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So, I’m sure all of you guys and girls are having a lovely time with the brand new Super Crate Box for iOS.  As you know, Vlambeer said that a content update would be on its way if the global crate count broke 5 million. Well, it has been a mere 2 days since the launch of Super Crate Box on the App Store, and despite the fact that SCB missed the Game of the Week feature, over 7 million crates have already been collected. Yes, over 7 MILLION. You don’t even need to know calculus, or math for that matter, to figure out that that is a LOT of crates. (And yes, it is over 9,000).
A picture is worth a thousand words. Don’t be ashamed if your asplodes when you see the number.

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JAZZ: Trumps Journey is an unusual game that strays from the accepted norm in the AppStore. JAZZ is a platformer with a strong emphasis on music. Namely the jazz that New Orleans is so well known for.
You play as Trump, a famous jazzman in the early 1920’s who is trying to create his own jazz band.  There are platforms, bosses, warpzones and all sorts of other platforming ingredients that can be found on your journey, including a beautiful lady whose heart you have to win.
But what really differentiates this game from the crowd is the way music is incorporated into the game.  In the beginning the background music consists only of percussion. When you find your first band member the music changes to incorporate the instrument each band member plays. The music gets richer as you find new members to add to your band and was composed by real musicians in a recording studio. Music also plays another part in the game, specifically as a tool used by Trump to stop time.
The graphics are inspired by old pictures of New Orleans in the 1920’s.  In the screenshots it is increasingly apparent that a lot of time was spent perfecting them and keeping the graphics true to their orgins.  The story is also rich as it is based off of the biography of Louis Armstrong, a very influential musician back then.
The game also delves into controversial topics such as racism and injustice. I applaud the developers efforts to be as realistic as possible and show the way things were back then, rather than sweeping those issues under the carpet. I am certainly looking forward to this game and will be available on January 19th for download.  It will be released for iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch and the Mac AppStore. I imagine it will be universal and work on most devices but we will have to see.  We plan to have a full review up for the game around the time it launches so stay tuned!

You’ve probably heard about the new platformer by Monsters vs Wizards and Crescent Moon Games.  Paper Monsters began as a simple, paper-style action platformer, but it has since grown into a full-blown future classic. The game sports cutesy artwork with 3D models but 2D gameplay.  The all around appeal aesthetic appeal of the game seems reminiscent of console hits like Little Big Planet and Paper Mario.

So far what we’ve heard about the game sets it into a world of its own as an iOS action platformer. Apart from the amazing artwork, there will be several power-ups including a dragon (fire-breathing of course), a flying bug suit, and a submarine. A submarine power-up can only mean one thing…underwater levels! And there is much more than just underwater levels. The themes that will be included on release are grass-world, snow-world, underwater, and some underground sections. On top of that there are 16 enemy types and awesome boss-battles (with funny cut-scenes to boot).

Paper Monsters has just about everything you can ask for in an iOS platformer. It even has hidden treasures and secrets, cloud saving, and iCade support!

When Paper Monsters gets closer to release, hopefully we will get some hands-on time.  Until then check out the new site that Robots vs Wizards set up, PaperMonsterLand. At the site you can find quite a few screens along with more than enough info about the world of Paper Monsters to get you as excited as we are. There isn’t an official trailer released yet, but check out the teaser for now.

If you’re a regular reader of TheAppShack, you probably know by now that my favorite genre of video games is platformers. Especially exploratory platformers. As I’ve said a few times, Metroid II – Return of Samus is my favorite video game of ALL TIME. These days, my iPod is my main gaming console, and yes, I know how weird that is, and that I am in a very small group of people here, but anyway, I have been hoping that Metroidvania titles would become more frequent in the AppStore. Phoenix Spirit and Grokion seemed to be the only titles within this genre for quite some time, but over the last year or so, Metroidvania fans have grown, or, more likely, have gotten iDevices, and releases like Elemental Rage, Miss Claire Garden, Cordy, Glowfish, Emberwind, BlibBlob, Shantae, SpyCorp, and a few more have added loads of fuel to the fire. Granted, not all of these are TRUE Metroidvania titles, but they do incorporate quite a bit of exploration, and for die-hard fans of the genre, that’s usually enough. So now, when a platformer comes along that has “exploration” mentioned within 5 feet of it, I’m usually one of the first people to jump all over it.

