I'll not hold that against the game. My failings aren't its failings, though it has several of its own. But man, if you like Snake, there are 100 levels here that will light up all the same bits of your brain, and four modes on top of that to boot.

Although every mode in Aetherium II plays with direction, there are three very different ways to play. You've got the main mode (and by far the best), Avoid the Edges, three different Maze modes and First Person, which is quirkier than it is successful.

Avoid the Edges is, um, pretty much what it sounds like. The edges are death - they can't be touched. So you slip around each level avoiding walls and picking up stars, easy enough. But you can only turn left or right, and those directions are always relative while the controls are not. It gets pretty dicey as the passages get more complicated, the corridors get narrower and doors start closing in your face. And that's before you start controlling two or three ships at once. It's not all reflexes - later levels are positively puzzling.

The similarly puzzling Maze modes could be great fun, but instead they miss that target completely. Edges are fine, and you can navigate in any direction. The trick is to reach the end, and reach it quickly. The levels get downright huge, but are always contained to a single screen. It's good, but could be better - the controls are a bona fide pain in the butt.

Traveling in all four directions using the edges of the screen is fine, but Aetherium II seems to lack any support for multitouch. So if you want to play with two hands, you'll need to make certain to lift one finger before putting down another or you'll careen right into a wall. Not cool, and hopefully fixable. It makes earning full marks for time pretty unlikely.

Otherwise the maze modes could be great. There are three varieties. Classic is as standard a maze as you could find. Tunnels mixes it up with passageways and shortcuts. Doors gives you a series of switches to puzzle through. All good fun.

First Person mode will test your memory and direction sense. Enjoy wandering through a maze of twisty little passages, all alike? You'll love this. You know the exit of the maze is directly across from where you begin, but not how to get there. If you can manage to keep from getting completely lost, this will be fun. It's not for me - every level feels like getting lost in the same neon closet - but I can see how enjoyable it could be to build up a map in your mind as you wander each level.

So that's 200 levels that are mostly great fun, but the trappings that surround them are a little clunky. As I said, the controls are dodgy, and aside from that the menus are awkward and the sound design is pretty terrible unless you're really into beeping. But more importantly, how do you feel about motivational tricks - achievements, locked levels, and the like? Because you won't find any of that here. There are leaderboards to climb and stars to collect, but it's a game built for casual poking around and not dedicated play.

I've gotta say, there are great ideas here. Aetherium II is just full of them. But they don't cohere into any kind of immersive experience. If you want to test your sense of direction, it's a fantastic game to mess around with. But to commit to? It's not quite there.

Wizardry

Fast forward to 2011, however, and you may see a game like Wizardry as nothing but an exercise in punishment. Or would a clean-up and polish of the interface make for a more modern experience? This version of Wizardry, called Labyrinth of Lost Souls [Free] ($9.99 IAP unlocks full game), is not exclusive to iOS -- it's already seen its original debut on the PS3 earlier this year.

At that time, my impressions of it were that it was presented beautifully and had gorgeous art, but offered the exact same type of experience that its namesake was so well known for. For hardcore fans of the dungeon crawling genre, this was great news, but what about new players who would be facing the genre for the first time? Did they have any hope of enjoying this game?

Simply put, Wizardry is just a hardcore game. Check it out on iOS, and you will find it is almost exactly like the PS3 version, with two small differences -- it's Game Center enabled, and the lovely detail of the art is more or less lost on the iPhone's tiny screen. I think the game would be much more enjoyable on the iPad if you chose to get it for a portable device, but if you had access to all options, PS3 would be the way to go. It's clear lots of attention and effort was put into the art, and it's a shame to see it all tiny and squished up on a little screen.

Gameplay is -- well, it's okay. It's like every other dungeon crawler of this type you've ever played, and it doesn't deviate by a hair. You choose what sex and race you want to play from a small selection, choose your alignment and finally your class. Head to town, get a quest, and choose some recruits to go down in the dungeon with you. If you've never played a Wizardry game before, you may not be aware how crucial this initial party structure is. If you choose poorly, you'll get hammered, even for your first journey into the dungeon. One thing that has stayed true to form in this modern version is the learning curve -- absolutely steep.

I believe that thirty years ago, stumbling around in the dark with no map (unless you buy one in town) and repetitive battles with large groups of enemies might have been exciting, even inspiring as you struggled to get your bearings. After all, it was all so new then. It's the same formula here, and people who loved doing it then may enjoy Wizardry now. That being said, any modern gamer is sure to throw up their hands in frustration.

