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?

Earlier this month I convened with the panel of judges in Marseille, France that made up the International Mobile Gaming Awards to go through the over 500 games submitted. After a day of some incredibly intense (and incredibly jet lagged) judging, we had our list of finalists which were just recently revealed. We've already reviewed almost all of these games, and if you're missing any of these games from your collection, they're all worth picking up:

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Alright, so even though Meanwhile for iOS [99¢] isn't normally what would come to mind when you think of iOS games, it's something that I bet most people out there aren't aware of. Also, if you're the kind of person who likes Choose Your Own Adventure style books like the variety of gamebooks we've posted about in the past, this will be right up your alley. Maybe you've got kids that like comic books, Meanwhile would be equally perfect in that situation.

I first heard about its physical book form, which is worth checking out just so you can see the clever way its all laid out. You make decisions in the comic book, then follow colored lines to the next panel you should be reading. The amount of decisions included is just silly, as the book boasts 3,856 different possibilities. The plot follows a kid named Jimmy who goes from deciding if he (or, you, as the reader) wants vanilla or chocolate ice cream to deciding the fate of the world after encountering mad scientists, time machines, robots, and tons more.

The comic is targeted at kids in grades 4-6, so if you're an adult looking for some hard-hitting plot points, you'll likely be disappointed. If, however, you're just into comic books and want to check out a really clever implementation of a Choose Your Own Adventure style comic, this is 99¢ you have to spend. The way they adapted the actual book to iOS devices is fantastic. I particularly enjoy how you still see irrelevant (to your particular story path) panels as you read through the comic, which really just makes you want to replay it over and over again to figure out how to get to something you saw that was particularly crazy.

It's on sale today only, due to an update landing which adds completely re-mastered high resolution art. So, don't wait too long or it'll be back up to $4.99.

Whoa! It's Wednesday again, which is hard to believe because I've had such an insanely busy week. But, like most Wednesdays, the sun has risen, or potentially already set in your neck of the woods… And a whole new slew of iOS games have appeared. Like every other Wednesday since this whole Wednesday night release trend started, all of these games should be available at 11:00 PM Eastern. Or, potentially much earlier if you're east of North America.

Also, yes, we're running really low on relevant Wednesday images we haven't used before for these posts. Anyway, on with the show!

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Per the nearly standard operating procedure of "beta testing" wide-scale free to play titles, Canadians and "Canadians" can now get their hands on Zynga's latest iOS game, Dream Heights [Free]. It doesn't take more than a few quick glances at the screenshots and iTunes text to realize that Zynga has firmly focused their copy machines on NimbleBit's Tiny Tower [Free]. It's really incredibly just how blatant of a clone this is, as Zynga has gone far beyond just copying the premise of the game- They even directly lifted the restocking mechanics, elevator upgrades, UI elements, and more.

NimbleBit's Ian Marsh has taken to twitter with an image that perfectly exhibits just how shamelessly Zynga's "inspiration" is for this new free to play title of theirs with side by side screenshots and a hefty amount of trademarked NimbleBit snark.

Take a look:

(Click for full size, with many more comparisons.)

It'll be interesting to see how this all shakes out. Historically speaking, Apple has had a very hands-off approach to even the most blatant of clones on the App Store. But, we are talking their very own game of the year last year that's being mercilessly knocked-off here, by Zynga of all companies. I doubt much if anything will actually happen, but I'm not sure how Zynga couldn't stir up a hefty helping of bad blood amongst anyone who realizes that such a large company is lifting ideas straight from a three (3) man development studio.

We'll have to see how Dream Heights does once it eventually sees its worldwide release. The amusing (and sad, to be honest) part of all this is that per another tweet, Zynga once attempted to acquire NimbleBit. If you can't buy 'em, clone 'em?

