Quite new on the App Store is Launchball, a physics game that might look familiar to you if you’ve ever played the London Science Museum‘s online version.
The Museum has ported the web-based Flash game to the iPhone, with some help from Bright AI, and the result is lots of fun.
UPDATE (December 3): Edgy has been discontinued, following further legal issues with Edge Games. Mobigame says it will now await the ruling of the EA case before attempting to return Edge to the UK and US App Stores. At the time of writing, Edge remains available in some other territories.
The car-crash legal battle between Mobigame and Tim Langdell took a short detour today with the announcement that Edge is back on the US and UK App Stores, this time branded Edgy (App Store link).
As reported on Cult of Mac and elsewhere, the indie developer’s game has been the subject of a protracted legal battle against Tim Langdell’s Edge Games, a ‘company’ that seems to operate in a somewhat suspect manner. Due to threats, Mobigames pulled Edge itself once, and then Apple did so twice, the second time very recently after the indie title was rebranded ‘Edge by Mobigame’.
The latest change, to Edgy, has appeared on the UK and US App Stores without reviews and ratings, and Mobigame confirmed via Twitter that it is “a new product designed for the Amercian legal system […] you can still find the old product on all others continents” [sic]. When asked how updates would be tackled (since the new product is divorced from Edge purchases in the US and UK), Mobigames responded that there would be “no update until EA win in the US/UK, and then maybe EDGE 2. We are working on the new games here, you will love them”.
Mobigame’s reference to EA is regarding the company filing suit against Edge Games, primarily to deal with a spat relating to Mirror’s Edge, but also because “filing the complaint is the right thing to do for the developer community”. In the meantime, it appears Edge/Edgy itself is finally available on a permanent basis, albeit without any chance of updates. On the latter point, the game is stable and fun as it is, and so that’s not a problem; on the former, only time will tell if Edge Games/Langdell takes exception to the Edgy brand, regardless of previous claims that this would settle the matter between Edge Games and Mobigames for good.
I’m probably not anything like the target demographic of the Harry Potter: Spells iPhone game. Even so, a chance at reviewing an app that leverages the iPhone’s motion sensing abilities to let me turn my friends to stone was too good to pass up.
Unfortunately, Warner Bros. has taken an ambitious idea and executed it without much thought to gameplay.
This is what you’re about to ask: Is Star Wars: Trench Run so good that it’ll have you wondering how magically your iPhone becomes an X-wing fighter? Answer: No. It’s better — it’s actually so good, you’ll be trying to figure out why your X-wing looks suspiciously like an iPhone.
Russell Davies does lots of things that are interesting, including, um, Interesting and Newspaper Club and a bunch of other stuff, but the other week he did a talk at the Playful event in London, culminating in this fabulous mock-up of an augmented reality game using an iPhone.
The idea is genius: you start playing the game with one tap, and after that you don’t have to look at the device at all. You walk around with your earphones in, and it alerts you with sounds when there’s stuff to interact with. This video explains it better:
SAP from russelldavies on Vimeo.
Security software developers must think Mac users are quite daft. Tuesday afternon Symantec sent out a press release flogging its ‘discovery’ of a new trojan horse targeting Apple’s OS disguised as a ‘space invaders’ style video game in which killing invading aliens results in the program deleting files from the user’s hard drive.
Ooo.
The game in question is an art project called Lose/Lose that first appeared on the web back in September, created by digital artist Zach Gage and featured in Electrofringe’s current exhibition of online art, Electro Online 2009.
The idea behind the project is to use game mechanics to call into question the idea of mindless killing for fun. Are gamers so obsessive they must kill aliens at any cost? In the game, each alien is based on a random file on the players computer. If the player kills the alien, the file it is based on is deleted.
Gage asks, “Why do we assume that because we are given a weapon an awarded for using it, that doing so is right?”
The game has a clear warning at start-up that says, in scary red letters: killing aliens in this game will delete files from your hard drive.
Now Symantec is sending out an alert flagging the art project as malware.
