games - page 50

Yes, Kickstarter projects are still a dime a dozen, but this game is worth your attention.

It’s Sentris, a music-creation tool that masquerades as a puzzle game. Want to play a music or rhythm game without having to figure out how to hold a plastic guitar? Sentris is the game for you.

We saw Sentris last month at the 2013 Seattle Indies eXpo (SIX3), which was co-located with the Penny Arcade Expo in downtown Seattle.

Developer Samantha Kalman hopes to release a full game–she’s only put together a stunning prototype at this point–and she’s taken time to explain why in the video below.

There’s nothing I like better than a game that charms from the get-go, and delightfully indie Towncraft is one of those games.

Developer Flat Earth Games has created a gentle yet deep crafting game that plays as equal parts Sim City and Minecraft, with hundreds of crafting recipes, super cute music, and adorable artwork.

What’s not to like?

When I was younger, I had a crappy little electronic game in which I controlled a car driving down the highway. I had a little wheel that could turn the car left and right, kinda, and I was supposed to avoid hazards. It was apparently the world’s worst-maintained highway because every 10 feet, it was like, barrel, barrel, squirrel, bush ….

There were bushes growing on the highway.

Anyway, Mega Dead Pixel, a new free-to-play title from developer About Fun Games, reminds me a lot of that game, and not just because they have about the same complexity of graphics. It’s also equally moody and just as frustrating at times.

Innovative iOS game, Badland, just updated with a new Halloween theme, four new multiplayer characters, and a new level. In addition, the update drops the price to $0.99, giving us all a chance to discover the scary action for 75 percent off the regular price.

This is the first time the developer has dropped the price so far, so be sure to check it out if you have a buck to spare; it’s worth it.

Dead Trigger 2, the sequel to heavily-downloaded hit zombie game, Dead Trigger, burst onto Google Play and the App Store late Wednesday night, bringing next-level graphics and gameplay to devices in your very pocket.

This first-person shooter has an all new touch control scheme that was created, says the developer, Madfinger Games, specifically for casual gamers. You’ll be able to use the virtual joystick, of course, and Android players can use supported game controllers. What’s interesting, however, is the new casual-gamer-style touch control scheme.

You’ll immerse yourself into a world where the humans are fighting the zombies, like you do. The game itself, however, is played out in real time on a global scale.

This week sees the release of Batman: Arkham Origins on consoles, but if you can’t wait to spend your nights beating criminals to death with your bare hands, a companion game is out now for your favorite iOS device.

Batman: Arkham Origins is a free-to-play brawler in which you play as the Dark Knight in a series of battles against groups of criminals who attack him one at a time. Between bouts, you upgrade Batman’s abilities, purchase new equipment and suits, and wait for your stamina to recharge so that you can go on more missions.

It’s pretty much everything you’d expect from a free-to-play Batman game. But it has Batman in it, so there’s that.

Mac gamers rejoice, as Mac game port superstar Aspyr just announced the fantastic news that the latest hilariously bloody Borderlands 2 downloadable content (DLC), “TK Baha’s Bloody Harvest,” is available for Mac on the very same day it is available for PC gamers, bringing us all closer together in our need to blast each other away in 2K Games’ brilliant first person shooter game.

The BAFTA-nominated games studio behind award-winning Great Big War Game, Rubicon Development, just released its latest mobile game: Combat Monsters. It’s available now on Google Play, the App Store, Windows, and will be coming soon to the Mac.

Board games have enjoyed quite the resurgence on the iPad, with digital versions of just about any game folks can think of, including Monopoly, Risk, Ticket To Ride, and Small World, just to name a few.

Many of these games have excellent pass and play gameplay, which lets gamers play a turn and then hand the iPad over to a friend to take their turn. What’s been missing, though, from many of these games, is real-world dice. There’s something delightful about the randomness of the analog cube, used in all kinds of board games from Backgammon to Yahtzee.

Dice+, then, aims to remedy that with a big, lovely, bluetooth-powered die, ready with its own app full of dice games that will work with the plastic die. Suffice it to say that playing a digital game with a real-world die is, simply put, sublime.

Fans of Games Magazine will know the puzzles in developer Casual Labs’ Paint It Back as “Paint by Numbers.” Owners of the Nintendo DS portable system might recognize them as Picross, and giant puzzle nerds might know them as Nonograms for Non Ishida, the Japanese graphics editor who invented them.

