Spilt Milk Studios’ Hard Lines [Free], a fun line-racing puzzle game with a touch of Snake thrown in for good measure, has received a big ol' new update. Starting now, the game boasts four additional power-ups on top of the pre-existing assortment, two new game modes, a brand-spankingly fresh in-game currency, and an in-game shop to boot. Oh! It’s also free at the moment, though that’ll probably change in the next few hours.
As is the norm nowadays with huge updates, a lot of the new additions speak to a pricing model change for Hard Lines as whole. The in-game currency, “Hard Cash,” can be purchased straight-up with IAP or found in the game as pick-ups. With it, you can upgrade the new power-ups for use in whatever, including presumably the game’s two new modes: Daily Challenge and Lionel’s Hard Cash. The latter mode is an optional paid mode that offers a lot of Hard Cash in return for your investment. The catch? It's 80 bucks. No, really.
Arcade Jumper [$1.99] by Black Hive Media is a retro side-scrolling platform game which feels like the old classic Mario. There's enemies to either shoot or jump on their heads, and the main character wears a red cap with red and blue clothes. Yup, that certainly sounds very Mario-esque, but fortunately there's plenty of innovation in this game too.
It's the 1980's and Eddy's brother Jimmy has been sucked into an arcade machine by 'Ghosty', the naughty child-abducting spirit with a friendly-sounding name. To save Jimmy, you need to complete 10 zones, each with three stages (30 stages in total).
Stages are completed by finding warp-tokens, then returning to the start of the stage to insert the token into the glowing arcade cabinet and warping to the next stage. There's a timer which counts down, so you need to keep moving. At the end of each zone (3 stages) you're confronted by the floating kidnapper, Ghostly, who must be chased down and then shot or jumped on before time runs out to complete the zone.
This past week we posted a preview of the first three games set to hit the App Store, marking the launch of the Elite Collection of 8-bit home computer games from noted and long-running studio Elite Systems. The games have just gone live and are available in both iPhone and iPad "HD" versions.
The initial Elite Collection titles that have arrived are Datasoft's 1987 magical platformer Black Magic, Image Works' lovely 1992 release First Samurai, and the frantic 1992 space shooter Enforcer from Manfred Trenz. Every one of these titles is very well implemented in iOS and is among the top tier of games to be found on the 8-bit platforms of decades past.
The Elite Collection is Elite Systems' initiative to expand their ongoing retro rebirth efforts by utilizing a new proprietary system -- a facilitator, of sorts -- that was designed in such a way as to not incorporate, reference, or in any way rely upon third-party property and that is able to deliver, to iOS, games that originated on platforms other than just the ZX Spectrum (Elite's original source platform) in near-100% original form. For more details on these titles (including videos), see our preview.
Elite will soon be following up these three initial titles with an additional sixElite Collection releases.
Metro Games’ Pixel Ranger [$.99] is a deliciously offbeat vertical shooter that executes on its old-school SCUMM-like art direction and its jokey It Came From Outer Space vibe well, but it’s an otherwise forgettable game on a mechanical level. A crippling jump mechanic that feels out of place, a horrific control scheme, and poor checkpointing hamstring the action and combine for a storm of constant frustration. Pixel Ranger looks good, is hilarious when it intends to be, and it has a lot of potential, but it falls flat in the face of its issues.
Like most of its breed, Pixel Ranger combines tons of overhead enemy archetypes and power-ups into an increasingly feverish orgy of upwards-based shooting and pixelated vomit. Its angle is that shooting should be methodical: ammunition is a finite resource and in order to get more, you’ll need to take out enemies and gather up what they spill onto the ground. (more...)
A few days back we posted word that John Calhoun would soon be launching an iOS version of his classic early Macintosh game, Glider, in the App Store. Glider Classic [link] is now available for download and I've had a chance to put it through its paces. Let me share my impressions.
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.) (more...)
Earlier this month we brought news of Elite Systems' initiative to expand on their ongoing retro rebirth efforts and bring a host of classics of old to iOS -- those that originated on platforms beyond the ZX Spectrum, which was their initial source platform. Studio co-founder Steve Wilcox was kind enough to provide us with builds of the first wave of titles that will soon arrive in the Elite Collection of 8-bit home computer games to share with our readers.
The first Elite Collection titles that will arrive in the App Store are Datasoft's 1987 magical platformer Black Magic, Image Works' lovely 1992 release First Samurai, and the frantic 1992 space shooter Enforcer from Manfred Trenz. Every one of these titles is very well implemented in iOS and is among the top tier of games to be found on the 8-bit platforms of decades past.
Thanks to a handful of savvy developers out there, iOS retro fans have been able to enjoy classics from a variety of different platforms of old on their Apple mobiles. Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum, the Atari VCS, the Amiga -- the list goes on, and I'm happy to report that it just got one platform longer. At long last, the RetroVex Advanced Games System is being accurately emulated under iOS!
