iOS games - page 7

Every once in a while, it’s good to take a step back from the more intense flavors of gaming available on your iPhone or iPad and just play a game that’s pure fun.

Grub, sequel to the hit game from independent game studio Pixowl, Greedy Grub, is one of those purely fun experiences that just begs to be played.

Last week at the Electronic Entertainment Expo, I got a chance to try this delightful little Snake-style game out on the developer’s iPad, and was enchanted by the visuals right off the bat.

Take a look at the video below to see what I mean.

Chances are you’ve heard of Tamagotchi, the little handheld virtual pets that took over the world during the first decade of the 2000s, selling more than 76 million little egg-shaped devices as of 2010.

Hatch is one of the many virtual pet apps out there, but it’s an adorable one. You may even recognize the little Fugu creature from its own Facebook Messenger sticker series.

Virtual pets aren’t anything new to the iOS ecosystem, but this new collaboration between Hatch and super-popular video game Pocket God is something new. If you’ve ever thought about doing more with that little digital pal in your pocket, now might be the time. Check out the launch video below for more.

As a gamer, I want a controller with buttons. I lust after this new product category like I do any new gadget that I think will improve my gaming experience. I think that if you play games with any frequency, you’ll want them too.

Unfortunately, I also think the majority of mobile gamers are making do just fine with touch interfaces, thank you very much, and that these lust-worthy devices will soon find their way to the dustbin for most who buy them. Not because the controllers, including one that straps to the sides of your iPad mini like the loving embrace of an alien face-hugger, aren’t any good. On the contrary, these are solid, high-quality gaming peripherals that will make certain types of console-like games (platformers, open-world sandbox games, first-person shooters) much easier to play.

A simple glance at the stunning games perched atop the App Store game lists reveals we are experiencing a golden age for mobile gaming.

From the surreal, mind-bending Monument Valley to the Pixar movie brought to life that is Leo’s Fortune, 2014 has seen some of the most startlingly original gaming experiences in years arrive on iOS.

“I do feel like we are in a boom period,” says John Comes, design director at Uber Entertainment, the company behind games like the newly released Toy Rush.

Although Apple has been a hub of gaming going back to the glory days of the Apple II, today’s crop of hot titles are reshaping the landscape like never before. The present explosion of innovative iOS games results from several fortuitous factors coming together. Here’s why there’s never been a better time to be a gamer.

Thank goodness for a game with just a few things to learn how to do.

Too many environmental puzzle games try to do too much, packing in all sorts of stuff you have to figure out to solve the ever-increasingly difficult levels.

Not so with Kiwanuka, an elegantly smart game that only has a couple of mechanics, but tons of fun levels to solve with them.

Oh, and it’s a little bit weird, too.

Two coders who’ve never met sat in their respective man caves 1,400 miles apart making a game that proves once and for all that whiz-bang graphics aren’t necessary when it comes to building a hit.

Called A Dark Room, their “minimalist text adventure” has stormed the App Store — averaging 10,000 downloads a day (at $0.99 a pop) and currently holding the No. 1 position for paid iPhone games (see our review here).

Here’s how Michael Townsend and Amir Rajan created an indie iOS game with no graphics that became the most unlikely success of the year.

Roll the dice, as many times as you like, and add the results together to create a huge attack number. Use that number (and a ridiculously large sword) to bash in the heads of random dungeon monsters.

Roll a one, though, and your turn is over. This cost-benefit system comes right out of a slot machine in Vegas and it’s got me hooked.

As the game editor here at Cult of Mac, I spend a lot of time with a controller or touch screen in my hand. Of all the fun games out this week on the iPhone and iPad, I’ve got to say, Tiny Dice Dungeon is the one I’ve spent the most time playing.

If I was forced, say, to choose my iOS Game of the Week (and I’m not), I’d pick this one.

One more way that Apple is challenging Google is by pushing for exclusive games on iOS, claims a new report.

The Wall Street Journal reports that as Android’s influence has grown, Apple has been offering games developers promotional perks — such as premium placement on their app store home pages — in exchange for first rights to particular titles.

Last August, Apple struck a deal with EA to receive a two-month exclusivity window for Plants vs. Zombies 2, which did not arrive on Android until November.

A similar deal saw the popular sequel to ZeptoLab’s puzzle game Cut the Rope arrive on iOS in December — but not make it to Android until late March this year.

