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Run Fox Run – 0.99 (Icewire)

Run Fox Run is a new endless runner by Icewire. In the game, you’ll be able to go through 3 different modes of play, Story, Endless, and Coin Mode. In Story Mode, you’ll be able to run through 24 levels spread up across 4 different environments, each with different enemies, and progressing difficulty. Endless Mode lets you face all of the 40 different enemies while running through environments from all 4 different worlds in Story Mode, while Coin Mode lets you run from the main menu. You’re able to hit an arrow up on the menu selection area so that the ‘Story” and “Endless” mode selections are not blocking up the screen, and then you can run as far as you can while collecting as many coins as possible.

Each mode has different mechanics, and different ways of dealing with enemies. A lot of thought was put into the scoring of Run Fox Run, which is always nice to see no matter what genre you’re dealing with. In Story Mode, there is no score, but instead, you’re given 3 hearts to start out with, and have the option of trying to pick up more, up to 5, as they’re scattered throughout the level as item pick-ups. There’s a little gauge on the top right corner that lets you know how far you’ve gone in the level, and how far you have until the end. Jumping on enemies isn’t necessary, as there is no score, but if you run into or hit one of them, you’ll loose a heart. Loose all your hearts, and you’ll need to start over. Making it to the end of the level without loosing a heart, and you’ll get a C Star, that stands for Cunning. Collecting these perfect stars, along with progressing through the levels are the main points of playing in this mode.
Endless Mode has some more complex scoring, as you’re scored on distance. But jumping on enemies gives you a multiplier, increasing your distance score. A little 2x or 3x will stay above your fox for as long as the multiplier is active, while jumping on more enemies while the multiplier is shown above your head will add to it. You’re given 3 hearts, as well as heart pick-ups throughout the levels, to use before you die, and need to start from the beginning. There are level changes within Endless Mode, as the levels are about as long as Story Mode levels, but your score carries over from level to level.
In both Story and Endless Modes, there’s also power-ups. Many are scattered throughout the levels, and one is a power-up that keeps recharging after you use it. The rechargeable power-up, shown at the bottom of the screen, is a speed booster that leaves you invincible while it’s active. You can quickly run through groups of enemies very easily with this power-up enabled, and it keeps charging while you run. If you get hit by an enemy, the gauge will drop back about half way, and you’ll need to re-charge it again in order to use it. Some of the power-ups are a shield, a jump booster, a speed power-up booster which gives you a full speed gauge, and a power-up that kills all enemies on two platforms.
Coin Mode, played at the main menu, is more basic with it’s scoring, and doesn‘t use any power-ups or the speed ability. There’s two types of coins, one worth 1 point, and coins with silver around them, worth 5 points. The goal is to collect as many coins before you hit 1 enemy. Hitting an enemy automatically resets the coin counter back to zero, and you’ll keep running, trying to collect as many coins as you can all over again.
GameCenter and OpenFeint have two leader boards, one for Endless Mode, and one for Coin Mode, along with 27 achievements. The online support is a great addition, and adds a lot to the replay value of the game, even after finishing the Story Mode, and playing around with the other modes. There’s also a Credits Mode, where you can run and jump on enemies while the credits are playing. Jumping on an enemy shows you the name in the credits in a darker color, and is not scored, and has no real purpose other than to give you something to do while reading the credits. It is, however, a very nice addition, as no other game that I’ve seen lets you actually play through the credits.
The graphics in Run Fox Run are done extremely well, with great environments, and painted backgrounds, the game is extremely vibrant, and professional looking. The animations are also very well done, from the running of the fox to the movement of the enemies, especially in the later levels with Abstract World. The music goes along fairly well with the game, and doesn’t get annoying at all. The effects also add quite a bit to the game, and it all creates quite a nice atmosphere. The controls in Run Fox Run are also very well done, having the fox’s jumping height dependant on how long you hold down on the screen, and never struggling for timing with unresponsive or laggy control.
Icewire has done an amazing job creating their first iOS game, and has shown that they know exactly what it takes to break into a genre already overflowing with great games and make their mark. Run Fox Run has more than enough content, and incredible replay value, with online support, and very responsive developers behind it all. For $0.99, it’s a great buy, and one that will end up staying on your device for a long, long time. I, for one, and very excited to see what the future holds for the new development company, and can’t wait to find out what they have in store for their next game.
Run Fox Run gets a perfect score of 10 out of 10, and is recommended to all fans of the endless runner genre.
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Xurge – 0.99 (Paul Bryant)

