It's not that Snoticles [$0.99] is a bad game. Not at all - it's a competent puzzler across the board. It's just that I've grown to expect a lot from games published by Adult Swim. Right or wrong, they blew us all out of the water with Monsters Ate My Condo [$0.99] and Bring Me Sandwiches!! [$0.99] Both have a frenetic sort of madness underlying them, one that seemed like it might just be a trend. The come down since then has been harsh.

Taken on its own merits Snoticles is certainly a solid title, minus a few recent weeks of crash-happy downtime between updates. There are five worlds of physics puzzles to be solved with the excretions of Zit, Dread, Spark and Snot, the titular snoticles. Each has its own abilities that are put to the test in solving puzzles defined by (generally) static blobs that must be destroyed.

(more...)

Absolutely nothing about the first five minutes of Darkness Rush: Saving Princess [$0.99] gave me any reason to think it would be a good game. There's that mouthful of a title, for one thing. An absolutely incomprehensible story and translation didn't help, and the Castlevania stylings and scantly clad ladies plastered everywhere just made me nervous. Even the tutorial was off-putting - I mean, seriously, how does it take that long to show us how to use a jump button?

It was a huge surprise when I realized two things: this game is an endless runner, and it's really, really fun.

(more...)

To steal a line from Jon Irwin, "The platforming genre, once dominant, has now been relegated to counterprogramming." Which is to say that the two-dimensional platformer has overtaken, like kudzu, much of the niche and indie landscape that isn't dominated by games that involve shooting things in the face. For mobile gaming, that idea is more or less maintained  if you swap face-shooting for physics-puzzling or colored-block-sliding. But that kind of reductive generalization doesn't leave room for nuance, and nuance is exactly what you need to talk about Terra Noctis.

At first blush, Terra Noctis [$.99] seems pretty derivative: the pits are inexplicably endless, the physics are rudimentary, and the enemies -- pumped in straight from the Mushroom Kingdom -- die if something lands on their heads. Even the narrative introduction seems particularly on the nose: Allen is a nightmare who isn't scary enough to pass his monster exams. Desperate, he sneaks out of school to find a way to get scarier. The idea is never revisited.

(more...)

Breakout-style games can be tough to create. On one hand, their relative simplicity and timelessness offer gameplay that can be considered universally accessible. On the other hand, this simplicity challenges developers to incorporate new gameplay elements to avoid being classified as stale or boring. This is the exact problem with Transformoid [$0.99], the latest in a long line of Breakout clones. While the steampunk-inspired game does offer a different take on some standard elements, in the end there’s simply not enough to overcome what is otherwise a somewhat boring take on the genre.

As far as core gameplay is concerned, Transformoid stays very close to its roots. The game places you and your paddle at the bottom of the screen versus the blocks up top; there are no barriers or enemies looking to destroy your paddle or any other twists in the formula. In this regard, Transformoid doesn’t offer anything unique or innovated, although it does offer plenty of levels to play in, along with elements that seek to separate itself from the competition, particularly when it comes to physics manipulation.

(more...)

I have a little confession to make: I'm directionally challenged. I know exactly where everything is, but ask me whether you turn right or left to get there and I'll give you the correct answer about half the time. Not bad for a 50/50 chance, right? Because of this deficiency, Aetherium II [$0.99] has become my new nemesis. I know where I'm going, and I just need to tap one side of the screen or the other to get there, but somehow I still end up smashing into a wall most of the time.

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.

(more...)

We have good news and bad news for you. The good news? Portable Pixel's Tamagotchi-style game, Hatchi [$.99], is now available on iPhone and iPod Touch for $.99. The bad news? The star of our glowing hands-on preview of the neat title, Big Poppa Pump, is dead. He left this world just 24 hours after the write-up. We can't quite let him go yet, so he's currently rotting as we figure out how to keep moving on with our lives.

In case you missed the piece, Hatchi is basically Tamagotchi for mobile. You hatch a little monster, and then feed, bathe, play, and teach it. As the hours tick by, it grows and evolves into something of your creation. Hatchi requires some patience, but it's a cool experience that our community really seems to dig.

The easiest way to describe 5th Cell's Run Roo Run [$.99 / HD] is to call it Canabalt, but with levels. That works. In the game, you control a kangaroo in search of its joey, and the path to finding it involves plenty auto-running and manually hurdling obstacles. To jump, you tap the screen. To run, you tap the screen. It's as much of a triumph in that style of minimalist design as Canabalt is, and it has similar elements and mechanics.

The "but with levels part" is a pretty big game-defining departure. Run Roo Run's world has oodles of color and instance-based content. In all, it rocks over 400 levels, all of which are clumped into individual chapters that introduce new mechanics. You'll bounce on tires, float on fans, play around with a double jump, and avoid retracting spikes as well as the rest of its outback's hazards, like cactuses, jagged trees and wood, and so forth. The way the game builds on itself, considering it has just a single, super-easy action, is pretty impressive.

(more...)

A shoulder surfer would describe Super Crate Box [$.99] as a mess, a pixelated mash of vivid colors and explosions wrapped in a whirlwind of erratic movement, 8-bit sound, and some decidedly bizarre character design. They'd be right. Super Crate Box is a mess, but it owns its fast-moving arcade chaos, and deftly brings you along for the ride.