“A new threat cleverly disguised as a classic video game is targeting unsuspecting Mac users,” Symantec said in an email to CultofMac.com. It continued:
The Trojan horse, known as Trojan.Loosemaque, is designed to look like a Space Invaders/Galaga style game. However, for every alien ship the user destroys, the program deletes a file from the home directory. Symantec – the world leader in online security – recently discovered this new Trojan horse targeting Mac users and video of it in action can be seen here. Online games are increasingly becoming a target for virus creators, and this threat shows it’s a possibility regardless of the platform. While the author of OSX.Loosemaque actually informs people on his website that the game deletes files, there’s nothing stopping someone with more malicious intentions from modifying it and passing it on to unsuspecting users who don’t have security software installed.
Symantec is not the first company to flag Gage’s project. Security blockers such as Sophos’ Anti-Virus and Intego’s VirusBarrier X5 also define the game as a threat.
So is it art or is it malware? Are Mac users equipped to know the difference? Seriously, what do security software companies take us for?
With its simple tap-to-jump gameplay, high-speed scrolling and gritty dystopian atmospherics, Canabalt proved a hit Flash-based sensation when recently unleashed online. The game has now been released for iPhone and iPod touch—one of the first truly successful Flash-based games on the platform. We spoke to Adam Saltsman and Eric Johnson of Semi Secret Software about how the game came to be.
Earlier this year, we ran several articles about Mobigame‘s excellent iPod game Edge getting a legal smackdown from Tim Langdell, owner of Edge Games. Over time, his claims to the Edge marks have, according to commentators, become increasingly dubious and troll-like, to the point where internet sleuths have clubbed together as ChaosEdge to provide a legal fund for Mobigame and information repository that built on the investigative work of TIG Source.
Recently, EA filed suit against Langdell about an entirely different Edge trademark spat, but, to aid indie devs, EA aims via the suit to obliterate all Langdell’s Edge marks, making the world safe for people to use the word ‘Edge’ in the title of a videogame without someone who had a company that was marginally famous in the 1980s popping up and having a major hissy fit.
Possible upshot? Edge is back in the App Store ($4.99 US/£2.99 UK). Somewhat like what you’d get if Marble Madness was built from cubes, and then a load of other cracking gameplay components were added, Edge is a top game for iPod touch and iPhone. And while we hope it’s around for good this time, we strongly recommend you go and buy it right now, just in case it vanishes again.
httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qNUcD-FXgDI
When people talk about classic gaming, they usually rattle on about really simple, playable games that are challenging but that a five-year-old could conceivably master. Such people were clearly traumatised by text adventures (now referred to using the rather loftier term ‘interactive fiction’) and have therefore removed them from memory.
These games were primarily text-based, with you solving puzzles via verb-noun parsers. As time went on, adventures gradually became increasingly complex and elaborate, with Infocom arguably leading the genre to its height.
Sadly and perhaps predictably, text adventures eventually got a thorough kicking. In the words of Richard Harris: “Graphics came along and the computer-using portion of the human race forgot all about 500,000 years of language evolution and went straight back to the electronic equivalent of banging rocks together—the point ’n’ click game,” which, he argues, signalled the arrival of the post-literate society.
But via the magic of the internet, interactive fiction clings on, and apps for playing the Z-machine format are commonplace. Frotz is one of the best, and it now exists as a free iPod app. I interviewed its developer, Craig Smith, to find out what he thinks of interactive fiction and why he brought Frotz to Apple handhelds.
The critically-acclaimed Bioshock game is coming to the Mac on October 7, Feral Interactive has announced.
The game was released for Windows and the Xbox 360 in August 2007, more than two years ago. Isn’t it great that game developers are so dedicated to the Mac platform?
In addition, the Mac version requires a dedicated video card: it doesn’t support Intel’s integrated GMA video cards, used in some MacBooks and iMacs, and all Mac Minis, except the newest models.
Oh well, the game is reportedly a beauty — scary and deep. Wired.com’s Clive Thompson said it was a better horror movie than anything Hollywood has produced recently.
Bioshock will cost $49.95 and can be preordered on Feral’s online store. Or buy a copy of the Windows version and run under Boot Camp for $20. Pick up a copy of Bioshock 2 for $46.49 at the same time.
