever in both style and tone, is now available. We’ve embedded the video just below for your viewing pleasure and aren’t worried in the slightest that it will be pulled despite being labeled as a “secret” video. This is a PR stunt for a title that made waves when first announced, and hasn’t seen substantial coverage since.

We’re not complaining, by the way. We want to see more and realize that Oceanhorn: Monster of Uncharted Seas could be a big deal when it hits later this 2012. Not only is it fascinatingly gorgeous, but it’s also mechanically and functionally inspired by Zelda. The world desperately needs more of these kinds of games, and if these cats can pull it off, a lot of people are going to be very happy.

Also, in entirely unrelated but sort of related news: If you’re into Wind Waker, check out this fan-made imaginary Wii U sequel trailer that just hit YouTube and is blowing up all over Twitter. Bananas!

[source]

Did you know that penguins spend up to 75% of their time underwater, looking for food in the ocean? Or, if Chillingo’s recent Greedy Penguins [99¢/Lite] is to be believed, they spend 85% of their time on ice floes, waiting for you to feed them, 10% of their time playing guitar and burping, and 5% of their time getting eaten by ravenous Orcas.

Greedy Penguins is a bird-centric physics puzzler (what a concept!) that revolves around you finding ways to get incredibly stressed-out fish in the mouths of the correspondingly-colored penguins. You tap the fish to drop it from its hook and get it rolling, then through a combination of timing and obstacle-clearing, get it to the right-colored penguin. Once your penguin is successfully fed, he coughs up ice cream, which you tap to feed each level’s companion and get bonus points when completing the level, garnering a one, two, or three-fish rating.

The concept isn’t new, but the execution feels good. I found myself really enjoying this game, as much for the cute graphics and theme as for the well-designed puzzles. While the earlier puzzles seem easy (don’t they always?), once I really got going it became quite challenging to make sure I got the fish moving in order to clear obstacles. I found myself failing some levels multiple times. Since each level is short, I didn’t mind too much, but it did remind me of how bad my timing is (I still get night terrors regarding the Cave of Wonders level from Aladdin for the Sega Genesis).

Another challenge, though one not personally experienced, is that the colors chosen for each penguin and their food make the game exceptionally trying for color blind people. As mentioned in the forum thread, those who can’t see colors will have a heck of a time getting through this game. If you’re persistent and don’t mind some trial-and-error, you might still enjoy it, but as a person who had enough trouble being able to clearly see everything, I would probably recommend skipping it until a color blind option is added.

The other thing that I personally didn’t like was the in-app purchase option. I’m generally of the conservative “in-app purchase?! Not in my paid app!” mindset (I am a bit of an old person, after all), and my thoughts on Greedy Penguins are no different. Simply beating every level in a world isn’t enough to unlock the next set of levels. In order to unlock the second and third igloos (worlds of 12 puzzles each), you need to have either collected thirty fish (out of only thirty-six) or pay 99¢.

The game also encourages you to waste time in levels by tapping the penguins and their companions to make them do “funny animations,” making it unlikely that you’ll get a perfect score of three fish on your first try. Crafty, no? I don’t know about you, but I don’t really like replaying levels of games just to gain points (or fish) in order to unlock content that I feel entitled to, having already purchased the app.

All things considered, Greedy Penguins is a well-crafted – though hardly groundbreaking – puzzle game. It’s fun and extremely well-executed, with enough challenging puzzles to keep you occupied. If you’ve got a dollar or two burning a hole in your pocket, I’d definitely recommend giving it a spin, especially since it’s Universal. If not, well, you can always get your penguin fix from this video!

TouchArcade Rating:

[source]

Numberlys [$5.99] is an interactive story from Moonbot Studios, which is promoted as a story, mystery and game. It started out as a short film, but when the iPad was announced they changed direction and eventually created this lovely visual experience for us to enjoy.

We don’t usually review interactive stories or children’s games, but Numberlys caught our eye due to it’s stylish artistic quality …and, for the record, it does include mini-games.

In a colorless world filled with numbers, five of the citizens wanted a change and set about inventing the alphabet. The story is told through beautiful black and white animated graphics which are clearly inspired by the classic sci-fi film Metropolis, but with a modern touch.

It’s a children’s story, but adults can enjoy the wonderful presentation, music and sound effects. Text cut-scenes are displayed, like old-fashioned subtitles (just like Metropolis) and the story is also conveyed verbally by a narrator, who has the perfect voice and accent for this particular tale.

During the animated film, items appear in red if they’re interactive. For example, touching a red light-bulb above a character will make them say their line. Or pressing a red button might trigger the next piece of animation. Sometimes you turn or swipe an object, to help construct the next letter of the alphabet. There’s only one pathway through the story, so your actions don’t really change the outcome. However, although the interactive component is limited, it does help you to feel involved.

There are eighteen “mini-games” to play, like tapping the five main characters to create the “ayyyyy” sound of the letter “A”, but there’s no passing, failing or scores (which was an intentional design decision). It’s more about interacting with the characters and story world. The mini-games are easy and can generally be completed within a minute, but again, they’re not intended to be challenging or drawn out. It’s more about the experience.

Other mini-games include brick-breaker and whack-a-mole variants and aim-and-shoot games, which all sounds quite cheesy, but they’re actually presented with a stylish quality that’s consistent with the rest of the app.  Although, some of the mini-games are repeated, with the jumping game appearing a few times.

I watched Numberlys in a quiet room, on a comfy couch and enjoyed the 28 scenes within an hour. Afterwards I watched some of their behind-the-scenes footage, from which it’s clear the development team are proud of their work.  I’ve enjoyed and savored Numberlys, but like any film, I probably won’t watch it again for a while, but it could be a recurring treat for a young child.

TouchArcade Rating:

[source]

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.

[source]