Nearly one third of all games released in the App Store in a 24-hour period are Flappy Bird clones.
That’s according to the Guardian newspaper’s Stuart Dredge, who used an RSS feed of the Appshopper site to get his hands on a list of every game released in the 24-hour period, ending 5am on February 27.
Of the 293 new iOS games, he discovered that 95 (just over 32%) were clones of the recently deceased Flappy Bird.
As its name suggests, Endless Surf is pretty much an endless runner with a whole lot more water involved. If you’re looking for a true to life surfing sim, complete with realistic board dynamics and the like, you’re going to be disappointed. But if you can look past that, Endless Surf is a giant wave of fun.
Like any endless runner, your goal is to keep going for as long as possible, while simultaneously notching up the highest score you can. In your path are various power-ups — in this case including one that turns the weather temporarily stormy, therefore increasing the size of your wave —as well as an array of obstacles to negotiate. These are mainly made up of buoys and menacing shark fins, but the real threat is the constantly advancing wall of water breaking behind you. Move too slowly and you’ll get swallowed up — leading to the inevitable “Wipe Out” screen. Move fast enough and, over time, you’ll be able to customize your character and complete the various stages the game has to offer.
Developer Pangea Software’s well-regarded Enigmo series of puzzle games has been around for a while, and they’ve turned over development of the latest installment, Enigmo: Explore to a new team, but the idea is the same: See that liquid dripping from a pipe over here? Get it into that jar over there.
The game gives you a suite of tools to accomplish this, including trampoline-like items that the drops bounce off of and little cannons that can send them even farther. It’s up to you to decide which items in which combinations to use to complete levels, which offers you a decent amount of freedom when you’re playing it.
But a couple other features work just as hard against you, and it’s kind of a shame.
The tale of Flappy Bird is almost unbelievable. A frustratingly simple iPhone game from an indie game dev in Vietnam with no prior notoriety becomes an overnight success. It dominates the App Store charts and starts making $50,000 per day in ad revenue. Then, out of the blue, the dev decides to pull it from the App Store at the height of its popularity.
It was a story too good to be true. Except that it was true.
In the wake of Flappy Birds’s removal, countless knockoffs have tried to fill the gap. “Flappy Bird being taken off the App Store has created this vacuum,” says Jeremy Olson, founder of the award-winning app studio Tapity. In an effort to make a worthy successor to Flappy Bird, Olson and his small team have created Buffalo Wings.
Instead of a bird, you guide a flying buffalo over and under walls by tapping the iPhone’s screen. Hit a wall at any point and you have to start over. The gameplay mechanics may be the same, but Tapity is hoping that Buffalo Wings has what it takes to capture lightning in a bottle twice.
I know we’ve talked about Flappy Bird a lot over the past month… but forget that stupid bird. You have a new god now. Meet Flapthulhu.
The Bureau: XCOM Declassified gets three new expansion packs for the Mac version of the game this week, available on the Mac App Store and Steam. The new packs–Hangar 6 R&D, CodeBreakers and the Light Plasma Pistol–bring new content and missions to the strategy title as in-app purchases.
The Bureau: XCOM Declassified is a tactical third-person shooter game set in the exciting XCOM universe, this time in the 1960s. You play as agent William Carter, helping your agency cover up and battle alien incursions on the planet.
I’m all about helping cute animals get home or get candy or whatever. Believe me, I am. But I’m also kind of a hypocrite because the most important word in that first sentence is “cute.” Give me a yeti or a little alien or whatever the hell Om Nom is in Cut the Rope, and I’ll give them whatever they want.
Show me something like the title characters in The Rainbowers, however … I mean, I’ll still do it. But I’ll look around first to see if any fuzzy bunnies need help gathering carrots or something.
But the game is fun, despite my terrible, terrible prejudice.
The iOS game controller market is growing at a pretty healthy pace, but there has yet to be a controller that really steals the limelight. We’ve gone hands on with several options, and they all seem to fall into the same boat: a decent upgrade from touch, but not console-level quality.
Demoed at Mobile World Congress this week in Barcelona, the Mad Catz C.T.R.L.i might be the new controller to beat.
