Monthly Archive: October 2011

Tapping arcade games have become pretty popular within the iOS gaming community, especially ones where you fire missiles at asteroids to save a space station or planet. Eve Of Impact, by Rik Schennink is another game you can add to that list of tap firing action filled high-score chasing titles.

In Eve Of Impact, the goal of the game is to hold off the bombardment of asteroids so that as many people as possible can escape Earth, and survive. Your score is dependant on how many survivors there are, and your survivors score goes up faster the less missiles you use. You do have an unlimited number of missiles, so you can hit the asteroids with a barrage of missiles, but doing so will slow down your score. The way to score big is to figure out exactly when and where to tap depending on the incoming asteroids.

The graphics, animations, physics, and sounds all come together to create one hell of an immersive experience, especially for an arcade tapping game. The physics are top notch, and along with the simple controls, and beautiful graphics, you can really get sucked into the game. Then coupled with the animations for explosions, and trails, it all makes it a very smooth gameplay experience.

Rik Schennink has done an amazing job with his first iOS game. Eve Of Impact will give you hours and hours of strategic high-score chasing arcade gameplay. Right now, version 1.0 does not include GameCenter, so there’s no leader boards or achievements at the moment, but they are said to be included in version 1.1, along with a color tweak and music/sound settings, so the future looks bright for Eve Of Impact. Once GameCenter is added, and players are no longer chasing only their own local high-scores, the replay value and desire to play the game will go up quite a bit, but as it is now, $0.99 is a great price for this wonderfully made title.

Eve Of Impact gets a score of 8 out of 10.

Earlier this year, developer Photics released an exploratory adventure game with RPG elements called Bot. It was made with GameSalad, and really did change my impressions of the engine. With a talented enough developer, GameSalad can really make something that people will want to play. Since then, there have been more talented GS developers coming out of the woodwork, to the point where GameSalad is no longer being laughed at when brought up. Anyway, back again, with another GameSalad game, Photics has just released an interesting plat former type game called Arch Fiery.

Sadly, one of the most interesting parts of the game, it’s story, is not found within the game it-self; only in the game’s description on iTunes. You’ll control a futuristic military weapon, a miniature star, designed to protect humanity from an artificial intelligence threat. However, during a systems test, the star ended up crashing in the middle of a forest damaging it’s propulsion systems. Now it can only jump. Having this actually put into the game would have made it quite a bit better. We’re suckers for cyberpunk type stories like this, and if Photics decided to reveal more story-line as the game progressed, it could have made for one hell of a game.

Aside from that, this game enjoyable enough, but chances are you‘ll see more of what the game doesn‘t have than what it does. Each level is set up like a small obstacle course, giving you objects to bounce off of once you jump off of the ground, platforms to rotate, opening up paths, and giving you 3 stars to collect, as well as fire orbs which make you larger, and in turn, gives you more opportunities to bounce off of harmful objects throughout the levels, and gives you more points at the end of each level. End of level points are determined by how many stars you collect, how many orbs of fire you collect, and how quickly you complete the level, while the ratings for each level depend on how many stars you collected. You can use either tilt or virtual controls, while tapping on the screen to jump. The physics are surprisingly well done, but it would be great if the star’s jumping height depended on how long you held your finger on the screen. Having only one jumping height never seems to add to a game.

Photics last game, Bot, changed some gamers perceptions of what GameSalad can do. This latest game, Arch Fiery, is done with the same sort of graphic style, and has the same sort of ominous feeling to it, but it’s screaming for more. Power-ups, larger levels, jumping height based on tap length, more exploration. For $0.99, it’s still worth checking out, as it is an interesting game that has it’s moments. But it needs more before it really stands out as something special in the AppStore.

Arch Fiery gets a score of 6 out of 10.

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More than likely you’ve heard about one of Com2uS’ most popular games called Homerun Battle 3D! If you’re a fan of the original then you’ll probably be stoked to hear that a sequel is almost here! If you follow Com2uS on Twitter (http://twitter.com/#!/com2us) then you more than likely already heard that the Homerun Battle 3D 2 beta testing has just wrapped up. I was lucky enough to be included in the beta and trust me this sequel is AMAZING! I’m not going to give to much information away because I don’t want to spoil the game, but I will let you in on the new single player mode that I just can’t stop playing. This mode is called Burning. In this mode you get a set amount of time to get as big as a score as you can get. You get scored based on perfect hits, great hits, and good hits. There’s no score for bad hits. Getting combo streaks also increases your score. Towards the bottom of the screen is a burning meter. Each good type of hit raises it until you max it out and get into burning mode. That’s the only mode that I’ll let you know about, but in the beta I found the game to be much more smoother than the first and is definitely a fantastic step up for a sequel. At this moment there’s no word on price or whether there’ll be separate versions for the iPhone and iPad, or if it’ll be a universal app. The game should be out sometime next month (November). So, look out for the game and we’ll have a full in-depth review right around the time that the game is released! You can look below to check out a poster that Com2uS released for the game.