Tapping the darkness in front of you works just fine to navigate these underground tunnels, but it doesn't necessarily make it fun. Menus are also set up in a way that makes you spend a ton of time jumping in and out of them, which is no big deal for a seasoned RPG player. However, I found myself stabbing at the screen with my finger here and there, and I wished the controls could have been a bit more responsive, especially in the dungeons.

The hard thing about Wizardry is that the gameplay experience it offers can be fun and satisfying if you put effort in, if not somewhat generic. On the other hand, the format will alienate many gamers, but that is what the genre is and will likely always be, so this cannot be blamed on the game.

(Trailer from PlayStation3 version)

"Not for everybody" is probably the best thing I can say about a title like this. On the other hand, if you cut your teeth on this stuff back in the day, slipping into Labyrinth of Lost Souls may feel like putting on a well-worn glove. Accepting quests and gathering loot, or even grinding to level your characters, can still be appealing and surely fulfilling for the right gamer. However, since most gamers are not used to working so hard to keep their characters alive anymore, I believe Wizardry will satisfy a very limited audience. The game demands a high level of competence from the people who choose to play it, and there is no hand holding whatsoever.

In an age where we are literally led through our games, often with more instruction than necessary, Wizardry stands as a testament to the games that may have made us gamers by a very different set of standards.

The only complaint I've had with the game is its lack of native iPad support. Well, I'm happy to report that the game's third update, which landed last night, takes Temple Run universal.

The v1.3 update brings the following enhancements, as listed by Imangi:

• Universal iPad Support! Run for your life on the big screen!
• Two new characters to unlock! Barry Bones, a city cop with an attitude, and Karma Lee, the fastest legs in the Far East. To unlock new characters, just go to the Store and scroll down.
• More objectives to increase your score multiplier!
• You can now Tweet your score at the end of a game! That way all your friends will know you're the Temple Run champ!
• More ways to get free coins! Go to Store > Get More Coins to check it out!
• Lots of performance enhancements and bug fixes! Temple Run should run smoother than ever!

I've been running this latest version of Temple Run for a while now and it's definitely more fun than ever. It's surprising how much richer an experience the game is on the iPad with its 10-inch screen. But, entrenched leaderboard kings watch out -- I quickly found that playing on the iPad is conducive to much higher scoring.

A couple of weeks back, at the release of their v1.2 update, Imangi made Temple Run a free download, which is something iOS gamers seem to have appreciated. I recently managed to pull some stats from developer Keith Shepherd regarding the game's activity across its life-so-far in the App Store. As a paid app, in its first month, Imangi saw 10 million games played. Three days after going free, Temple Run hit 20 million games played, and after a week as a free app, it hit the 100 million games mark. All told, right now 350 million games of Temple Run have been played. Not a bad run...so to speak.

Imangi is working on iCade support for Temple Run and hopes to bring it in the next update.

The good news is that Glider Classic for iOS is just what Glider was for the early Macs: quaint casual gaming with nicely frustrating puzzle elements and a simple visual aesthetic.

That simple assessment should be enough to let those familiar with the original title know that it's definitely worth a grab. For the uninitiated, let me explain the magic of the formula. (But I'll go ahead and toss out a spoiler: you want this game, too.)

Glider was originally released by Soft Dorothy in 1988 as shareware. It presents a simple proposition: fly your paper glider through a house filled with obstacles, room to room (actually, the iOS version features one long, scrolling room per floor, in a departure from the Mac original), and get it outside. The only controls were (and are) "move left" and "move right." Air vents on the floor and sources of heat, such as lights and stereo equipment, keep your glider aloft. And don't land on anything. That's it. It's a task that sounds far simpler than it is, and giving it your best is a whole lot of fun.

The original game featured modest aesthetics -- line drawn shelves, simple dithered object shading, etc. -- and that was, in part, forced by the limitations of the original platform, which was a Macintosh with an 8MHz CPU and a 512x384 pixel black and white display. The developer made the best of it way back when and the result was a charmingly simple, yet complex, casual game. The formula worked, and worked well. And so, in bringing Glider to the staggeringly more powerful iOS platform of today, Calhoun has maintained the control and visual aesthetics -- the former by way of left / right tap controls, and the latter by entirely re-creating the visuals, but doing so in an intentionally minimalist fashion. The result is a game that looks and plays like the modern analog of the original that it is.