When I was a kid at Showbiz Pizza (back in those carefree days before that upstart rat staged his coup), the Dragon’s Lair cabinet always fascinated me. People would step up, watch a cartoon for about three seconds, and then they’d put another quarter in. They’d watch the same cartoon, and then they’d put another quarter in. And so it went until they said some words that my parents didn’t want me using and went off to play Dig Dug.
I didn’t understand what Dragon’s Lair was until much later; all I knew was that it looked like a movie and annoyed people.
This week, the iOS port of its 1991 sequel, Time Warp, made its way to the App Store, and it’s pretty much here to ruin your day and make you hate your fingers and your slow, stupid brain.
So basically, the old-school experience is intact, and I love it.
Tengami has gathered a bit of a following during its development due to its beautiful, pop-up-book art style and zen-like demeanor. It has relaxing music, a dialogue-free narrative, and puzzles that are clever and occasionally very tricky.
The game is out now as a universal app for iOS devices, and it has a lot of expectations to live up to. Can it live up to the excitement?
It absolutely does, delivering an endlessly fascinating experience in one of the most beautiful packages you have ever seen.
Everyone loves mini golf, but how do you make mini golf even better? By adding robots, of course. And by having it take place in outer space.
Helping Orbit the Robot and his ladyfriend Tess find their way home, Astro Golf players must participate in a variety of space-themed mini golf challenges — involving dodging black holes and avoiding a plethora of spaceship-related impediments.
We might be no closer to getting classic Nintendo games on iOS, but independent developer Riley Testut yesterday released the long-awaited 2.0 update to his slick Game Boy emulator, GBA4iOS.
Supporting Game Boy Advance, Game Boy Color, and original Game Boy games, GBA4iOS is the most straightforward and best-looking way to bring nostalgic Nintendo action to iOS 7 — and you don’t even need to jailbreak your iOS device to use it.
All that is required is to open up Testut’s dedicated GBA4iOS website — which greets users with the Apple-esque message, “Game Boy Advance, meet iOS. Again.” From there, simply tap “download” and you’ll be tracking wild Pokemon, or leaping on mushrooms with Mario, in no time.
Most endless running games are the definition of pick-and-up-play affairs: sometimes with more depth than you’d expect, but also games that will immediately graspable by the most casual of audiences.
An endless runner in an airplane (an endless flyer?) Any Landing is a bit different. Taking its name from the old saying about any landing you can walk away from being a good one, Any Landing will most appeal to a more hardcore game audience — the kind of people who will invest a few hours in mastering control mechanics.
What’s that, you say? You’ve been longing for a retro, old school, three dimensional dungeon crawler to take with you on your iPhone and iPad?
Look no further than Coldfire Keep, a brand new first person dungeon crawler from Steve Jarman and Crescent Moon Games. You’ll have to make your way through this beautifully rendered 3D dungeon, full of monsters, puzzles, hidden secrets and–natch–tons of loot.
It should be in the App Store tonight (February 19) by 11 pm Eastern time here in the US, if all goes according to plan, and it’s looking pretty sweet, if the video below is to be trusted.
Tales from the Borderlands developers Telltale Games and Gearbox Software will reveal the first details about their forthcoming game during a panel at the SXSW Gaming Expo, Telltale revealed today.
The award-winning studios will describe how they first came to work together on the eagerly-anticipated project, how the game might unfold, and (hopefully) plenty of other juicy details.
What do monsters, Nintendo’s Super Smash Bros. series of chaotic fighting games, and steampunk have in common?
Nothing, you guys. Absolutely nothing.
But those are all elements in Fright Fight, a new free-to-play, online-multiplayer brawler that has players controlling a variety of spooky monsters in fights to the death atop floating platforms. It’s chaotic, insane, and mostly fun.
It’s a Frankenstein’s Creature of disparate parts cobbled together, and the arcane force that brings it to lurching life is in-app purchases.
It’s time to return to the bizarre and unpredictable planet of Pandora with Borderlands 2…and Cult of Mac Deals will you help you do so without putting a dent in your wallet.
A true role playing first person shooter, you can embark on campaigns solo, or invite three friends to join you in the mayhem that is sure to ensue. This game is just pure, unadulterated, shoot-em-up fun that’s wrapped in an absurd, colorful, and interactive package. Add to that four-player online and co-op goodness, and you have an addictive game everyone can love. And all for just $9.99!