FireFruitForge has been working on a little game that’s going by the name Terra Noctis (originally named After Dark, if any readers out there heard of it a while back, but they decided to change the name so as not to run into any legal issues). It’s a retro inspired platformer, with influences from Super Mario Brothers, Donkey Kong, and has quite a bit of exploration thrown in as well. There are 3 difficulty levels, Normal, Hard, and Nightmare, with the harder difficulties having more enemies, more traps, and less platforms.

The controls for Terra Noctis are set-up like most platformer games on the iOS. You’ve got your left/right arrows in the bottom left corner, and then your bottom right corner has your duck/smash/option button, and your jump button. While standing on the ground, your duck/smash/option button is used to duck, while in the air, it can be used to make your character, Allen, curl his legs up, and smash down into the ground, which can break certain blocks, and be used as an attack, and when in front of a cave entrance, can be used to enter the cave. Your jump button is pretty self-explanatory, and you are able to double-jump, or fall off of a cliff, and use your 2nd jump while falling, which does come in handy quite a bit. You are able to throw projectiles as well, and this is done by tapping and holding on the play area, and then dragging your finger to aim where you want to throw your projectile, having it fly in the direction chosen when you lift your finger. Tapping on the play area while you‘re in the air will allow Allen to throw a projectile straight forward, which works perfectly for taking out enemies on higher up platforms. The controls are tight, and very responsive. Actually, they’re probably some of the most responsive controls for a non-speed run platformer within the AppStore. The movement arrows could go to be a tad bit smaller, but they are very transparent, so they don’t really get in the way. Would just be nice to have it look a little slicker.

Now, once you start up the game, choose a difficulty, enter the first level, and start making your way to the end of the level, you’ll notice immediately that the level design is very well thought out. You’ll have quite a bit to look forward to as you make your way through the game, because it only gets better as you progress. The level design throughout the game is actually some of the best I’ve ever experienced. The amount of time and thought that must have gone into the design is apparent pretty much every step you make. Not to mention how much time must have gone into testing the levels to make sure jumps were just right, and everything got lined up perfectly.

Another aspect of the game that jumps right out at you once you first start playing are the graphics. The colors that have been chosen, the details that have been included, the backgrounds, objects throughout the levels that you can interact with, and objects that you can’t, there is not one thing that looks like it doesn‘t belong. The entire Terra Noctis world is mind-blowing. Smooth, modern graphics and textures that still hold a retro feeling within them, making it feel old-school while still being graphically impressive by the standards of today’s iOS games. This, along with the awesome back-ground-music, and smooth as butter animations for everything from walking and flying, to the fairies life like movement and particles of dust traveling through the air comes together to create one hell of an immersive environment.

On top of everything else, the amount of enemies you’ll face while making your way through the game is just perfect. Once you get through the first world, and start on the second, you might start to wonder if you’ve seen all the enemies there is to see, and then one will pop up that you haven’t run into previously. Then another, and another. To make things even more impressive, all of the enemy designs are incredibly well done, and fit perfectly within the game. There are also bosses at the end of each world, all of which are amazingly well done, with battles that change up the gameplay quite a bit, and throw an extremely high scoring situation at the player.