You don't even realize that you embraced it until it's an hour later and you hate that godforsaken disc launcher with the passion of many angry men. What renders you helpless has a lot to do with its infinite, looping structure and purity of play. This is a minimalist, throwback-style game that wants you to do one thing: capture crates for a high score. The hooks are in its constituent parts, which seamlessly blend into a cacophony of arcade action surrounding this pure purpose of play. It becomes hypnotizing, fast.

(more...)

The first batch of new game releases in 2012 last week was relatively quiet, but Lunar Racer [99¢] from NoodleCake Studios (the makers of Super Stickman Golf [99¢/HD] ) have got things off to a positive start by releasing a new lo-gravity racing game with plenty of jumps, heaps of flips and a couple of weapons.

Lunar Racer starts with a basic driving test, to secure your lunar license. During your rookie training, you learn that tapping the left half of the screen activates "gravity assist" to pull your vehicle towards the ground, while tapping the right side activates nitro boosters for a burst of speed. There's no steering controls, as this game is all about timing your speed-boosts and jumps to beat your opponents.

(more...)

Studio Pixel, the one-man studio responsible for giving us the original Cave Story, last Friday released its first iPhone and iPod touch game, Azarashi [$.99]. It's as minimal as it is pure in focus; in it, you attempt to catch three seal keychains before they fall to the ground, and at the end of the round you are scored on your speed. Hit too early and you kill a delightful little seal, but do it just fast enough and you'll earn more keychains to catch after all three rounds are over.

This is a really mini mini-game, so be aware of that before you download. If anything, it's a brilliant display of Studio Pixel's art, sound design, and edge. We've got some screens for those of you who don't want to take the plunge just yet:

Cave Story is brilliant, by the way, and the PC and Mac versions are still free. If you've got some extra computer time today, we highly suggest you give it a look.

Bryan Mitchell is the the developer of the popular Geared [$2.99 / HD] and Geared 2 [$2.99] games, which have reportedly been played by over 12 million people. He's partnered-up with an old school buddy Joshua Greenspan, who released Puzzling Penguins [Free] in 2009. Together, they've released a sequel, named quite appropriately: Puzzling Penguins 2 [99¢].

If you're familiar with the original game, this latest release features more of the "move-the-penguin-to-the-water" type puzzle-solving, but the graphics and music have improved, with the most obvious changes being a new isometric view of the playing area and the inclusion of snow-coated scenery in the background.

(more...)

While looking at the preview pics for Sleepy Jack [$0.99 / HD], I couldn’t help but recall one of my past favorite titles with a motif that revolved around dreams. That game is NiGHTS Into Dreams, of course, and any other gamer who spent long evenings discovering that magical world will surely feel a bit like Sleepy Jack’s developers might have been fans of it.

In case you have no idea what I’m talking about, both games send you into a universe in your dreams and challenge you to navigate it. In Sleepy Jack, you play Jack, a darling boy who is hurtling through a nighttime world at top speed and needs your assistance to proceed. To help him explore worlds of space, desert and the deep sea, you’ll need to arm your trusty pistol and get your dodging skills ready.

(more...)

Wizard Ops [$0.99] by Phykentech is an on-rails 3D shooter with lots going for it. The gameplay is fast, controls are simple, and there’s some variety in the weapons and uniqueness in the sound effects. However, these positives can’t make up for the fact that the game is very short with not much room for replayability. Add in some performance issues, and Wizard Ops becomes one of those frustrating games that have potential but fall short.

Wizard Ops has you playing the role of a fire mage once part of an elite group of wizards that served the royalty of the kingdom. After the queen dies in an accident, the king irrationally imprisons the wizards in dungeons throughout the land. When the king’s daughter is subsequently kidnapped, he reluctantly releases you and charges you with freeing your brethren and taking down the enemy forces that hold the princess captive.

(more...)

Super Crate Box [99¢] finally launched yesterday to a fairly rousing reception. I caught tons of people praising the game all over the Twitters, in our forums, and probably in other social outlets that I'm not even cool enough to know about yet. With no other big releases this week, Super Crate Box has been the talk of the town for the past 24 hours or so, and has in turn been shooting right up the paid app charts, currently sitting just inside the top 40 overall.

But another clever way to see just how many people are engrossed in Super Crate Box is by the "total crates collected" counter on the main menu. Basically, it tallies up the number of crates that have been collected across all players on iOS, or at least the ones that have connected to the internet, since the game's release. At the onset, developer Vlambeer had said on their blog that if players could grow the total crates collected tally up to 5 million then they would release the first content update for Super Crate Box.

(more...)

Walkabout Journeys [$0.99] is a game of almosts. It's almost a puzzle game, almost a platformer. It's almost beautiful enough, almost clever enough, almost deep enough - but always falls just short.

It's love at first sight, too, with its striking visual style and a solid central conceit. A little bit Lemmings, a little bit And Yet It Moves, Walkabout Journeys gives you a handful of Burton-esque characters to shepherd, characters that will die tragically given the slightest neglect. Rotating the world around them, you have to ensure they stay alive and stay together as they slip back and forth across each level. It's almost wonderful.

(more...)