Search Results for: label/420Stars/index.html

It’s not too often you can come across an RPG title which is unique and has an interesting story. Winner of Bytten.com’s ‘Most Addictive’ Game Award for 2012, Fall of Angels, developed by Kevin Mitchell (who previously worked for Eurocom Entertainment Software and IBM) and Lee Pattison, is one of the few RPGs available in the AppStore which falls away from the typical cutesy plots and cartoonish graphics resulting in a terrific turn based/real time RPG with a memorable story, unique graphics, and great gameplay. 

Starting off, you’re shown a cut-scene with some sort of object appearing out of nowhere and  shooting through the sky, crash landing somewhere off in the distance. Next, there’s a dialogue sequence between a soldier and commander who’s forces are trying to break through the borders of the land where they believe the object has landed. You come in during the battle as Sariel, a member of CEL, an elite worldwide force working for the religious powers within the world of Fall of Angels. 

The controls are presented nicely, and easy to use; A floating joystick, run button in the lower right corner, and the menu button in the top right. Battle controls are clean and also very simple to use; Tap on the character you want to use, tap on the action, Attack, Skills, Action or Items, and then tap on the enemy you want to take action against. If you would like to use your typical attack, you can just tap on your character 3 consecutive times, and he’ll automatically attack the enemy. 

The fighting is Turn-Based, but only to an extent. Your character’s can only attack after a cool-down, but there is no break in the battle. If you don’t attack right away, you could wind up being hit numerous times before you get a hit in. This makes the battles more action oriented, and pretty unique. Each of the battles you enter is basically voluntary. You’re able to see each of the enemies and animals on the map, so there are no hidden/random battles. 

Graphically, Fall of Angels looks like an old-school PC title; 2D sprites set against 3D environments. This does make for some hard to find pathways that are hidden behind trees or walls, but I’ve never wound up feeling lost or stuck. The environments are nicely detailed, and easy to tell apart. Animations are decent enough, though the running animation looks pretty weird, and some of the stances that the characters take look awkward. But it consistently gives you the feeling of an old-school RPG, which I absolutely love. 

As you make your way through the game, you’ll be able to collect tools which you can equip and use to complete puzzles, and side-tasks, as well as collect various objects. The interactive puzzles are a nice addition to the game, and even though they take you out of the core gameplay, they don’t distract from the immersion. 

Priced at $2.99, but on sale at the moment for $1.99, and available for the iPhone/iPod, you’ll need to play in 2X mode if you’re on your iPad, which is kind of a bummer. The environments don’t wind up being pixilated, but the character sprites do. Hopefully an HD or Universal version will be released in the future. The developers have said that Fall of Angels is only the beginning of a wider story arc that’s already been written, which is great to hear. The AppStore could definitely use more RPG titles like this. If you’re a sucker for old-school RPG games, Fall of Angels has one of the most interesting stories you’ll find in an iOS title, and interesting combat+puzzle mechanics. It’s one you should definitely check out.

Roguelike games have definitely become a new obsession of mine. After 100 Rogues and Zaga 33, I just can’t get enough of them. A three-man project, Cardinal Quest, just so happens to be the newest roguelike to grace my iPad, and it’s already gotten quite a bit of gameplay out of me. 

Starting off, you’re able to choose between one of three different characters; a Fighter, who has strong melee attacks, a Thief, who is agile and can use his speed to get away from enemies quickly, and a Wizard who’s strength is in his spells. You’ll be going after Asterion. A minotaur who crushed the town you were living in when you were young, also captured many of the townsfolk, and turned them into his slaves. Now that you’re older, you’re going after the beast, fighting through swarms of his minions and maze like dungeons. 

To control your character, you’ll need to tap in the gameplay area in the direction you want to move. A swipe to move control scheme would be a nice addition, but right now, the tap to move and hold to run controls work well enough. On the right side of the screen, you’ll have your spells, at the bottom, your quick select inventory, and on the left, you can select a map, inventory, and check out your character’s stats. As you make your way through each level of the dungeon, you’ll automatically level up your character by defeating enemies, and gain more spells by exploring and finding them laying around. Your character also automatically equips himself with the strongest equipment he finds, which is a nice addition. No needing to go and manually figure out what items to wear. Once you find stairs to a lower level, all you need to do is tap the center of the screen, and your character will go down to the next level.