Eli Hodapp is the Editor in Chief of popular iOS gaming site, TouchArcade. He’s just released his vanity project, Hodappy Bird, a humorous take on the Flappy Bird phenomenon. The game plays just like its inspiration, with a bird that looks a lot like Hodapp and a Chicago skyline background (Eli lives in the city). Hodapp gave developer Paul Pridham $50 as a joke to build the game, and Pridham made it in the course of a weekend.

It’s all in good fun, of course, but also perhaps a commentary on the recent explosion of Flappy Bird into the market. We wanted to know more, so we contacted him.

Eli took a few moments to chat with Cult of Mac via email today about his project.

This story first appeared in Cult of Mac Magazine.

Games make up more than 65 percent of downloads in the App Store and Google Play, and a whopping 90 percent of mobile gaming revenue is generated by a freemium business model, according to Bertrand Schmitt, CEO of App Annie.

These are just two of the insights that came from a trends panel at the Game Developers Conference last month in San Francisco. The panel also included folks from gaming engine Unity and publisher/developer Pocket Gems.

Note: This article previously appeared in Cult of Mac Magazine, available in the App Store.

Godus is the upcoming game from god-game specialist designer Peter Molyneux. The game will play on Mac and iOS seamlessly, letting you create and nurture your own little island paradise on one platform and then watch it develop on the other.

“We want to reinvent the genre of god-games,” Molyneux told Cult of Mac from his vantage point in a suite at the swanky Intercontinental Hotel.

Look, Legos are for everyone, ok? With the huge success of the latest Lego Movie, it’s clear that playing with the building bricks isn’t just for kids anymore, if it ever was.

If you’ve been in a comic, toy, or hobby shop lately, chances are you’ve seen the little random minifigure bags that you can buy, not knowing exactly which minifigure is contained within, like a mini treasure hunt.

Funcom is banking on this craze with its upcoming release of Lego Minifigures Online for iPad, Android tablets, and PC, hoping to trade on the fact that one of the coolest features of the modern Lego experience is the little people that seem to come with every construction model set sold.

Sadly, there’s no Mac version planned as yet, but the iPad game will play the same as the PC and Android versions, on the same servers.

Cult of Mac saw a preview of Pirate World for Lego Minifigures Online last week at GDC, and we’re finally allowed to post it below.

Three months after its launch, kart racing game Angry Birds Go! has received its first major update.

The update ushers in a change in weather by adding a snowy theme, which sees a brand new track covered in slippery ice.

There was a time when practically every new console or games computer you bought came with a title called something like Winter Olympic Games.

That time was the 1980s — and the games in question tended, for the most part, to suck. While it was probably just a way of getting rid of unsold stock, the games seemed purposely designed to rob your excitement at receiving a new console — featuring uninspired graphics, repetitive sound, and controls that didn’t work worth a damn.

Jump forward a few decades and I had severe flashbacks of that sinking feeling while settling in to play Cubed Snowboarding.

Applications are downloaded all over the world, giving developers the ability to share their work with everyone. Amongst them is Japanese developer Ayumu Kinoshita, who has recently found his app Don’t Step the White Tile on top of the charts. A game where players must think fast and react, players everywhere are quickly becoming addicted. Will Don’t Step The White Tile become your new favorite game?

Take a look at Don’t Step the White Tile and find out what you think.

This is a Cult of Mac video review of the multi-platform application Don’t Step The White Tile brought to you by Joshua Smith of “TechBytes W/Jsmith.”

While popular video games like Battlefield and Call of Duty rule home video game consoles, good shooter games have been hit or miss on mobile platforms. The developers at Glu Mobile aim to solve this problem with their new app Frontline Commando 2, the sequel to their popular third-person shooter title. Will Frontline Commando 2 find its way onto your devices?

Take a look at Frontline Commando 2 and find out what you think.

This is a Cult of Mac video review of the multi-platform application Frontline Commando 2 brought to you by Joshua Smith of “TechBytes W/Jsmith.”

Feel like smashing some glass? How about throwing pinballs to do it?

Well, you can do both in this week’s pick: Smash Hit by Mediocre Games, a free-to-play glass-shattering endless run through some of the prettiest yet most fragile obstacle courses we’ve ever seen.