Xurge is a new arcade tap shooter from Paul Bryant. In Xurge, you’ll be able to play through two different modes, Endurance, and Kamikaze, each having 5 different difficulty levels, Casual, Easy, Medium, Hard, and Extreme. The game brings back a lot of memories of playing arcade games, back when I was a kid, at the local bowling ally down the street from where I grew up. The graphics, gameplay, even down to the demo/tutorial that you’ll need to watch (instead of read) before playing the game in order to know how the game mechanics work.

In Endurance Mode, you’ll go through wave after wave of enemies, increasing in speed, amount, and difficulty. There are three different colors of enemies, blue, grey, and red. Blue and Red enemies need different types of shots in order for them to be killed, while Grey enemies can be hit with either type of shot and be taken down. To change the shot type, you’ll need to select the cannon you want to use, and then tap on it, then hit the fire button when the correct mode for the cannon is chosen. Red enemies can be killed using the default mode of the cannons, a grey outfit, while Blue enemies will need the blue shot, shown on the cannon by two blue stripes.
Each of the enemies will come at you through one of four tracks, each leading down to one of your four cannons. To kill them, you’ll need to pick the correct cannon, and fire at them, hopefully before they fire down at you, damaging your cannon. You can repair your cannons by tapping on their health bars, but only at a slow rate, making it impossible to repair your cannons if they’re taking constant damage.
In Kamikaze Mode, you’ll need to destroy each of the enemies before they crash into your cannons. You are aloud to take a certain amount of damage, and repair your cannons, just like Endurance Mode, but instead of stopping the enemies before they shoot at you, you’ll try and stop them before they run into you.
The controls are nice and responsive, though they are timed. You can not just double tap on a cannon to activate it and change it’s shot type, you’ll need to tap on the cannon, and wait for it to activate, and then tap on it, and wait for it to change it’s shot type before you can make it fire. This added timed tapping mechanic adds quite a bit of action to the gameplay, as you’ll be trying to get each cannon active and changed to the desired shot as fast as you can, racing the clock before enemies shoot at or crash into you.
The scoring system in Xurge is done quite well, as each ship will give you a set number of points, and if you hit enemies without missing a shot, you’ll add to your chain. Every multiple of 10 on your chain number will add an extra bonus set of points, going up as your chain goes up. So you’ll get bonus points on your 10th, 20th, 30th, ect consecutive hits, with the bonus going up about 100 points each time. Games that add scoring mechanics like this are great, and I just go nut-so over them. They add depth to the scoring, and drive gamers to play better, and score higher. Xurge is no exception. Constantly giving players that ‘one more time’ feeling each time they hit the game over screen, it’s sure to eat up hours and hours of your free-time. There are also quite a few different power-ups that you will get when destroying ships that are carrying them. Full health upgrades, special shot types, invincibility, and more help add to the gameplay quite a bit.
The retro graphics and soundtrack also add to the feeling of the game, and are sure to bring back memories of childhood play for gamers in their 20’s and 30’s. There are GameCenter and OpenFeint leader boards for both modes, and for each of the different difficulties, giving players a total of 12 global leader boards total. There’s also 17 achievements to keep achievement hunters busy for some time. For this small 2 person developing team, Xurge is a great game, and one that’s sure to nab them a few well deserved fans. For $0.99, there’s enough content, and replay ability to keep any retro gamer fan happy for quite some time.
Xurge gets a score of 8 out of 10.
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Fearless Ninja – (Box Shaped Games)

Fearless Ninja is a casual arcade game from Box Shaped Games (Max Injury + Max Injury 2). You will play as a ninja who needs to kill as many enemies as possible by collecting blue orbs that let you attack them, trying to get the highest score you can.