For those familiar with the earlier versions of Glider, Calhoun indicates that Glider Classic, from a gameplay perspective, is something of a mix of all of the titles from version 4, on down. He considers his commercial release of the game, Glider Pro from Casady & Greene, to have strayed a bit from the solid formula of the earlier releases, and so it was not a basis for the iOS version.

The house in Glider Classic features five different floors plus a basement level to fly through. The first floor is a pretty easy run, but the challenge ramps up notably as you progress. The developer not only hopes to add more houses to the game in a future update, but may also bring the classic Mac OS "house editor" to Mac OS X Lion, which would allow users to create their own play areas for the iOS version as well as the possible Mac App Store version that he indicates is likely to arrive at some point.

The current v1.0 release of Glider Classic runs on the iPhone 3GS and 3G iPod touch devices, on up, including the iPad (it's a universal application). Calhoun let me know, however, that he has already submitted the v1.0.1 update to Apple, which enables support for earlier iPhones and iPod touch devices, and squashes a few minor bugs, as well.

Glider is just a great little game with a lot of personality. And whether or not you've spent time with it in the past, it's a treat to play on modern iOS devices. The only criticism I can make. based on my time with the title so far. is the lack of online leaderboards. However, I discovered in a recent conversation with the developer that Game Center integration is on the list for a future update.

As indicated in our earlier post, John Calhoun recently left Apple after 16 years in order to bring Glider Classic and other titles to iOS. Last month he released Lab Solitaire [App Store], a photo-realistic version of Free Cell. For a bit more history on his days as a Mac game maker, I recommend checking out Bitmob's article entitled "Dreaming of a thousand-room house: The evolution of Glider," as well as MacScene's two part interview.

Glider Classic is currently available for a limited time at an introductory price of $0.99.

Pod Odyssey isn’t a game with a particularly engrossing story. In fact, all you know is that you’re piloting a ship (that looks strangely like a squid) that is exploring various alien planets in labyrinth-like levels. The game gives off an abstract Lunar Lander sort of vibe. Each level has a primary and secondary objective, and your goal is to successfully complete both without dying (i.e. running out of energy for your ship). Standing in your way is a variety of structures that shoot projectiles at your ship. Those projectiles are anything from dumb missiles to land (space?) mines to heat seeking bombs that attempt to follow you.

According to Pod Odyssey’s iTunes description, its controls are so easy “a six-year old can play.” Assumedly, that depiction is referring to the game’s accelerometer based controls. Controlling your space pod is as easy as tilting left or right for directional controls, while tilting forward and back raise and lower the pod’s altitude. In addition to movement controls, you can tap the left side of the screen to raise a damage shield, while hitting the right side of the screen launches an EMP which slows down obstacles. Overall, the accelerometer controls are well done and offer enough precision in order to navigate through the smallest of passages with a steady hand.

My only lasting gripe about Pod Odyssey’s controls is the fact that you will need to continually calibrate your game whenever you shift into a different position while playing. This isn’t a problem solely with Pod Odyssey – this issue exists with most games that require precise accelerometer controls. Still, it would have been nice to have some sort of alternative control scheme in case you didn’t feel like tilting your iPad in order to play. However, once you do get the controls calibrated, Pod Odyssey becomes pretty easy to navigate.

It’s a good thing Pod Odyssey’s controls are well done, because you’re going to need every bit of skill in order to successfully complete every mission and secondary objective. I thought Pod Odyssey did a great job balancing its difficulty curve. The first third of the missions are spent introducing the various enemies and tools available for use, while the rest of them slowly ramp up both the general difficulty of each level as well as the secondary objectives. The last third of Pod Odyssey definitely turns up the difficulty and requires many runs in order to fully complete each level. However, I was never overtly frustrated with the difficulty – an important point for games such as this.

My most favorite thing about Pod Odyssey is its overall presentation. Both the music and graphics do a great job adding to the ambience and creating a feeling that you really are lost on a distance planet.  It combines that sort of surreal feeling you get when you’re playing a game with no real objectives, but then manages to successfully incorporate action sequences and goals on top of it.

Despite its strengths, I think Pod Odyssey does suffer from a lack of variety in both level design and enemies. As the levels progress and get harder, you aren’t really introduced to new challenges. Rather, you get the same obstacles thrown at you, but in greater quantity. Sure, the difficulty is there, but it can definitely become bland towards the end. Also, Pod Odyssey only features 27 levels, which means that even if you don’t mind some monotony, your experience isn’t going to last very long.