Here’s a quick video of our play through, along with our thoughts on the game.

Mac game publisher Aspyr Media announced Thursday the release of the latest update of Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, the iOS port of the classic role-playing game set in the Star Wars universe.

The update is free and includes much-asked for support for Made-For-iPhone (MFi) controllers like the Steel Series Stratus, Moga Ace Power Controller, or the Logitech PowerShell. In addition, the team has added iCloud saves and new supported languages including English, French, Italian, German and Spanish.

The International Game Developers Association has issued a statement opposing King’s recent Candy Crush Saga trademark filing — in which the game developer claimed ownership of the words “candy” and “saga” across all gaming platforms.

Calling the move “predatory,” the group plans to use its Business and Legal Special Interest Group to investigate the filing, which was recently approved by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

While the smash-hit app Flappy Bird has been removed from the App Store, developer Dong Nguyen has still found success with a few of his other games. Consistently ranking at the top of the app charts how will Nguyen’s new game Shuriken Block rank in your interests?

Take a look at Shuriken Block and see how it compares to the hype and popularity of the late Flappy Bird.

This is a Cult Of Mac video review of the iOS application “Shuriken Block” brought to you by Joshua Smith of “TechBytes W/Jsmith.”

Super-popular iOS strategy game Clash of Clans has received a major update — most notably adding a slew of new Hero abilities.

Version 5.172 also features numerous gameplay enhancements involving flyers, freezers, boosts, clan co-leaders and gem overgrowth. On top of that, there are various interface improvements, balance tweaks, performance improvements, and the usual unspecified bug fixes.

A key feature in iOS 7 dangles the prospect of console-style action in front of hard-core gamers hooked on action-platformers and first-person shooters. But while developers can now add controller support to games, hardware makers face a new challenge: getting gamers to shell out $100 to morph their iPhones or iPads into console killers.

Hardware maker Signal is unapologetic about the hefty price tag for its new RP One controller, one of several new gaming devices certified under Apple’s Made for iPhone (MFi) program.

“Quality is not free,” Signal’s director Mark Prince told Cult of Mac, “and it makes no sense to compare an MFi controller to a ‘bag and tag’ generic [Bluetooth] controller.”

Core gamers want to sit down with a precision controller when they immerse themselves in a console game. iOS developers compete with the big boys of console gaming like Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo, for their audience’s gaming dollars.

It’s a clear trend, and even Apple, which has long played the “we don’t care much about gaming” card with iOS, has finally introduced built-in code to support game controllers.

Peripheral makers Logitech, SteelSeries, and Moga have all put their efforts into iOS 7-compatible controllers, each a little different. They all run $100, though, leaving gamers wondering if Apple has set the pricing.

“$100 is probably the lowest viable price point for most if not all of us to cover development, material and manufacturing costs, plus packaging, distribution and retail margins,” said Prince. “We’d like to go on record as saying that Apple does not set these prices.”

We got a sneak peek at Codename Cygnus, a Kickstarter-funded interactive radio drama game for iOS, at PAX this last fall. Developer Reactive studios has just updated the app with more than 20 Game Center achievements, improved voice recognition, VoiceOver features, and a redesigned iOS 7 friendly interface.

Oh, and it’s cheaper, too.

Look, gaming is a big thing, right? You can’t swing a dead cat in an ugly holiday sweater without hitting someone who’s busily involved in some kind of gaming screen these days, and iOS has the clear advantage with the hundreds of thousands of games on offer, all of which are fairly inexpensive or free to play.

We’ve taken some of the effort out of finding the best games of the past year, with this mega-list of over 20 iOS games (in no particular order) that you really should check out right away. Except where noted, all these games will work on your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad. Because, really, there’s no excuse for not making a game work universally these days.

The famous Square Enix tax, defined as the premium price the Japanese video game company has always charged for its ports of classic and new RPG games on the iTunes App Store, seems to be up–for a while, at least.

We’re talking huge discounts, like recently released Deus Ex: The Fall, originally debuting at seven bucks, now only $0.99, and The World Ends With You (perhaps my favorite Square Enix game of all time) at half the regular $20 price.

How about Final Fantasy I and Final Fantasy II, classics in the role playing game genre, at half off, each going for $3.99 on the App Store? There are eight other Final Fantasy titles on sale, as well. Yeah, I thought you’d like that.