Category Archives: Exclusives

Avast, Me Hearties! Our Booty Be “Stoneship” from Cyan!

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Avast, Me Hearties! Our Booty Be “Stoneship” from Cyan! is a post from: Best Iphone Apps Review Website

Aaaaaaarrrrrrrrr!!!

For the lot o' ye landlubbers readin' this post, I first be tellin' ye today be International Talk Like a Pirate Day. All ye squiffies not knowin' this a'fore ought be keelhauled off me vessle! For the rest of ye buccaneers, enjoy the sweet trade 'till the sun be settin'! One lot o' scallywags that would ne'er be missin' this great, grand day be the scurvy dogs o'er at Cyan Worlds, thar in the far nor' west. And how timely it be for 'em to bestow such booty upon yer bold and mighty scriber (that be me) as a pre-release build of their latest 'ware, Stoneship: Curse of a Thousand Islands! (And I be not talkin' about the dressin', yer can be sure!) </piratespeak>

Indeed, never quite able to find enough ways to properly celebrate this fine holiday, I must thank Cyan Worlds for providing us with an exclusive preview build of their upcoming title, Stoneship. It has made my day of festivities that much richer.

As Cyan indicated to us earlier, Stoneship: The Curse of a Thousand Islands represents "a lighthearted new direction" for the studio. Cyan describes the game as a casual, top-down, turn-based, strategy puzzle game. That's quite a string of adjectives. After spending a bit of time with the game in its current form, I can say that each of those descriptors indeed apply. And, as such, it's something of a difficult title to nutshell for the uninitiated — but I'll try, and in two different ways.

I will first give a rather general characterization of the game "on paper," is it were. Stoneship sets you and your first mate on the high seas, charged with exploring, controlling, and protecting vast oceans and islands, under continual threat of pirate sieges and tangles with ghastly monsters from the deep. The game is played by moving about any given level, uncovering obscured blocks of both land and sea in an attempt to discover ports, and temples (and, as a result, weaponry) as well as rafts of men lost at sea who will join your forces, as well as the location of any pirate ships that make your forces necessary in the first place.

Once you find a port, it becomes your own…as well as a target for pirates in the area. Each level has a set number of moves you're permitted to execute before the inevitable pirate onslaught ensues. Multiple ports can be linked together to allow resource (battle-ready men) sharing, which is all about shifting men from port to port in the 10 second count-down before the pirate attack comes. Of course, you can only set things up to your advantage here if you've uncovered the location of the lurking pirates in your set number of turns. If not, the pirates come from one of the remaining hidden blocks on the map (which is pretty much a bad thing).

The core play mode is Campaign, which is a round-to-round push through the eighty three included levels (with additional levels to come later via update). A Challenge mode is also offered, which is a sort-of pick and choose affair.

Stoneship is not a complicated game — really, it's not. But it sounds like it might be, described thus. And so, in a move not typical for our demo videos, I've recorded nearly the entire tutorial session, which explains the gameplay by example, far better than I can with words alone. The action in the video steps up towards the end, after the tutorial, but forgive what must necessarily be somewhat of a less exciting, if highly informative, glimpse of the game in action.

It does take a little while to get the hang of, but after a few rounds, it ends up feeling quite natural.

The pre-release build we were given feels quite close to complete, with the minor issue here and there that should be addressed prior to launch. Stoneship is expected to soon make it's App Store appearance, and an update will shortly follow, bringing with it various enhancements including Game Center support.

Stoneship: The Curse of a Thousand Islands is a casual and interesting mix of ingredients from a number of different formulas that come together to make up a rather unique title. We hope Stoneship marks the beginning of a series of new iOS releases from MYST-maker Cyan.