Regardless of these gripes, Pod Odyssey is a solid arcade-style maze crawler that gets a lot of the basics correct. If you’re looking for a challenging (but short) game to test your precise reflexes, and you don’t mind putting the accelerometer in your iPad to good use, give Pod Odyssey a try.

Brandon, yesterday, made a post to his blog announcing the release of a Mac OS X and Windows version of Forget-Me-Not that can be downloaded from his website. And it's freeware! It's not just some dumbed-down, redheaded stepchild build of the game, either -- no, no. The free Mac and PC versions of the game are, in fact, the latest, most full-featured versions of the game, bringing many enhancements over the current iOS version.

Some of the new features found in these new versions:

• New enemy: "Thief" guys (pink and green monster) who usually hunt down the key, and when they get it, try to run away from the player. They don't attack anyone and no one attacks them (except for when they get exploded or whatever).
• New enemy: White ceramic square guys who sit there charging up power, then "dash" in a random direction until they hit a wall, instakilling everything in their path. They're indestructible while dashing, and have really high health. The only way to really kill them is squishing them while they're sitting still.  A later variant charges much quicker so is almost constantly dashing.
• New enemy: Some kind of diamond thing that reminds me of diamonds in Boulderdash. If anything hits it, it multiplies. That's all they do, apart from making annoying loud noises. If you're not careful they can quickly fill up all available space. Basically they just hinder you. If you're charged up, you can bash through them and also grind off them at the same time, so you can keep up a steady level of charge.
• New enemy: A stone variant of the spotted "pudding" enemy (the ones which clone when you shoot them). After a certain number of generations, a stone pudding is born. They're indestructible and don't attack, they just plod around slowly blocking the way.
• New enemy: The "floppy disk" enemies now have two kinds: the normal kind which just start moving towards anything that goes past their line of sight, and the new kind which moves around in unpredictable patterns, and sometimes homes in on the player.
• Tweak: Extra lives are increasingly difficult to get
• Tweak: Health potions are more predictable
• Tweak: You now start speeding up as soon as you start wall-grinding, making the whole game play a lot faster
• Tweak: Once the hurry-up ghost appears after a certain amount of time, when the time limit for a level runs out, the lights go off and you can only see a small area around yourself, in pseudo-roguelike style

Fans of the iOS game need not feel left out, however. All of these changes are headed to iOS in a coming update, along with full iCade support! Brandon tells me that the controls have been rewritten for eight-directional joysticks (which the PC version supports, but not yet the Mac) and he feels the game will work quite nicely on the iCade. Touchscreen controls will, of course, be maintained in the iOS version, but with a few speed tweaks to prevent things from getting too fast to play.

Have a look at the iOS game in action:

If you happen to own either a Mac or a PC, there is no excuse for not grabbing this free game, immediately.

Mac download: Mac OS X
PC download: Windows

At its heart, SnakeRace is a simple vertical scroller that has you navigating a snake on a diagonal pathway through a variety of mazes and barriers in order to get to the eventual finish line, all while collecting various gems to improve your score. Your snake can only move up diagonally, and a quick tap on the screen switches direction. Your snake’s length indicates its life, which goes down every time you hit a barrier (typically rocks of varying strengths).

Interestingly, hitting a blockade does not mean instant death – if you expend enough life hitting it you can actually plow through, possibly opening up a new path. However, don’t expect to live long smashing into barriers without picking up some yellow gems, which increase your snake’s length (and thus its life).

Since earning as high a score as possible is the primary motivator in SnakeRace, there are a variety of ways within the game to try and improve your score. At the beginning of each level, and at subsequent checkpoints, you have the option of steering your snake onto icons that either speed up or slow down the overall speed of the map. You can try and play it safe by slowing the game down in the hopes of finishing the entire race.

Or, on the other hand, you can speed the game up as fast as possible too, as the faster the game goes the faster your score increases (and the more gems are worth). In addition, there are a wide variety of paths that can be taken through each level. Some are pretty open and provide some leeway for mistakes, but don’t feature as many gems. Meanwhile, you can also take the riskier paths, which reward you with a much higher score (assuming you survive).

The availability of these options is what makes SnakeRace compelling. Sure, each individual level has set patterns and gems, but there are so many different paths and tactics, that you’ll find yourself wanting to replay them over  in order to refine your approach and see if you can squeeze a few more points out before the end.

If high scores aren’t your thing, each level has a multitude of objective-based missions to unlock and complete, which are also necessary if you want to unlock later (and far more complicated) levels. Also, once you get tired of the included levels, an additional five are available for purchase as IAP. Personally, I would have liked to have seen more of the IAP incorporated into the base game, but there are certainly enough levels and content to be entertaining for a while.

