Last week we talked about the massive update to last summer's quirky platformer Bean's Quest [99¢/Lite] that added a ton of brand new levels and fleshed out the storyline with appropriate intro and ending sequences. Basically, Bean's Quest was originally an incredibly short game, featuring just 8 levels. That was the chief complaint in our original review, though we did enjoy the game a lot while it lasted. In about 6 months time, Bean's Quest has expanded to 50 levels and is finally the full and complete game it was always intended to be.
For today only, you can grab the full version of Bean's Quest for just 99¢. If you've always admired Bean's Quest from afar, but weren't sure if its "constantly bouncing" gameplay was the right fit for you, then a recently released lite version can help you make up your mind. I would urge all platformer fans to give the lite version a spin, and if you're into it, then definitely grab the full Bean's Quest while it's just a dollar.
Did you know that Blackish Games's New Orbit [$.99] is cheaper than usual? It is. Since late this past January, the horror sci-fi title has been available at $.99 instead of its usual $2.99. It's a good price, too: New Orbit is a solid, story-driven game that has some really sharp gravitational / orbital mechanics wrapped up in its Asteroids-inspired, but less frenzied shell.
At $.99, we think you should give it a try. Our users raved about the game after its initial debut, and still seemed high on it even after finishing. Check out what they had to say before making a purchase, or hey, watch this teaser trailer:
A couple of high-profile games are on sale on the App Store this morning. Warner Bros, in celebration of over a million sales and Valentine's Day, has put Scribblenauts Remix [$.99] on the price-slash block. Down to $.99 from $1.99, the latest version of the game includes a new Valentine's Day playground. The other notable, Another World [$1.99], is now just $1.99 instead of its usual $4.99. We've created the above epic image to mark the occasion of the meeting of these two games within a single blog post. Enjoy!
In all seriousness, both games are imaginative and lovingly rendered on iPhone and iPad. You can read more about Scribblenautshere and Another Worldhere if you'd like, but let us save you a bit of time with this double-fisted spoiler: both games are, like, fantastically buy-it-now good. What are you waiting for, man?
Regardless of whether you typically buy things with iTunes gift cards or if you've just linked your credit card up to your iTunes account and forgotten about it, Best Buy has a pretty great deal going that lasts until 7:00 PM Eastern tonight. iTunes gift cards are 20% off, and they're available in values ranging from $15.00 (for $12.00) all the way up to $100.00 (for $80.00). Better yet, these gift cards are delivered digitally. So, if you've got a way to funnel money into the Best Buy web site, they'll just instantly email you a discounted iTunes gift card code. How's that for convenience?
Mash this link if you're interested in taking advantage of the deal. You should see all the available gift cards. If the link isn't working for you, just search their site for "iTunes (Digital Delivery)". These 20% off deals aren't anything to scoff at either, as buying $100.00 worth of credit for $80.00 could potentially net you nearly 20 free 99¢ games out of the deal depending on your local tax rate.
How much are those of you who are taking advantage of this dumping into the deal? I know people who buy stupid amounts of iTunes credit when these 20% off sales roll around, as that's not only about as cheap as iTunes credit ever gets, but it's also definitely a "the more you buy the more you save" kind of thing.
Emotional Robot's FPS, Warm Gun, has received a notable update that aims to fix a lot of what owners have been rightfully grumbling about since the title's release. According to the game's latest patch notes, this update increases performance "across all devices by roughly 40%", which should help a lot of folks with frame rate woes. It also adds in more control schemes, improves the AI and UI, and resolves what Emotional Robot calls "random crashes." Yikes, that's a lot tweaks and fixes for a release game!
There's some content mixed into this update, too -- specifically, an all new map called "Coldshot" has been added to the multiplayer rotation. In celebration of all of this, Warm Gun's price has been dropped to $1.99 until the end of this month. But regardless of price, you definitely want to check in with our forums before diving into this one. You know, just to be safe.
Originally developed for the Amiga, Babylonian Twins [99¢/HD] never made it to market but found life nearly 17 years later on the App Store. This platformer that has you swapping between two different characters, each with different abilities, in order to solve the many puzzles and progress through the game. It's a lengthy and satisfying trip too, and currently you can grab the iPad version for free for the first time ever.
You can read our thoughts on this Babylonian Twins reboot in our full review, and you can learn even more about the amazing history behind the game finally being finished and released. To summarize: Babylonian Twins is an excellent game and it's practically a miracle that we're able to finally play it. Suffice to say, if you own an iPad and have even a passing interest in puzzle games or platformers, you should download Babylonian Twins HD while it's still free. For iPhone and iPod touch owners, you should also consider dropping the 99¢ for the small version if you don't have it already.
Last month, after basically zero pre-release hype, we were pretty surprised to see Batman Arkham City Lockdown [$2.99] pop up in the App Store. Perhaps even more surprising was that NetherRealm Studios, developer of the recent (and excellent) Mortal Kombat reboot on consoles, was behind the iOS title.
And, even more surprising still, Batman Arkham City Lockdown was actually pretty freaking awesome. It was built using the Unreal Engine, so the graphics were definitely up to snuff. And the gameplay took a tiny page out of the Infinity Blade handbook, having you face off against baddies in one-on-one battles using swipe controls to dish out the pain. The combat didn't quite have the complexity of an Infinity Blade, but it was fun nonetheless.