Exclusive Hands-On with Upcoming ‘GravBot’ from Team Phobic

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Exclusive Hands-On with Upcoming ‘GravBot’ from Team Phobic is a post from: Best Iphone Apps Review Website

A few weeks ago we showed a new trailer for an upcoming gravity-based puzzle platforming game called GravBot from Team Phobic. They have since sent us a near-final build of the game, and after completing nearly all of it, I'm thoroughly impressed with just about everything that GravBot has to offer. Team Phobic has already proven that they know how to bring cute, colorful graphics and excellent level designs with Bounce On [$1.99/Lite] and Bounce On 2 [$3.99/Lite], and those skills have translated well into the creation of GravBot. The levels start out simple enough and ease you into the different elements in the game, but as you progress GravBot will really test your puzzle solving skills and force you to look at each level from every angle.

In GravBot, you'll play as a tiny robot who must collect all of the batteries on each perilous level. In order to accomplish this, you can spin the entire level either 90 degrees left or right or entirely upside down to change the direction of gravity. Your robot can travel left and right on its single tire, and will fall towards whichever way happens to be down at the time. Levels are filled with hazards like spikes, enemies, and lasers which will kill instantly if not avoided. The batteries can be tricky to get to, and a color-coded system of trapdoors, elevators, and various other obstacles will need to be triggered by switching a lever or pushing blocks onto buttons – all in the name of snagging every last battery on a given level.

While just completing each level is sufficiently challenging and fun, the real hook to GravBot is trying to obtain gold medals for each one. The game keeps track of how many times you switched gravity to complete a level, with bronze/silver/gold medals awarded for using it efficiently. What is really satisfying is when you figure out a way to win gold using fewer gravity switches than is required. Due to the physics engine in the game, you can sometimes make it to a hard to reach area without changing the gravity and instead gliding through the air or just barely catching the edge of a platform and hanging on. These types of moves can be risky however, and if you don't pull one off just right you can easily fall to your death. If you do happen to beat a level using a ridiculously low number of gravity switches, you will be immortalized in leaderboard form thanks to the Plus+ network, and there are a number of achievements to obtain as well.

GravBot looks and sounds absolutely great, with Retina Display enhanced graphics and catchy music and sound effects. I especially love the little blips and bloops that your robot will spout out during the game, and he has a ton of personality for essentially being a TV set with a wheel. GravBot has already been submitted and Team Phobic is shooting for a September 30th release. The game will be free to download and comes with 12 levels, with two additional 20 level packs available as in-app purchase for 99¢ apiece. The 12 free levels aren't terribly difficult and serve mostly to get you familiar with the game, but the additional level packs contain some seriously challenging stuff that should keep you busy for quite a while. Make sure to head over to the upcoming thread in our forums to check out more about GravBot, and we'll take another look at the game when it hits the App Store later this month.


Sega’s Classic RPG ‘Shining Force’ Coming This Thursday

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Sega’s Classic RPG ‘Shining Force’ Coming This Thursday is a post from: Best Iphone Apps Review Website

As mentioned in our review of Ecco the Dolphin and Space Harrier II, we're glad that Sega is bringing these classic games to the App Store, but action packed platformers and arcade games of days of yore combined with mediocre emulator performance on older devices and touch controls is not a good mix. Today Sega gave us a sneak peek of their upcoming classic RPG Shining Force running in this same emulator, and it is amazing how much the entire experience is improved when you're not playing a game that is based on quick reactions, high frame rates, or precise controls.

Shining Force is a tactical RPG with turn-based battles that take place on square grids. Originally released in the USA in 1993, Shining Force is about as classic as you get when it comes to a Sega RPG. Not only has it been included in various classic game collections that Sega has released on numerous platforms over the years, but it also saw a remake in 2004 for the Gameboy Advance. This is the original Genesis version of the game, set in the land of Rune where you play a silent protagonist who recruits allies to the Shining Force to ultimately prevent the evil Darksol from resurrecting a Dark Dragon, destroying the world, and doing all those other things which have since become entirely cliche for RPG villains to do.

While Shining Force may seem a little basic if you haven't played it before and your first exposure to turn based strategy games was Final Fantasy Tactics or later games, Shining Force has everything it needs for a great old school RPG. Each character has their own class (and personality which is often revealed throughout the story) along with special abilities. As you battle your units level up, and my favorite feature of Shining Force always was that there never really is a game over. If your party falls in battle you retain all your experience earned and just try again. Of course there are all kinds of items to buy, treasure to find, gear to equip, and everything else you'd expect as well.