The graphics and animations in Fearless Ninja are done pretty well. The animations for attacking, movement, and the enemies is all top notch, while the background of the game looks nice. There is no variation in the environments though, and you’ll only see a couple of different enemies in the game until you get reasonably good. The variation with enemies is nice, but it would have been better if different enemies came out of the woodwork earlier in the game. Even playing on Easy, it took me 2 days before I saw the 3rd enemy.
The controls are done well, giving you a tap option, which lets you use the corners of the screen kind of like arrows, tapping on the bottom right to move the ninja right, and left to move left, and a swipe control that’s still kind of hard to be precise with, swiping in the direction you want to move, making moving while attacking a difficult task.
Enemies are spawned about halfway up the screen, and bounce along the ground, making you weave and dodge through them while trying to get to the blue orbs that come down from the sky as well. The orbs send you into an attacking flip where you can either run into enemies, or bounce off of them, chaining together combos for bigger and better groups of points. The more enemies you kill before touching the ground, the bigger your score.
The main enemies only need one hit in order to be killed, but occasionally, a more powerful enemy will bounce across the screen, and need 4 hits. These enemies that need more hits are great for bouncing on, killing all the one hit enemies in the process, shooting your combo score through the roof. There are also scrolls that drop once you hit a certain amount of points, and collecting them lets you use a power-up. To start off, you’ll get a tornado attack, which lets you spin up into the air, and then float there for a second, hitting enemies as they spawn, and then floating back down to the ground. If you store these power-ups, and another scroll falls, you’ll get some added health, which can really help extend your game quite a bit. You’re given 4 hits on your health bar before you die, so saving up the power-ups until you really need them is rewarded well.
GameCenter has leader boards for each of the 3 difficulties, Easy, Medium, and Hard, as well as a leader boards for how many enemies you’ve killed in one play-through on each difficulty, and one Ninja Score leader board, which is calculated from your Easy, Medium, and Hard scores to rank every player. There is plenty of variety once you get conformable with the game to push the fact that there is no change in the environment to the back of your mind. Different enemies and power-ups coupled with getting the best combo you can to drive your score up will be your main focus. For $0.99, and Universal, Fearless Ninja is a great casual arcade game that will also fit well on any hardcore gamers iDevice. The challenge is high, but like most high-scoring arcade games, the replay value is higher, and once you feel like you’ve mastered the game, it’ll still be able to beat up on you. Hopefully more modes will be added in the future to help give the game a bit more variety, but as it is now, it’s definitely worth the price of admission. If you’re still curious, you can check out the game for free on the developer’s website, inside the Unity player.
Fearless Ninja gets a score of 7 out of 10.
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Floria – 0.99 (m42 Studios)

Floria is a new endless floater, and first iOS game, from m42 Studios. In the game, you maneuver a flower through different enemies and objects trying to collect as many items as you can before the summer is over and winter arrives. Collecting the orbs throughout the game will give you points that you can use to unlock different types of flowers that have different abilities and power-ups.

The controls in Floria work well, but are a little jittery. Tilting moves the flower up and down, and rotating your device clockwise moves it forward, while counterclockwise moves it back. These controls do take a bit of getting use to, but once you do, they work well. The graphics look amazing, especially on devices with retina display. The animations in the game are done very well too. The backgrounds seem to come alive as you move through the world, with everything blooming right before your eyes. The movements of the flower, enemies, and growth of the thorns all looks amazing. The music and effects are also soothing, and add quite a bit to the atmosphere of the game.
There is a good variety of enemies throughout the world, lizards, spiders, birds, bees, and more will have you waving and dodging your way throughout the whole game. Orbs that you pick up for unlock points also add to your main score, and each different colored orb has a different score amount. There are also flower pick-ups, which fill a gauge at the bottom of the screen, and once you collect enough of the flowers, you can trigger the power-up and become invincible for a short time. During this time, running into enemies and objects adds to your score. There is an animation addition for invincible mode, having small flowers fly in a trail behind you, and when the power-up fades away, the flower starts to blink. There’s also special music for when the power-up is active, so you’ll never be stuck coming out of invincible mode, and running into enemies thinking the power-up is still active.
Through the world, there’s also time stopping pick-ups, shown as hour glasses, and speed increasers, shown as little arrows, that you’ll need to collect in order to get as far as you can before winter descends. Hitting enemies and objects will cause you to slow down, and if you hit a spider web, you’ll need to shake your device to get out of it.
Floria is a great ‘how far can you get’ game, with some great scoring, and nice game mechanics. It desperately needs some online leader boards though, as the only replay value you’ll have is for unlocking the additional 3 flowers, and beating your own score. Once you unlock all the flowers, the desire to play the game will drop pretty fast, and it will most likely just end up sitting there on your device waiting for an update that will add more content.
However, the game is very beautifully made, and the gameplay you have will provide you with quite the experience. The graphics are top notch, and the jittery controls really just effect the look, not the gameplay. At $0.99, it is a great buy if you’re into endless or get as far as you can games. M42 Studios has done a great job with their first release, and I’m really looking forward to additions to the game, as well as what they’ll come up with next.
Floria gets a score of 7 out of 10.
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Colored Bubbles – 0.99 (Zabiyaka)