Like most other roguelike titles available, Cardinal Quest is done with retro graphics, but even though you’re going through dungeon level after dungeon level, the environments do change enough to stay interesting. Also, the character and enemy sprites are well done, and surprisingly, the equipment that your character wears is shown on his in-game sprite, which is a great addition. Great animations, the nice BGM and cool sound effects complete the atmosphere perfectly. The level design is fairly simple, with no hidden passage ways, no locked doors, but the exploration aspect is still there, and the lack of any hidden areas doesn’t really effect the gameplay. The developers have also said that this is something they’d like to add in the future, so we’ll see.

Unfortunately, unlike most other rogue like titles, there are no stats. Having a stats screen is a big thing for a lot of roguelike fans. Seeing how well you’ve done, how far you’ve gotten, which character you play the best with, ect… is usually a big deal. Thankfully, this is also something that the developers are talking about adding in a future update for the game. But as it is right now, there are no end game stats at all. 

Cardinal Quest is a great, fast-paced roguelike title that fans of the genre should definitely check out. Priced at $1.99, and being Universal, it’s a great buy, and one that will fit very nicely between 100 Rogues and Fargoal in any Roguelike folder on your device. Hopefully the game will sell well, and we can see the game become more well rounded, but even as it is now, it’s a game that no roguelike fanatic should be without.

If you’ve been a reader of The App Shack for a while now, you probably already know that we LOVE Ayopa games here. Their nice releases, along with super support from the developers of the games they publish really makes them easy to support. Their most recent publication comes from developer Steven Pastro; an action puzzler, Light Byte. 

Light Byte has 3 different gameplay modes; Endless, Time Attack, and Full Byte. Each mode’s play is basically the same. You’ll need to match two blocks that are the same color, which will make them fall from the slowly descending wall of blocks, giving you access to the blocks behind them. The more blocks of the same color you match, the higher your score will be, and once you take out 8 blocks of the same color, you’ll enter frenzy mode, which turns all of the blocks into stars, and you can just tap away, knocking them all down. 

In Endless Mode, you start off with 3 colors of blocks, yellow, blue and red. As you knock down these blocks, they‘ll fill a level meter as well as color meters at the bottom of the screen. Once the level meter is filled up, you‘ll go up a level, and the speed of the descending blocks will slightly increase. Below the level meter are the color meters. Each meter is added to when you knock down blocks of the meter’s color. Once one of the meters is filled, it shoots stars up to the top of the screen, clearing all of the blocks on screen, and gives you a point bonus. And bonus points are a huge part of Light Byte.

As you knock down blocks, each block that’s the same color as the last is increased 100 points. Once you enter Frenzy Mode, each block knocked down gives you 500 points, and here, you can tap very quickly, and gain quite a few extra points, and if you’re lucky, you can clear the screen of every block, and get a clear bonus. With GameCenter support, and 14 leader boards, high-scores are a huge part of the replay value, and drive to keep playing. There’s also 33 achievements, helping to add to the replay value and challenge. 

Also a part of score chasing, unlocking modes requires you to collect a certain amount of total points. Normal Mode in Time Attack requires you get 5 million points to unlock it, Challenge Mode in Time Attack requires 10 million, and Extreme requires 50 million while Full Byte Mode needs 25 million. 

With the Modes being unlocked by cumulative points, and fairly large amounts, there’s a guarantee that even after playing for hours on end, you’ll still have a pretty big chance of unlocking something new, and having a whole new leader board to compete on. But if you’re impatient, you can unlock all of the modes for $1.99.

As we’ve said quite a few times in the past, Ayopa is one of our favorite publishers. The developers who release their games through them are very supportive, and have worked non-stop to make their games as user friendly as they can, and as entertaining as they can, based on gamer feedback. It’s pretty much a give-in that Light Byte will be the same. As it is now, I haven’t found any issues with the game, but as with almost every other game out there, the chances of someone finding some are fairly high, so it’s always great to have a team of developers+publishers that are devoted to customer satisfaction. Light Byte is $0.99, and Universal. And with the crazy amount of content and replay value, it’s a great game to get if you’re into action puzzlers or games that require quick thinking and reflexes. With Light Byte, you can chalk another one up to Ayopa, it’s definitely a game that’ll end up staying on my iDevice for a long, long time.