When booting up a game and hearing those couple of notes, and seeing the splash screen, it’s hard not to cringe. GameSalad. There’s so many reasons people usually don’t like games done with GameSalad, lots of long loading screens, unresponsive controls, frame-rate issues, lag, poor collision detection, weird physics. Every once in a while there would be a game that ran decently, and was good enough to put up with all the loading screens, and it’s happening more often now that GameSalad has undergone a pretty heafty update. Games made with the “new” GameSalad, while still suffering from lots of loading screens, don’t take as long to load, have pretty decent controls, and don’t generally have any bad frame-rate issues. Thankfully, Monster Robot Studios new game, GravCat, is made with the new GameSalad engine. The collision detection is still a little funky, and the physics can take a little getting use to, but really, it’s one of the few GameSalad games we’ve enjoyed lately.

You’ll control a cat with some pretty nifty gear in space. The trick is, he falls in whatever direction the wheels on the bottom of his gear are facing. It’s kind of a plat former, but mainly a physics based action arcade game. To progress through the game, you’ll need to guide the cat around each of the levels, collecting all 10 of the green gems scattered throughout. There are enemies that you can land on, but only with your wheels, along with other hazards, like mines, mini-suns, rocks with orbs trapped in them, spinning fan-like blades, water, and more, including bosses, and some power-ups to help you deal with everything.

The graphics are done surprisingly well, and everything is pretty vibrant, considering it’s done with GS. The physics, like the controls, take a bit of getting use to, and the animations are done pretty well. The enemies do sometimes look a little funky walking around, and the animation for destroying them is kind of weird, but, I hate to keep saying this, considering it’s done with GameSalad, I’m pretty impressed. The collision detection, like most GameSalad made games, does need quite a bit of work. There’s countless times I’ve bounced off of air surrounding a block, and then gone back to the same block and ended up actually colliding with it before bouncing off, and some spots that needed pinpoint precision to get through two rocks that were kind of close together, but that I should have obviously been able to easily fit through, because of the “bouncy air” surrounding those rocks. The collision detection did get to be pretty frustrating.

In the end, GravCat is a decent enough game. The fact that it’s made with GameSalad can sometimes be surprising, but at other times, will make you say “figures”. There are quite a bit of mid-level loading screens telling you what certain objects can do, or how to deal with those objects, which really does take away from the flow of the gameplay. A tutorial level or two might have been a better idea than having mid-level loading to get to an info screen, though I can kind of understand why it wasn’t done in tutorial levels, as there’s quite a bit of different game mechanics, and seeing everything right off the bat would have made the first couple levels pretty boring, but a middle ground, like tutorial levels every 5 levels or something could help with the whole flow of the game. Being $0.99, and having 40+ levels, with more content on the way, and some pretty interesting gameplay makes it worth checking out if you’re into arcade type physics based anti-gravity action games. It does lack online support, and with no leader boards, there’s no real reason to replay levels. Once you’re done with the game, chances are you’ll either delete it, or keep it somewhere on your device with other games that are waiting for content updates. I guess what I’m getting at is that if you can put up with the loading screens, and are willing to get use to a games controls and physics, and don’t mind not having replay value, GravCat is a game worth checking out. It’s clear that Monster Robot Studios is talented and willing to put time and effort into their games, but I can’t stop wondering what they could do if using Unity or Corona, and I hope we get the chance to find out.

GravCat gets a score of 6 out of 10.

A lot of gamers have been wondering, when will Adult Swim put out games that aren’t mere flash games ported to the iOS? Well, wait no longer. With their release of Monsters Ate My Condo, developed by PikPok, Adult Swim Games has shown that they’re willing to support developers who have an insanely good idea packed on top of insanely weird gameplay, and with the recent release of Bring Me Sandwiches!!, developed by Grumpyface (who also made a favorite of mine, Wispin), they have started their trend of weird, but crazy good games that seem to hit every single one of our brain’s addiction centers.