Colored Bubbles is a new tap/swipe action puzzle game from Zabiyaka. In the game, you try and match up bubbles without popping different colored bubbles in the process. To match the bubbles up, you’ll need to either tap them when they’re overlapping each other, and not touching another colored bubble, or drag a bigger bubble, which is made by combining bubbles, into a smaller bubble that is touching a different colored bubble. This might sound kind of confusing, and it kind of is at first. Finding out what you can and can’t do within the game is something that is easily learned though, and once you do, Colored Bubbles becomes quite the addictive little bubble match + pop game.

The controls are simple to use, and very responsive. When two bubbles of the same color are touching each other, or overlapping, just tap on them, and they will merge together. Once you have a bubble that’s made up of two or more bubbles, you can drag it around the screen, and catch smaller bubbles of the same color, even if they are touching or overlapping bubbles that are a different color. If you tap on a bubble that is touching a different colored bubble, they will both pop, and you will loose your points. The bubbles will also pop, resulting in a negative score, if you drag a smaller bubble into a larger bubble that is touching different colored bubbles. To beat the game, you’ll need to clear the screen of all the bubbles, or have a screen filled with 50 bubbles. After each bubble or bubbles pop, more bubbles will appear on the screen, or you can just wait, as bubbles appear randomly every couple of seconds as well. If you don’t like how the bubbles are floating around, or the current overlapping of a group of bubbles, you can also shake your device to shake up the bubbles, sending them all in different directions, which is a nice mechanic, and a great little helper move if you get stuck.
In order to make a group of bubbles pop and get a positive score, you’ll need to combine 5 or more like colored bubbles. You also get a bonus score for grouping together more than 5 of the same colored bubbles. For instance, if you have a blue bubble that’s made up of 3 little blue bubbles, and another blue bubble that is made up of 4 blue bubbles, and combine them, you’ll get quite the extra little bonus. Each 2 bubbles that you combine will give you 10 points, and each group of 5 bubbles will give you 100 points. There are also combo points given for making consecutive matches. The bigger the bubbles matched, the bigger the combo points. So a lot of work has gone into making the scoring system very interesting, and it’s always nice to see this much work going into the scoring aspect of a game.
The graphics also have a pretty nice touch, as there’s a nice, smooth, bubbly graphic style, and an option for retro graphics. The option for retro graphics is a great addition, and I think it actually helps players see the bubbles better, as well as looking cool. The music is nice, and changes between modern, and chip-tune when you change the graphic style of the game.
There are 3 different difficulties within the game, Easy, Medium, and Hard, each setting having more different colored bubbles. Easy has 3 colors of bubbles, Medium has 5, and Hard has 7. Also, the amount of bubbles that you start with, and the frequency in which they appear, or amount of bubbles that appears when you pop or match bubbles, also goes up with the difficulty. There aren’t any extra modes, but with each difficulty, it’s almost like having 3 modes within the game. Though having a time trial or something would have been nice. Also missing from the game are power-ups, which would have fit in extremely well with Colored Bubbles. Something like multiplier increases, changing half the bubbles to one specific color, and things like this would have really spiced up the game.
There is also no online support, so the replay value is limited to beating your own scores, and building up your own score board, as the scores that are already inserted into the game are very easy to beat, with the #1 spot being 100 points (or one match of 5 bubbles). Not being able to battle over the #1 spot, or challenge friends is a pretty big upset when playing a score-oriented game like this. However, Zabiyaka has done a very good job in creating a game that’s pretty addicting, and doesn’t necessarily need online leader boards to have decent replay value. The game is only $0.99, and it’s Universal, so you’ll be able to see and play it the way it’s meant to be played on your iPod as well as iPad.
Colored Bubbles is getting a score of 7 out of 10.
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Fruity Jelly – 1.99 (Scorsoft/Bulkypix)