Score-chasing arcade games are a god-send for iOS gaming. They’re a perfect fit for the platform, with endless play, quick gaming sessions, and tons of drive that always keeps you coming back for more. In my opinion, the AppStore will never have too many score driven arcade titles. The most recent addition to my Score-Chasing folder on my iPad is Chillibite Entertainment’s Stunt Bunnies Circus. 

This tap based arcade game has you controlling an extremely quick and agile rabbit who’s trying to save all of the falling rabbits from smashing into the floor. It sounds pretty basic, and the main idea is, but once you add in the fireball tossing rabbit, fireballs around the falling rabbits, cannons shooting rabbits every which way, the different types of rabbits, the snarling lions, combos needed to gain coins, things can get pretty hectic pretty fast. 

There are two modes of gameplay, Story, and Arcade (which is unlocked after completing Chapter 2 of Story Mode); Story Mode has you going through 8 level chapters, adding different mechanics as you go along, and slowly progressing in difficulty. Here, you need to try and save as many bunnies as you can from hitting the ground. Only being able to catch 5 rabbits in a row, you’ll need to keep making sure you drop them off before the next wave starts or else you could wind up missing quite a few of them. You’re able to earn coins if you catch more than one rabbit per tap, but you’re also able to align yourself mid-air. This does require more taps, and quickly, but once you get the hang of it, pulling it off is incredibly fun. As you catch bunnies, you’ll fill up a bar on the right side of the screen. Once this is full, you’ve completed the level. Arcade Mode is basically an endless mode. You’re able to miss 5 bunnies, and then it’s game over, but here, you’re able to earn quite a few coins which you can spend on power-ups which can help you get through Story Mode. 

With the coins that you collect in both gameplay modes, you’re able to purchase one time use power-ups. There’s Rocket Fuel, which doubles your jet pack speed for one round, Crash Mats, which gives you 3 mats which will each save one bunny from hitting the ground, and a Fire Jacket, which protects you from up to 10 fireballs in one round. Prices for these are fairly high, with Rocket Fuel priced at 100 coins, Crash Mats at 200, and the Fire Jacket at 500, they’re pretty much only there for Story levels that you’re having a very hard time beating, or when you’re ready to try and get a high-score in Arcade Mode. But you can pretty much count on either playing through the vast majority of the levels with no power-ups, or purchasing coins through IAP (1,000 coins for $0.99, 2,500 coins for $1.99 and 10,000 coins for $2.99). Now, I have nothing against IAPs in games, but having consumable items (and ONLY consumable items) in your game, with consumable IAP, and games that push you towards IAP with INSANE difficulty, or having to wait for 10+ hours before getting a couple gold pieces, kind of leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Luckily, here, they aren’t required to play through the whole game, as you only need 1 star to move on from level to level, so you’re really pushed towards getting better at the game than purchasing coins, which I view as a positive addition to games. 

With Stunt Bunnies Circus priced at $0.99, being Universal, having pretty much endless replay value and GameCenter with a leaderboard and 26 achievements, it’s a nice score-chasing tap based arcade title. It’d be great to see even more bunnies added, some playable characters which could be unlocked, or more power-ups, but as it is now, it offers up some nice variety, a great challenge, especially if you’re going to go for 3 stars on every level, nice graphics and animations, and all-around entertaining gameplay. It’s very clear they know what it takes to make a fully rounded iOS title, and I’m hoping to see more from Jujubee Games in the future. 

At first, the movement of the screen when you move your character around can be pretty frustrating. The screen seems to want to jump all over the place. But after you play the game a bit, it does get a bit less annoying, but there’s still always that little jerk on the screen when you move that takes away from the immersion of the gameplay. There are also some issues with the frame-rate, but nothing that distracts as much as the jerkiness of the screen. The directional joystick moves your character in 8 directions, which isn’t bad, but after playing CrimsonHeart, this is always something that’s noticeable. 