Canadian App Store Link: Dream Heights, Free

In case you've never heard of it before, Dominion is a deck building card game created by game designer Donald X. Vaccarino and published by Rio Grande Games in 2008. Since its release, Dominion has been ripping up the charts over on BoardGameGeek, and has won all sorts of other awards including taking home game of the year at Germany's Spiel board game festival. In fact, Dominion's success and popularity have spawned an entire genre of other similar deck building games.

A few days ago, Dominion Donald X. Vaccarino [Free] hit the App Store, and since then I've been trying to verify the validity of this port. It seemed pretty shady, and the developer's web site sure didn't help things. After some additional digging, I came across a post by Rio Grande Games' Jay Tummelson over on BoardGameGeek. It turns out that over the years they've given their blessing to a number of developers to release iOS versions of Dominion, provided they agree to remove it once the official version hits the App Store.

What's more interesting though, is that the official licensed version, per this same forum post, is only "a few weeks" away. Even more curious though is that Chillingo currently has a game titled Dominion [$1.99] on the App Store as well. We'll just have to wait and see how the dust settles on all of this. If you're interested in Dominion, I'd snag the free version out now, and if you own Chillingo's Dominion it might not be a bad idea to back up the .ipa just in case there's any hijinks with take-down requests by Rio Grande Games so they can score the "Dominion" title on the App Store.

I hope Rio Grande is serious about this "few weeks" thing, as an official version of Dominion has potential to be awesome.

After some deliberation with Brad while recording our podcast today, we determined that it is in fact Wednesday, which means a whole slew of games coming out tonight. We're still not seeing the massive influx of games that we were seeing towards the end of 2011, but we're getting back to where we used to be.

This week is a massive improvement over a few weeks ago where we were struggling to find four games to post about. All of this stuff should be available at 11:00 PM Eastern, or potentially much earlier if you're the kind of person who lives east of North America.

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We were all over Shadow Era [Free]. In a nutshell, it's a cross-platform free to play collectable card game which still has a decent following in our forums. Well, a while back the guys from Wolven put up a preorder page for a physical version of the game, and so far demand has been fantastic. They've already even received a few of the decks and they look great.

If you're a big enough fan of the iOS game to want to delve into the physical version, there's tons of pre-order bonuses to be had. Anyone pre-ordering now gets a ton of shadow crystals to use in game, foil cards, and they're on the cusp of offering free play mats with every order. That's a pretty sweet swag haul, if you're into Shadow Era. (more...)

Push Panic [Free] is a fast paced (and fun) puzzle game that up until recently was published by Appular. According to Push Panic's developers in our forums, Appular is getting out of the publishing game and has taken all of their published titles off of the App Store. So, in response, Push Panic has been re-released and made free for a brief period of time.

Keep in mind, if you ever downloaded Push Panic before, you'll need to re-download it again during this freebie promotion. With Appular removing the original Push Panic from the App Store, you'll effectively be locked out of any future updates and being able to re-download the game. Push Panic is a neat game too, so even if you didn't own the original, you should download it while it's free.

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If iOS clones are your cup of tea, strap in for the clone-iest clone yet. The Shanghai Taomee Network Technology company just released Mole Kart [$2.99], a universal kart racer that makes no attempt at hiding the fact that just about everything in the game is lifted directly from Mario Kart. Take a look at the trailer:

It's lacking a championship mode, as well as the different engine sizes found in Mario Kart. Also, to fully unlock everything in the game you're looking at spending ten bucks between the initial purchase price and all the various DLC unlockables for tracks and additional karts. Forum members are going crazy for the game, and are encouraging everyone that's interested to get in on Mole Kart before it gets pulled from the App Store.

Whether or not it'll actually get pulled is another matter entirely. There are a lot of Mario Kart inspired games out there, but this one is by far the most blatant.

Last summer Games.On.Net broke a story regarding Glenn Watson, a former Head Studio Programmer at Gameloft's New Zealand office. Watson alleged he was typically working 100-120 hour work weeks. In his words, “Starting at 9:30 AM, going home at 2:30 AM, and then com­ing back into the office at 8:30 AM to start work again was not unusual”. He went on to whistle blow on poor working conditions, even mentioning that some junior programmers work 24 hour shifts.