Every now and again, a game comes along that makes you feel like a ham-fisted idiot, as though you’re clawing at your iPhone or iPod touchscreen with all the grace of a lobotomised monkey wearing boxing gloves. But the game is so compelling and addictive, you play on anyway, getting killed approximately every ten seconds, going ARRRGGGHH and then having another go anyway. Eventually, you realise that it’s you, not the game. The game isn’t unfair—you’re just rubbish, and you need to learn how to improve, just like in the old days with the likes of Defender.
Squareball by Finn Ericson ($1.99/£1.19, App Store link) is one such game. The concept is simple: drag the levels left or right to ensure your ever-bouncing ball doesn’t disappear into a hole or hit red tiles, and collect all the green tiles before the timer runs out. With graphics akin to Atari’s Adventure in pseudo-3D and a fab soundtrack, this game’s had me addicted and loving it and hating it in equal measure since its day of release. Today, I interviewed its creator to find out how this retro-themed mix of Pong, Breakout and simplified Super Mario-style platformer came to be.
In the mid-1990s, gaming on the Mac was an incredibly sad affair. Very few titles were available outside of Myst and the various Sim titles, and the performance was quite poor. Games were regularly, and correctly, cited as a legit reason to prefer PCs.
But there was one exception that made the whole thing work: Snood, a tiny puzzle game from a geology professor at a liberal arts college in North Carolina. You shot little colored creatures (Snoods) from a cannon, attempting to match colors and clear the board. Yes, it was a whole lot like Bust-a-Move. That’s not the point. It had the ability to make shots through tiny cracks and suddenly clear the whole board with one click. It was fun, exciting, and, most of all, addictive as hell.
And it was a phenomenon. Basically, if you were college-age or younger and owned a Mac, you owned Snood, and you played it all the time. I still remember trying it for the first time in the Fall of 1996 when my older brother returned from his first semester at the University of Michigan and introduced me to my new gaming crack. I later became Johnny Snood-Seed, installing it on Macs at my high school that weren’t locked down (I disguised them as Internet settings panels so administrators wouldn’t delete them) and had my entire high school paper staff blowing deadlines because of it.
The game eventually got ported to pretty much everything, including Windows and TI-84 calculators, but its real roots are with Apple. And that’s why it’s such good news to learn that the iPhone version (App Store link) is out now. I’ve only spent a little time with it, but the developers have captured some of the feel of the Mac original. Now I’ll be able to procrastinate my professional work the way I once did my homework — in the palm of my hand! It’s even got Facebook connectivity so you can play against my high school friends, too. Quite a set-up. Nostalgia is a powerful marketing tool, isn’t it?
Here’s this week’s selection of games to take you into the weekend from Mac Games and More. Games include an intense, in-depth war game, an anime style RPG where you’re in search of a soulmate, and a mind-boggling board game. Click on the images to see a larger screenshot.
I’ve been a gamer since the very early 1980s, and have owned more systems than you can shake a stick at. A year ago, I happily penned an article for this very site, suggesting iPod gaming was a crock of shit. And you know what? I was dead wrong… absolutely, painfully, utterly, astonishingly wrong. The fact is, iPod is the most exciting platform for gaming we’ve seen in years.
Earlier today Steve Jobs told the New York Times that the iPod touch is first and foremost a gaming device, and that’s why it doesn’t have a camera. We’re not entirely convinced, but look at this chart Apple trotted out this morning’s “Rock & Roll” event.
It shows the number of game and entertainment titles for the iPhone/iPod platform. Apple has almost five times the number of titles as the Sony PSP and Nintendo DS combined.
That’s a huge number. Yes, a lot of those titles are fart apps or simple throwaway games. But that’s still a lot of titles. My kids haven’t touched their GameBoys since we got an iPod touch.
This is why the iPod touch was upgraded with beefier CPU and graphics — to make it a better gaming machine. And no wonder every game company under the sun is rushing out apps — the iPhone/iPod platform is taking over. Add another industry to Steve Jobs’ quiver: PCs, digital music, computer animation, mobile internet and now games.
Rockstar Games’ critically-acclaimed Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars is coming to the iPhone/touch this fall, the company says.
