Halfbrick's latest game actually started its life on the PlayStation Network as a PSP Mini, along side Fieldrunners and a small hand full of other similar bite-sized titles. Recently making its way to the iPhone, Blast Off is nearly identical to its PSP counterpart, with the control scheme as the main differentiator.
In Blast Off, you control a tiny rocket ship blasting through space rescuing astronauts. Touching the screen tilts your ship in that direction and fires your rocket, usually sending you off that way. Your enemy in the game is gravity, and the game is over when you crash– Numerous celestial bodies are scattered across each level, each which have a different effect on your ships trajectory.
As you blast through space, you have to keep an eye on your air and fuel gauges. Air serves as the timer for the levels, and fuel is consumed as you touch the screen to let off rocket burns. Once you get a feel for how the ship performs in space, it won't take long for you to sling shot around planets and use gravity to your advantage to really only need to fire your rocket for minor course changes.
Two different game modes are included, endless mode where you need to rescue as many astronauts as possible while picking up power ups to refuel and refill your air supply. Classic mode consists of 45 levels with multiple difficulties where players must collect as many astronauts on screen as possible then make their way to the warpgate without running out of air or fuel. Both game modes are a lot of fun, although I've found myself preferring endless mode.
Online scores and achievements are tracked via OpenFeint, and Halfbrick has even released the game's soundtrack as a free download on their site. If you've had fun with these kinds of gravity puzzle games in the past, Blast Off is really worth a look.
I have played a lot of match 3 games since I got my iPhone and there all pretty much the same. A few like Trism [2.99] and the recently updated Puzzle Quest [4.99] change the formula but there still just another match 3.
Well PlayBrain's soon to be release game called, ‘Babo Crash’ doesn’t change the formula. But it does add a whole lot of insane power ups and gem busting heroes to it.
‘Babo Crash’ uses the cast from PlayBrain’s Madballs: Babo Invasion game for the PC and Xbox Arcade. The object of the game is to collect enough gems in a set time limit to pass to the next level. This part of the game plays just like Bejeweled Blitz, but with a twist.
When you match more than three gems you create a hero gem. Each color of gem creates a different hero, when you use them in a match you activate their special ability. This is where the game gets good. One of the abilities creates a ball on the screen that you control by tilting you iPhone which destroys every gem it touches. There is something very satisfying about destroying gems in this manor.
There was so much going on while I was playing this game that I forgot I was playing a simple match 3 game. Also, when I went back to other match 3 games, they seemed slow and uneventful. This game totally refreshed how I look at games like this. And to think, I almost didn’t even give it a chance because it was “yet another match 3 game”.
PlayBrains is planning to release the game once they finish an update to have it iPad ready, which should be any day now. If you like match 3 games but have been bored with them lately, give this one a try. I think it adds excitement back in to the genre.
Back in October we covered the 360iDev Game Jam, an all-night coding frenzy that challenged developers to create a playable (and, hopefully, interesting) game in just 10 hours. The results were impressive.
One of the developers who took up the challenge was Owen Goss of Streaming Colour Studios. Owen labored through the night and came up with an interesting title called UpDown. As Owen described the game,
UpDown is a puzzle game. To complete a level, all pieces must be raised or lowered to level 0. However, you can only raise or lower pieces in the patterns dictated by the brushes. Strategy and intuition are required to master this simple yet challenging game.
While graphically sparse, the game was maddeningly difficult. What Owen had come up with was such a challenging formula that, when we spoke with him about the title last year, he indicated that he was considering building the prototype into a more complete game and releasing it through the App Store.
At GDC 2010, I sat down with Owen and he showed me LandFormer, his upcoming puzzle game that is the evolution of UpDown. And trust me, it's still maddeningly difficult.
The included screenshots show rather clearly how the game has evolved. LandFormer presents a five-by-five game-world grid with five different terrain levels for each block. The goal is to alter the terrain such that all blocks form a flat plane (the blocks with the little villages on them). To do so, you must pick a brush along the side of the playfield, tap a block on the playfield at which to center the action, and carry out a two-finger swipe up or down to indicate the desired direction of change.
If that sounds easy to you — well — it's not. The effects of one move are layered upon the next (and upon the next, and so on…) in such a way that you can pretty quickly develop a dread sense of having painted yourself into a corner, in a manner of speaking. I was having difficulty with the easiest few levels and could feel a growing desire to send Owen's test device into the wall of the Marriott lobby. But, despite my own frustrations, Owen assures me that all of the levels in the game can indeed be completed.
To enable players to torture their friends, the sinister developer has included a level editor that allows for the creation of custom maps, built using the same brushes used for standard play (so that all levels will be solvable). User made levels can be shared with friends via a web-link system, where all the data needed to describe the level is present in the link's CGI variables.
Puzzle addicts who enjoy having their brain crushed will want to run, not walk, to the App Store and grab LandFormer when it makes its debut in April. The game will be a free download including about 10 tutorial-difficulty levels (which is what I was playing at GDC…) and the aforementioned level editor, with additional levels available as in-app purchases.