The game Bring Me Sandwiches!! is a plat former that puts you in control of Jimmy Nugget, an ordinary fast food employee. It’s your job to create sandwiches that an invading alien race is craving, and in return, they’ve promised not to destroy Earth. You’ll need to carry around a piece of bread, and run over objects, in turn, making the sandwich. Once you have made the sandwich 100% full, you need to find one of the various aliens floating around the levels, and give it to him. Each level has an objective at the beginning, sometimes you’ll need to find a cat and put it on the sandwich, other times, 6 chickens, or 4 sandwiches. In the case of multiple sandwiches, each time you take a 100% or more complete sandwich to an alien, they will give you another piece of bread, and you can then pick up bigger items than the last one, generally ending up with you picking up small buildings and people and placing them on the bread, making it a sort of feel like a plat forming version of Katamari. There are also 3 different “golden bread”, like stars, to try and get in each level. One for score, one for time, and one for completing the level without getting hit a certain amount of times.

Now, controls. Controls are always a huge part of plat formers, as are physics, and Bring Me Sandwiches!! is no exception. Amazingly enough, there are 3 different control options, and the virtual buttons that are one of those options is not the tightest, most fluid feeling control scheme. For once, an invisible slider on the left side, and jump tapping on the right is incredibly accurate and tight, and leaves the bottom parts of the screen open and un-cluttered. There are also tilt controls, but there’s not many who favor those in plat formers, though if you are one of the few, they are tighter and more accurate than most. Combined with the perfect physics of the Bring Me Sandwiches world, the game comes together to create an amazingly smooth, perfectly fun plat former, that doesn’t require you to think about the controls at all while playing.

Grumpyface has shown that they know exactly what it takes to reach gamers addictive habits, exploiting them in a way we here at The App Shack can’t help but love. Following the new $0.99 trend with Adult Swim games, the amount of content, and crazy gameplay makes it a must-buy for fans of any iOS genre. GameCenter is included, giving us 13 different leader boards, one for combined score, one for combined time in each of the environments, as well as overall, and a total sandwich ingredients board, along with 22 crazy achievements to try and snag, adding tons of replay value. This is one game you don’t want to miss, as it’s one of the best plat formers available for the iOS. It’s also looking like the beginning of a trend we don’t want Adult Swim to stop; Crazy games that are insanely fun to play for the low-low price of one dollar. How could we ask for more?

Bring Me Sandwiches gets a score of 10 out of 10.

Puzzle games have gone in all sorts of different directions since the iPod came out. The openness of the AppStore, coupled with the mind blowing amount of talented developers, and the range of possibilities that the touch screen brings to the table makes for some very interesting games. However, it kind of seems like puzzle games have hit a rough patch. Almost everything entering the AppStore these days is a physics based Angry Birds or Tiki Totems type game. So it was a real surprise when I started up Yuguosoft’s new action puzzler, Robo5.

In the game, you’ll control a robot who’s trying to find out who he is, and why he is here. You’ll solve a series of box moving puzzles in order to move through the worlds. Each of the levels has 3 stars that you can earn, one for completing the level in a set amount of time, one for collecting all of the items, and one for having under a certain amount of box moves. Every time you earn 20 stars, a Diary, or challenge, level is unlocked. These give you more back-story on Robot Number 5, and the world he lives in, and when you complete the Diary levels, even more is revealed.

The graphics are amazingly detailed, and some of the best I’ve seen in an iOS game. I would put them upto par with Unreal Engine graphics, even though they did not use Unreal to create the game. The atmospheres are very immersive, and along with the animations for movement, and the music within the game, it creates quite an amazing world.

With Yuguosoft pricing both the iPod and iPad version at only $0.99, it’s an amazing buy. It’s taken me about 10 hours to get to the last level of the game, which I am currently stumped on, but I still need to go back and get 3 stars in about 25 of the 40 levels, not including the 7 out of 8 Diary levels I have yet to complete. GameCenter integration completes the game adding quite a bit of replay value, even for gamers who manage to get 3 stars on every level. 6 leader boards, one for a combined score in each world, and one for your highest world score, along with 32 achievements, some being very hard to snag. For a puzzle game, Robo5 goes above and beyond the expectations of gamers, and gives them an incredibly immersive, amazingly thoughtful and enriching gameplay experience. I really can not recommend Robo5 enough, to any and all gamers. The difficulty in the later levels is pretty high, but once you get to the end of the levels, the feeling you’ll have is more than enough of a reward. Yuguosoft has definitely created a contender for Game Of The Year, and over the last week has easily moved into my top 5 of 2011, and has set a new standard for action puzzle games of the future.

Robo5 gets a perfect score of 10 out of 10, along with a VERY strong recommendation from The App Shack for fans of every genre.