game posts

Tiptop is a game that came out back in April of this year. It's a take on the Lemmings genre (which asks you to guide little characters through a map to an exit), and it uses line drawing to create paths for the characters, leading them around obstacles or across gaps. The style of the game is nuts, with lots of silly abstract flourishes and jokes, and the action can get frantic at times.

The game is now a universal app, and the graphics have been updated as well. Both versions are free to download, though the app is really just a trial version, with only four levels to play. The rest of the game can be unlocked with a US$0.99 in-app purchase, so if you like the free content and want to get the whole thing, it won't cost you any more than a buck.

We'll start with the obvious: Samurai II: Vengeance is one of the best, if not the best, looking games I've ever seen on the iPhone. It is simply gorgeous, with a unique, cel-shaded look filling out incredible 3D worlds. I'm excited for Epic Citadel's progeny, of course, but this one's in a class all its own in terms of the graphics. It's just amazing.

The gameplay isn't quite as astounding, but it's still quality. You play a samurai who (surprise!) is looking for vengeance and has to hack and slash his way through hordes of bad guys. Attacks are combo-based, and controls are responsive enough, given that they're based on overlay buttons, to pull off the attacks you want. Enemies are somewhat repetitive, but in an action game like this, that's kind of the way it works. And speaking of action, things can get kind of gory. Sometimes, by attacking just right, you'll up and chop a guy's head off or even slice him in half. That might be offputting if you're a more casual gamer, but what did you think was going to happen if you ran around swinging a samurai sword?

The game is US$2.99, and when you consider that includes both iPhone and iPad versions as well as Game Center integration and a survival mode, Samurai II: Vengeance is a bargain at twice the price. Definitely pick it up, if only to wander through the game's world and marvel at the way it's all portrayed.

I'm a sucker for retro 8-bit games, and the addicting iPhone/iPad game The Incident is no exception. Its interface is simplistic, but gameplay is fast and fun. What's more, it's a universal app that costs only $1.99 -- a bargain!

The app has just recently undergone a significant update, including a new "Endless Night" mode, additional objects and music, and new balloon power-ups/downs. But the neatest addition to the app is the ability to use your iPad as the gameplay screen and an iPhone as the controller!

I gave the game a go in controller-mode, and it was surprisingly responsive. Tilt the phone to move Mr. Soloway to the left and right, tap the screen to jump -- that's all the controls you need, and they work flawlessly. Thankfully they made it difficult to accidentally tap out of controller mode, requiring you to use a slider to deactivate.

Of course, you need both an iPad and iPhone to try the new controller feature. If you have both, definitely give it a try. Hopefully we'll see a lot more games give this feature a go in the future.

We've posted about GameSalad here before -- the company offers up a third-party development and publishing solution that allows anyone, even non-coders, to jump into the GS SDK, make a game, and then quickly publish it out to the web or platforms like Apple's App Store. The company has been narrowing its focus recently after a round of funding -- last week at GDC, it announced that the Gendai Games brand was no more, and instead it would be consolidating everything under the name "GameSalad."

This week GameSalad continued in that focus with a service called GameSalad Direct. Previously, developers could pay a fee to simply remove GameSalad's branding from apps created with the software, and sell those apps on the App Store under their own Apple developer accounts. That will still work for GameSalad developers for now, but when those accounts expire, everything will move to GameSalad Direct, which instead will either be free for devs publishing free games, or part of a revenue share for publishers wanting to sell paid apps.

That means GameSalad game devs won't use their own Apple accounts any more -- presumably, everything created by GameSalad in the store will need to be published under the GameSalad banner. That has raised some hackles on GameSalad's forums, and Apple might not be too happy with it either (since if developers do sign with GameSalad, that's potentially a lost developer connection). We've contacted GameSalad to get some more information on the change and an official perspective on the reaction to the news.

On the last day of GDC this week, I heard from developer Anthony LaMantia, who had a new game named Moon'd that he wanted to show me. We met up in the lobby of the Austin Convention Center, and I got to play around for a bit with his game, a platformer with a strange twist. Instead of playing as a cartoony character like Mario or Sonic, you play as a 3D block and use left and right buttons (along with a jump) to "roll" the block around some abstract stages.

It's a weird setup, but it works. The controls are a little flighty, but responsive, and the physics allow you to do some interesting things while moving around, like catching the edge of a block on a platform, or pushing a ball underneath you. LaMantia said that the plot involves saving the cow that jumped over the moon, but I didn't see any sign of the cow anywhere except the title screen. The stages involve getting your cube to the end of an area, or collecting a certain number of coins along the way.

