All Articles Tagged gaming

Looking for a cool retro-arcade action title from what is shaping up to be a leading game developer/publisher on the iPhone? Than look no further than Dropship ($1.99) [iTunes Link] from ngmoco:). 

Premise:

You control a “dropship”. You save humans. You pick up cargo and delivery it safely. You do this in a time limit. 

More after the break! Read the rest of this entry »

You see, there is this little event on December 12th in San Jose called the ADC (Apple Developer Conference): iPhone Tech Talks. Engadget says that John Geleynse, Director of Technology Evangelism at Apple, made some interesting statements Including:

It’s a gaming console

It’s not a phone, it’s a console experience

Wow. I have to admit, with some of quality games of late showing up in the App Store, I cannot disagree with this statement. After all, John Carmack, speaking at QuakeCon 2008 back in August said that the iPhone was akin to Sega’s Dreamcast console and almost on par with the PlayStation 2 and the original Xbox. If you think back to the early days of the PlayStation 2, the graphics look very similar. Now, you look at the PlayStation 2 with games like God of War and you can really see where gaming on the iPhone might be heading.

I have personally been enjoying the gaming on the iPhone. But I have to wonder; is Steve Jobs plan to penetrate the market with games in order to conquer all? The same method he has used by getting consumers to use Macs, then demanding them in the enterprise? Only time will tell. In the meantime, I plan on enjoying all the gaming the iPhone has to offer.

Brother’s In Arms: Hour of Heroes Forum Review by msbaylor. (Visit the thread for video and more pics. For more Forum Reviews, see the TiPb iPhone App Store Forum!

This new game from Gameloft has raised the bar yet again on their games. After finding out that this game has in the App Store I immediately downloaded it and started to play it. The graphics are that of Nintendo64, but the detection, Audio and AI are better than that of the N64. For those of you that remember the ‘ol N64, do you remember shooting the wall and the bullet holes didn’t show up? Or when you would attempt to run over someone with a tank and they wouldn’t die? Well unlike the N64, you can do that in this game, as well as get run over, bombed, shot, or punched in the face.

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David Perry of Didev Studios wrote in to tell us about Bugz for the iPhone, and was kind enough to send along some interesting insights into the game, developing for the iPhone, and the App Store.

On the origins of Bugz as a PSP game:

Bugz was originally conceived about 2 years ago as a PSP game. It took me around a year of coding, design, graphics and audio work before I made a release into a competition that was being run at the time. Bugz was well received in the competition and received first place. The public seemed to like Bugz and it’s quirky cuteness.

On moving Bugz to the iPhone:

Recently I decided to look at iPhone development and Bugz was an obvious choice as a first project. The initial version of Bugz for the PSP only had 17 levels – this would obviously need expanding for the iPhone version. Whilst contemplating the iPhone port of Bugz, I asked a friend to join me on the project, he accepted and Didev Studios was born.

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Patrik Aronsson let us know that MadInSweden has released their first iPhone game, Whack It: Frogs, intended to deliver a high level of graphics, music, and sound enjoyment. Why target the iPhone? According to Patrik:

The capacity and the possibilities inherent in the iPhone platform is just wonderful. The benefit of having the possibilty to execute a good idea without having to compromise is a thrill. Your own time is the only limitation

If you try it out, be sure to let us know what you think!

Aurora Feint Forum Review by cjvitek (For more Forum Reviews, see the TiPb iPhone App Store Forum!

[Ed- Aurora Feint 1: The Beginning, is FREE in the iTunes store. Aurora Feint 2: The Arena is now available for $7.99 and if you head on over to the forum, and ask Chris and Matt, we might just get a review up for that soon too! Meanwhile, here's Chris' review of the original to whet everyone's appetite!]

This is an extremely interesting game that tries to combine elements of a puzzle game with elements of an RPG game.