Aside from these slight issues, Legend Of Master 3 is a competent Action RPG title, with a fairly large variety of classes all having their own unique skill trees and weapon options. Each of the 6 classes has the same story and plot; 400 years ago, an evil sorceress B’Kar turned Cain’s family to stone. Knowing that he couldn’t defeat B’Kar then, Cain split his soul into 7 pieces, scattering them across the lands with the hope that once all of the pieces of his soul were retrieved, he would  have the skills needed to defeat B’Kar once and for all. Now, in the present, Cain is awakened inside the body of William, an heir to the throne who had just watched his younger brother die in front of his eyes. While learning about the futuristic world Cain now resides in, he must find the 7 pieces of his soul, and defeat B’Kar, avenging his family and loved ones. 

From the story, it’s pretty easy to tell that this isn’t your typical younger naive children learning how to be adults while going on an adventure to help save a little town, cheesy type RPG plot. The graphics also mirror this with fantastic character and enemy models/sprites. The camera is panned out a little more than most RPG titles on the iOS, which does make it a little bit harder to make out the characters details, but in 2X mode on the iPad, it’s fairly clear, and surprisingly not pixilated, which is a huge plus. The animations are also fantastically done, but as you can probably imagine, with the frame-rate and screen movement issues, don’t seem as smooth as they should be. 

The environments are, for the most part, dark and uninviting, and combined with the music, makes for an uneasy feeling. Making it even more uneasy are the environmental objects, most of which are fairly highly detailed, adding quite a bit of immersion to the game. Even though this immersion is lowered by the screen shaking. 

Other than that, the bulk of the game is like almost all other Action RPG titles available in the AppStore. Visiting towns exposes you to other characters who need various tasks completed to help them out in their daily lives, like collecting X amount of some herb or material, or killing X amount of a certain type of enemy. 

Crafting is included, but could use some tweaking as the amount of items you need to make potions is pretty high, and the difference between a slight increase in potion strength is even higher. For instance, making a 25% HP recovery potion costs you 8 Blooms, while a 35% potion costs 12 Blooms AND 12 Bones. But luckily, you’re able to disassemble items that you don’t need anymore straight from your inventory, without needing to go to a merchant, which lets you build up your gold pretty quickly, so just out-right purchasing potions is your best bet when you’re first starting out. However, crafting isn’t totally useless in the beginning. You’re able to craft Stones which you can use to upgrade your weapons, which really helps out in the beginning portions of the game, and crafting stones isn’t nearly as resource consuming as potions is, with each stone requiring only 6 items, 2 of three different ore’s which you’ll be able to pick up while making your way through the game. Upgrading your equipment is done through the blacksmith, picking an equipable item and combining it with stones. You’re also able to upgrade other stats of your items with stones in the blacksmith. Needless to say, crafting a bunch of stones, and upgrading your equipment is another big part of the game. 

With Legend Of Master 3 priced at $5, and not being Universal or including GameCenter achievements, and having a few issues with frame-rate and the camera, it’s a bit on the high end of the pricing spectrum. But when comparing it to other titles, it’s a lot more mature, staying away from the cutsey graphics and story lines of most RPGs. Hardcore fans of the genre will enjoy the deep skill trees, 6 different classes, and huge selection of weapons, along with the upgrading and crafting. The graphics and animations are also top-notch, however marred by the camera issues, which is only such a big deal because of how beautiful the graphics truly are, and the desire to see them as clearly as they deserve to be shown. On the other hand, if you’re looking for something to match the depth, and smoothness of CrimsonHeart, you might want to wait and see if some of these issues are fixed in future updates. Considering the game is the 3rd in the series, and published by Gamevil, there’s a fairly high chance that they will be tackled. Legend Of Master 3 does have it’s faults, but they are easily overlooked once you get deep into the game, and get sucked into the story and combat. It’s definitely a title you should keep your eyes on. 