Having played my share of matching games, it takes something a little different to really capture my attention. What immediately stood out with Cubetrix 3D was the fast paced/arcade nature to the game – like Tetris on the later levels. The game is a row-matching game where your job is to clear the board as quickly as possible. To accomplish this, you can move a single block around the perimeter of the board and slide it in. The block that slides out can then be moved to a new position. It doesn't take long to figure out how to move the blocks to line up matches and combos. The high energy soundtrack adds to the experience.
Watch the developer video to see how it plays:
Beyond color block matches, the game also introduces a few other elements to the gameplay. Fixed blocks will prevent you from sliding blocks into certain rows, while the bomb elements add an even higher level of frantic rushing to the harder levels. Finally, some levels use colors and numbers that must be combined in sequential order to eliminate rows.
Here's a short hands on video showing normal and hard levels:
The hard level is crazy from the start, as bombs will randomly reshuffle the entire board in an instant.
Cubetrix 3D really sucked me in from the start. The game contains 20 Easy, 30 Normal, 30 Hard and 30 Puzzle levels. With fast paced gameplay and a great overall experience, I highly recommend it.
When we took a look at the original Ragdoll Blaster, we were quite impressed by the crafty blend of ragdoll physics, puzzler and hand-drawn, cannon-fed craziness. Backflip Studio has strapped on its helmet again in their second iteration of the series with Ragdoll Blaster 2 [App Store].
The sequel reveals a more polished title than the original, discarding the hand-drawn art and instead drawing heavily from the steampunk genre to create a rich game world of oiled cogs and shiny bronze contraptions. It is thanks to these machinations that the gameplay in Ragdoll Blaster 2 does vary a little to the original, if still sharing that same overall feel of blasting (and resetting) over and over again until you reach your target in as few shots as possible.
The new objects you'll come across include teleporters, additional cannons, objects that adversely affect gravity, ice blocks and mechanical arms to name a few, along with the expected array buttons, cogs and switches. All in all, levels feel more purposeful thanks to the new mechanics, and we're confident that the 150 levels that make up Ragdoll Blaster 2 will continue to be interesting (and undoubtedly difficult) and show the same attention to detail throughout as the ones we've played up to now.
Backflip Studios have also made the decision to incorporate the Plus+ platform in Ragdoll Blaster 2 to provide high scores for each of the nine 'rooms' which theme the levels. Both a Par score and Best score is displayed at the end of each room as a target to beat for those competitively inclined.
We're enjoying our time with Ragdoll Blaster 2, though it does still feel very familiar. Certainly, if you're a fan of the first title, we see no reason why you shouldn't thoroughly enjoy the new features on offer. (And if you haven't had a chance to try the first, we highly recommended it) Impressions from our readers are collecting in our discussion thread and to date seem largely positive.
Disney has pulled a proverbial rabbit out of its hat (or hole?) by surprising us with a timely Alice in Wonderland [App Store] puzzle-platformer to tie-in with the upcoming film release.
Our early impressions from playing through the first few levels are definitely positive, with a range of puzzles providing some fresh if challenging gameplay elements. Alice in Wonderland – An Adventure Beyond The Mirror, the game's full title, pits you in the shoes of Alice who finds herself back in Wonderland on another inane adventure. By tapping on Alice you are able to change between four other characters including the White Rabbit, the Cheshire Cat, the Mad Hatter and the March Hare; each with their own abilities to help Alice navigate through the various puzzles you'll encounter each level. The game's write-up and feature list as provided by Disney is as follows:
Play as Alice and solve a series of puzzles with help from the Mad Hatter, White Rabbit and other memorable characters from the movie. Explore a world filled with whimsical settings, optical illusions, challenging puzzles, and formidable adversaries.
Master unique abilities with the help of Alice's friends:
Freeze time with the White Rabbit
Make objects appear or disappear with the Cheshire Cat
Use the power of Telekinesis with the March Hare
Transform objects from one world to another with the help of the Mad Hatter
Unlock Hidden Objects in Alice's Journal with your GPS, Camera, Photo Library, and by playing the game!
100's of puzzles and challenges to complete
The graphics in Alice in Wonderland are a rich, cell-shaded affair that bring out the child-like madness of Wonderland beautifully. In a way they remind us of the hit multi-platform indie game Braid (most definitely a welcome thing), which is fitting as some of the gameplay elements are very Braid-esque too, with stopping and starting time and objects featuring heavily from the get go.
Our review is still cooking but we'll have it hot out of the oven for you shortly. In the meantime, be sure to check out the Lite version which offers up a brief tutorial level to give you a taste of the gameplay.
The original Ragdoll Blaster [$1.99 / Free] was released last year and eventually peaked at the #3 in the best selling apps listing, as well as #2 overall in games. Its longevity on the charts since then isn't much of a surprise when you consider the game's uncanny ability to suck in everyone who plays it to the point that we still randomly get comments on our original review from people looking for tips to clear some levels in the game.