Released last year for the Nintendo DS, the game got reave reviews and is still the highest-rated DS game on GameRankings, with an average review score of about 93%.
“Chinatown Wars is a big fat raspberry to the competition; a masterclass in not only hand-held development, but video game design as a whole, exploring exactly how to craft Liberty City around the console’s unique strengths without compromising the series’ character,” said the Daily Telegraph.
The game follows the misadventures of Huang Lee, a young Triad, as he investigates the mysterious death of his dad, kills his rivals, steals cars, deals drugs and evades the cops — all in a miniature version of the company’s infamous virtual playground, Liberty City.
Sounds fun. Here’s the trailer:
Every Friday, the Mac Games and More website will highlight five different casual Mac games you might not have heard of, to take you into the weekend. I hope you will find something fun here. Click on the images to enlarge them.
Earlier this week we took a look at how Apple’s upcoming tablet will be a paradigm shift by introducing a different kind of computing. Here in more detail is how Apple’s tablet will be great for gaming.
ID Software’s browser-based shooter Quake Live is finally available for Mac users — mostly.
An update to the game’s servers means the game can be played on Safari on the Mac, but not Firefox.
“This update is Safari only, but we’ve pushed a ticket with the folks at Mozilla and hope to have the Firefox build fixed very shortly,” ID says.
Based on the popular Quake 3 Arena, Quake Live is a free, browser-based shoot-em-up. It features more than 40 arenas and five game modes, including duel, capture the flag and group deathmatch. Players can frag each other or computer-controlled bots, and can be matched according to skill level. The game requires a plugin to play. It is not Flash based.
The game went online earlier this year, but Windows only. It’s been wildly popular: more than 113,000 player accounts were created in the first six hours.
Logitech Thursday introduced the G330 gaming headset, designed to “combat fatigue” with a claimed ‘first-of-its-kind” behind-the-head design and a silicon-lined headband with pivoting ear pads to relieve pressure points.
Being somewhat old of years and gray of hair, I remember the good ol’ days of gaming, before all this new-fangled 3D nonsense. Entire games would be smaller in size than a thumbnail JPEG, controllers didn’t have 56,000 buttons, and games weren’t always sequels to sequels to sequels to [that’s enough of that—”Ed]
Clearly, I’m not the only one, because retro games are hot properties for all current gaming systems, and Apple handhelds are no exception. The App Store is peppered with clones and ‘tributes’ to ancient games, along with a slew of official remakes from the likes of Atari and Namco. Recently, though, Manomio—developers of Flashback for iPhone—went a stage further, aiming to bring an entire retro system to iPhone: the Commodore 64.
The build of C64 we played with was quite impressive. Although frameskipping was evident (which is no longer the case for C64 emulation on desktop Macs), the small selection of games sent over with the demo were perfectly playable. Surprisingly, the controls also worked nicely, which is quite a feat when you consider that the C64 was a distinctly ‘digital control’ platform, and that virtual joysticks don’t often work well on Apple handhelds.
Sadly, the public at large has yet to experience the app, because Apple unceremoneously rejected it, citing issues regarding its built-in BASIC (App Store apps aren’t allowed to launch executable code), and, presumably, ignoring the fact that Frotz—a Z-Machine interpreter—has been happily living on the App Store for ages, despite there being no practical distinction between it and C64.
Stu from Manomio was kind enough to offer his thoughts on this and other issues surrounding C64, along with talking about why Manomio developed the app in the first place, and why the organization considers it important to fully license content for the App Store (a position that, ironically, puts them at odds with at least several dozen rip-off apps already for sale for Apple handhelds).
What it is: Yet another puzzle game. This time, you drop numbered discs into a grid. If the number matches the amount of discs in its row or column, the disc vanishes. If it’s next to gray blocks, it smashes them. Clear chains for bonuses.
Why it’s good: The evil people behind Drop7 describe it as “Tetris meets Sudoku”, which is kind of right. However, we’d prefer to describe it as “hardcore drugs meets videogaming”, since Drop7 just won’t let go. We find ourselves sneaking quick goes on ‘hardcore’ mode, because they only take a few minutes each, but then an hour flies by and deadlines are standing in front of us, with a concerned, slightly angry expression.
