mobile games

Spectacular Untitled Goose Game could be coming to mobile

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Untitled-Goose-Game
Who wouldn't want Untitled Goose Game in their pocket?
Photo: House House

The spectacularly pleasant Untitled Goose Game could be on its way to mobile.

Publisher Panic says it is “chewing on” the idea of bringing the phenomenon to Android and iOS. It just expanded its reach to Nintendo Switch and may also come to PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.

Mario Kart Tour races ahead on first-week downloads

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Mario Kart Tour has the second best debut month ever on mobile
The question is: will it last?
Photo: Nintendo

Mario Kart Tour may be a disappointment on a critical level, but it seems to be off to a good start in terms of downloads.

According to new data from Sensor Tower, Mario Kart Tour racked up 90 million downloads in its first week. That makes it Nintendo’s fastest mobile game launch in history. Kind of appropriate for a racing game, really!

Space-trippy iOS puzzler splices Bejewelled with Tetris

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Abantus Saga 2
Abantus Saga 2's sliding mechanics are deceptively simple.
Screenshot: Evan Killham/Cult of Mac

You’d be forgiven if you took one look at Abantus Saga 2 and confused it for yet another tedious match-three game. But if you can get over your prejudice, you’re in for hours of enjoyment. And some frustration. But mostly enjoyment.

The puzzle title, which is out now for free in the iOS App Store, has you sliding around colored and patterned “cubes” (they’re squares, but the on-screen text calls them cubes) to complete full rows and columns. And that’s it — that’s the only mechanic. But what the developer does with it will have you playing and replaying Abantus Saga 2 for hours on end.

Run to the hills in upcoming Iron Maiden mobile game

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run-to-the-hills-in-upcoming-iron-maiden-mobile-game-image-cultofandroidcomwp-contentuploads201601Legacy-of-the-Beast-Iron-Maiden-jpg
Legendary metal bands and mobile games, oh my. Photo: Roadshow Interactive
Legendary metal bands and mobile games, oh my. Photo: Roadshow Interactive

Are you willing to die with your boots on? Do you know the number of the beast? If so, you’ll want to keep an eye on this upcoming mobile game from heavy metal band extraordinaire, Iron Maiden.

In conjunction with Roadhouse Interactive and 50cc Games, the legends of metal are putting together a free-to-play role-playing game, due out this summer, on iOS and Android. It’s called Iron Maiden: Legacy of the Beast (naturally), and will apparently include characters from the long history of Iron Maiden album art, as well as a soundtrack that has previously unheard live recordings from the monsters of rock.

The 10 best iOS games of 2015

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The best iOS games of the year.
These are our favorite iOS games of 2015.
Image: Stephen Smith/Cult of Mac

Cult of Mac's Best of 2015 It’s an age of abundance in the iOS gaming scene, with everyone from Apple to indie enthusiast blogs weighing in on what the best games are for our beloved iOS platform.

We’re here to focus on the best mobile games we have actually played and loved, rather than just the blockbusters everyone’s already heard of. If we kept a game on our iPhone for more than a few days and dug right in on a regular basis, it’s on the list.

Here are Cult of Mac staffers’ choices for the 10 best iOS games of 2015.

Temple Run 2 gets largest expansion yet, ‘Frozen Shadows’

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Wish you were here.
Wish you were here.
Photo: Imangi Studios

With over 1 billion downloads, Temple Run and it’s sequel, Temple Run 2, are the very definition of mobile gaming success.

It’s even better that husband and wife developers and co-founders Keith Shepherd and Natalia Luckyanova are such incredibly nice people. Their startup, Imangi Studios, has found the gold at the end of the rainbow, and they’ve no intention of stopping.

“Frozen Shadows” is the latest (and largest) free update to the franchise yet, giving you new characters like Guy Dangerous and Scarlett Fox to run through a brand-spanking-new ice world. You’ll also get new artifacts, winter costumes, and an absolutely terrifying new demon monkey to run from. Yikes!