SnakeRace is a game between you and the environment. There are no enemies, weapons, or any sort of action-oriented gameplay. As such, not everyone will be interested in taking it for a spin. However, if you’re looking for a simple, fast-paced game that doesn’t pretend to be more than what it is, I’d recommend checking out SnakeRace.

Long-time hirsute, psychedelic game writer Jeff Minter of Llamasoft has released two iOS games, and they're two of the best games in the App Store: Minotron: 2112 [link] and Minotaur Rescue [link]. His third iOS game, a Universal (iPhone and iPad) release called Deflex, is on the way, and I've been frustrating myself having fun with a pre-release he recently sent over, for the past couple of days.

Deflex is a dexterity puzzle game, of sorts. It is an iOS adaptation of a 1982 Llamasoft release for the Sinclair machines, VIC-20, and Atari 8-bits, itself inspired by an earlier, simpler Commodore PET title. Gameplay is tricky to describe, and trickier to master. Or so it seems -- I'm rather a ways from mastering it, myself.

The game takes you through level after level (52 in all) of different characters -- oxen, bulls, smileys, telephones -- arrayed about various wall configurations. You control a ball that appears at level's start, bouncing slowly back and forth along a linear path. The object of the game is to absorb the on-screen characters with your ball. It's the manner in which you get your ball over to all the characters that's the thing about this game.

At the bottom of the screen sit two buttons, one in each corner. These are your only controls. Each button drops a "bat" onto the screen at the exact position of your ball. These bats are mirrors, deflectors. The left button drops a " / " bat, while the right drops a horizontally opposed " \ " one. You can drop as many bats as you like, but I'd caution towards judicious deployment, and you'll see why.

The instant the bat is dropped, two things happen. First, the ball hits it and its course deflects 90-degrees, heading off in a direction dependent upon the direction of its path prior to impact. Second, the bat flips to the opposite type (" / " turns to " \ " and vice versa), adding a sort of mind-bending, deeper complexity to the challenge of strategically clearing the levels. And it's definitely an exercise in strategy, here -- the hurried sort. Because, in order to get the ball to each item on the screen, a clever arrangement of bats must be laid down. Too many bats can lead to chaos, and some levels reward you for lean placement. But you can't take too long about it, because time spent zipping through empty space is time where your score multiplier is dwindling. If it gets too low...your ball disintegrates.

There is some behavioral variety to the on-screen character objects. Many just sit there. Some move towards you. Some (like jiggly bananas) dart away from you. It's a bit chaotic. And the elimination of each character triggers the next note in a haunting piano melody. The whole things delivers a tangible, very bizarre game mood. Standard Minter fare, really.

The first few times I played the game I was utterly lost at sea. After a while, I began to understand what was happening. And now, I feel I have some degree of skill at the game, but I've got a ways to go before I'm at the top of the leaderboards. Well, there are no leaderboards at the moment, but they're on the way. OpenFeint and Game Center integration will be worked in before release, and there'll be 53 score tables in all.

Minter is known for putting out titles that are distinctly "different." (Have a look at Space Giraffe.) Deflex is no exception. The game gets huge points for challenge, uniqueness, and also drippy visual eye-candy. The psychedelia is, as expected, in full effect here.

We'll let you know when Deflex hits the app store. In the mean time I'll be honing my skills in an effort to rule the leaderboards. Well, here's hoping, anyway....

While out at WWDC 2011, I sat down with Limbic Software and Hidden Elephant to have a look at an upcoming game developed in conjunction with Digital Cavemen. Zombie Gunship is, I believe, the most promising title of the aerial zombie shooter genre. Ok, and maybe also the only member of that genre. But, I'm happy it will soon be out there, because sniping zombies from on high is a pretty sweet experience.

The game puts you in control of the turrets of a Lockheed AC-130 heavily-armored ground attack gunship. But, it's not merely enemy troops you're trying to wipe out. It's zombies. Hordes of zombies. And gigantic, hard-to-kill boss zombies. (It's grizzly.)

Your mission is to defend an allied army bunker at Cheyenne Mountain from the encroaching armies of the dead while, at the same time, keeping the unholy beasts from ravenously consuming a number of scattered and highly unfortunate ground troops caught outside said bunker -- all from the belly of a soaring death machine. You have several types of ordnance with which to rain destruction upon the zombies, and the ability to zoom in for a surgical shot that can save a troop from an in-progress zombie attack.

