We've just got word that Epic has teamed up with online college and game jam host Train2Game for the upcoming Make Something Unreal Live event which puts four startup studios against each other to create a game using the Unreal Engine. These sort of competitions seem to happen with reasonable regularity, but what makes this one more interesting to us than most is two things: First off, all of the games will be specifically developed for the iOS platform. Secondly, Epic has licensed the Fighting Fantasy IP.

Fighting Fantasy is a series of game books which are also available on the App Store. We've posted about these game books in the past, and they're really clever works of interactive fiction that work great on iOS devices. We've been told that the games these studios will be working on are going to be 3D adaptations to these books, and need to stay faithful to the original IP, which sounds like an interesting challenge.

The four games will be revealed on April 10th, and while I can only speculate what the quality of each of the games will be, it's really cool seeing Epic hosting these challenges with iOS specifically in mind.

Hey it's Wednesday, which for our purposes means exactly one thing: Tons of iOS game releases. There should be something for everyone in this list of games, whether you're a pinball fan, like simple physics games, Star Wars, or even really creepy Japanese RPGs.

This works like all other weeks in that these games should all be available in the USA at 11:00 PM Eastern, or potentially much, much earlier if you're East of North America. In which case, these games should all be available now, or very soon.

100 Trials, $1.99 - Forum Thread - This is a "re-imagining" of 100 Rogues, a roguelike that was released a few years ago which was very highly anticipated amongst our community, but quickly became notorious for just how buggy it was. Combat seems to be further refined, more classes are included, and hopefully this pseudo-sequel manages to free itself of the issues of the original.

Bubble in Paradise, 99¢ - Forum Thread - Do you like words and popping bubbles? Well, Chillingo has you covered this week. Multiple game modes and even online multiplayer are packed in too.

Corpse Party Blood Covered: ...Repeated Fear, $24.99 - Forum Thread - We've gone over what this game is all about in a recent news post. Unfortunately, it seems that the game only comes packed with Japanese language support right now. Oddly enough, it's (currently) available in regions outside of Japan, which seems sort of rare for these crazy Japanese-only RPGs.

Diggin' Dogs, 99¢ - Forum Thread - I like dogs, I like games with digging mechanics, and I especially like games that seem to explode coins everywhere. 3 dogs, 61 levels, and 5 game worlds are included.

DoDonPachi Blissful Death, $4.99 - Forum Thread - The latest shooter from Cave, which should say everything about this game. Expect tons of sprites on screen, bullets everywhere, and incredibly fast action.

End Night for iPad, $2.99 - Forum Thread - Check out our preview for all the details, but this seems to be a really slick interpretation of survival horror on iOS devices, which is a genre which I'd really like to see more of.

Eufloria for iPad, $4.99 - Forum Thread - We've had some extensive hands-on time with this beautiful RTS. In fact, if you want to know everything there is to know and more about it, check out our preview.

Pinball Arcade, 99¢ - Forum Thread - Who knew that iOS devices would be such a killer platform for pinball fans? Pinball Arcade seems to be yet another entry in the fantastic pinball aisle on the App Store. It comes with a single table unlocked, with additional ones available via IAP.

Ragdoll Blaster 3, 99¢ / HD - Forum Thread - Ragdoll Blaster was an incredible game, Ragdoll Blaster 2 was even better, and I don't think it's that big of a leap of faith to assume that the third in the series is going to be better yet. If you haven't played a Ragdoll Blaster game yet, and are even remotely interested in physics puzzlers, get on it.

Raid Leader, 99¢ - Forum Thread - I've been looking forward to this game since I first caught wind of it. We'll have a review up the second it hits the US App Store, but seriously, just watch the trailer.

Star Wars Pit Droids, $1.99 - Forum Thread - Are you excited for Phantom Menace in 3D this weekend? (No? Eh, can't blame you.) Well, the good news is this game looks pretty rad, and actually started its life as a PC game back in 1999. Now, how about some more LucasArts games from the 90's on the App Store?

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]

Remember League of Evil [$1.99]? It came out early last year, and the best way to describe it is the title of our review: "The closest thing to Super Meat Boy on iOS." League of Evil controlled great, making difficult Super Meat Boy-style platforming surprisingly fun. They even eventually added iCade and Joypad [Free] support, giving two more awesome control options.

Check out the recently released trailer for the sequel:

I'm digging the new art style. February 15th can't come quick enough.