WINtA is probably the best brand new game that I've seen so far at GDC Online 2010 (this week in Austin, Texas). It's a title published by a group called OneBigGame, which is a nonprofit video game publisher. They commission and publish games, which are created for free by luminaries in the video game field, and then they sell them to customers for money that goes straight to charities around the world. Founder Martin de Ronde took the stage at GDC to allegedly talk about how to take an app from iPhone to the iPad, but what he actually did was show off this really amazing game and music platform, and he gave a road map to where the iPad version will eventually go.

"WINtA" stands for "War is Not The Answer," which is what game creator Masaya Matsuura felt after September 11th, and that's what he wanted to transfer into game form. WINtA itself is actually a rhythm game -- Matsuura is well known in the gaming community for making PaRappa the Rapper, which is a highly regarded PlayStation game known for pioneering the genre that eventually launched Guitar Hero and Tap Tap Revolution. de Ronde approached Matsuura under the OneBigGame banner, asking if he would create a game to sell for charity, and with the help of Dutch developer Triangle Studios, Matsuura came up with WINtA. The app will be out on the App Store for free later this year.

Check out more, including a video of the demonstration, after the break.

One of the best reasons to come to a conference like GDC Online (which I'm at this week in Austin, Texas) is touching base with others in the iPhone and iPad community and sharing your favorite apps with each other. I've been hooking as many people as I can on Pocket Frogs (I just passed 50% of awards completed, and the app just added Game Center integration in a new update), and my colleague Jeff Scott of 148Apps recommended Blue Defense: Second Wave! to me. Blue Defense is a top-down shooter with an iPhone twist -- instead of moving your ship around as it shoots down enemy ships in 2D, you tilt your iPhone (or just touch the screen) to aim a planetary cannon, taking out ships as they come to you.

The tilt interface is very intuitive, and there are even some fun multitouch functions. You can split your fire by double-tapping anywhere to create fixed aiming sights, or even grab and drag away from the planet to shoot a gigantic screen-clearing gun. This is actually the second version of the game, so there are multiple modes to get through, including two infinite modes that you can use to try and raise your score up on the game's leaderboards. There are also lots of levels to play and medals to earn while doing so. The graphics are 2D, with a simple but smooth and well-designed look, and the Retina Display makes the game look great.

Blue Defense: Second Wave! is an excellent title for just US$1.99. It's also a universal build, so I bet it'll look even better on the iPad. I've heard some other good app recommendations from the panels and attendees here at the show, so stay tuned all week for more.

Saving Private Sheep is a fun one, especially if you like Angry Birds (and there are plenty of you out there who do). Saving Private Sheep is another physics-based puzzler. This time, instead of throwing birds at pigs, you have to save sheep from wolves by tapping various wooden objects in a scene and blowing them up to try and land the pentagonal sheep safely on the ground. It may sound confusing, but once you play the game (which you can do in a free trial), it makes much more sense.

The game's 80 levels will have you exploding crates, breaking ice, dropping pulleys, tossing objects around, and trying to earn as many gold medals as you can (by exploding as few items as possible as quickly as possible). And the best part is that the game's on sale for just 99 cents right now. It's not exactly the same as Angry Birds, but the game has a very Angry Birds-style feel to it, so if you like that one, give this one a shot as well.

Just the other day, I was talking about larger gaming companies using iPhone games to promote their major titles, and here you go: Microsoft and Lionhead Studios' Peter Molyneaux are set to introduce a "smartphone" game next week (presumably that means iPhone, although given that it's Microsoft, it might not be) that will tie-in to the upcoming Fable 3 release on the Xbox 360. The game will be called "Kingmaker," and it sounds like it'll be an augmented reality title, with UK players able to explore their real-world town and "plant virtual flags for the Royals or the Rebels." Every flag planted will earn in-game gold, and that gold will transfer over to the full console title when it is released later this year.

Unfortunately, there are still a few questions -- a release about the game only mentions the UK, and of course, that "smartphone" label means it might not be coming to the iPhone. But there's not long to wait, at least. The official site for the game says it's coming out on October 1st. We'll keep an eye on both the site and the game -- even if this doesn't end up being an iPhone title, there's no question that other developers will be watching to see how it works, and thinking about how they might use this strategy for their own titles.

I'm not one to give up on hope. I've been trying out various incarnations of branded Jeopardy games since dinosaurs roamed the earth (I believe that T. Rex used an early version of Microsoft Windows before going extinct). The latest version to grace us is a US $1.99 mobile app, now available from App Store for iPhone and other iOS devices.

Duly licensed from Sony, this JEOPARDY! game (with mandatory caps and exclamation point, of course) brings the same branded detail as many of the previous versions while completely missing the point of what makes Jeopardy fun.

It's multiple choice.