According to Sega, Shining Force is set to be released this Thursday. If you've been looking for a game to supplement the two Final Fantasy games that were released not too long ago, look no further.


Upcoming ‘Deadly Dungeon’ 3D Hack ‘N’ Slash Submitted to Apple

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Upcoming ‘Deadly Dungeon’ 3D Hack ‘N’ Slash Submitted to Apple is a post from: Best Iphone Apps Review Website

Deadly Dungeon is a new 3D dungeon-crawling hack 'n' slash game for the iPhone and iPod touch. It seems to be somewhat Diablo-esque in the way the dungeon is presented, the real-time enemy combat, and loot collecting. It doesn't appear that there's much in the way of weapons or gear to equip on your warrior, but there are two playable main characters with a female warrior able to be purchased with in-game gold. The graphics and animation shown in the video are really impressive, with huge enemies and nice lighting and magical attacks.

Details from the developer:

  • 8 levels
  • 3 enemy types: Skeletons, Ogres and Goblins
  • Collect gold to unlock extra playable Female Warrior and extra swords
  • 4 magic spells per playable character
  • Great 3d art/animations, music and sound effects
  • OpenFeint achievements and leaderboards integration

While we're certainly impressed with the visuals portrayed in the video, we do have some reservations about the game. First, it doesn't appear that there's much variety in the dark dungeon setting. Playing through 8 levels of the same environment may get monotonous. On that same note, only having 3 different enemies seems a bit lacking, although those huge ogres are pretty cool. It may just be a bit too basic for gamers who are normally into this type of game, although that remains to be seen until we've actually played it. Still, it has a great look to it and a lot of potential. The magic attacks seem interesting and the ability to play as a female character is a nice addition.

Deadly Dungeon was submitted on Sunday for review from Apple. Barring any unforeseen complications, we should be seeing the game arrive in the next week or so. The price is said to be at 99¢ or $1.99, with the possiblility of being free at first release for early adopters. Due to the graphical intensity, it's recommended for newer hardware (2nd generation iPod touch and above). We'll be taking a closer look at the final version when it's available.


‘Meteor Blitz HD’ Coming Out Soon

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‘Meteor Blitz HD’ Coming Out Soon is a post from: Best Iphone Apps Review Website

One of our most highly rated games on the App Store, Meteor Blitz [$2.99 / Free] by Alley Labs, is getting an iPad specific HD version. If you have some how missed this game completely since its September release last year, here is a recap of a few of it's succeses:

And if that is not enough to convince you on how good of a game this is, we highly recommend trying the 3 level Lite version of Meteor Blitz [Free] to see for yourself.

There is a lot about the game that we liked from the iPhone version like near-instant load times, auto-save, real-time high score rankings, and great controls that we look forward to playing on the larger screen.

Meteor Blitz HD includes new features such as an extended remix soundtrack, separate high score leaderboards from the iPhone version, a larger playing field, new effects, including slow-motion blur, and more intense particle systems, an option to enable or disable the automatic gravity gun, and all the features from the original, including auto-pause, auto-save/resume, smooth gameplay and controls.

Here is a gameplay video from the developers of the iPad version of Meteor Blitz:

Meteor Blitz HD will be $4.99 and has already been submitted to Apple, so we should expect to see it soon on the App Store. Our impressions on the HD version should be out shortly after this hits the store. We haven't been huge fans of dual-stick controls on the iPad with previous titles, so we'll have to see how one of our iPhone favorites makes the transition.


‘Sigma’ – An Awesome Looking Upcoming Match 3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10… Game

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‘Sigma’ – An Awesome Looking Upcoming Match 3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10… Game is a post from: Best Iphone Apps Review Website

The developers of Sally's Spa [$2.99] and Hottie Hookups [$.99] are about to release their newest game, Sigma. Entering a new category of games, BigStack Studios has created a marvelous looking match-3 game.