Fruity Jelly is a new puzzle platform type game by Scorsoft and published by the oh so popular, BulkyPix (Pix‘n Love Rush, Babel Rising, and many more). In the game, you will play as a little jelly who is the only one of his village left after an evil being went on a vicious rampage, threatening the fate of the peaceful and calm jelly society. You will need to collect all the fruits in each level and make it to the flower that pops up to save your friends, and restore the balance of this jelly land.

There are two control options for the game, tilting and virtual controls. Tilting will let you tilt your iDevice to move the little jelly through the levels, while having a button on each of the lower corners of the screen that can rotate each of the levels. The virtual controls will give you a slider bar for movement on the right side of the screen, and have both of the level rotating buttons on the bottom left side. Choosing to have the movement bar on the right side, instead of the left side, like most games, was kind of a risky move, but it works very well in Fruity Jelly, and only took a couple of seconds to get use to. You’re also able to pinch and pull the screen to zoom in and out, and double tap to enter a ‘scan’ mode, so you can look around the entire level before deciding what route you’d like to take. Wooden crates are also found in some of the levels, and to break them, you’ll need to tap on them, and some sections in the floors will require you to rotate the level to a certain angle, and then swipe down to make the jelly move through the holes in the floor.
The level rotating buttons are a great addition, as are the holes in the floors and wooden crates, and all really help expand the creation of the levels and level design throughout the game, which Scorsoft has done an amazing job with. You will need to rotate the level quite a few times in order to make it through each of the 40 levels in Fruity Jelly. There’s also one star in each of the levels, and sometimes collecting it can be quite the challenge. If you do manage to collect all the stars, bonus levels are unlocked for you, which are generally pretty fun. There is also a Time Attack Mode, in which you can try and get through each of the levels as fast as you can, going for the gold star time, which requires you to go through each level perfectly.
The graphics in Fruity Jelly are done exceptionally well. Along with all of the animations for all of the different enemies, the flower, water, all of the different animations for jelly, like squishing when falling from a high spot, or being hit by an enemy, even all of the fruits move, Fruity Jelly looks very professional, and playing through each of the levels, you can tell that a lot of work and thought has gone into each and every aspect of the game, how it looks, how it sounds, how it plays, and each and every route you can take to get to the end of the levels.
Fruity Jelly does have OpenFeint support, with 23 achievements, but no leader boards, which is kind of upsetting. Having a Time Trial Mode, with no leader boards, so you can’t compare your times with friends or other players around the world, makes the Time Trial Mode a little less interesting, and takes away quite a bit from the replay ability. But there is still a bit of replay ability in getting all of the stars in the game will require a few replays of certain levels, and in some of the later levels, getting through them will require multiple plays. The level design is top notch, and the gameplay is super smooth, and entertaining. Being Universal, and $1.99, with more content on it’s way, it’s a great buy.
Fruity Jelly is getting a score of 9 out of 10.
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Neon Thrust – 0.99 (shiny-games)

Neon Thrust is an action physics puzzler from shiny-games in which you’ll guide a little neon box, named Neo, through 60 levels while trying to collect each of the power crystals and make it back out of the levels before they explode. There are also green and red Neons to collect and avoid while navigating through each of the 4 zones.