Zynga has been all over the news lately as the result of the nearly simultaneous reveal of the Tiny Tower knock-off Dream Tower and the Bingo Blitz fiasco. The Zynga CEO responded in a VentureBeat interview, but his comments (as well as the "confidential memo") only seemed to pour more fuel on the fire.

Now, an alleged former full-time Zynga engineer has come out of the woodwork to post the Reddit thread, IAmA Former FullTime Zynga Engineer. If you don't follow the "IAmA" section on Reddit, it basically amounts to people in interesting positions post who they are, and you can ask them anything. Sometimes people just randomly post, and other times there are scheduled upcoming threads, like Blink 182's Mark Hoppus this afternoon.

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We've been following Crescent Moon's Raid Leader for what feels like way too long now. I've found myself saying for the past year how much I wish Battleheart was fleshed out into a larger game, as saying that Battleheart left me wanting more would be the largest understatement of 2011. We've covered how Raid Leader works in our preview:

In Raid Leader, you'll be taking a knight, a mage, and an archer, against a variety of damage-eating, MMO-like bosses that all appear to have special mechanical hooks. For example, there's a yeti-like monster with a freeze spell that turns its target into a block of ice. In order to break out, you'll have to tap on the screen. There's also a worm that, much to the archer and mage's chagrin, spawns mobs of life-sucking blood leaches all over the battlefield.

Now you can see all this in action in the recently released trailer:

Per the trailer, it's on track for a release next week. Stay tuned for a full review once the game actually hits.

Our ratings for games we reviewed in January are now in place, and we now present to you the ones that are on the top of the heap. Each game reviewed receives a 1-5 star rating relative to the other games from that month. Generally, a three-star or higher is considered a "good" rating.

Our final scores are not the product of any traditionally objective measures such as graphics or sound, but simply reflect the games we would most recommend to others. Keep in mind, this listing is comprised of games we reviewed in January, and not necessarily games that were specifically released in January.

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I love Halfbrick's Jetpack Joyride [Free], and if you like good iOS games, chances are you like Jetpack Joyride too. In fact, I'd like even more Jetpack Joyride, which, oddly enough, is where Big Pixel Studios' Off The Leash [Free] comes in. You're likely thinking to yourself, "But it seems obvious from the name alone that Off The Leash has to do with dogs, what does Jetpack Joyride have to do with anything?" I'll explain.

You know how we raved about Jetpack Joyride's mission system, its hefty in-game store full of customizables, and other single-user consumable perks? Well, Off The Leash does an incredible job of utilizing incredibly similar underlying systems to keep you playing game after game while feeling entirely new and fresh. In fact, in light of the recent NimbleBit cloning drama in the past week, it's seems particularly important to tip our hats at games like Off The Leash that utilize these mechanics that work so well, but only as part of building an entirely new game experience.

In Off The Leash you initially control a single dog. It almost has a Mega Jump [Free] feel to it in that coins are everywhere, and you tilt your device to move your dog around to collect them. There's also food to eat, and various power-ups to snag.

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Regardless of whether you typically buy things with iTunes gift cards or if you've just linked your credit card up to your iTunes account and forgotten about it, Best Buy has a pretty great deal going that lasts until 7:00 PM Eastern tonight. iTunes gift cards are 20% off, and they're available in values ranging from $15.00 (for $12.00) all the way up to $100.00 (for $80.00). Better yet, these gift cards are delivered digitally. So, if you've got a way to funnel money into the Best Buy web site, they'll just instantly email you a discounted iTunes gift card code. How's that for convenience?

Mash this link if you're interested in taking advantage of the deal. You should see all the available gift cards. If the link isn't working for you, just search their site for "iTunes (Digital Delivery)". These 20% off deals aren't anything to scoff at either, as buying $100.00 worth of credit for $80.00 could potentially net you nearly 20 free 99¢ games out of the deal depending on your local tax rate.

How much are those of you who are taking advantage of this dumping into the deal? I know people who buy stupid amounts of iTunes credit when these 20% off sales roll around, as that's not only about as cheap as iTunes credit ever gets, but it's also definitely a "the more you buy the more you save" kind of thing.

[via 9to5Mac]

It's Wednesday again, and if you've been reading TouchArcade for any more than a week you'll likely know what that means: Game releases, and lots of them. This got me thinking, surely everyone has heard the old nursery rhyme Monday's Child, right? That's something they still tell kids these days, isn't it?