Using multi-touch, you can independently spin two columns of blocks on either side of the screen. Tapping either side of the screen sends blocks back and forth across the screen. Once a match has been created, you'll have a couple of seconds to tag additional blocks on to the cluster before the whole thing explodes. Overall, it reminds us of an enhanced version of Unify.

The goal is to create huge blocks of the same color to earn the most points, get power ups, and increase the point multipliers. There will be three different modes in Sigma; Sectors, Time Attack, and Multiplayer. Playing in Sector mode allows you to unlock up to 10 different themes, each with their own music track. Time Attack mode has three time lengths to score as many points as possible before the time runs out. And go head-to-head in Multiplayer mode to compete against your friends over local wifi or bluetooth connection. Sigma will also have the online social network Plus+ included in their game with awards to unlock and leader boards to submit your high scores and compete against the world.

Sigma should be available soon, look for it on the App Store in the near future. And to better see how Sigma will be played, check out this gameplay video:

We'll take a closer look when it arrives. The developers plan on submitting the game to Apple as early as today.


Amiga Platformer ‘Qwak’ Will Soon Waddle to the App Store

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Amiga Platformer ‘Qwak’ Will Soon Waddle to the App Store is a post from: Best Iphone Apps Review Website

Back in 1989 now-veteran UK game developer Jamie Woodhouse released a lively little puzzle / platformer called Qwak for the 8-bit BBC Micro home computer.  Not long after, he joined forces with Team17 to develop an enhanhced, two-player Amiga version of the game, which was released in 1993 and featured faster action and more frantic gameplay. The rather well-reviewed title (Amiga Computing magazine gave it a "Gamer Gold" 92% rating) later made its way to the Gameboy Advance as well as the Mac and PC.

We're pleased to report that Jamie recently got in touch to let us know that he has developed an iPhone version of Qwak and will shortly be launching it through the App Store.

In Qwak, you control a duck (get it?). Your objective is to guide this green duck through level after level of platforms, fruits and gems (worth points), bouncing enemies, power-ups to help demolish said enemies, and keys to unlock goodies as well as the level's exit gate. Your duck can run, jump, and fire volleys of egg projectiles to knock out the baddies. Grab a bonus item and watch a hale of colorful fruit rain down upon you. Take too long on a level and meet a hale of spikeballs. In a nutshell, I call it frenetic, fun, and rather fruity (to be alliteratively wanton).

I've spent some time with the exclusive prerelease build of the game Jamie provided us and it's been lovely to play. It's a touch-controlled affair with a left / right control in one corner and jump and egg-fire controls in the other. The vibrant visuals move about the screen as smooth as glass on the iPhone 3GS test device and a very Amiga-sounding score accompanies the action. It feels both retro and highly polished. It's a game platformer fans won't want to miss.

Additional details, I'll leave to the developer to provide (after the jump), as he was kind enough to grant us an interview along with the exclusive ad hoc build.

What were your inspirations for writing the original?  Are there any particular games you had in mind?

Well, there was a bunch of platform games on the Beeb I used to play; Blagger, Monters, Space Panic, Frak etc. I also went in the arcades a lot back then (so much so that I got kicked out of college), and I undoubtedly played Bubble Bobble, which Qwak gets compared to a lot.

What language did you use to write the BBC Micro version?

100% 6502 Assembler. You could quite easily mix BBC basic and assembler, or have 100% assembler; which a lot of game developers did back then, and you needed to, to get the best performance out of the very limited and slow hardware. Fun times!

Is the BBC Micro version, in fact, the original?

Yep, it’s the original. It was released in 1989 by Superior on a 4 game compilation. I still have a review of the game from a 1989 A&B Computing magazine; “The best game of the bunch has to be Qwak! Designed and coded by Jamie Woodhouse it is very addictive and great fun..”.

I think that was the first time I’d ever seen one of my games reviewed and in print; felt pretty good as I stood there reading the mag in the newsagents!