Honestly, I spent all day yesterday playing Pocket Frogs, so go try that if you haven't yet. But since we covered that one earlier this week, I'll tell you about Unearthed. To be honest, I don't exactly know how it all works. The app is complicated, and getting it to do what you want it to do is half the fun. It's designed to be like a government security app, except there's no five-inch thick manual binder to go along with it. The idea is that the app turns your iPhone into an "anomaly scanner," and with augmented reality, you're tasked with scanning various alien beings in the world around you. It's a little hard to explain, but once you play around with it, it's pretty trippy. You use the iPhone's camera (3GS or better required) to look around the actual space you're in, and aliens of various kinds appear on the screen as if they were actually there. Scan them in, and you earn points towards leaderboards and get recognized with bonuses and upgrades.

Unfortunately, as a game, Unearthed leaves something to be desired. It's a little clumsy, and as I said, it's not entirely clear what is happening, even when you figure out what all of the little buttons and lights do. A tutorial mode would be quite helpful, if the idea wasn't to engage the conspiracy theorist side of your mind.

But as an experience, Unearthed is definitely worth checking out. Fortunately, it's a free app that's supported by some in-game purchases for access to the highest levels. If nothing else, give it a download and see for yourself just how freaky augmented reality games can be.

Left 4 Dead is the last promised Valve title to see release on Steam for Mac, and yet we haven't heard anything about an official release date. Valve was moving along pretty well for a while there, releasing games for our platform every Wednesday. But they've petered out lately, leaving a lot of Mac gamers wondering if we'd ever get to shoot zombies along with the rest of the gaming world. But a slip found by our former cohort David Chartier, now at Macworld, hints that we'll be exploring the zombie apocalypse soon -- he notes that Valve is bringing the game's new downloadable content, "The Sacrifice," to all platforms, including the Mac, by October 5th.

The Sacrifice is an extra level that's available for both the first and second games in the series, so there's still a chance that Valve will only give us the original Left 4 Dead, and save the sequel for later. But I'd guess the reason for the long delay is that they're bringing both games over, so we might see both of them released on Steam for Mac by then.

Of course, this could just be a slip of the blog, with the Mac just accidentally listed as an available platform. But that doesn't seem likely -- Valve tends to be careful about what they say. To whet your appetite, check out the game's brand new comic, created just for the new DLC.

Chillingo invited us out to the headquarters of surfwear manufacturer Billabong yesterday for a look at a new iPhone and iPad game called Billabong Surf Trip. The game is designed by a Portugese developer named Biodroid Entertainment (who told me that they've done some work on other consoles, but this is their first title for Apple's iOS). As you may have guessed from the name, the title is sponsored by Billabong, and features the ability to create a surfer and then send him or her around the world to take on the waves.

Before I sat down to play the game, I asked Billabong's PR Director Jim Kempton about why they'd gotten involved in an iPhone game, and he said the goal of the game was to "introduce people to what surfing is about, on the level that we're hoping to cast an interest anyway." You don't have to be a surfer to enjoy the game, but enjoying the game might get you interested in surfing, and thus the Billabong brand. "Just like the professional football or professional golf circuit, most people," said Kempton," are never going to be playing any more than messing around at the local golf club, but they can understand how it works, or what it means to go to Augusta, or Scotland, or these places."

Auditorium is that rare kind of game that's a must-play no matter what kind of gamer you are. It's a puzzle game, a music game, and a piece of art at various times. It's out now on the iPhone courtesy of EA (and the main download is absolutely free), but even if you don't want to take up space on your mobile device, just head over to the website and play the Flash demo for a little bit. My guess is that you'll be taken by the beauty and originality, at least enough to pop over to the App Store and download the main game.

The idea is that there is a stream of music flowing through each level, and it's your job to use the various widgets you've been given to shape and paint the music into certain spots on the board. As you move through the levels, you'll get more and more adept at sending the flow where you need it to go. Fortunately, the puzzles get harder and harder as you play, creating a great curve of both learning and adjusting your mind enough to find the right solution.

The main game is free, and then you can purchase all of the levels in three different packs, at 99 cents each. But even for the whole three bucks, this is quite an experience; it's more than worth the price. Again, if you're doubtful, give the demo a try, and see if you're not convinced to try the whole thing in order to see where it goes.

Game Center is almost out in consumers' hands, but that hasn't stopped the folks at OpenFeint from pushing forward on their unofficial social network for gamers. PlayTime is a newly-announced feature of the third-party social networking software that will allow players on both iOS and Android to play in real-time with each other, and even use voice chat while doing that. OpenFeint is splitting its multiplayer services into two different paths: "Casual" games will use highscores to offer up multiplayer and even co-op challenges, while "Core" games will actually run real-time multiplayer, in conjunction with a system from a company called Exit Games.

Sounds interesting -- the new features are being tested by developers right now, and will be available in OpenFeint sometime later on this year. Game Center will definitely make a big splash in iPhone gaming when it gets released next week, but OpenFeint is still planning on sticking around and innovating where even Apple hasn't yet dared to go. iOS game players will be glad to have both around when all is said and done.