Now, Batman Arkham City Lockdown has just received its first ever sale, dropping from its normal $5.99 price point down to $2.99 for a limited time. If you're wondering if this is the game for you, then be sure to give our full review a read for some insight. Personally, I had a ton of fun with Arkham City Lockdown, and thought it was well worth its original price. For $2.99 I think it's a steal, especially if you're a fan of the Batman, as the developers have done a wonderful job of making the game feel like a fully realized Batman experience. Definitely check it out and take advantage of the sale while it lasts.
Alright, so even though Meanwhile for iOS [99¢] isn't normally what would come to mind when you think of iOS games, it's something that I bet most people out there aren't aware of. Also, if you're the kind of person who likes Choose Your Own Adventure style books like the variety of gamebooks we've posted about in the past, this will be right up your alley. Maybe you've got kids that like comic books, Meanwhile would be equally perfect in that situation.
I first heard about its physical book form, which is worth checking out just so you can see the clever way its all laid out. You make decisions in the comic book, then follow colored lines to the next panel you should be reading. The amount of decisions included is just silly, as the book boasts 3,856 different possibilities. The plot follows a kid named Jimmy who goes from deciding if he (or, you, as the reader) wants vanilla or chocolate ice cream to deciding the fate of the world after encountering mad scientists, time machines, robots, and tons more.
The comic is targeted at kids in grades 4-6, so if you're an adult looking for some hard-hitting plot points, you'll likely be disappointed. If, however, you're just into comic books and want to check out a really clever implementation of a Choose Your Own Adventure style comic, this is 99¢ you have to spend. The way they adapted the actual book to iOS devices is fantastic. I particularly enjoy how you still see irrelevant (to your particular story path) panels as you read through the comic, which really just makes you want to replay it over and over again to figure out how to get to something you saw that was particularly crazy.
It's on sale today only, due to an update landing which adds completely re-mastered high resolution art. So, don't wait too long or it'll be back up to $4.99.
That Epoch [$.99] update that Uppercut Games teased on our show a couple of weeks back is on its way out and will be available at the generous price of $0, while the game itself is celebrating the new update by going on sale for $.99. That's dollars off, y'all -- the usual price is $4.99.
In brief, the update rolls in an "ultra difficulty" mode that introduces harder to kill dudes as well as "trickier enemy variants." It also adds some needed visual tweaks that show off your robot's armor and weaponry and introduces new story content via new in-game pick-ups. Uppercut has updated the game's trailer to reflect all of this, so check it out if you don't dig the word picture we're painting you. Lookin' good!
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.
If you're looking to game on the cheap this week, you're in luck: a couple of big-time publishers and studios are offering a healthy swathe of their catalogues for $.99 right now. For example, Telltale is throwing yet another free-for-all. Until the end of this month, you can grab the Puzzle Agent and Hector series at a more wallet-friendly price. Gameloft is celebrating the Chinese New Year by killing the prices of nine of its premium offerings, while EA is still rocking price tags with its Daily Deals program.
Here's a list, and note some of the odds and ends, too -- Bard's Tale and Puzzlejuice are in the mix, as well as a few other cool notables. This, by the way, is by no means a comprehensive list. We're just highlighting.
If you enjoy Tetris, match-3 games and Boggle, then Puzzlejuice [99¢] from Colaboratory might be right up your alley. That's because this falling-block, color-matching, word-finding mash-up combines these things into a nice-looking bundle of pleasure.
Puzzlejuice starts with falling puzzle-blocks, just like Tetris. You can rotate each falling block by tapping the screen or drag it left or right. A ghost image of the block shows where it will end up at the bottom. When you're happy with the position of the block, you can swipe it downwards to speed up its descent. And the idea is to form a solid row. That should all sound fairly familiar for anyone who knows Tetris, but that's just the start of this game.
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:
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.
Dungeon Raid [$.99 / Lite], a match-3 that TouchArcade President-in-Chief Eli Hodapp freely argues is the greatest game ever created, has been updated on Android. You probably don't care about that considering this is an iOS-centric web site and all, but here's the twist: in a tiny celebration of the fact that DR has made the platform leap, the iPhone version's price has been reduced to $.99 from $2.99. Neat!
The RPG component is what hooks people as hard as Eli Hodapp. The integration of items, abilities, equipment upgrades, and character classes is seamless and super clever; they end bridging a gap you didn't even know existed in the well-worn genre. Our glowing review, which pours over all of the game's fine details, is available here if you'd like to learn more before taking the plunge.
Did you know that 
A couple of high-profile games are on sale on the App Store this morning. Warner Bros, in celebration of over a million sales and Valentine's Day, has put Scribblenauts Remix [$.
Regardless of whether you typically buy things with iTunes gift cards or if you've just linked your credit card up to your iTunes account and forgotten about it, 
Last month, after basically zero pre-release hype, we were pretty surprised to see Batman Arkham City Lockdown [
Alright, so even though Meanwhile for iOS [
That 
Mole Kart
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 
Dungeon Raid [$.