These allegations spread like wildfire across the Internet, with little regard to the fact that there wasn't much backing up these claims other than the single article everyone was sourcing. The New Zealand Labor Department launched an investigation on the matter not long after the allegations hit, and per New Zealand games site GamePlanet, the investigation recently concluded.

According to the Labor Department, Gameloft was not in breach of New Zealand's Health and Safety Employment act. In fact, Labor Department spokesperson Alisa Mannell even mentioned that there was "no substantial evidence" of any wrongdoing on Gameloft's part.

Alright. Enough with the funny business here. Someone at Apple really needs to get priming the ol' App Store game release pump. After the massive holiday rush, everything just feels lackluster in comparison. This week has a few more releases than last week's "Oh hey here's four games" post, but not many more.

Anyway, here's what's coming out tonight. This is the same song and dance as all previous weeks, in that these games should all be magically available in the USA at 11:00 PM Eastern.

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Imagination's PowerVR GPU's have shipped in every iOS device since the release of the iPhone 3GS and the third-generation iPod touch. Those early devices used the PowerVR SGX, while the iPad and iPhone 4 moved on to the PowerVR SGX 535, and finally the iPad 2 and iPhone 4S came packed with the PowerVR SGX543MP2. At CES today, they got ever-so-slightly more specific regarding the Series6 family of PowerVR GPU's, and it seems incredibly likely that we'll see them included in future iOS devices, judging by Apple's three-generation track record of utilizing Imagination's GPU technology.

Per the press release, gamers will be able to expect 20 times the performance of current generation hardware, along with a 5x boost in efficiency. Imagination has announced that 8 different outfits have signed up to utilize these new GPUs, but curiously enough, only list 6 of the companies. If I were a betting man, I'd put Apple as one of the two unlisted chip makers.

Needless to say, the potential these new GPUs have is just crazy to think about. The iPad 2 and iPhone 4S are already graphical powerhouses capable of rendering beautiful games like Infinity Blade 2, and imagining the next generation of devices potentially being 20 times more powerful is incredible.

If you happen to be one of the millions of people who forked out to be a Call of Duty Elite founder because of how cool the thought of changing out your weapon load-outs on the fly on your phone was, here's your chance to finally do it. The Call of Duty Elite App [Free] launched overnight, and even though it's missing a few features, I already like it better than the actual Call of Duty Elite web site. Admittedly, a lot of that has to do with the novelty of the whole thing, but still.

As mentioned in our post yesterday, Activision looks at this as a foundation for things to come later. I hope they eventually include the heat maps functionality, as that's the only thing I use which isn't in the app yet. Regardless, I really am digging these official companion apps, and hope this trend continues.

Hot off the presses of CES comes two new products from ION: A redesigned version of the iCade that drops the surrounding cabinet, as well as a mobile version for the iPhone and iPod touch. Check it out:

ION has yet to release pricing or more specific release dates than "2012" for the redesigned iCade, but the iCade Mobile will hit in Q2 for $100. Hopefully we'll get some hands-on time at CES this week.

Update: Engadget, as noted by MacRumors, has updated their post on the new iCades with hands-on video of the handheld iPhone version, dubbed the iCade Mobile. Also, it looks like the pricing for iCade Mobile was incorrect, and the unit should be launching at $79.99 rather than $100.

Also noticed at the ION booth at CES is a new product called the iCade Jr. The iCade Jr. is similar to the original iCade for the iPad but is a much smaller version that will fit iPhone and iPod touch devices. It retains the faux arcade cabinet design of the original and features 4 buttons on the front deck as well as 4 buttons on the rear panel, as well as a pass-through for charging while in use.

The iCade Jr. unit on display was non-functional, but ION is shooting to have the new unit available this Spring for $49. More photos can be seen at the original Engadget posting.

[via Engadget and MacRumors]