The '93 Amiga rework is a bit more fast paced / arcadey than the original. GBA and PC / Mac versions followed. It seems the iPhone ver is really an adaptation of the later versions, is that true?

Yeah, I guess it’s confusing with all the different versions all sharing the same name; but with different graphics and various gameplay mechanics…

The Beeb version came first, and the Amiga version was a good deal different to the Beeb version.

The GBA version came next, which was a port of the Amiga version, I used all the same graphics and levels etc; and just added in some scrolling to accommodate the GBA’s smaller screen resolution.

Actually, I couldn’t find a publisher for the GBA version so I had a load of carts shipped over from China and self-published a small limited run of carts. All sold out now!

Next came the PC version, which had completely new levels, more tricks and traps, different power-ups and secret bonuses; and a lot more going on visually to! The Mac version was a port of the PC version.

For the iPhone version of Qwak, I’ve managed to retain pretty much everything that’s going on with the PC version. It’s based on the PC version; but there’s a little scrolling, to squeeze the levels in to the smaller iPhone screen resolution. I don’t think it hurts the game-play too much.

How are you liking iPhone game development as opposed to what you've done on the Amiga, GBA and other platforms?

I’m absolutely loving it so far!

There’s a bit of a learning curve, with this being my first iPhone game; but I feel as if I’m making good progress and getting a good technical understanding of the platform.

The Amiga and GBA were also fun platforms to make games for; and as with the iPhone, you have a pretty solid idea of the minimum spec machine people will be playing your game on (which doesn’t happen with desktop game dev). Plus, it’s relatively a low powered device (compared to desktop PC’s), which is awesome! … because there’s more scope for programmer creativity in squeezing more performance from the device (game developers secretly love that kind of thing!).

The music track sounds very Amiga. Is the audio straight from that version?

Yep, it's got the same 10 tracks of music from the Amiga version (which used to be in .MOD format, was a little tricky converting them to .MP3s).

Can you comment at all on the controls of the iPhone ver, thoughts that went into them, etc?

Well, Qwak is quite a fast paced game, so I felt some kind of on-screen D-pad control mechanic would work a lot better than using the accelerometer.

There’s also an issue that your thumbs and fingers may obscure the in-game action; so what I’ve done is when the player is at the bottom of the screen; the screen kinda shifts up a little bit, so you can still see yourself.

I also have the fire (throw egg) button on the right hand side, so it’s easy to waddle your wrist and throw eggs really quickly, one after the other (which is handy as the bigger baddies need multiple hits to ‘dispatch’ them).

The controls work for me; but it’ll be interesting to see how people respond when they’ve tried the game for themselves. I’m wondering too, how left-handed players with cope with the controls. I just hope I get feedback and people let me know, it’s always great to hear what’s working and what needs changing or improvement (and it’s always possible to do an update).

Is there anything down the road you can speak of?

There’s quite a few ideas I have; and it’s funny you should say ‘road’ … as I’m half tempted to do a re-envisioned version of Nitro or ATR. There doesn’t seem to be many top-down perspective racers on the App Store.

I’m also thinking ‘Qwak spin-off’ … I often worry that Qwak may be TOO frantic and fast-paced for a lot of people (although I personally love that kind of thing), so the spin-off game would be slightly slower paced, with more exploration and puzzle solving (and tricks and traps, hehe).

What are your thoughts on the iPhone as a game platform, and the overall situation that is the App Store?

I really like it, it’s a lot of fun to make games for, and I feel genuinely excited at the prospect of making more games for it.

I’m still pretty new to the App Store; but my first impressions, I guess there seems to be a lot of variation in the quality of games on there; from really poor, to really awesome.

I really like the fact that it’s possible for small indie game developers, to make the kind of games they want to make, and share them with other people through the App Store. There’s not so much need for any middle-man or publisher or anything like that. So it’s a lot more accessible to developers that a lot of platforms.

Qwak should be landing in the App Store shortly. We'll give folks a heads-up when it lands. This is a good one, folks.