The point is that Paint It Black is not doing anything new; this puzzle type, in which solvers use logic to determine which squares in a grid to fill in to make a picture, is readily available a lot of places. But that’s not to say that this app is a boring rehash.

In fact, whether you’re a fan of Nonograms or picking them up for the first time, Paint It Black has a lot to offer.

We’ve been trumpeting the tale of a fantastic game in development from the all-star team at Industrial Toys for a while now. Titled Morning Star, it had some serious pedigree and promise.

A sci-fi themed first-person shooter from Alex Seropian, the dude that co-created Bungie (Marathon, Halo) is huge news in the first place. A game that includes author John Scalzi and artist Mike Choi among many other hugely talented folks that will launch exclusively on mobile? That’s ginormous news.

Color us fascinated when President Tim Harris penned a blog post on gaming site Gamasutra about why the team had to rename the game, and how they went about it. It’s a super interesting behind-the-scenes look at the very real business side of game development, and it’s worth a look.

Pixowl’s pixel art game, The Sandbox, has won a bevy of awards from Apple since its introduction in the App Store in May of 2012, and garnered 6.8 million downloads across iOS and Android. Apple has featured the game with three titles, Best of World-Building Games, Best of Games 2012: Hidden Gems, and Top Games – If You Like Minecraft.

The release onto Mac brings this fantastic, engrossing game to the mouse and keyboard set, guaranteeing a good time on a bigger screen. Just like the mobile version, you’ll learn the tools available to you to mix, match, and create all sorts of things. Then you’ll share them with the world via The Sandbox’s own online Gallery, which you can browse for inspiration. It’s amazing what folks can do with this little game.

The iPad mini, announced today, is suddenly a fantastic gaming device. While the original iPad mini introduced a fantastic iPad form factor at 7.9 inches, the iPad 2-equivalent display and CPU just doesn’t quite cut it for higher-end gaming apps.

Of course, all of Apple’s iOS devices have been great for gaming ever since the App Store launched back in 2008. Games make up a huge portion of the 1,000,000 apps out there to date, and it’s not surprising anymore to see console-level gaming experiences show up on both iPad and iPhone.

I dig biplanes, but nothing says dogfighting like a British Spitfire up against a Messerschmitt Bf 109, or a Marine Corsair duking it out with a Mitsubishi Zero.

For the next installment of turn-based strategy gem Sid Meier’s Ace Patrol, 2K and Firaxis Games have gone with the latter, and bumped the game ahead several decades from World War I, setting it smack in the middle of the Pacific during World War 2.

Note: This article originally appeared in the Cult of Mac Newsstand issue, Game On!. Grab yourself a copy or subscribe today.

The iOS App Store has no shortage of titles that you can just download and play without paying a thing. The actual amount of content you get for your not-money varies, but more often than not, the free version is little more than a demo to entice you into paying for the whole thing.

Some games offer enough content in their lite versions that you’ll be set until you get tired of the thing and cast it into the virtual trash. But others are so good that you can, should, and must throw the developers some money. They’ll thank you, and you’ll thank yourself. Because these games are really good, so pay for them, cheapskate.

Note: This article originally appeared in the Cult of Mac Newsstand issue, Game On!. Grab yourself a copy or subscribe today.

It still surprises me when someone says, “I don’t play video games.”

Games are a touchstone of cultural relevance these days. With the advent of the iOS platform, with its ready availability of a wide variety of video games for all types of players, it’s hard to not see their influence. Not playing video games is like not reading novels or not watching television: sure, some folks choose that, but they’re missing out on a common cultural heritage and discussion.

That said, video games can seem intimidating. Or feel like a waste of valuable productivity time. I won’t bore you with statistics and studies that say otherwise, but trust me on this: video games can be a viable leisure time activity for all of us.

So how do we get you playing games? In the case of my girlfriend, it was finding the games that made sense to her. For my dad? He still won’t play them. So this list is as much for him as it is for you. You’re welcome.

Note: This article originally appeared in the Cult of Mac Newsstand issue, Game On!. Grab yourself a copy or subscribe today.

Most video games transform you into a warrior, a thief, a space alien or race car driver. A new breed of games aims to make you a better person by putting you in the shoes of a young father with a son dying of cancer or playing the part of someone grappling with depression, immigration or sexual identity issues.