Fans of Cartoon Network’s megahit Adventure Time are probably familiar with “Card Wars,” an episode in which heroes Finn and Jake square off in a ludicrously complicated collectible card game.
If your first thought after seeing that installment was “I have to play that crazy-ass game,” you’re in luck: It’s now available for your iPhone or iPad. While not quite as complicated as the on-screen version, Card Wars offers the same basic card-and-board gameplay with 3D monsters battling it out for fortune and glory.
And behind its zany exterior lies a deceptively deep experience with Floops galore.
First unveiled in November last year, the newly-released Second Chance Heroes gives gamers the chance to take part in an epic, arcade-style coop action-adventure in which you save a world overrun by werewolves, zombies, and sentient cheeseburgers.
One of our favorite games, FTL, is getting a massive update, plus an iPad version. That’s pretty darn exciting.
The update includes new advanced weaponry, new systems and subsystems, new drones and equipment, new music, and new story content. Best of all, it’s going to be a free update. In a tweet earlier today, the FTL team updated fans on what’s new, including new features like the clone bay, mind control, and hacking systems. The iPad version will include all of these things, too, in a game that will now be called FTL: Advanced Edition.
Wondering what we've been up to? Check out our new post detailing some of the features of FTL: AE – https://t.co/9HAsO2ELcA
— FTL (@FTLgame) February 17, 2014
Check out the video below for some sweet visuals and auditory goodness.
The original Eliss wowed everyone back in 2009 with its multitouch controls, cool music, and increasingly frantic gameplay. Now, we have Eliss Infinity, which includes the original game and a few more modes to keep even veteran players interested.
Eliss is a puzzle/action/insanity game in which you have to manipulate the sizes of “planets” to make them fit inside of rings. You do this by combining smaller ones by dragging them into each other or splitting larger ones by pulling them apart with your thumbs. But differently colored planets can’t touch, or they’ll eat each other away.
That’s the basic idea. But Infinity has a lot more to offer.
Alright, so the Iron Man-shaped hero in Robo Nativity is totally not licensed. I was unsure if he was supposed to be more like Mega Man until a helpful prompt informed me that for a minimal fee I could also play as War Machine. So, you’re definitely playing as Iron Man in this curiously named platformer-meets-endless runner.
You start off running along the ground beneath various platforms. Enemies and obstacles require you to jump and fire as you collect as many gold coins as you can. As far as this being a nativity, you won’t encounter any babes in mangers, but the Mandarin-like baddies this not-Iron Man shoots do look a bit like wise men. So, don’t look for any new religions in Robo Nativity, unless you are way into the idea that Tony Stark is the messiah (I kinda am).
We’ll never stop Flapping! On this CultCast, we investigate the worldwide obsession with the iOS wünder-game, Flappy Bird, and the bizarre stories of why the game’s developer pulled the wildly popular game so abruptly from the App Store. Plus, some new iPhone 6 rumors surface, and a Macintosh super-grid you’ve never heard of is hunting down a cure for cancer.
Softly giggle your way through each week’s best Apple stories! Stream or download new and past episodes of The CultCast now on your Mac or iDevice by subscribing on iTunes, or hit play below and let the audio adventure begin.
And thanks to Lynda.com for sponsoring this episode. Learn at your own pace from expert-taught video tutorials at Lynda.com.
We have no shortage of endless running/flying/floating/swimming games in the App Store. And here’s another one.
Avoid: Sensory Overload is a techno-skinned endless game in which you guide a ship through a perpetual series of obstacles and traps. All the while, the thumping music and neon-infused background light show do their very best to distract you.
It’s flashy, annoying, challenging, and ultimately a lot of fun.
Jelly King ambitiously introduces himself as the king of all jellies…but that’s not quite true. Before he can take his rightful place as gelatinous royalty, he has to bounce his way through a harrowing adventure to collect diamond shards. No problem, right?
Jelly King is the kind of platformer that works well on mobile devices. In his excitement, the jelly you control is constantly bouncing. All you have to do is guide him left or right as you clear obstacles or pick up powerups. Jelly King bounces a certain distance each time you move, so the challenge is to anticipate future moves based off of where you start. If you’re too far away from the edge when Jelly jumps over a gap he might clear the first obstacle, but swiftly fall off the next.