The controls in Neon Thrust work exceptionally well, giving players a joystick and a thrust button. Moving the joystick in the direction you want to go, and then pressing the thrust button will give you a nice push in the desired direction. The thrust doesn’t last long after you let go of the thrust button, so navigating is done smoothly, and easily throughout the levels.
There are 60 levels, split up into 4 zones, giving us 15 levels in each of the different zones. The difficulty builds pretty slowly, giving players an opportunity to get a pretty good grip on the handling of the controls and physics within the game. The difficulty also climbs at a rate that will leave enough room for gamers to want to return to the first world of the game in order to try and better over all scores, and get the 3 star scores for each of the levels once they’ve gone through the game and can handle Neo with near expert precision. This, along with the GameCenter leader boards for each of the zones, and a total score, add a lot of replay value to Neon Thrust.
While going through each of the zones, new obstacles will be added, like red walls that Neo can not touch, spots in the levels that either end up pushing or pulling gravity, timed lasers, doors that are triggered with switches, and more. The level design is wonderful, and the placement of each of the green and red Neons will leave even the most expert gamers wondering how to get through the level in the shortest amount of time while collecting all the required items in order to get the best score. In order to get 3 stars on a level, you must guide Neo through the level, collect all of the green Neons, avoid all of the red Neons, grab the power crystal, and make it back to the entrance/exit of the level before the timer that starts when you pick up the power crystal reaches zero.
Graphics in Neon Thrust are simple, and minimal, but work extremely well within the game. Neo, the green box that you guide around the levels, is a simple neon green with 2 white squares for eyes, and a white rectangle for his thruster. Each of the 4 zones is a different color, red, purple, brown, and turquoise, each with squares and sharp angles being the main visual theme. The walls are outlined in white, or red, red being the color that you can not touch while going through the levels, either with the walls, or the Neons. The graphics do come off as being retro inspired, but still keep a very modern look about them. This sort of graphical style is quickly becoming a favorite for me, not just throughout mobile iPod games, but with any console.
There is no music except for on the main menu, but the game does have some excellent sound effects. However, I did find the sound that’s made after you die and are given a ‘retry’ screen to be pretty annoying. It would have been much better if the level automatically restarted after each death, because each gamer will die quite a few times throughout the game. Having to hit ‘retry’ every 3 seconds in some areas really took away from the flow of the experience, though this is nothing too big, or really an issue for most people.
In the end, Neon Thrust is a great gaming experience. Wonderful level design with great obstacles and puzzles, along with quite a bit of action because of the timed aspect makes it a very enjoyable game. The addition of GameCenter was done very well, with each of the scores changing each time you do better on a level. This means that players can not simply play the first zone over and over again, and end up with the #1 score on the total leader board. You’ll need to play through each level in the game multiple times, and try and find the best possible route for Neo to take. 60 levels gives us quite a bit of content, but the levels are pretty short. However, more levels are coming in the future, and with the replay value being pretty high, the shortness of the levels shouldn’t really be a problem. Great graphics, and a very smooth gameplay experience make Neon Thrust a great buy at $0.99. If you’re a fan of action, puzzle, physics, or just all around good score driven games, it’s one that you should definitely check out.
Neon Thrust is getting a score of 9 out of 10.
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Wildlings – 0.99 (Metamoki, Inc.)

Wildlings is a new arcade tap defense game from Metamoki, Inc. In it, you will need to use different parent Wildlings to keep evil creeps away from your babies, while collecting sun-power, using power-ups, and finding pieces of each ship that will let you travel to the next world, and get the Wildlings to their final destination. It might sound a little cheesy, but as it turns out, it’s a very good game with plenty of strategic elements to keep even the most hardened defensive gamer on their toes.