I think this should be revised, as Wednesday's child is now full of iOS games, which I'd say is the exact opposite of woe. Or, maybe the reason Wednesday's child is woeful is because on that particular Wednesday there was a game that cost more than 99¢? The world may never know.

What does this have to do with anything? I don't know, the brutal truth is I just need enough text to make this image I embedded look right. Now, enough breaking the third wall and on with the games!

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There are a ton of Magic: The Gathering utilities on the App Store to assist in playing the card game. I've always been partial to using a combination of TCG Buddy [$4.99] for game tracking and Orcish Librarian [Free] for checking card values. If the thought of dabbling in the third party Magic app market never appealed to you, you're in luck, as Wizards of the Coast just launched Magic: The Gathering Toolbox [Free].

Wizards has already detailed all the features, but it includes life counters, a card search, a deck builder, and even the ability to test your deck to see what a sample hand would look like-- All with full card art. With everything though, there's a catch. Magic: The Gathering Toolbox will initially be free, but as they release new sets of cards being able to access those cards for deck building inside of the app will require "a small fee to update the deck builder with the latest content." No word yet on what that "small fee" will be.

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I hope NimbleBit believes in the saying "There's no such thing as bad publicity," because they've certainly been the target of a boat-load of industry drama lately with not one but three individual TinyTower [Free] knock-off "betas" landing on the Canadian App Store in the last week. First there was Zynga's Dream Heights [Free], then Glu's Small Street [Free], and this morning we discovered another clone by Glu, Lil' Dungeon [Free]. The main innovation of Lil' Dungeon seems to be that you're building down instead of up. Aside from some new graphics, just like the other clones, all of the gameplay elements are identical.

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They say that bad luck comes in threes, and that definitely seems to be the trend in last week's news cycle. First Zynga ripped off Tiny Tower [Free], then Glu fired up their copy machines, and then some similar although unrelated drama hit the land of Triple Town [Free]. Gamasutra is all over this recent story, but I'll provide a quick rundown-

Spry Fox's Triple Town hit the App Store a couple weeks ago and it was clear that we loved it in our review. It's even sort of an interesting take on the free to play model, as you can download and play the game for free and play for a limited number of turns. You can buy more turns with in-game coins which you can earn (and buy with real money) or just download the unlimited turns unlock for (currently) $3.99. If you don't play much, or get bored easily, you might not ever need to buy anything… But once you get to the point where you need unlimited turns, chances are you've gotten way more than four bucks of entertainment out of the game anyway. I like that.

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Super Meat Boy creators Team Meat have been critics of iOS devices as well as the App Store itself for quite some time now. If you want to get up to speed, the best place to start would be the Team Meat Blog where Tommy Refenes goes over his GDC rant session, including the Zits n' Giggles pricing drama, and more. Tommy also mentioned, "I have no intentions on doing anything for iPhone or iPad ever...I hate the platforms and I hate the stores." Well, per a recent interview with IndieGames.com, Team Meat has changed their tune to "The next game will probably be iPhone. Probably."

…And that's all we know about it currently. I really just hope that whatever their next title happens to be is actually a game and not another App Store troll like Zits n' Giggles. There's some serious talent at work in Team Meat, and I'm really excited to see what they can do with iOS devices.

Oh, and if you haven't yet, consider this your official reminder to download Super Meat Boy. It's available on the Mac, PC, and the digital download area of home consoles. Here's the trailer:

[via PocketGamer]

Let's wind the clocks back to Tuesday when news hit that Zynga was relentlessly ripping off NimbleBit's Tiny Tower [Free] with their Canadian pre-release "beta" of Dream Heights [Free]. Dream Heights is basically identical to Tiny Tower in every way, except for the lack of the Bitbook and a different art style. News of this spread like wildfire, and it wasn't long before even the mainstream media was reporting on it. (These are crazy times we live in, I tell you.) Well, Zynga has been silent on the matter as far as we can tell, which you'd think would result in a dead story.

Not so fast though, as Glu also seem to be anxious to hop on the relentlessly ripping off Tiny Tower bandwagon with a similar Canadian release of Small Street [Free]. Small Street is arguably an even bigger knockoff than Dream Heights with the only changes being the tower laid vertically into a street and the elevator car replaced with a taxi.

Fans of Tiny Tower will find these screenshots curiously similar:

I guess when it rains it pours in regards to cloning NimbleBit games. The only question left, is which company is going to release their own Tiny Tower knockoff next?