Surely our oldschool readers will recall the RetroVex. Come on -- little cabinet, cartridge slot up front? No? Well, you can be forgiven if that one seems to have passed you by, as it's actually only been spotted at the labs of Upside Down Games. And, only in the mind of the studio's two-man crew, at that. Developer Greg Michael, lead programmer on Alien Trilogy and Forsaken on the Playstation, and Ned Langman, artist on Silkworm, SWIV, and Rodland for the Amiga, have recently released the first in a series of retro-inspired titles to be published for their virtual RetroVex game console that lives exclusively within iOS.
They duo explains what they're going for in this playful effort of theirs,
We want to try and capture the elements of our favourite classic games like Robotron, Galaga, Berserk, Tempest, Tron, etc. A lot of those old Williams games had an edge to them that most retro revival games haven't quite got. Mostly to do with the sound. The sound is really important. If you play Defender with the sound off it isn't quite right!
We love the humour and quirkiness that the old games had, like Manic Miner and Llamasoft games. That kind of content is only achievable by independent developers.
It's almost a certainty that no one who considered themselves a Mac gamer in the late '80s or early '90s could be unfamiliar with John Calhoun's Glider.
Perhaps the quintessential early Mac game, Glider was first released as a black & white shareware title in 1988 under Calhoun's Soft Dorothy label. The game challenges you to fly your paper glider from room to room through a series of houses while avoiding a wide range of obstacles and using only basic controls and updrafts from floor air vents to keep yourself aloft. It sounds simpler than it was, and what it was was a whole lot of fun. After the original release, Calhoun followed with several new versions of the game -- Glider 3 perhaps being the most well known -- and finally, in 1991, partnering with now-defunct Casady & Greene for the commercial release of Glider Pro (which is now available for free).
We're happy to report that iOS gamers will soon have the chance to experience the magical little game that is Glider in Calhoun's upcoming App Store release of Glider Classic. I recently had a conversation with Calhoun, who left Apple after 16 years this past summer in order to bring Glider to iOS, to find out more about his coming release.
After parting ways with Apple, Calhoun wasted little time jumping into the iOS game scene, releasing Lab Solitaire [App Store], a photo-realistic version of Free Cell, last month. After that was out the door, his full focus moved to Glider Classic, which is now complete.
The iOS version, from a play mechanics standpoint, is something of a mix of several of the early versions of the game. (The developer, and a number of the game's fans, felt that Glider Pro deviated a bit too significantly from the spot-on formula of the original.) All of the graphics used in the game have been re-created with pen and paper, through a process that Calhoun details on his blog, giving the game a very clean look, evocative of the original's artwork.
Glider Classic features tap-based controls and is a universal application that runs natively on both the iPhone and the iPad. In the first release, iPhone 3GS and 3G iPod touch devices will be the minimal supported platforms, though earlier devices will gain support in an update soon to follow. Calhoun indicates that a Mac App Store release of Glider Classic is also likely at some point, given that Glider Pro for the Mac is PowerPC-only and will not run under OS X Lion. In fact, we might one day see a desktop "house editor" emerge, allowing players to create their own houses for both the iOS and the likely Mac OS X versions of the game.
Calhoun told me that, from the view of an old-school designer, he absolutely loves iOS as a game platform. He got out of game writing way back when largely because the "big guys" came in and basically stole the show from indie developers like himself. He sees iOS as an excellent opportunity for indies to get their work out there and embraced by gamers, and it's a notion backed up by so many one-man home runs we've seen since the App Store went live. Calhoun has a number of other iOS projects in mind to follow Glider Classic, and I'm anxious to see what we've got to look forward to.
In addition to Glider, Calhoun released several other games for the Macintosh in the distant past, including Glypha III (there's an iOS version by another developer), Pararena, and Stella Obscura. For a bit more history on John Calhoun's days as a Mac game maker, I recommend checking out Bitmob's excellent article entitled "Dreaming of a thousand-room house: The evolution of Glider," as well as MacScene's twopart interview with the man in question.
Glider Classic is expected to arrive in the App Store this week at a launch price of $0.99. We'll post a closer look at the game when it lands.
About a year ago, Hypership Out of Control [$0.99]made its debut on Xbox Live Indie Games, better known as that place where good games go to die. Thankfully it's come to a platform where it might get a bit more attention, as it should. It's crazy fun.
Here's the score: you pilot a spaceship that's lost its brakes. The accelerator is floored. Your ship is speeding out of control and it's up to you to keep it from crashing. Don't even think about blinking until you've made it through safely.
Hypership Out of Control doesn't stray far from the archetypal vertical shooter. The ship flies and shoots ever upward while obstacles pass around it. Relative touch controls are the order of the day - that is, the ship echoes the movements of your finger, no matter where you touch the screen. They're precise and effective, which is for the best. Where this game diverges from the norm is in speed, and a lot of it.
It's been about a year since decades-old studio Elite Systems brought their ZX Spectrum: Elite Collection [iPhone, iPad] and the first wave of its retro titles to the App Store. Since then 150 titles have become available through their Spectrum emulator, giving retro fans much old school gaming goodness to play with.