We fully believe that Area/Code actually plans to get everyone hooked on Drop7, shortly before taking over the world and going “mwahahahahahaha!” a lot. Put it this way: we’re now playing this more than Flight Control.
Where to get it: Drop7’s available via the App Store, and there’s more information at the Drop7 website. At the time of writing, the game cost three bucks. Don’t leave home without it—or you’ll get the shakes.
UPDATE 2: Edge Lite’s now also gone. Some stores report Edge still available, but it’s certainly not on the US or UK stores. I guess Killer Edge Racing had better watch out, given that Langdell’s website has a Flash movie for the game Racers (which we suspect will never see the light of day).
UPDATE: At the time of writing, Edge Lite remains on the App Store, carrying an irony stick. So either someone missed the lite version or it really is all about the money. Which would be a huge shock, obviously.
We yesterday reported on the feud between Mobigame, makers of excellent iPhone game Edge, and EDGE Games, a company owned by Tim Langdell, who seemingly claims ownership over the word ‘edge’ in relation to any kind of gaming.
As stated yesterday, this ongoing battle has raged since April, and although compromises have apparently been suggested by both sides (indeed, Mobigames offered to rename their game Edgy, but Langdell then almost immediately registered that trademark himself), no agreement has been reached. More absurdly, Langdell contests that Edge wilfully ripped off ancient EDGE 8-bit videogame Bobby Bearing (and named it Edge to suggest the name of Langdell’s ‘famous’ trademark!), despite that game being a clone of Marble Madness and Edge playing almost nothing like Bobby Bearing.
Sadly, Edge is now again gone from the App Store, seemingly removed without warning (unlike the first time round, when Mobigame temporarily pulled the game voluntarily, in the hope of coming to a satisfactory agreement with Langdell).
Mobigame’s David Papazian told Cult of Mac: “We did not pull it. We don’t know exactly why it has been pulled [and] we don’t know if the game will come back. Maybe it will in some territories, but it does not depend on us. We are as surprised as many people, I think.”
“Making Edge took nearly two years of our lives, We hope the happy few who played it had a great time. We don’t know what to do now, and we cannot believe this is really happening. But we will probably have to fight since we strongly believe the law is on our side.”
Sort-of-UPDATE 3: And for anyone wondering whether the games featured in this post really do use true isometric projection, Adam Banks discusses this in a blog post.
UPDATE 2: At the time of writing (10:51 GMT+1), EDGE has now been pulled—again—from the App Store, this time on a worldwide basis. We now have a fuller story on this development.
UPDATE: I spoke to David Papazian of Mobigame, who told us that during discussions with Langdell, with the aim of settling amicably, Langdell not only proposed conditions unacceptable to Mobigame, but also stated the company had set out to copy one of EDGE’s most popular titles, Bobby Bearing. When Mobigame mentioned Marble Madness, Langdell even claimed his 1986 effort was actually completed before 1984’s Marble Madness and that Atari’s game is the clone. (I myself interviewed Marble Madness creator Mark Cerny a year or so back, and given the nature of how that game came to be—it actually started life as a mini-golf game—I find it hugely unlikely that this could be the case, even when you don’t take into account the two or more years between the games’ release dates.)
During investigative conversations between Mobigame and Bobby Bearing’s creators, questions have been raised as to rights ownership, with the game’s creators claiming they own the rights, not EDGE Games; furthermore, they do not consider Bobby Bearing and Edge similar games, which, having played both, I entirely agree with. Even on a superficial basis, there’s little similarity, bar the viewpoint.
Compromise was almost reached in May with Mobigames saying they’d rename their game Edgy in some territories, but discussions broke down, culminating in Langdell registering that trademark himself in the USA. Here’s hoping the ‘macho posturing’ doesn’t lead to Edge being removed from the store again. The $4.99 effort is one of the finest titles we’ve played this month. [Edge App Store link]
Oh, how we all love you, Tim Langdell. You sit there on the IGDA (International Game Developers Association) board, and boast about your 30 years of experience in the gaming industry. And yet you seemingly spend your life suing the crap out of anyone with the audacity to use the word ‘edge’ in gaming, due to trademark ownership relating to your videogame company, EDGE Games.