Naturally, Ragdoll Blaster is a tough act to follow, but Ragdoll Blaster 2 seems to be even more of the same with an updated graphics and some new puzzle elements that should spice up gameplay quite a bit. Here are the first few minutes of the game, including the tutorial and some of the earlier levels:
Backflip Studios has also released two other videos worth checking out, a teaser trailer and a gameplay video that shows several brief clips of some of the more advanced levels in Ragdoll Blaster 2. We'll have a full review of the game when it's ready to roll on March 1st.
Free games are almost as awesome as free samples at the grocery store, or maybe more awesome depending on how you look at it. Three cool games are free today, and like most price changes, they will only be free for a short period of time so it's best not to wait before downloading these games.
Alchemize looks to be a simple match 3, but the gameplay is actually quite complex with all kinds of things to unlock, different game modes, and other surprises. We liked the game in our review, and it's really worth checking out to see how they managed to mix up the match 3 formula.
While I wasn't really crazy about this naval tower defense game when it was first released, it has since been updated a ton with all kinds new content, gameplay tweaks, achievements, and OpenFeint integration with online leaderboards.
Where most word finding games have you frantically searching for words to beat a timer, Textropolis has much more laid back gameplay that allows players to search for words made from the letters found in the names of 30 different included cities at their own pace. If you like Textropolis, check out the sequel, Fishtropolis [$1.99] as well.
Indie developer Knife Media recently let us in on a project they've had in the works for quite some time now. Originally developed for the PC, Choma was a finalist in to the 2009 Unity Awards amongst tons of other entries. Choma is a platforming game with a diverse art style that varies greatly between levels, in the game you play as Choma who according to Knife Media "a small bouncing fruit with a big part to play".
Check out the following early gameplay trailer:
Knife Media boasts Choma will be the one of the first "true AAA titles" exclusive to the iPad, and they're shooting for a release window of mid to late 2010. Judging by the gameplay trailer alone, Choma seems quite similar to Rolando. Ngmoco has not said anything publicly on the fate of the Rolando series, or whether or not there is a Rolando 3 in the works, so if Knife Media plays their cards right it's entirely possible that Choma could be the Rolando of the iPad.
In 1989, influenced by Tetris and tic-tac-toe, Dave Akers and Mark Stephen Pierce created Klax, originally programmed in just a few weeks in Amiga Basic. Nearly 20 years later, Mark Stephen Pierce flying solo with the help of Super Happy Fun Fun released Star*Burst [App Store], a matching game with tons of particle effects and all the gameplay from classic Klax turned upside down as the rights to the original Klax seems to be trapped somewhere in Midway's bankruptcy-powered licensing purgatory.
If Klax was before your time, or you just never got around to pumping quarters in to a Klax machine, here's the basic gist of the Star*Burst– Randomly spawning bricks come down a conveyor belt towards a paddle which can catch and hold up to five bricks at once. Moving your finger around controls the paddle, and swiping down throws a brick back up on to the conveyor belt, while tapping the paddle throws the brick up to the five by five grid at the top of the screen.
Blocks on the top of the screen are cleared by matching them horizontally, vertically, diagonally, and other more complicated layouts such as forming arrows, an X, or stars. The more blocks you clear the more points you earn, and as blocks are removed the existing blocks compress to fill any spaces that may have been created as blocks disappear– Allowing you to chain massive combos (and earn point multipliers) if you can set them up.
When you get farther in to the game, wild blocks that will match any color and bomb blocks appear that can destroy nearby blocks on the grid. Just like Klax, achieving high scores involves thinking ahead and intelligently managing which blocks you keep on your paddle, which blocks you flip back up on to the conveyor belt, and how you arrange the blocks on the grid. The game is over when you either fail to catch five blocks from the conveyor belt, or you run out of spaces on the grid to place new blocks.
If you were a fan of the original Klax, you need to have Star*Burst on your iPhone. The touch controls work well, and really my only gameplay criticism is that the on-screen button to make the conveyor spit out blocks (the small square with two arrows near the top in screenshots) seems to be awkwardly positioned. You really only need to speed up the block conveyor in the earlier levels when blocks come slower, so this is a very minor issue.
Star*Burst has online scoring and tons of achievements, but unfortunately uses Facebook instead of Plus+ or OpenFeint so the online scoring/achievement functionality is fairly primative and seems to be limited to your Facebook friends and spamming your Facebook wall. With a better online scoring system, Star*Burst would be amazing.
Halfbrick's latest game actually started its life on the PlayStation Network as a PSP Mini, along side Fieldrunners and a small hand full of other similar bite-sized titles. Recently making its way to the iPhone, Blast Off is nearly identical to its PSP counterpart, with the control scheme as the main differentiator.
The original Ragdoll Blaster [
Free games are almost as awesome as free samples at the grocery store, or maybe more awesome depending on how you look at it. Three cool games are free today, and like most price changes, they will only be free for a short period of time so it's best not to wait before downloading these games.
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