Search Results for: label/Tap/index.html

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.

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.

Links;

Full Version – http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/xurge/id461718872?mt=8

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.

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.

Links;

Full Version – http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/wildlings/id453585952?mt=8

Website – http://www.metamoki.com/?cat=games&page=wildlings

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.

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.

Links:

Full – http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/bad-bugs-on-fire/id445295545?mt=8

Tapsteroids is the first iOS game from UNAgames, a two person team based in Italy. Daniele, who worked for 7 years on high-budget games for the Amiga, PC, and first-generation consoles, and Erika, a mathematician who works on 2D and 3D graphics. After playing Tapsteroids, hearing this information doesn’t necessarily come as a surprise. The action filled tap/arcade game has that ‘one more play’ feel to it, and it is made extremely well, with loads of polish, and tons of challenge.

In Tapsteroids, it’s your job to keep navigation routs safe to travel by wiping out waves of asteroids that are hurtling through space. To do this, you’ll be given an unlimited number of missiles, and are able to pick up extra weapons as you progress through the levels. To get rid of the asteroids, all you need to do is tap on them, and which-ever weapon you have equipped will automatically fire at it. The extra weapons are picked up by tapping on them, and selected by tapping on the space station, pausing the game, and then tapping on the weapon you’d like to use.

There are three difficulties in Tapsteroids, but when you’re playing, the difficulty automatically goes up as you progress through the game. Easy difficulty is levels 1 through 4, Medium is 5 through 9 and Hard is 10 and up. Selecting Medium or Hard difficulty at the beginning of a game will automatically start you at level 5 or 10. This might turn some people off, but if you’re into older games, and love the difficulty levels of old-school NES/SNES and SEGA games, you’ll probably feel right at home with Tapsteroids.

Only having one mode is something else that might turn people off. An endless or survival mode would be awesome to have, but as it is now, Tapsteroids is a very entertaining game, with tons of replay value. The GameCenter leaderboards and 21 achievements help add to that too. It’s a very professional game with loads of polish, and tons of potential for the future. If the developers keep adding to the game, this could easily turn into one of my favorite arcade tapers for the iOS. $0.99 is a great price for endless gameplay, and tons of action. Get it now, and start climbing up those leaderboards!!

Tapsteroids is getting a score of 8.5 out of 10

Link: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/tapsteroids/id453097220?mt=8

Space Touch – The Touch Shooter is a new tap/arcade game from Alpha-Tauri Interactive. In it, you’ll be faced with wave after wave of enemies that are made up of 3 different colors, red, green, and blue, and you’ll need to match up the color of your tap to the color of the enemy in order to kill them. You’ll also switch between the tap play and joystick play. Between each wave of enemies, you’re able to control your ship with a joystick, and collect energy and bombs to help you get through the next wave of enemies. At the end of each level, you’ll face a color changing boss along with some side-kick enemies.

Alpha-Tauri Interactive has done a great job meshing the space shooter and tap arcade genres in Space Touch. The switch between gameplay modes is done very well, and the tap gameplay itself feels very good with the user interface that’s set up. You have color switch options in the bottom left corner of the screen, and once you get use to the set-up, you don’t really need to pay too much attention to in the heat of tap-battle. The enemies are varied, and the movement and animations are done extremely well.

Sometimes enemies will hide behind each other, and other times you’ll just need to learn their movement patterns. They can also move around 3 dimensionally, making three quarters of them unreachable for brief seconds of time. If you don’t kill the enemies quick enough, they start to shoot laser beams at you, taking away from your energy. Once your energy is depleted, you’ll need to start the level over again. After the first couple of levels, the action gets pretty intense, and you’ll be tapping away like crazy.

