Last week, Spry Fox released an iOS version of Triple Town [Free], their hugely popular match-3 town builder for the Amazon Kindle, and more recently for Google+ and Facebook. We really liked Triple Townin our review, and it’s personally been my biggest obsession of the past week. The ability to upgrade the game tiles by making matches and the limited amount of space to work within added a tremendous amount of depth to the gameplay far beyond your typical matching game.
Today the first update has hit for Triple Town, which mostly focuses on fixing bugs. Things like broken Game Center achievements, the inability to restart games sometimes, and tons of other quirks that come with a version 1.0 release have now been taken care of. The update description also goes on to say that there are several other known bugs that are currently in the process of being hunted down and fixed, one of which includes a problem with turns regenerating after exiting the app.
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?
Are your time-management titles missing the hands-on charm of cooking sims, and your cooking sims missing too much restaurant management? If so, you'll want to take a look at Order Up!! To Go [Free]. A combination between a time-management restaurant game and a touch-screen heavy cooking sim, Order Up is filled with great stuff: charming characters, varied locations, fun recipes and surprisingly decent voice acting, for starters.
Order Up!! was first released for Wii in 2008, and is due to come out soon for PS3 and 3DS at full retail price. I haven't played the console version of the game, but it sounds as though To Go is essentially the same game. For the mobile outing, Supervillian Studios has added advertisements, removable with IAP, and taken away certain goals to encourage players to purchase currency. Aside from that, it looks like everything else is intact. Intact, and downright entertaining.
I'm a little out of touch with the Kindle and Facebook game world, so pardon me if you already know this: Triple Town [Free] is amazeballs. Yeah, that's right. Amazeballs. It's also freemium, so I'm not actually sure what you're waiting for. Go download it.
You know how Dungeon Raid [$0.99] took the match-3 thing and made it completely soul-consuming? That's exactly what TripleTown does. But for those of us not into gaming in our browsers or on our e-book readers, it's brand spanking new, something Dungeon Raid hasn't been for a while.
Mole Kart[Free], the world's most blatant Mario Kart clone, is now free for a "limited time," on the App Store according to the game's developer. As we've covered in the past, Mole Kart lacks a lot of Mario Kart's feature set, but what it include, it charges for piece by piece as IAP unlocks. So, when we say free, we mean that pretty loosely; in this case the cover charge is the only price barrier that has been removed.
If anything, now you've got a chance to see just how blatant of a rip-off that Mole Kart is without dropping three bucks beforehand. You could also watch this trailer or read this thread, though, and save yourself some time:
If you have a Kinect, you should probably own Dance Central 2. It's one of the best and brightest games the hands-free motion tracking device has in its library. It's also one of the few that actually shows off what the device can do well. If you need more a push, Microsoft might have just the thing: an app that pairs, loosely, what Harmonix did with VidRhythm [Free] to Dance Central 2. It's a promotional preview app, basically, dubbed Dance Cam. [Free]
In it, users can record video performances of themselves dancing to a sampling of tracks from the Dance Central 2 proper soundtrack. Then, the app spits out a music video containing both. Pretty simple stuff, really.
Dance Cam also has social hooks that allows for sharing and even mash-up videos between friends. The below fleshes out some of the finer details:
Hard to believe this might turn someone onto Dance Central 2, so we're kinda thinking about this more as a strange little toy than anything else. It's free, so give it a spin -- especially if VidRhythm is your thing.
If you're still into match-3 games, give Triple Town a shot. It's a fresh take on the style of puzzle game that doesn't mess with the purity of the mechanic, but it does do a good job integrating and introducing an interesting wrinkle: town building.
You might have heard of this one already. It has seen a couple of releases across other platforms, including Kindle and Facebook. The latter one should give you an idea of what to expect, actually. This is a free-to-play game with "social" game hooks, much like any other title on the social networking site. Where it departs is that it seems to feed off its best players in a particularly non-aggressive way. On iOS, you can just play and not worry. At least, that's been my experience with it so far.
We really like when a game can take a well worn genre and do something different to really turn it on its head. Such is the case with Simutronics' Tiny Heroes [Free]. It may look like your average tower defense title at first blush, but it actually takes much of those core gameplay concepts and mashes them together with the classic game Dungeon Keeper, providing a fresh take on the tired strategy defense genre. In Tiny Heroes, it's almost like you're playing as the dungeon itself. Your job is to set various traps and guards at key points in the dungeon to prevent heroes from coming in and swiping all of your treasure.
Last month, Enviro-Bear 2010 creator Justin Smith released his latest iOS endeavor called Justin Smith's Realistic Summer Sports Simulator [Free], or JSRSSS to lazy people like myself. Summer Sports Simulator was like a twisted take on an old Atari 2600 track and field title, with a bunch of Olympic-style events to partake in by awkwardly flinging your athletes through them. There was something strangely compelling about JSRSSS with its quirky gameplay and charm, and the mini-game nature of the events made it a perfect go-to title when I'm looking for a quick fix of fun.
Despite really liking Summer Sports Simulator, there were a few minor issues that detracted from the experience. With the game's first update, these have basically been taken care of. The most glaring problem with the initial release was that it lacked any sort of online high score tracking, which seemed like a big omission for such a high score-centric game like this. To rectify this, Game Center has been added with leaderboards for every event as well as a leaderboard for most gold medals earned during one play through. I've been having a ton of fun trading spots on the leaderboards with friends in JSRSSS.