“We’re really trying to expand the Temple Run universe,” Shepherd told us on the phone, “in much the same way as a novelist or storyteller would.”

One ‘Account’ to rule them all: Nintendo updates membership club

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Nintendo Account doesn't have much of a ring to it, but this is big news.
Nintendo Account doesn't have much of a ring to it, but this is big news.
Photo: Takashi Mochizuki/Twitter

At a strategic briefing for investors today in Tokyo, Nintendo CEO Tatsumi Kimishima took to the podium to talk about the game-maker’s plans for the near future, including, we hope, information on the venerable company’s foray into mobile gaming on iPhones, iPads, and possibly Android devices.

The new service — blandly called “Nintendo Account” — will connect console, PC, and smart device users in a way that has never been seen before in Nintendo’s history.

Don’t Starve brings hunger game to iPhone

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Those beefalo look pretty worried.
Those beefalo look pretty worried.
Photo: Klei Entertainment

Seriously, try not to starve. That’s the entire point of Klei Entertainment’s runaway hit game Don’t Starve, a test of survival set in a darkly humorous, Edward Gorey-esque world filled with vicious hounds, creeping spiders, herds of stampeding Beefalo and slimy fish men.

Now you can get in on the action on iPhone, as the desktop game just became a universal app called Don’t Starve: Pocket Edition.

YouTube Gaming makes a run on Twitch tomorrow

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It's like YouTube, but with way less cat videos.
It's like YouTube, but with way less cat videos.
Photo: YouTube

It’s a bit late in the game, but YouTube has the resources and brand-name cache to take on video game streaming juggernaut, Twitch, as it turns on the lights of its much anticipated game streaming service Wednesday.

YouTube Gaming is the new portal, separate from the Google-owned video giant’s regular video website, that will aim to capture the flags, hearts and minds of gaming’s streaming technorati, some of whom can make upwards of $8,000 per month just letting people watch them play video games.

Twitch is the 800-pound gorilla of the video game streaming world; in fact, YouTube tried to buy the service sometime before Amazon snapped it up. Will YouTube bring in both current customers as well as crushing Twitch in the process?

Smartphones blow away traditional handheld gaming devices

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These are looking pretty outdated lately.
These are looking pretty outdated lately.
Photo: Daveynin/FlickrCC

Mobile games — especially those with a multiplayer component — are making more money than traditional handheld games, says a new report by mobile analytics agency, App Annie. The company partnered with the International Data Corporation to show the growth in mobile gaming over the past year, and how it’s skews toward mobile and multiplayer gaming.

Poor console makers; they hardly knew what hit them. While they still have life in them, and the games tend to be deeper and of a higher quality, it seems as if most gamers would rather just play on the device they already have with them; their iPhone or iPad.

Indie dev hopes Zombie Match Defense will chew its way to the top

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This guy really wants his game to do well. Photo: Rob LeFebvre/Cult of Mac
This guy really wants his game to do well. Photo: Rob LeFebvre/Cult of Mac

SAN FRANCISCO — After his best friend deemed it impossible to make a fun game using the oversaturated staples of mobile gaming — match three, tower defense and zombies — indie developer Jake Sones made a bet.

Now Sones and his three-person team at Shovelware Games are ready to win that bet with upcoming game Zombie Match Defense, which makes players defend a row of scientists against an attacking horde of zombies by matching three or more brains of the same type. It’s as if Plants vs. Zombies and Candy Crush had a goofy baby and invaded your iPad.

How Crossy Road developers made $10 million in 90 days

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Who (and what) will make it across Crossy Road? Photo: Hipster Whale
Who (and what) will make it across Crossy Road? Photo: Hipster Whale

SAN FRANCISCO — Crossy Road developers Andy Sum and Matt Hall never set out to rake in a pile of cash. They did, however, want to create a popular game.

“We wanted to make the next Flappy Bird,” said Sum at the duo’s Game Developers Conference session here Tuesday.

“But our goal wasn’t to make money,” added Hall.