It’s clear, after playing the game, that Terra Noctis is very deserving of it’s $2.99 price-tag, if not more. Being Universal, including iCade support, the amount of content, especially for 100% completionist fanatics, and the OpenFeint leaderboards, 24 hard to snag achievements, as well as top scores for each level that are shown at the level select screen, should keep any gamer, even platformer fanatics, busy for quite some time. It’s easily one of the best platform games I’ve ever had the pleasure of playing, and the amount of work, time, effort, and testing that has gone into Terra Noctis, shines through with every single frame of the game. After being able to play this for the last two weeks, I can very confidently say that it is my #3 favorite game of 2011, right under Space Tripper and Anomaly Warzone Earth. With Normal difficulty very reminiscent of the difficulty in old-school Mario games, Terra Noctis is great for all gamers, and is HIGHLY recommended. FireFruitForge has given iOS gamers a phenomenal piece of art all wrapped up in a tightly controlled, highly enjoyable, modern/old-school mesh of a video game. Everyone with an iDevice should grab it as soon as possible

Super Meat Boy has been a pretty big influence on iOS games over the last year or so. Sadly, very few of the titles influenced by SMB really capture the true gameplay and challenge of the original. ChocoRun is actually the only title I can think of that really hit’s the nail on the head. However, the lack of virtual controls puts a lot of people off. Don’t Die and it’s invisible controls didn’t really sit right with gamers, and since virtual buttons were added in the last update, it really shows how funky the physics in the game are. Tobor had the potential to be a decent SMB clone, but sadly, the developers refusing to have any sort of control scheme but tilt put the game straight to the bottom of the SMB clone list. Well now there’s a title that, at first, seems like it might just have the perfect set-up to be the best Super Meat Boy influenced game in the AppStore. Alphanoize Games’ CheeseMan. With its virtual controls, great physics, and some very nice level design, at face value, it stands out quite a bit.

So, first off, the major selling point for Alphanoize is the virtual controls. Left and Right buttons, along with a jump button, and the ability to double and wall jump. This is a highlight, as the controls are fairly tight and precise, except for when you’re in the air, and are trying to slow down or change direction, in which case, you’ll probably end up hitting whatever it is you’re trying to avoid. On the ground however, a slight skid is all you’ll need to get use to when changing directions at your characters top speed. For the level design, the controls work well enough to get through the game without any annoying issues, which is a big plus. The controls in other SMB clones are the cause of many un-necessary deaths, which is a huge issue for them. The physics are, surprisingly fairly good. Your cheese character isn’t floaty, or too heavy, which is very important for platformer games, as you might very well know.

This wouldn’t be such a bad thing if the levels were challenging. For those of you who are familiar with Super Meat Boy, or probably the best Super Meat Boy clone in the AppStore, ChocoRun, CheeseMan’s levels will provide only a mild challenge when trying to race through them. In other words, if you’ve beaten SMB, or ChocoRun, CheeseMan will be a piece of cake. That’s not to say that the level design is bad. It’s not, not by any stretch of the imagination. However, more hazards and obstacles would have been great to see added to the game.

For $0.99, it is one of the better Super Meat Boy clones in the AppStore. I’d place it right under ChocoRun actually. Though with Don’t Die and Tobor as it’s competitors, that’s not really saying much. I will add that it’s closer to ChocoRun’s quality than to Don’t Die’s, which does count for something. CheeseMan is supported by GameCenter, but does not have any achievements, which is kind of upsetting, as it’s a game that pretty much writes the achievements itself; Complete World 1, Get 3 Cheese Rankings in Every Level, ect. There is a fogged out ‘World 4’ that is supposed to be coming soon in a future update, hopefully the levels will be more challenging. Actually, it would be great to see a difficulty separation for the game, having all of the levels re-worked, adding more hazards and obstacles to each of them, and keeping the original levels as the ‘Normal’ difficulty, and the re-worked levels as a ‘Hard’ difficulty. As it is right now, it doesn’t really feel like a true Super Meat Boy clone in terms of difficulty. But at its current price-point, and with the lack of SMB type games in the AppStore, if you’re a fan of Super Meat Boy, CheeseMan is a game that’s worth picking up. If you’re worried about the difficulty after trying out ChocoRun, and not being able to get through even half the levels, you can quit worrying. CheeseMan is actually one of the easier platformers available for the iOS, but it does show that Alphanoize knows what it takes to make a polished platformer with nice controls, and physics that work. I’m really looking forward to see where they’ll take CheeseMan in the future, and will be keeping my eyes open for potential future releases.