Along with this campaign mode, there’s 3 “classic” game modes. Each is endless, and you score as many points as you can before dying. There’s Asteroid, Out Of Energy, and Kamikaze Modes, each with different types of gameplay. In Asteroid Mode, you’ll control your ship with the joystick, and try to shoot down as many asteroids as you can. If you miss an asteroid, or your ship hits one, you’ll loose energy. In Out Of Energy Mode, you control your ship with your joystick again, but this time, your energy constantly drains, and you’ll need to maneuver around collecting as many energy balls as you can to try and stay alive. If you miss too many energy balls, your energy drains too quick, and it’s game over. In Kamikaze Mode, you’ll be faced with enemies that are not colored, and you’ll need to tap on them before they crash into you. These three extra endless modes add a lot to the replay value and high-score chasing parts of the game.

Space Touch is supported by OpenFeint and GameCenter, and you can select which service you’d like to use in the Profile section of the main menu. There’s leaderboards for each of the three endless modes, as well as for the campaign. There are no achievements, which would be nice, because most games have pretty good options for achievements. Like here, you could get an achievement for killing 500 red enemies, along with green and blue, or an achievement for finishing the campaign, or for collecting 100 bombs or 500 energy balls. Lots of possibilities, though it doesn’t take away too much from the gameplay, just a little from the replay value. The graphics in Space Touch are done very well, and each of the 11 campaign stages are varied in look and feel, and there is a very nice sci-fi atmosphere presented in the game. For $1.99, Space Touch is a very nice, professional looking game that plays great and can get very challenging. There’s plenty of replay value, and the controls are spot on. Aside from the lack of achievements, I really can’t say anything bad about what Alpha-Tauri Interactive has presented to us here, and I’m eagerly awaiting updates, and can’t wait to see what the developers come up with next.

Space Touch gets a score of 9 out of 10.

Link: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/space-touch-the-touch-shooter/id449855262?mt=8

Explodables is a new tap/arcade game from Bonpeach. Throughout the game you’ll go through levels, which are more like challenges, to complete the game. There’s also a Blitz Mode, which gives you about a minute to score as many points as you can. There’s red, blue, green, and white rockets, white rockets are wild, and can be any color you need them to be. The screen is broken up into 3 sections, blue on the bottom, green in the middle, and red on top, and you’ll always have a set color order that results in a combo. You can tap on the rockets anywhere on the screen, but you only get the massive point combos when you tap the rockets in their respective color sections, blue on the bottom, green in the middle, and red on top. If you miss a color, then the combo re-sets, and you’ll need to make the color combo again.

Through the levels, you’re usually given a set score to try and hit, but there’s also levels that challenge you to get 3 crowns, which are given off when you make a combo and get a multiplier circle, which you can then move around the screen. Placing this multiplier circle in the color sections that you need to pull off the combo gives you mega points, and moving it to follow the combo gives you crowns. For instance, if the color combo given to you at the beginning of the stage is red, green, blue, then you’ll need to tap a red rocket in the red section, a green rocket in the green section, and a blue rocket in the blue section, then a multiplier circle will appear, you’ll tap on it, and then move it up to the red section, tap a red rocket, move it to the green section, tap a green rocket, then move it to the blue section, and tap a blue rocket, then 3 crowns will appear. These crowns are the best way to get huge scores, and collecting 6 of them puts you into a bonus stage.

All of this might sound confusing, and it kind of is, but the learning curve is great, and you’ll get to experience everything one step at a time going through the levels. Blitz Mode is unlocked once you hit level 20 or so, I can’t really remember when I unlocked it, but it’s before you finish the rookie levels.

The graphics in Explodables are awesome. Very colorful, and stand out on retina supported devices. The movement and animations are smooth and very well done, and the music and effects go along very well with the game. There is a graphics option in the menu which lets you turn the graphics down if you’re experiencing lag, but I haven’t had any problems with jitteriness or any crashing at all. The tap controls are very responsive and accurate as well.