Castlevania influenced games are basically non-existent within the AppStore, so when CWA Games (one of the biggest mobile development teams in China) released their first iOS title, Avenger, fans of the niche genre jumped at the chance to check it out. Judging from the trailer, the gameplay looks solid, but the grammar looked like it might have been translated by Google, which, if you’ve used ‘Google Translate’, you know is pretty horrendous, and for a lot of gamers, bad English translation is enough for them to stay away from a game. 

Demons have built a castle in the human world, and are trying to take it over. You’ll play as Cyprus, a prince who has the abilities to save the world. Throughout the game, you’ll be chasing the Devil Queen and searching for the Castle of Shadows. The grammar throughout the game does take away from the story, as it’s kind of hard to understand exactly what’s going on, and is made worse by how quickly the text appears and disappears during the cut scenes. 

Unlike Castlevania, there is no real exploration or backtracking, which is unfortunate. A game in the same vein as Castlevania feels kind of incomplete when it’s so linear. The combat system is fairly simple, with one button for attacking, and then two icons in between the joystick and attack+jump buttons for special attacks. You are able to execute different attacks depending on where your joystick is placed. For instance, an attack that flings you up into the air is done by holding up on the joystick and pressing the attack button, while holding back on the joystick and pressing attack will make you do a backflip attack. 

As you progress through the game, you will gain experience which upgrades both your character and your current weapon. When your character advances a level, his Hit Points, Magic/Mana Points, Attack and Defense all increase, while with a weapon, the attack power increases and you’re able to assign a special attribute, like extra attack points, more experience earned, and things of this nature, but you have to pay to ‘enchant’ your weapon. This is where most of the gold that you collect from killing demons will go. But once you enchant your weapon 3 times, it will receive a special ability, like increased agility, or increased attack strength for the first couple of hits in a new room, and more.

You will also be picking up other items as you make your way through the game. More powerful swords are awarded each time you beat a boss, HP and MP bottles will fall from treasure chests and enemies, and scrolls which send you back to Twist Space which is where you’ll be able to enter different mirrors which take you to different sections of Avenger’s world. Here, you can go to previously beaten areas, and purchase potions, weapons, and scrolls. 

Avenger’s gameplay is great for those of you looking for a Castlevania themed button masher. But the gameplay doesn’t really overshadow all of the issues. The framerate could be smoother. It’s not as bad as it looks in the trailer, but it’s not smooth by any means. Like Casltevania, you’re only able to save at certain spots throughout the game. This wouldn’t really be a bad thing, except that this is a mobile game, and for some reason, the game quits whenever your device goes into sleep mode, or you get a phone call, which means you could be loosing quite a bit of progress fairly often. 

I’m still fairly new to the 4X genre, having only been into it for the last couple years, but what I’ve played so far, I’ve absolutely fallen in love with. Starbase Orion is easily one of my favorite iOS games to date, and Ascendancy, Civilization Revolution and Imperium Galactica II have totally got me hooked. Luckily for me, there were a few 4X ‘lite’ games to be found on the AppStore, and without them, I don’t think I would have gotten into the 4X genre like I have. 9 Colonies, Blue Libra and Vincere Totus Astrum played huge roles in my decent into the 4X world, and since then, I still find it hard to pass up on lite 4X titles. Astraware Limited’s Weird Worlds: Return To Infinite Space falls into this category of ‘4X lite’, and just like the other titles mentioned, it’s a great game to get if you’re just starting to uncover the many, many layers of the 4X genre, or even if you’re already deep into the genre, and are looking for a game that you can complete in 10-30 minutes. 

There are 3 different types of campaign like scenarios in Weird Worlds which you’ll be able to play through, each depending on the type of ship you choose to command. There’s a Science Vessel, Pirate Corvette and Terran Frigate. 

With the Science Vessel, your goal is to catalog and capture unknown alien lifeforms. While you’re doing this, you’ll need to also catalogue new worlds and various deep space phenomena so that the information can be added to starmaps. Playing with the Pirate Corvette will have you exploring the galaxy and grabbing anything of value; technology, artifacts, lifeforms, weapons and hostages. The Terran Frigate’s goals are to make first contact with alien lifeforms determining if they are peaceful or ready for war, as well as obtaining all of the technology and artifacts you can that might be useful to the military. 