‘TowerMadness HD’ Coming Soon for your iPad – With Head-to-Head Tower Defense

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‘TowerMadness HD’ Coming Soon for your iPad – With Head-to-Head Tower Defense is a post from: Best Iphone Apps Review Website

Limbic Software has announced that TowerMadness HD has been submitted, including 8 new maps, new single player campaign mode system, and a unique multiplayer system.

TowerMadness HD is an open-field or fixed-path tower defense game where you can create your own path to defend off the enemies (Aliens) from reaching your base (herd of sheep). The game has full 3D graphics with pinch-to-zoom capabilities to view the game from any angle, all the way down to first-person viewing of the action. You can check out our full review of the iPhone version of TowerMadness here.

One of the most intriguing new features coming to the HD version is the split-screen multiplayer mode. The way it works is that each player is controlling different games, but they are fighting the same linked waves of aliens, allowing each player to have their own strategy. Sending waves in early will result in both you and your opponent having to fend off the incoming aliens. So if your confident in your defenses, you can overload your opponent with waves and win, but this could also result in your own demise if your not careful. There are also new multiplayer specific features, like 'Panic Your Opponent', where you can accelerate the aliens on your opponents side for a little while to hopefully get past their defenses. Another one is a new character called 'Robosteal', who will travel down your opponents path and steal a sheep if he reaches them, and give it to you.


Look for TowerMadness HD on the App Store soon as it has already been submitted. And here is a video of the iPad version in action, with the developer explaining the new features:


Exclusive ‘Aralon: Sword and Shadow’ Details – A Crescent Moon Games RPG Extreme Make Over

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Exclusive ‘Aralon: Sword and Shadow’ Details – A Crescent Moon Games RPG Extreme Make Over is a post from: Best Iphone Apps Review Website

It's kind of crazy to think how much has happened since November of last year when we had the guys from Crescent Moon Games on the fourth episode of our podcast just before the release of their first iPhone game, Ravensword: The Fallen King [$4.99 / Free]. They've since released the game and it became both a critical and financial success. Following the coattails of Ravensword comes several ambitious projects.

The first of which is the obvious Ravensword sequel, along with Ultra Kid: Mystery of the Mutants, Rimelands: Hammer of Thor, and the game they're revealing their involvement in tonight: Aralon: Sword and Shadow.

Aralon: Sword and Shadow actually has a great story behind its development. It turns out, the game has been in the works by Galoobeth Games since before Ravensword was even started. The two developers, Jason and Sam, have built the framework for an insanely impressive RPG, but neither are artists. The models were rough, the animations were mediocre at best, but if you looked past all of that, you could see something amazing.

Crescent Moon Games along with artist Mark Jones, famous for his work on everything from the Elder Scrolls series to Arkanoid for the Amiga, are giving Aralon the sprucing up it badly requires to turn a great RPG with bad graphics to what they're hoping to be the best 3D RPG on the App Store.

Aralon: Sword and Shadow is going to sport a feature list that is going to be difficult to beat. They're promising over 30 hours of gameplay, a faction system, crafting and gathering skills, and hundreds of items to equip your character with that also will change your appearance. In addition, there will be four character classes: Warrior, Ranger, Rogue and Mage, each with a unique play style in three playable races: Humans, Elves, and Trolls.

A primary quest will send you through every part of the Kingdom of Aralon, with many optional side-quests to add even more depth to the game. Different enemies will use different battle tactics, and you'll even be able to acquire mounts to quickly travel.

In talking to Crescent Moon Games about Aralon, I've asked them multiple times if they really want to promise all of these things. According to them, almost all of this is already programmed and all they need to do is spend the next four months or so making the game look as great as it plays.

As a fan of RPG's, it's hard to not get excited when developers promise epic gameplay experiences filled with deep stories, tons of character customization, and everything else. We're going to keep a close eye on all of the projects Crescent Moon Games has cooking, and I'm hopeful that Aralon: Sword and Shadow will be just as awesome as it has been described when it finally launches.