Explodables really is a top notch high scoring game, with GameCenter leaderboards for Blitz Mode and Levels 31 through 45. There’s also 45 achievements, all adding to the extremely high replay value of the game. Bonpeach has shown that they know exactly what it takes to make a professional, extremely polished arcade game for the iOS, and at only $0.99, Explodables is a great buy. Anyone who’s into high-scoring games with great scoring systems, and hectic gameplay should definitely check this out. I know it’s going to be on my iPod until it breaks, and I’m glued to Bonpeach, eagerly awaiting updates for this, and seeing what awesome game they come up with next.

Explodables is getting a score of 10 out of 10, and is recommended to everyone!

Acid Rain is a new swipe/tap casual arcade game from Bal Rokko. There’s only one game mode to play at the moment, called Flower. In Flower Mode, you need to tap or swipe on the drops of acid rain coming down from the sky, in waves towards the flowers, while trying to not hit the good drops of rain, or the lightning drops, which kill a flower if you hit them, letting them go down into the ground. The game is over when the gauge on the left side of the screen fills up with acid drops as they hit the ground, or if you hit 3 lightning drops, killing all 3 flowers.

The scoring in Acid Rain is extremely good, you get one point for each drop of acid rain that you tap to pop, but if you swipe through the drops of acid rain without lifting your finger off of the screen, you get a combo score. After swiping through 10 drops, your score will double, and goes up with each 10 drops that you swipe through in succession. Hitting a regular drop of rain while in the middle of a combo resets it to zero, so you really need to be careful not to hit the blue drops of rain coming down. Having a perfect combo swipe gets you 3 stars at the end of the level, which is 10 points for the first star, 25 for the second, and 100 for the third, all added together. So, for instance, in the first wave, if you swipe through all 8 acid rain drops, you’ll get 8 points, then because of the combo, you’ll get 3 stars, which will add up to be 135 points. Add on the 8 points for the acid drops, and you’ll have 143 points. You also get points for each flower that survives each storm, and this score also goes up as you progress through the storms. So a lot of work has gone into making Acid Rain a game that’s really focused on combos and high scoring.

There’s also power-ups that really help you build your score. One power-up is a rainbow that goes all the way across the screen, and turns each raindrop that goes through it into a rainbow drop. Popping each of these adds to your combo bonus, as well as gives you 10 points per drop popped, and is a great way to make your score skyrocket. Another power-up is a 500 point ball that you just need to swipe through or tap on to get. These 500 point balls are also multiplied by your current drop multiplier. So if you’re swiping through drops, and you’re on your 35th drop, and then swipe through the 500 point ball, it’ll be multiplied by 4 making it 2000 points, all of this, again, adding a ton to the scoring mechanics of Acid Rain.

The addition of GameCenter also helps drive this high-scoring affair, and adds quite a bit to the replayability of the game. However, there are no achievements, which would have been very nice to see in this game, considering you’re getting huge combos, big scores, and an insane number of rain drops while moving through wave after wave and storm after storm.

The graphics in Acid Rain are great, very vibrant, even though you’re mainly playing in the rain and the sky is usually grey, the rainbow, rainbow drops, and green and blue rain drops really pop when they’re set against the grey background. The flowers also dance while you’re playing, and really are quite cute. The animation of the rain popping is really good as well, and there’s a line that follows your finger as you swipe across the screen. Some levels also include a wind mechanic that makes the rain drops swing back and forth. All of this really adds to the atmosphere and great polished look of the game. It is retina display supported, but not Universal.

All-n-all, Acid Rain is a solid casual arcade game that’s good for gamers of all skill levels, and all ages. Later in the game it gets pretty challenging, as they throw in 2 acid drops per row of rain, and I’m assuming there’s 3, eventually, but I haven’t gotten that good at it yet. It’s very polished, and there’s more content to come with future updates, which I’m really excited about. Especially the addition of the next game mode. At $0.99, it’s a great buy, and isn’t going to be deleted from my device any time soon.

Acid Rain is getting a score of 8.5 out of 10.

Link: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/acid-rain/id412650688?mt=8

Star Galaxy has been pulled from the AppStore so that it can be re-released. When asked why, the publisher responded with;