With each ship, you’re able to decide how large the map is, small, medium or large. As the galaxy gets bigger, you’ll have more time to explore the planets within it. The small map gives you 10 years, medium gives you 20 and the large map gives you 30. You must make it back to Glory, the planet you start your adventure from, before time runs out, or else the points you’ve collected while out in space will not be added to your score. You’re also able to choose the Nebula Mass, which slows down your ship dramatically, as well as the hostile alien’s combat strength. 

Exploring the galaxy is simple, tap on a planet, and two taps will pop up, ‘Engage’ and ‘View’. You’re also able to see how far away the planet is, and how long it will take you to travel to it. ‘View’ gives you a little bit of information about the planet, while ‘Engage’ will have you travel there. Once you’re on the planet, if there are any available materials, weapons, other equip items like shields, star drives, propulsion systems, and loads more, as well as alien beings, plant life, technology and artifacts, you can put all of these into your cargo hold, or equip your own ship with them. 

Unless you have an item which scans planets within your vicinity, you will not be able to tell if planets are occupied by alien beings or not until you land on the planet. If there are alien lifeforms, you can choose to engage them and find out if they’re hostile or friendly, or just leave them alone without finding out who or what they are. As you travel around the galaxy, you’ll also come across mercenaries which can be hired by trading them items from your cargo hold. Once you have hired them, they’ll fly alongside you in battle, helping you get out of tricky situations. You are also able to equip their ships with items found on the various planets, which does give the whole equip system some depth. 

Weird Worlds: Return To Infinite Space is only available for the iPad, and is $4.99. It does have GameCenter support, with 3 boards for the small, medium and large sized galaxies, but does not have any achievements. Right now, Weird Worlds would be much better if it had a lot more items and aliens to come across within the galaxy as right now, it seems like after you play through the game once with each of the ships, you’ve pretty much seen everything there is to see, and all that keeps you playing is the high-score chase. Hopefully the developers have something in mind to add to the replay value. The game is solid in all other aspects. It’s a great game for those of you who are looking to get more into the 4X genre, but are finding games like Ascendancy and Starbase Orion too complex at the moment, or for 4X fans looking for a game that they can play through in short spans. 

FDG Entertainment is responsible for bringing one of my favorite flash games, Clear Vision, to the iOS. Recently, they also brought Tentacle Wars, another popular flash game to the iPad. This week, they’re doing it again. Expand It, the popular flash game featured on Bored.com has hit the iOS world thanks to one of our favorite publishers, FDG. Expand It falls into the physics puzzler genre, but thankfully, it’s not your typical run of the mill physics title. You need to make your expandable blocks reach a certain height by making them bigger as well as using the interesting objects found throughout the stages. 

My first glance at the screen shots, I was kind of disappointed, thinking that it was another one of those ‘take out the blocks so that one block hit’s the platform’ type games. Boy was I WAY wrong. Expand It is an original and very unique type of physics puzzler, something the AppStore needs to see more often. To complete each of the levels, you need to tap on certain shapes that are in the levels to make them grow, and to activate various objects and hazards. Once you have the solution, all you need to do is make sure that one of your blocks winds up above the rainbow line towards the top of the screen for a couple of seconds, and voila, on to the next one.

It may sound surprisingly easy, but once you get past the first couple of levels, finding out the solutions could take multiple tries while finding out what each of the blocks and hazards do, and what actually moves within the levels and what size you need to have each of the shapes reach at what given times. After you think you’ve got a handle on the whole layout of the game, it ramps up the difficulty again, always seeming to add something new and unique as you progress.

Expand It has 4 different environments, each with 15 stages, offering up 60 separate levels to complete. Each of these levels has a 3 star rating, which can be achieved depending on how quickly you complete the levels. This does add a bit of replay value to the game if you’re interested in competing on the Game Center leaderboard, besting your own scores, or completing each of the 19 achievements. The game also has empty worlds showing that more levels are coming in future updates, which is always great to hear, especially when it comes to physics puzzlers. 