You start with a map screen. From there, you can go to the mine (the puzzle game), the store (to use your tiles for skills or tools), the smith (to actually obtain the tools), and the tower (to actually learn the skills). You need to start with the puzzle game, and once you start to gain levels and tile,s you can move to the other areas.

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Conor sent us a note about the new game from Redwind Software. They’re coming from a .Net background, and this is their first attempt at Cocoa Touch and the iPhone, and it seems from the video they’re embracing the differences whole heartedly!

Movie Challenge is a trivia/quiz style game at its core, but so much more when examined in detail. Rather than the simple question after question after question, leveling up to meaningless levels that seems to be the norm in most trivia games on the platform we have strived to provide more. There are multiple categories, multiple game types, accelerometer action, touch screen drag and drops, power ups and the list goes on.

If you’re a movie trivia buff and you decide to meet this challenge, let us know how you do!

Nelson wrote in to tell us a little about WaKi SNAP!, a new game now available in the iTunes App Store:

WaKi SNAP! was created as our first project for the iPhone and we wanted to create something that used the touch capabilities of the iPhone in an innovative and immersive way…basically, something that allows two players to both enjoy the game on the one phone at the same time, which is different to the majority of the games out there.

We wanted to make something that was fun, simple to play, and almost universally known by both children and adults. The challenge was also to keep the interface as clean and minimalist as possible so that there was little clutter and the main focus was on displaying the graphics of the cards in as large a size as possible. Thus, WaKi SNAP! was born!

If you check it out, be sure to let us know what you think!

Mark wrote in to tell us about Arcade Hoops, and was gracious enough to share some great info:

I think one interesting thing about the game is its back story. It was developed by Garry Kitchen and David Crane. David was a co-founder of Activision and Garry co-founded Absolute Entertainment. These guys worked together on some famous old school games like Donkey Kong for Atari, Pitfall and Decathlon.

They’ve decided to put these skills to work in a very new medium, and I hope you’ll be impressed with the results.

The other story is the quality of the game and the intensity of the game play. You can look at virtually any review online, either on the iTunes site or off- they are all glowing. People are really amazed that this game is available for $1.99. I think it’s because of the soundtrack, the 3D imagery, and the speed of the game play – plus some extra touches like a trash-talking jumbotron.

Any giving it a try? Let us know what you think!

Developer Gonzalo Oxenford wrote in to let us know the story behind Truco, a South American card game for the iPhone. These are the types of developers that make us so excited about the future of the platform!

Since we decided to start making iPhone Apps, we realized that we had to take a lot of care in the interface design, and graphic arts. We think this new platform is an amazing approach to virtual reality, and that’s what we’ve been doing while designing Truco.

If you take a look at the card games now at the App store, you will see that not even the one made by Apple takes care of that. The wood textures, the card size, the beauty of the cards. All other card games have so small cards, that makes you think you are playing an 8 bit game. And you are not supposed to, since these games are running inside of one of the most advanced mobile OS on Earth.

It’s very important for the user to feel the cards, to move them. Cards must be big enough so you can appreciate the beautiful illustrations on them. And this is what the real Truco player loves.

Other interesting aspect of the game is the AI (artificial intelligence) it has. The game of Truco is actually played by tricking your opponent. The AI we developed can make things like raising the stakes and bluffing which can put pressure on you, and might cause you to fold. So we let the user to choose the computer skill level, making it easier or harder to play…

Truco can also be played in multiplayer mode via Wi-Fi. It takes advantage of Bonjour, Apple’s technology that lets two devices communicate in a local network with zero configuration. Truco just sees other Truco installed in your friend’s iPhone and they arrange a multiplayer game automatically, it’s so beautiful how it works.

Odasoft is a 3 people company. Tons of years playing video games have help us a lot. We work at our homes during our free time. We are Mac users and nerds. And we just invested our small tiny savings on this project. We love what we do, and that’s the key that let us wake up sunday mornings at 7 AM to start working on this, while most people keep sleeping…

Thanks Gonzalo!