Since then, Elite has been hard at work engineering a completely new system through which to bring an even broader range of retro classic to iOS gamers. I recently had a conversation with Elite co-founder Steve Wilcox who filled me in on some of the titles that are on the way in the coming Elite Collection of 8-bit home computer games, as well as details surrounding their newly completed proprietary technology that went into it. The new system is a facilitator, of sorts, that was designed in such a way as to not incorporate, reference, or in any way rely upon third-party property and that is able to deliver, to iOS, games that originated on platforms other than just the ZX Spectrum in near-100% original form.
Elite has been busy licensing classics from a wide range of developers and it sounds like iOS gamers are in for a trove of titles to be delivered through the studio's new system. The first stage in the deployment consists of nine games developed across North America, the UK, and Germany.
It was back during GDC 2011, during Eric Chahi's Classic Game Postmortem presentation, that we first learned that the French gamemaker would be bringing a 20th Anniversary Edition of his acclaimed classic Another World to iOS [App Store] with the help of DotEmu, through BulkyPix. A few days back, I interviewed Chahi and shared his thoughts on the coming App Store release and the iOS game scene in general. Since then, I've been playing through the release version of Another World for iOS and wanted to take the opportunity to post an early review of the title so readers know what they've got to look forward to on the game's September 22nd App Store launch day.
Another World (which was also known as Out of this World in certain markets) is a cinematic platform adventure originally released on the Amiga back in 1991. The game tells the story of physicist Lester Chaykin. As is illustrated in the game's introductory sequence, Lester returns to his underground laboratory one stormy night to continue work on a particle acceleration experiment. Shortly after the experiment is underway, a bolt of lightning strikes the laboratory, sending millions of volts into the accelerator and resulting in the freak teleportation of Lester to a far-away alien planet.
Last month we posted a short preview of the upcoming GoatUp [link] (then to be called Goat Goes Up) from ungulate adoring game developer Jeff Minter. GoatUp is a retro-inspired platform game -- Llamasoft's first ever, in fact -- and is a title I've spent a great deal of time with over the last week or so. The game has just gone live in the App Store, so let's take a look.
GoatUp is a platform game of the endless climber sort that, according to Minter, draws inspiration from several oldschool platformers, including the Atari 2600 title Man Goes Down, Nebulus / Tower Toppler, and Rainbow Island. The game puts you in control of a cute little nanny goat faced with a never-ending, downward scrolling tower bristling with platforms. Your job is to climb as high as you can by deftly jumping from platform to platform as they scroll off the bottom of the screen. It's a mechanic that's pretty well represented in the App Store, but GoatUp is full of twists (so to speak) that make it something special. (more...)
Ever have one of those games that you desperately want to hate but can’t? You know there are better games on your phone and that by all definitions you’re essentially wasting your time by playing it, yet you can’t seem to escape the grind. That’s Pygmies-Hoglet [$.99]. It’s the digital equivalent of a menthol cigarette: it’s in no way what you originally planned to smoke, but the flavor is weird enough to see you through while you get your fix.
I don’t want to come across too harshly, but in good conscience I need to spell out up front that this game may quickly turn off some folks. That disclaimer behind us, this game has an innocent, playful charm I can’t seem to shake and some simple tweaks to classic RPG mechanics that kept me from dwelling on its shortcomings. If you liked the movie Rudy even ironically, you may consider giving this scrappy underdog (underhog?) a try.
I've long been a fan of Jeff Minter's unique take on game design, and his iOS releases are in my list of best games to be found in the App Store. His titles all drip definite old school appeal, and so I was extremely pleased to see his recent tweet indicating that he has worked iCade support into all of the iOS titles where it makes sense.
All titles mentioned should be getting an update soon that includes the demonstrated iCade support and GoatUp should arrive any day now. We'll be bringing an in-depth look at the latest title when it lands.
We recently brought news of the BulkyPix announcement that the much anticipated iOS port of Eric Chahi's Another World will be landing in the App Store on September 22nd. Xavier Liard of DotEmu, the studio developing the iOS version, put us in touch with the game's renowned author to discuss details of the upcoming release.
As we indicated yesterday, Another World for iOS will feature both the graphics of the original game as well as re-mastered "HD" graphics done specifically for this release. (A two-fingered swipe up the screen will toggle the visuals at any time.) In speaking with Chahi, I learned that this 20th Anniversary Edition of the game is running a tweaked version of the core script from acclaimed 15th Anniversary Edition, as executed by Chahi's own custom script interpreter that has been converted from 68000 assembly to C++. All of the sounds in the game have been re-mastered as well, to deliver an enhanced audio experience as compared to the original. (more...)
Spilt Milk Studios’ Hard Lines [Free], a fun line-racing puzzle game with a touch of Snake thrown in for good measure, has received a big ol' new update. Starting now, the game boasts four additional power-ups on top of the pre-existing assortment, two new game modes, a brand-spankingly fresh in-game currency, and an in-game shop to boot. Oh! It’s also free at the moment, though that’ll probably change in the next few hours.
Metro Games
A few days back 
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About a year ago, Hypership Out of Control [$
Last month we posted 
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