As for the graphics, animations, and physics; Expand It has perfected each of these. The graphics are incredibly cute, well still remaining very polished, and the animations for each of the blocks only adds to the great feeling of the game. Each of the moving objects in a level have been done perfectly, making sure that not one of them throws the flow of the game off. The physics are done to perfection as well, as each object has a certain weight to it, and does a very good job projecting that weight through the gameplay, especially on the stages where you need to have blocks be a certain size at certain times in order to complete the stage. 

As with other FDG games, Expand It is very reasonably priced, with both the SD and HD versions costing $0.99. A Universal version would be ideal so that people could compete on the same leaderboard, but with the inclusion of HD Retina graphics, I’m actually wishing more and more games would resort to this method of sales, lowering the price for each version making a $2 game $0.99, but keeping the SD and HD versions separate, as all of that extra space for heightened graphics isn’t’ needed on the small screen devices, and usually winds up being seen as a giant waste of space. If you’re a fan of the physics puzzler genre, and are looking for something new and unique, Expand It is definitely a game to check out. And since it’s released by FDG, you know the production qualities, and updates for the game are going to be top-notch, making it very easy to recommend and support. 

Puzzler games have really been expanding and growing when it comes to new and unique ideas spawned by past games. It’s no secret that Angry Birds (or Boom Blox, depending on how you want to look at it) has, itself, pushed the physics puzzler genre into many different directions, and has had its fair share of clones. But it’s always nice seeing a developer take the flinging mechanic and do something new and interesting with it. Nano Titans, developers of Foodies, an arcade puzzler, has just released their newest title, another arcade puzzler, Webbies. This time around, instead of bouncing your main character around to collect food, you’ll be flinging bundles of food at your characters. 

Seems that a grumpy old retired wizard doesn’t like the little woodland creatures hanging out around the forest all the time, and has come up with a formula that makes his arachnoid  friends webs ultra strong. Because of this, the food that the creatures always munch on is getting stuck in the webs. It’s up to you to fling it into their mouths so that they don’t starve. 

At first, the game seems really easy, and almost boring. But after you get past the intro levels, the game really seems to pick up, and gets some interesting mechanics thrown into the mix. Having more than one critter on the screen will give you different types of food, which are all mixed together in the webs, and you need to get certain types of food into specific animals mouths. This means you need to group the food together, shooting acorns into acorns, moving one piece of food out of the way of another so that you can get it to your critter, or in line with another piece of the same food and then to your critter. This gets ever more difficult as you progress, and moving platforms, sticky grabbers, logs, rotating cannons, moving critters and more all comes into play. 

Now, the scoring mechanics are really what push the game forward, and make it more difficult. Getting three stars in each of the levels will require you to combine the same type of food multiple times, getting a combo bonus score. Matching two pieces of the same type of food will give you 5 extra points, while connecting 4 pieces of the same type of food, without connecting a different type of food while in the process, will give you 25 bonus points. If you have two bunches of food, say one bunch of 2 and one bunch of 3, then the smaller bunch is multiplied by 5, and you’re given that many points, in this case, it would be 10 extra bonus points. Once the platforms come into play, bouncing food of them will also give you bonus points. There’s also bonuses for feeding a critter until it’s full, giving you 30 points, and feeding a critter til it’s full in one shot, which gives you 50 points. All of these different types of scoring bonuses will need to be used in order to get 3 stars in each of the levels throughout the game, and to compete on the GameCenter scoreboard. 

It’s great how a scoring system like this can really change how you play a game. If there were no bonuses for bouncing food off of platforms, bundling them together, or for other actions throughout the game, Webbies would be played very differently, and you have that option if you’re not into high-scores, which also makes this a great game for the younger iOS gamer audience as well. This is always a great thing to hear for those of us with children who are into gaming. 

The graphics, animations, sounds and effects, all come together to create a very polished looking and sounding package. With Webbies being Universal, $0.99, and containing over 100 levels, it’s a great buy, especially if you’re into arcade puzzlers, or games with great scoring mechanics and score chasing. There are no extra IAPs in the game, so it’s a flat out purchase. Nano Titans has already submitted their first update to Apple which adds an undo button. I’m a little worried that this might make the game a bit too easy, but I guess we’ll see when it hit’s the AppStore later on in the week. As it is, right now, Webbies is very easy to recommend to fans of the genre, even if you’ve gotten a little sick of the whole flinging puzzler type of gameplay like I have over the last year or so. Webbies might not bypass all of the typical used mechanics within the genre, but the way it’s presented, along with the scoring system adding to the way you’ll wind up playing the game, it really stands out inside of a genre that’s been flooded with titles over the last couple years. 