To start it off, you’re given 1 slightly week bird to protect 3 babies in their nest. To move the bird around, you just tap on the screen where you want the bird to move to. To make the bird attack an enemy, you just need to tap on it. There are some cases where a group of enemies will come towards the nest, and to deal with those, you’ll just need to tap on one of the enemies, and then your bird will attack the whole group, one by one. Each enemy that’s killed drops a certain amount of sun power, depending on how strong they are. Some enemies will take multiple taps in order for them to be defeated, and tapping repeatedly makes the parent Wildling attack and move quicker and more ferociously. The babies in the nest also drop sun power, but on a timed schedule, usually only dropping 2 to 4 sun pieces in each level. Collecting the sun power is essential for using your power-ups, once they’re unlocked, and are needed to unlock the Wildling’s final destination, which requires a total of 3,000 sun points to unlock. Sun points that you do not use on power-ups in each level are stored, and put towards this 3,000 point total, or you can unlock the final destination with an IAP that’s $0.99.
There are 3 different worlds, each with 15 levels. These 3 worlds each have different enemies, and different Wildlings that you’ll need to use to protect the nests. Each world is also varied with the environments, giving you a different feeling each time you move to the next one. After each level, you’re given an item. These items are either a new power-up, a new parent Wildling to help you protect the babies, or a piece of a boat that you will need in order to move on in the game. There’s also a 3 star rating for each level, one for completing the level, one for not loosing any babies, and one for completing the level without having the nest touched. You are able to retrieve your babies if they’re taken by attacking the evil creep that took it, but if you loose all 3 babies, it’s game over.
The power-ups also change as you move on throughout the worlds. In the first world, you’ll get a dust-storm power-up, and a cherry bomb power-up. The dust storm makes it so that none of the enemies can see, and then can’t move for a short period of time, and costs 5 sun points, while the cherry bomb destroys all the enemies in play, and costs 20 sun points. As you move on, you’ll collect different power-ups, one cheap and good for holding off or sunning large groups of enemies, and one expensive, good for getting rid of enemies when there’s too many of them.
The graphics in Wildlings are very polished, and look great. Along with the animations for each of the different babies, parents, and enemies, it looks, and feels very professional. Each of the different environments are colored extremely well, and everything in play really stands out when set against them. When you use the power-ups, these animations also look great, from the dust storms and explosions to the lava pits and big earth slam.
Metamoki, Inc. has done a great job with creating a world for the Wildlings, and making that world a blast to play in. The tapping mechanics work extremely well, and the added strategy of needing to know what enemies pose the biggest threat, move quickly, and need to be taken out before other enemies also fills the game with quite a bit of action. The game looks and feels great, and you can tell that a lot of work has gone into the game. It is supported by GameCenter, but the leader board is a total of the number of sun points you’ve collected. This is my only complaint about the game because pretty much, the #1 spot is held by the person that’s put the most time into the game. Theoretically, the #1 spot could be a person that just replayed the first 5 levels over and over again, and these types of leaderboards usually turn people off, because it pretty much guarantees that the first person that bought the game, or the person that has more free time will rule the #1 spot instead of the best player, and is almost like having a leaderboard for the amount of time you‘ve been playing. There are also no achievements, which makes the GameCenter integration kind of flimsy. But in the end, $0.99 is a great price for this game, and it’s one that will give you plenty of gameplay, and entertainment, and is great for gamers of all ages, while still keeping it’s challenging gameplay in tact.
Wildlings gets a score of 8.5 out of 10.
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Bad Bugs On Fire – 0.99 (Dan Themikman)

Bad Bugs On Fire is a tap-arcade game from Dan Themikman. In it, you try and keep your flowers safe from bugs by shooting them with rays from the sun, and moon, while they move across the screen. There’s 20 levels, and once you complete those, you unlock a special endless survival level.