And yet make money they did. While Crossy Road hasn’t hit Flappy Bird levels of success (or notoriety), it pulled in 50 million downloads — on iOS, Android and Amazon — during the game’s first 90 days. It also generated $10 million for Hipster Whale, Sum and Hall’s development company.

Not bad for a game that was originally named Roadkill Simulator 2014.

The Force meets tower defense in new Star Wars game mashup

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Picture courtesy DeNA
Picture courtesy DeNA

If the sheer volume of tower defense games on the App Store is any indication, people (and developers) love them. Defending your base against endless hordes of creeps is a wonderful way to spend some gaming time on your portable device; they’re not super twitch-dependent, and they definitely encourage the zen-like focus a lot of us enjoy when playing games.

Add a hot property like Star Wars to the mix, and you’ve got a game full of potential. Rebels and Stormtroopers in a tower defense game? Sign me up!

This is, however, a Mobage/DeNA free-to-play joint, so it’s hard to tell exactly whether it will be a compelling bit of playtime, or just another way to spam your friends with social media requests. The pre-release sign up allows you to earn some points to be used in-game already; this does not bode well, even with a Star Wars branding.

That said, I’m still pretty excited about playing this game. Check out the developer diary below to see if you’re just as excited.

Smart strategies fuel Geometry Dash’s slow jog to success

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EGEGEG
Robert Topala created current App Store champ Geometry Dash on his MacBook Pro. Photo: Robert Topala

Back in August, a new game arrived in the iOS App Store and almost immediately vanished without a trace.

“I received a few great reviews from news sites, but not enough to have an impact,” says Robert Topala, founder of RobTop Games and developer of the disappearing game. “Since I had no marketing budget it quickly dropped in rankings after release.”

For most games that would have been it. And if the story stopped there, it wouldn’t have been a tale of total failure: Topala wasn’t a professional coder, and had only been making mobile games for a couple years at the time. Simply finishing a game, getting it in the App Store and picking up a few accolades would have been nice enough.

But that wasn’t Topala’s story.

What’s Next In Mobile Gaming

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Gamers rule the world, at least in the world of app downloads.
Gamers rule the world, at least in the world of app downloads.

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.

Triple-A Console Game Developer Crytek Goes Mobile With The Collectables

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Pretty violence, right?

Developer Crytek, known for top-shelf console and PC games like Far Cry and Crysis, is coming to the mobile space with its first free-to-play game for Android and iOS, The Collectables. The game is published by mobile powerhouse DeNA, using its Mobage mobile games platform which allows the game to release on multiple mobile devices and systems.

The game is coming soon for free on Google Play and the iTunes App Store, and it’s based on Crytek’s proprietary CryEngine graphics technology, bringing a new level of visual performance to the mobile gaming space. The Collectables has both tactical and action-based mechanics, letting you lead a squad of unlikely heroes on missions around the globe.

Ski Safari: Adventure Time Takes Its Manic Mashup Mobile

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The latest game in the Adventure Time series of mobile games will go live on Google Play, the Amazon App Store, and in Apple’s own iTunes App Store this Thursday, according to Cartoon Network.

You’ll get to play as main characters Finn and Jake, along with several other supporting cast members, evading the crazy Ice King while skiing down an epic mountain. Mathematical!

Of course, you won’t use skis, but rather slide down the slope on your butt, true to the wacky television show on which the game is based.

Casual Games Collide: Angry Birds Slingshot Their Way To Puzzles & Dragons

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Finnish developer and all-around success story Rovio Entertainment announced Monday a new cross-over collaboration with Korean-based GungHo Entertainment, the makers of the almost as highly successful match-three mobile game, Puzzles and Dragons.

The pissed-off avians will show up in the popular role-playing/color matching mashup as an Angry Birds-themed dungeon from November 18 through December 1 of this year. You’ll get to challenge the Angry Birds as enemies in the dungeon, in contrast to their hero role in the Rovio-produced titles.