It's an endless experience -- the zombies just won't stop. The longer you fend off the horde, the higher your score. But, eventually, a zombie is going to get into the bunker or you'll inadvertently kill more than two humans with your fire, and that's when the story ends.

Zombie Gunship features Game Center integration, and an update to come will bring more types of zombies, more weapons, and more locales. Limbic recently partnered with a new art studio and a new sounds team that was responsible for the Gears of War audio effects. Zombie Gunship showcases these new talents nicely. The game should be available for download within the next two weeks. Price has not been announced.

I wanted to share a related anecdote that underscores the value of WWDC to iOS and Mac OS X developers everywhere. On my first night at WWDC Arash Keshmirian, CEO of Limbic, gave me a quick demo of the game, which definitely piqued my interest. Our actual sit-down with the AC-130 crew took place late in the week, on Thursday. Between my first glimpse of the game and our scheduled meeting, the developers were able to implement code optimizations with help from Apple engineers that allowed for three times as many zombies to wander the battlefield as before. And this is just one of many such WWDC success stories I've heard from developers we're close to. A valuable week, indeed.

While we were gathered, we also spent some time with Nuts! [App Store], Limbic's new climb-and-dodge title that launched on May 23rd and jumped high in the paid rankings shortly thereafter. The game challenges you, a squirrel, to make it as high as possible up a frustratingly branchy tree in an effort to gain ranking on the leaderboards. There are several different tree environments or stats (normal, icy, ashy, etc.). It's a fun little title that kept me well entertained on the late-night flight back home.

A Nuts! update coming this month will bring additional story and characters, with more environments coming later.

This game is just awesome. It drops your blocky little onscreen avatar into the top level of the ever-changing, pixellated NEON DUNJUN on a mission to collect flowers, shoot monsters, gather fruit, grab the key, and get to the next floor -- and fast, lest the waving ghost of motivation appear! When you collect all the flowers on the floor, the doorway to the next floor appears, and from there you just need the key (which the monsters are fond of running off with). Collect as many flowers as you can in an unbroken sequence to see some real score multipliers kick in.

You're constantly shooting in the direction you're headed, but you're firepower (and health) can be increased with potions collected after slaying certain beasties. But, there's another attack mechanic at your disposal, as well. The game utilizes a swipe-anywhere control system, and you can swipe your next move while still heading down the current corridor. If you do, until you get to the end, you'll "grind" against the wall. Grind enough and you'll start to glow and take on destructive powers so mighty that just walking into a monster will destroy it, and a speed-boost comes with. But grind too long and it's basically -- POP!

As for the floors themselves, you'll not frequently see one twice, as they're procedurally generated and wrap edge to edge. The bolts you're constantly firing wrap right along with them, so be careful the path you take unless, of course, you've got a nice, big, bolt-deflecting metal key in tow... A very nice touch, that.

Certain characters are a little more "interesting" than others. There are basically stationary, as well as walking, time bombs that just need one shot to start their countdown to exploding and taking out walls and anything else around them. And then there are the little guys that toss fireballs over the walls at you. A peaceful place, the NEON DUNJUN is not.

Forget-Me-Not offers three different playmodes. There's Standard mode where you try to progress as far as you can with multiple lives and the ability to gain new lives along the way. Survival mode grants you one life only in a bid to see how long you can last. And, Shuffle mode presents levels in random order. It's great fun for one player, but there's also a two-player, split-screen mode for same-device fun with a friend. Game Center integration keeps the competition stiff.

This game is just incredible. Every regular readers knows that I'm a retro nut, and Forget-Me-Not has retro goodness in droves. Of course, I love PAC-MAN -- and it's here. Dungeon crawlers are also a favorite of mine, and that, this is. So to me, Forget-Me-Not is just about the perfect game. Oh -- and, for those who've been wondering, I went back for two more "research sessions" during the writing of this article.

I urge everyone to check out the video and give serious thought to picking up this Universal (iPhone, iPad) App Store gem. If my testimony isn't enough, check out our forum readers' thoughts on this one (spoiler: they love it).

Nyarlu Labs previously brought us Magnetic Shaving Derby for the iPhone.

At the event, I took part in demonstrations of several iOS titles that will shortly be landing in the App Store, from both studios. The following is a brief run-down of the various games from EA Mobile that I spent time with.

Without further ado...