The controls in Bad Bugs are simple to use, understand, and master. There’s 3 flowers, each having it’s own row that various bugs will follow while trying to get to the flowers. Tapping anywhere in this row sends rays from either the sun, or moon, depending on which level you’re on, that kill the bugs, with each of the different bugs requiring a different amount of rays to hit them before they die. Once the sun or moon hit’s the middle of the sky, you’ll shoot a beam of energy down onto the ground, and to move this, you simply hold down and drag where you want the beam to fire. There are two different types of clouds that fly through the sky, white clouds, which double your score for a short period of time, and black clouds, which drop different things on the grass, sometimes a bug, sometimes a green bug eater that will help you fend off bugs, but each of the clouds needs to be hit by rays in order to be activated. Sometimes you’ll have no choice but to hit them, because they’ll fly through your line of fire, moving slower than the bugs, and the only way to kill the bugs before they eat a flower is to shoot the cloud so it disappears.
The graphics aren’t bad, and sort of have a cartoony feel to them. The flowers dance around while you’re playing, and almost everything has big eyes. The animations are good, from the bugs walking to the flowers moving, and the clouds in the sky, but I especially like how the beams of energy look; like a little beam influenced by 70’s art – nicely flowing, and kind of trippy.
To get through each of the levels, you’ll need to make sure that the bugs do not eat all of the flowers. If you loose 2 flowers, you’ll complete the level, and those two lost flowers will show up again at the start of the next level. Every 2 levels, a new bug will join in the fight, and you’ll need to figure out how to deal with those new bugs, and during the more hectic times, need to figure out which bugs need to be killed before other bugs, adding a nice strategic element to the game. There are no power-ups, aside from the white clouds giving you double the score for a few seconds, and you can only fire 6 rays at a time, so getting through some of the levels can be pretty challenging.
There is a GameCenter leader board for the endless level, and 10 achievements, adding to the replay value of the game, but with a leader board only for the endless level, after you get through the first 20 levels, you probably won’t have any desire to go back and replay them. This also makes it feel like the goal of the game is more to unlock the Survival Mode than to actually make it through the game. If the survival level was unlocked from the beginning, it would probably feel like more of a second gameplay mode than just something that was thrown in to give the game some sort of replay value. It would also be nice if a cumulative score was built up going through the levels, and there was a total score leader board within GameCenter, as this would give you reason to go back and replay levels to try and get a better total score, especially since the scoring system is pretty nice, having a set score for each bug, but also giving you combo scores for killing bugs in quick succession.
Bad Bugs On Fire is still a decent game, and well worth picking up, especially for $0.99. It’s got nice graphics, with the oh so cool looking energy beams, a nice scoring system, a fair amount of strategy, nice action, and with the endless mode, plenty of replayability. The developer has also promised more levels in the future, along with the developer asking for suggestions, so there will be quite a bit of gameplay content, and the game might just end up getting better once it’s complete. But for what it is right now, it’s definitely worth checking out, especially if you’re into arcade tap games, and is a very nice step up from Dan Themikman’s last game, Epic Pencil, making me pretty excited about what’s to come in the future from the quickly maturing developer.
Bad Bugs On Fire is getting a score of 7 out of 10.
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The Big Little Quest – 0.99 (ITL Business Ltd)

The Big Little Quest is the second isometric puzzle plat former from ITL Business Ltd. The game plays like an extension of their first game, Alone, in that the controls, UI setup, and general gameplay are pretty much the same. But in The Big Little Quest, you’ll play the first episode as you try and save your sister from a villain that kidnapped her and took her to his castle. To get through the game, you will need to talk to everyone you can, find items, weapons, kill dragons, and solve multiple puzzles in order to get to the end.

The graphics in The Big Little Quest have been updated quite a bit from the previous release, Alone. They are a lot smoother, and look more modern, while still retaining the retro feeling. The controls are the same, as in you’ll have 3 different options for control, a d-pad facing up and down with two buttons, jump and attack, a d-pad in isometric position, with attack and jump buttons, and being able to move by touching on each of the 4 corners of your device, double tapping to jump, and swiping to attack.
The gameplay, like I stated, is pretty much just like it was in Alone, moving from screen to screen, but in Big Little Quest, you’ll need to talk to everyone you run into, and do quite a bit of exploring. At the beginning of the game, you’re told to go and talk to your father, who is with a monk in the building just south of the building you’ll start out in. He’ll tell you that you’ll need to find the coins, and a map in order to progress. From here on, you’ll be given different quests as you complete each task, smoothly progressing through the game.
As it is just Episode 1 of the game, it is a little short. It took me 1 hour to complete the game. But there are some head-scratchers with the added puzzles. Just like in Alone, they are very well planned out, and well made, even though this game is more about exploration. You’ll move throughout the world collecting items, finding the 3 dragons, and maybe re-finding them, after you manage to collect your weapon, and then making your way to the castle and through the dungeon, where most of the puzzles are found.
For the game being only the beginning of the full story, it’s pretty entertaining. I’ve played quite a few games in the past that were first episodes, and they didn’t really give me this much gameplay or promise, and with the developer being active on his website, and on the Touch Arcade Forums, having completed his previous game, it’s pretty solid promise that there will be more to come.
As the game is now, there’s not a whole lot of gameplay, but for $0.99, with the promise of the game expanding, it’s well worth the purchase if you’re into exploration games, or if you liked the developers first release. It’s got nice adventure elements, and really feels like you’re moving forward in the game as you progress. I’m looking forward to playing the future episodes, and can’t wait to find out where the story goes from here.
The Big Little Quest is getting a rating of 6 out of 10, but could very well turn into an 8 out of 10 game after more is added to it.
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