Strategy Games are really hitting their stride in the AppStore, but one of my favorites has always been Tactical Warrior by James Pawliuk. Earlier this week, the two man team consisting of Mr. Pawliuk and Brandon Alter released their 3rd iOS title, LostStar Tactics, a turn-based strategy RPG with some great gameplay, nice graphics, and an interesting story to go along with it. But does it warrant purchasing when so much of the game is identical to Tactical Warrior?

When compared to Tactical Warrior, the whole set-up of the game and gameplay is almost identical. Moving costs stamina, unless you move to an orange tile and each attack or special ability you use costs stamina, while resting offers your character recovery of stamina. Each character, as well as enemy, has stats which you’ll need to learn so that you can know what attacks will work well, and what attacks will result in almost no damage at all. Even the party screen is an almost identical clone of Tactical Warrior’s. 

The character designs and environments, however, are fairly different. The characters have quite a bit of details, with some wielding some pretty badass looking weapons while the environments lean more towards lightly forested and murky areas, though the environmental objects still play a roll in where you’ll move your characters and how you attack with them. 

While exploring the outer reaches of space, you wind up finding something extraordinary. The planet Moridia, which legends say is home to mythical knowledge and treasures hidden in a mysterious ‘nebalua‘. An energy pulse takes your ship out while exploring, resulting in a crash landing on the unexplored planet. Now it’s up to you and your team to survive the attacking life forms, and find a way back home. 

Starting off, you’re able to choose between 3 different groups of fighters; Mechanic, who’s main focus is summoning – Warrior, who focuses on powerful attacks – and Councillor who focuses on flexibility. You’re also able to choose between Easy, Medium and Hard Difficulties. 

The game is set up kind of like a card based strategy game. Each character is able to equip various cards which allow them to perform different attacks as well as beef up their defensive skills. Once you earn enough experience through battles, you’re able to strengthen these cards up. Some battles will also give you cards as rewards, and sometimes you’ll be offered another character to add to your team. Each time you’re offered a reward, you’re given 3 choices to choose from. In the event of a new member being offered, you’re able to not add a member, and give some XP to your team. All of this makes the card equipping, leveling up, and even item equipping aspects of the game fairly deep. 

Aside from the cards, story and character design+environments, LostStar Tactics could easily be a sequel to Tactical Warrior. Is that a bad thing? Not necessarily. Especially when I think about all the hours upon hours I lost because of Tactical Warrior. There’s also the price. $1.99. Hard to beat that, considering Tactical Warrior is $2.99, and worth every penny. But even with the fantastic gameplay, there are a couple of down-sides to the game. The game is not Universal, so those of you out there who hate playing games in 2X mode on your iPad will be pretty disappointed. There’s also no GameCenter, meaning no achievements to shoot for. Also, if there’s a player or enemy at the bottom of the screen underneath the text that says “touch a warrior to view his stats.” you’ll need to move the playing field in order to select them. It’s not a big deal, but something that kept on bugging me while I was playing. Actually, none of these ‘issues’ are really a big deal. LostStar Tactics is one of those games that’s good enough it’s very easy to overlook having to play in 2X Mode, and the lack of achievements or any online features. 

In the end, LostStar Tactics is a fairly deep turn-based strategy game with great RPG elements, also with a price that really can’t be beat. Hopefully it gets the attention it deserves so that more work will go into it, and hopefully we can get an HD or Universal version of the game. An online multiplayer mode would be amazing to see as well. But for $1.99, it’s a great buy if you’re a fan of turn-based strategy games. Even if you’re new to the genre, LostStar Tactics would be a great place to start. It’s easy to understand tutorial and simple gameplay that gets deeper the more you explore it is great for newcomers to the genre.