Battleship for iPad

In late 2009, EA Mobile released an iPhone version of the classic naval strategy game Battleship [link] for the iPhone. Next month, a native iPad version of the game will set sail, bringing with it enhanced visuals, detailed cutscene animations, iPhone to iPad WiFi / Bluetooth multiplayer and an exclusive (to iPad) two-player side by side game mode.

Shortly after the April release of Battleship for iPad, an update to the iPhone version will be hitting the App Store.

Max & The Magic Marker

EA Mobile's Max & The Magic Marker, winner of the IGF 2010 D2D Division Award,  is a line-drawing puzzle platformer due later this month for both the iPhone and iPad. The game puts you in control of Max, who must avoid obstacles, contend with enemies, and solve puzzles in an effort to get through 58 levels across three different game worlds to defeat the evil monster bent on wiping out Max's drawings.

The core mechanic of the game is Max's magic marker, which allows you to draw objects on the screen that come to life and fully interact with the game world. From simple single-line bridges to more complex shapes used to crush enemies, the marker's drawings take on full physics properties and allow Max to avoid various roadblocks and get to the collectible golden spheres spread throughout the levels. Ink can be collected along the way to keep the marker flowing, and shapes drawn, once having served their purpose, can be reclaimed for the reuse of their ink.

Max & The Magic Marker was originally a 15-level WiiWare title. The iOS release has split these levels into a larger number of shorter levels that are better suited to gaming on the go.

Liqua Pop

A game that looks quite lickable (well, aside from the bugs...), EA Mobile's upcoming Liqua Pop is a color-matching puzzle game with lovely, fluid graphics and animation. Your task is to match like-color droplets by dragging and merging them together to form a large enough droplet to kick off its elimination timer. A shake to the iPhone will get that done earlier, but sometimes it's best to wait, as the larger a droplet the more points are awarded as it blinks out. Don't clear the droplets fast enough and the screen fills up and it's game over.

The real object of the game is to get your friend Toadie, who lives on the left side of the screen, to the top of his leaf by releasing bugs (seven types in all) from within certain of the aforementioned droplets. With the release of most bugs, Toadie inches upwards, but certain bugs leave behind obstacles that slow down your progress. When Toadie reaches the top, it's on to the next level.

Liqua Pop is certainly one of the most polished color-matching titles I've seen, with its colorful Retina-supporting visuals and convincing animation. Facebook integration allows scores to be shared with friends.

Liqua Pop is set to land in the App Store sometime later this month.

Draw Jump

Draw Jump is a sketch-stylized game of how-high-can-you-go, where you keep little rocket man Cosmo bouncing upward by drawing strategically placed trampolines below him. Cosmo starts out on Earth but, with a bit of savvy sketching, it's out into the cosmos with him, moving upwards through six different environments across 11 levels. There are trees, planets, stars and suns to be seen along the way, as well as sunflower fuel cells to be collected for an energy boost.

The game's visuals are based on Japanese "pop" inspired artwork. Leaderboards along with Facebook and Twitter integration keep you striving for the highest altitude.

Draw Jump will bounce into the App Store in late March or early April for both the iPhone and iPad.

Coconut Dodge

Coming in late March or early April for both iPhone and iPad, the aptly titled Coconut Dodge for iOS is a conversion of the popular PSP / PS3 game to which PSNstores gave a 10/10 rating. The game puts you in touch control of Clawrence the crab who must meander his way through 30 levels of tropical-themed airborne coconut mazes, bouts of beach ball bouncing, and treasure grabbing.

The game features an Arcade mode where score is king, as well as a Maze Master mode that challenges you to intricately maneuver a gauntlet of oncoming obstacles. Leaderboards and Facebook integration are rolled in.

Yesterday, Fun Guy Media released Entombed for the iPhone [App Store], an exploration puzzler set in the labyrinthine underground tombs of ancient civilizations. The game is something of a grave-robber scenario, but the other way around.

You play the role of Blake (indeed), whose father, a heroic archeologist in his time, has recently died in a freak accident, leaving you with a dread family legacy. During his life, your father explored the ancient tombs of long lost civilizations -- the Egyptians, the Incas, the Aztecs, the Persians, and the like. He stripped them of their treasures for display in museums around the world, but, known only to his closest family members, he secretly kept a number of precious items for his own, personal collection. Over the years, your family has seen many a dark and tragic event befall them, your father's recent demise among them. Upon consulting an Egyptian mystic, you learn that the only way to avoid the same unfortunate end as your father is to return the artifacts in the secret collection to their rightful resting place.