The next major addition is a brand new event, the kayak slalom, and then the rest of the update consists of smaller tweaks and fixes. Controls have been improved on the iPhone, the AI has been balanced, and that weird cat that seemed to be stuck on the title screen has been fixed. Also, you can now choose from a list of actual flags and countries, rather than the weird mashup countries from the original release. See? I told you it got more realistic in this update, though I was pretty partial to the silly country names from before. Finally, you can turn on a "turbo" mode from the help screen at the main menu, which makes the entire game run at double speed. This makes an already difficult game that much more so, but it is kind of a fun feature to check out.
Another big change for Summer Sports Simulator is that the initial game is now free. Previously, it cost 99¢ which gave you 4 events and the option to unlock an additional 10 events with a $1.99 in-app purchase. It's something that we took issue with in our review, not so much because the game wasn't worth the money but more because it just seemed confusing and possibly off-putting for those who were thinking they were getting the whole game for their initial $.99 purchase. Now, the game basically functions as a free demo with five events and the remaining 10 still available from within the game for $1.99.
Justin Smith's Realistic Summer Sports Simulator is the type of game that won't be for everyone. Now that the barrier of entry has been lowered to free, there's no reason not to give it a spin. It's a really fun game made even better with this latest update, especially Game Center integration.
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.
Urban Crime [Free], the newest game from Gameloft, is the latest title attempting to take a traditional genre and infuse it with free-to-play elements. In this case, it’s the open world third-person shooter made popular by the likes of Grand Theft Auto III that gets the freemium makeover. Normally, these types of games are treated as forums discussing the merits of freemium and whether the gameplay and overall presentation outweighs whatever hooks are put into the game. In the case of Urban Crime, that discussion isn’t necessary as the game has so many issues (freemium and otherwise) that you really should just avoid it completely.
I've played a lot of iOS games in my time, and have gone through varying levels of addiction with certain titles. Even so, that usually doesn't last for too long. I've never found my own personal Angry Birds or Tiny Tower. That is, until I picked up Hero Academy [Free]Â for the first time. Shortly after, I noticed that I was playing a match while cooking, waiting for people to come over, or pretty much any other time I had three free minutes or more at a time. At that point, I identified that I might have found that game that I feel the need to play endlessly. Good news is, all my other friends seem to have the same problem, so that works out for me.
Hero Academy is Robot Entertainment's first iOS offering, and I think it's the sign of good things to come. The premise is very basic: You are playing a tactical battle against another team, and the goal is to destroy their crystals before they destroy yours. Each round allows you five moves ("action points"), which you can use to either place team members and items on the board, or move and attack with your preexisting team members.
So I made all kinds of resolutions for the New Year. Yes I am aware of how dumb that sounds, and I know what you’re thinking. "Oh, resolutions never work, you have to make gradual lifestyle changes" or "You make the same resolutions every year" or "Why would anyone need to resolve to not get arrested outside Jeff Goldblum’s apartment?" etc. etc. But hey, it’s my life and my dreams, OK?!
Besides, one of my resolutions, the one striving to reintroduce simplicity in my life, led me to discover a really charming puzzle game for your perusal. That game is Blockwick [Free] by Kieffer Bros. It’s my new favorite puzzle game, and it may just become yours, too.
By the time you read this, my big problem with Letris 2 [Free] might be resolved. That's the beauty of modern gaming: what is broken can be fixed. But indulge me for a second before I get to the good stuff (and there is quite a bit of good stuff to be found in this freemium title): Letris 2 uses what might be the worst dictionary I've had the pleasure of bashing my head against.
Ivanovich Games has already assured us there is an update coming in that adds 25,000 words players have submitted. That leaves a question, though - why were at least 25,000 words left out in the first place? Worse, how is it that the game accepts every common curse and racial slur I tried, a smattering of proper nouns, and at least a few non-English words in their place? The dictionary is the backbone of any word game, and this one is more than a little fractured. Let's hope the update fixes it, because aside from that one glaring issue there's a lot to like in Letris 2.
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.
Last week, Spry Fox released an iOS version of Triple Town [Free], their hugely popular match-3 town builder for the Amazon Kindle, and more recently for Google+ and Facebook. We really liked Triple Town in our review, and it’s personally been my biggest obsession of the past week. The ability to upgrade the game tiles by making matches and the limited amount of space to work within added a tremendous amount of depth to the gameplay far beyond your typical matching game.
Mole Kart
If you have a Kinect, you should probably own Dance Central 2. It's one of the best and brightest games the hands-free motion tracking device has in its library. It's also one of the few that actually shows off what the device can do well. If you need more a push, Microsoft might have just the thing: an app that pairs, loosely, what Harmonix did with VidRhythm [
If you're still into match-3 games, give Triple Town a shot. It's a fresh take on the style of puzzle game that doesn't mess with the purity of the mechanic, but it does do a good job integrating and introducing an interesting wrinkle: town building.
We really like when a game can take a well worn genre and do something different to really turn it on its head. Such is the case with 
Last month, Enviro-Bear 2010 creator Justin Smith released his latest iOS endeavor called Justin Smith's Realistic Summer Sports Simulator [
Push Panic [
Urban Crime [
So I made all kinds of resolutions for the New Year. Yes I am aware of how dumb that sounds, and I know what you’re thinking. "Oh, resolutions never work, you have to make gradual lifestyle changes" or "You make the same resolutions every year" or "Why would anyone need to resolve to not get arrested outside Jeff Goldblum’s apartment?" etc. etc. But hey, it’s my life and my dreams, OK?!
By the time you read this, my big problem with Letris 2 [
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 [