For this reason, Mobigame’s Edge was pulled from the App Store in May (it’s now returned), and Langdell now has his sights set on console game Edge of Twilight (no, we’re not kidding, sadly). Unfortunately, he’s also not quite done with the Edge iPhone game.
On Twitter, Mobigame reported “Tim Langdell is threatening us again… is this love?”, and a report on FingerGaming notes that Mobigame’s David Papazien says Langdell’s now not only affirming his rights to the Edge trademark, but claiming Edge ripped off an ancient EDGE game, Bobby Bearing. Sorry for the italics, but this statement actually make me nearly choke on my cup of tea.
I’m somewhat oldish, and I remember playing Bobby Bearing. (I also remember paying ten quid for the cassette version and discovering that the idiots at EDGE had shipped it entirely without sound—thanks, Tim!) In fact, here’s a screen grab, taken from C64 gaming website Lemon64:
And here’s Edge, taken from the Mobigame website:
On the face of it, you might, if you hadn’t actually played the games, argue that Langdell has a point. Both games use an axonometric projection viewpoint, commonly referred to as ‘isometric’ in the games industry. Also, both have you controlling a small geometric character around a blocky, retro-oriented videogame world where you can move reasonably freely in several directions.
But wait! I’m sure I’ve seen something like this before somewhere…
Oh, look! A game with an axonometric projection viewpoint, where you control a small geometric character around a blocky, retro-oriented videogame world where you can move reasonably freely in several directions! From 1984! Plus, when you actually play Edge, you realise how little it has in common with Bobby Bearing (and, indeed, Marble Madness) anyway…
Having done some digging, it wouldn’t entirely shock us to discover that Langdell’s aggression and, well, ‘jerkness’ are in part down to Bobby Bearing Remix for iPod touch being on its way. But with Edge already being available and great, the fab Marble Madness due soon for Apple portables (and Atari’s iPod touch games being rather good) and Bobby Bearing these days being slightly less fun than being repeatedly punched in the face by someone wearing an extra-large boxing glove stuffed with a brick, we’d suggest, Tim, that you put your energy into actually making your old, tired IP into a decent game, rather than suing the perceived competition. And here’s another free tip: just try suing Atari over Marble Madness. (No, really, please do, because it’d be really funny and we’d love to see you try.)
What it is: Archon Classic is an iPhone app that brings my favorite-ever Mac game to the iPhone — perfectly. It’s basically like extraordinarily Manichean version of chess — the battle between not just white and black pieces, but light and dark forces. And instead of merely taking other pieces as you do in chess or checkers, you must battle for each square you try to claim, with action and heated attacks. Whether you’re a phoenix, a shapeshifter, a golem, or a troll, you need quick reflexes to win.
Why it’s cool: Way back when my family got its first Mac Plus, one of the very first games we installed on it was Battle Chess, a title that had chess pieces actually fight each other instead of claiming their squares. Here’s the problem. It was actually completely lame. It was exactly like chess, except that it had slow-loading and highly repetitive animation sequences. I wanted real battle chess. I wanted to fight for each inch of precious territory. Needless to say, I stopped playing.
My frustrations were quickly remedied when my cousin introduced me to Archon for the NES. It was exactly what I had been looking for but better. We had a fierce, almost bitter rivalry. He was inevitably Light forces, I was Dark. And we would play again and again for hours. Eventually, I found Archon for Mac, and enjoyed it in its keyboard-driven black-and-white glory. Every once in a while when we get together, we still play it.
All of which is why I’m so geeked to play Archon Classic for iPhone. The $4 game has updated graphics sharper than any previous version, an intuitive touch interface, and the smoothest emulated D-Pad I have ever experienced on the platform. I played one game, and it was just like old times. Anyone who has ever enjoyed the original Archon will love this. I haven’t tried the multiplayer over WIFI yet, but I’m looking for challengers, if you’re interested.
Where to get it: You can find the App Store link here.