And, so the adventure begins. As you move through the levels of this game, your goal is to return the artifacts in question, which requires solving various puzzles that riddle these subterranean labyrinths to get to your final destination. Along the way you will find various objects and obstacles that must be collected, moved, or crumbled in order to gain access to closed off areas of the tomb. There are pits, dart traps, sliding walls, and sketching challenges that test your observation skills as an archeologist.

You negotiate the many twists and turns of these catacombs by tapping where you'd like to move. Certain objects can be tapped to trigger interactions and a pinch / spread mechanic is used to zoom in and out of the play area. The angled top-down 3D graphics are simple but nice, with great, moody lighting accompanied by a similarly atmospheric audio track.

See our demo video that shows bits of early gameplay.

I, along with several forum readers, encountered a few glitches here and there in the game which required a level restart. It's an unfortunate blemish on a clever and enjoyable game, but I expect the developer to address these in a near-term update. Despite the glitches, our forum members are rather enjoying this one.

In Miner Disturbance, you take control of a very Mario-esque miner, whose job it is to pick a rather hazardous mountain clean of all its precious metals. Part platformer, part puzzle game, Miner Disturbance has you haphazardly negotiating a series of deteriorating, volcanic, gassy and waterlogged mine-shafts...filled with nasty critters no less.

Your miner is directed via a virtual thumbstick and on-screen buttons. One button enables you to dig through rock and the other is your life-saving jump button. Though the controls are simple, Jagex Games Studios (of Runescape fame) have put effort into making your mining life as easy as possible. Pressing in a direction while pressing your dig button will stop your miner from tumbling down precarious drops, enabling you to easily pick at rock on the other side of the gap.

Once learned this becomes an essential tool, as in order to successfully complete each of the 25 levels' objectives and achieve a gold rating, you will need to dig yourself an elaborate maze to avoid or negotiate the pitfalls you encounter. These stem from simple water-logged areas, where digging around submerged areas realistically spreads the water, to dangerous lava-filled caverns, or areas where poisonous mushrooms emit a toxic gas when disturbed. Add to this the necessary rats, moles, spiders and bats that naturally inhabit these areas, and you're never short an obstacle or three.

Completing each of the level's objectives has the added boon of rewarding you with coins, which can be spent upgrading your miner's abilities. These are essential to reaching the lowest depths and returning alive (the latter a requisite of each and every level) as they improve things such as jumping height, health and water and gas breathing time. Equipment can also assist you to walk over lava, climb sheer rock faces, and locate enemies and artefacts.

To complement the core missions, Miner Disturbance uses these artefacts in a meta-game of sorts, displaying the artefact pieces you've collected in a museum accessible via your overworld map. A volcano is also unlocked after the inital few missions that is essentially a randomly-generated survival mission that records your highscores to compare with your friends.

The volcano is peppered with the same dangers as the standard levels, with the added peril of triggering a volcano if your digging makes the volcano unstable. This commences a mad back-track as you attempt to out-run the forthcoming eruption; some of the best fun to be had with the game. And your results are all recorded in OpenFeint or able to be shared with your friends via Twitter or Facebook.

For those still on the fence, or if you're simply interested in sampling the gameplay first, have a go at the free online Java version.

Gameplay involves zipping down a series of tunnels festooned with obstacles and enemies bent on your destruction.  Don't crash, don't blow up, and hold onto your hat.

See the developers' gameplay video:

Tunnel Shoot looks like fun -- we're anxious to give it a try when it makes its App Store debut in mid-June.

And, while we're talking Backflip Studios, have a look at Ragdoll Blaster 2 [App Store],  which is on sale this weekend for $0.99 (down from $2.99).

Namco is celebrating PAC-MAN's 30th birthday by launching a sweepstakes, detailed on the official PAC-MAN website, to win a PAC-MAN-themed Smart Car as well as running sales on various titles across several platforms.

The discounts on PAC-MAN titles in the App Store follow:

• PAC-MAN Championship Edition (iPhone): $2.99 → $0.99 [ review ]
• PAC-MAN REMIX (iPhone):  $2.99 → $0.99 [ review ]
• PAC-MAN (iPhone): $4.99 → $3.99 (now with leaderboards, chat, achievements)
• PAC-MAN (iPad): $4.99 → $3.99
• Ms. PAC-MAN (iPhone): $4.99 → $0.99 [ review ]

Namco's sale on the indicated items will remain in place until 6 PM (PST) tomorrow, Sunday, May 23. The most compelling grab of the list, in our opinion, is the excellent PAC-MAN Championship Edition, an iPhone conversion of the XBLA original.