Called “empathy games,” they hope to change one of the most often criticized aspects of these beloved pastimes: that they foster violence and isolation. Game designer Jane McGonigal’s widely read 2011 book “Reality is Broken” set the playing field for a world where games reward good behavior and nice guys finish first.

Here at Cult of Mac, we’re just starting our coverage of iOS and Mac games, as our fearless leader Leander told you in the publisher’s letter for the inaugural edition of our Newsstand magazine.

Since we’re just starting up, it’s pretty easy to get our attention when it comes to promotional emails and review requests. While we can’t review all the games we’re sent, we do read all the promotional emails that you’re sending our way.

Even still, we’d be lucky to review even a minuscule percentage of games we get requests for, so there are a few things that you can do to guarantee that we’ll take a closer look. There are a few more than you can do to make sure we don’t look much closer, too.

Here’s a list of both extremes, to help guide you on your way to getting coverage on Cult of Mac.

With this latest Halloween-flavored update, Kingdom Rush: Frontiers is bringing vampires and werewolves to its acclaimed tower defense gameplay in a new update, entitled Shadowmoon.

You’ll get three brand spankin’ new levels to defend your base against nine new enemy types, including scary vampires and vicious werewolves (oh my!). The update will go live on All Hallow’s Eve itself, so get ready for some Halloween fun after you fill your pillow cases full of loot from your local neighborhood.

Here’s the brand new trailer to whet your appetite.

Old people like me grew up with Choose Your Own Adventure books. This occasionally ridiculous series introduced an entire generation of children to both the importance of choice and the oddball nuances of second-person narrative.

Following in that tradition is the Gamebook Adventures franchise, which adds a dice-driven, role-playing-style combat system to its branching fantasy storyline. The eighth entry, Curse of the Assassin, is out now; it’s a slow-paced, text-heavy, epic beast of an experience.

So basically, it’s everything people love about those books.

Sometimes you want to play a game on your iPhone, but you’re also carrying groceries or a bouquet of flowers or a sandwich.

Seriously, it happens.

And when it happens, it’s usually impossible. Some games demand two hands, or you can only play them in landscape mode, which is unwieldy. You end up looking like a person in the black-and-white clips of an infomercial, for whom opening a can of tuna or dusting are the most difficult acts imaginable. And nobody wants to be a black-and-white infomercial person.

But Rotato by Floor 27 Industries solves all of that by being easily playable with one hand. And ridiculous analogies aside, it’s actually pretty fun and addictive.

The only reason I picked up Disco Bees to play today was the name. I’m really rather tired of the match-three dynamic, but I figured cute bees and disco music was a good combo to try, regardless.

What I found was a compelling match-three game that does indeed have the same mechanics as many other free-to-play matching games, like Candy Crush or Dragon Academy. In addition, however, it’s got amazingly adorable dancing bees and a killer soundtrack that does fantastic justice to the disco genre without using licensed music.

Did I mention cute dancing bees? You really need more? Fine.

Wondering what Spacetime Games is up to these days? After a successful launch of free-to-play Battle Dragons this past August, the team has turned its attention to a new combat strategy game with the same branding: Battle Command!

In this new game, you’ll take command of a small group of soldiers and try and shape them into a crack team of military force. You’ll collect resources, construct bases, recruit troops, form alliances, and fight on the battlefield (obviously). Battle Command! will have a bunch of single player missions to help hone your skills, and then some serious global multiplayer, something Spacetime has been getting right for years.

Gaming headsets are quite the rage lately, with products from Turtle Beach, Logitech, and Sony gracing any decent gaming aisle at your favorite retailer.

SteelSeries has a long history of providing high quality gaming peripherals, like mice, keyboards, and controllers, for the high-end PC gaming market. They’ve recently made some fantastic forays into iOS gaming peripherals, as well, like the SteelSeries Free controller for iPad and iPhone.

These Siberia Elites, then, have a fantastic pedigree at a fairly competitive price, and I’ve fallen in love with their sound, build quality, and fancy extras.

Some games just aren’t meant for touch screens, and it’s very unfortunate that The Cave is one of them. In developer Double Fine’s dark look at inner desires and magical caves, you guide three of the seven available “heroes” through a labyrinthian network of tunnels that slowly unveil each character’s inner corruption.

Its fantastic-yet-eerie atmosphere and stellar narration definitely translates well to portable screens, but the lack of physical controls or even on-screen button prompts is a serious issue.