Several iPhone developers have dropped the App Store prices of their games and applications in celebration of the new year. 30 titles in all will be available at a discounted rate (some are even free!) over the course of today and tomorrow:
David Papazian of Mobigame announced that the company’s debut iPhone title, Edge, will be available for download from the iTunes App Store next week.
In Edge, players tilt a cube through a variety of geometric environments while solving puzzles and avoiding cube-hating hazards. Edge uses the iPhone and iPod Touch’s accelerometer to great effect — of particular note is a neat-looking mechanic that allows the cube to hang over the edges of platforms through careful tilting and balancing.
Edge is entered in the inaugural Independent Game Festival Mobile competition, and is nominated for the Excellence in Gameplay award at the International Mobile Gaming Awards. A video trailer of the iPhone version of Edge can be seen below.
Hello FingerGaming readers! I’ve been updating here for a couple of weeks now, but I don’t think I ever properly introduced myself. My name is Danny Cowan, and I’m posting here at FingerGaming while editor in chief Matt Burris is away. I also work as a freelance columnist/transcriptionist/layout-ist at FG sister site Gamasutra, and have written gaming features and reviews for a bunch of other places around internet-land. So, hi! Nice to meet you.
Now, embarrassing as it is to admit, I only joined the ranks of iPod Touch owners as of yesterday — up until now, I’ve ended every post here with a wistful sigh, wondering when I would finally get the chance to check out the App Store’s games for myself. But those dark times are over! My iPod is out of its box, I’ve fumbled around with it enough to figure out how to sync it with iTunes, and I’m ready to review some games.
Squish Squash is a game that pits you, a hapless cookie-lover, against an army of marauding vermin. Alternately, you play the role of a sadistic bug-killer, luring hundreds of unassuming insects to their squishy end. The game itself is never quite clear in regards to storyline.
Either way, there’s a cookie in the middle of your yard, and you’re not going to let a bunch of stupid bugs eat it. Using only your fingers, it’s up to you to save your cookie by poking, squishing, and smearing the invading insects to death.
Give the world’s developers a new platform to develop for, and within hours, someone’s going to produce a clone of Pong. Perhaps it will be Pong with upgraded graphics, or Pong with bonus blood and gore. Eventually, one programmer may get particularly ambitious and develop an adaptation of Snake.
When it comes to new-generation clone applications of 1960s and 70s-era video games, however, few developers are willing to take on the task of duplicating Spacewar! Originally developed for the PDP-1 computer system, SpaceWar! predated the initial release of Pong, making it the very first computer game to ever be released.
Though Pong, Snake, and other classics have seen iPhone adaptations in the months since the App Store’s debut, the platform lacked a proper SpaceWar! port up until this week’s release of Space War Classic ($0.99). Players use a touchscreen-based control scheme to thrust, turn, and fire missles at a computer-controlled opponent (or a second player, in linked network play) while orbiting a star. Classic stuff!
More information and a gameplay video can be found on the developer’s website.
Every Monday (except when I forget, which happened yesterday, oops!), FingerGaming rounds up the most popular paid iPhone and iPod Touch applications, as current that day on the iTunes App Store. This week’s top titles are:
Crash Bandicoot Nitro Kart 3D takes the top spot in this week’s rankings, while last week’s chart champion SimCity drops to eighth place. Tetris moves up a few spots, as newcomer hunting sim iHunt joins the charts at fourth place.
The charts also see the return of Moto Chaser this week, which finishes at ninth place following a drop in price to 99 cents. The Price is Right drops to tenth, meanwhile, as demand for Touchgrind and Bejeweled 2 is on the rise.
There are no shortage of cricket applications on the iPhone. At last count, at least five App Store programs will keep you abreast of all of the latest news and scores in the world of cricket. Several applications calculate manual scoring for the sport. Others miss the point entirely and allow you to play the noise of crickets chirping…at any time!
However, the iPhone has yet to host a proper simulation of the sport of cricket. Until now! Enter Cricket Game ($4.99), a rather nice-looking 3D title that gives all the willows, googlies, and yorkers fans would expect (?) from the sport.
The only review posted in the App Store thus far confirms that it is indeed a playable cricket game, but warns that only the batting portion seems to be represented. Still, it’s progress! Further details are posted at Cricket Game’s website.
B3 United released a cute-looking iPhone game recently — Mew Mew Tower ($1.99). Half the fun comes in trying to decipher the adorably shaky App Store description: “The ‘MewMew Tower’ is the game that is accumulating a lot of cats highly the sky in a line. You will stack a cat straightly so that balance may not worsen.”
From what I can tell, gameplay involves balancing a rising stack of cats by tilting the iPhone. But be careful: “If iPhone is leaned, a cat will collapse easily. Oppositely, let’s incline iPhone and balance when becoming ill-balanced.”
So, in other words, don’t topple the kitty tower on purpose. Instead, help the cats in their mission to stack themselves high enough to reach the sun. Think you’re man enough for the task? More information and a gameplay video can be found on B3’s website.
Independent game developer Luc Bernard, designer of the PC platformer Eternity’s Child, has announced the formation of a new company focused on iPhone and WiiWare software development. Bernard’s first title, thus far unnamed, is described as “similar to [Game Boy Advance and Nintendo DS strategy title] Advance Wars but with rpg elements in it.”
Few other details are known at this time. Bernard confirms that the new company is being set up with help from “a friend,” with funding provided by unnamed investors. An ex-Electronic Arts staff member with experience in the strategy genre serves as lead programmer on Bernard’s debut iPhone offering, which takes place in the Eternity’s Child universe.
Bernard remains cryptic in describing the title’s gameplay. “The difference maybe between Advance Wars and this game is the environment, how that works well you will see once the game comes out,” he says. “I don’t want to reveal too much but I am quite proud of it, it’s beautifully designed.”
1UP.com reports that Hudson Entertainment will be bringing the Independent Games Festival Grand Prize-winning Crayon Physics to the iPhone and iPod Touch. The title is scheduled to hit the App Store in early January, and possibly as soon as next week.
Designer Petri Purho developed the iPhone port of Crayon Physics in concurrence with the yet-to-be-released PC version, Crayon Physics Deluxe, which so far has only been released to the public as a playable prototype. A beta version was recently sent to preorder holders, though a final release date has not been announced.
Crayon Physics challenges players to draw gravity-weighted lines and shapes in order to solve a variety of physics-based puzzles. Prior to its release, Crayon Physics has inspired the creation of numerous clone titles, including the commercial App Store release Touch Physics. It should be interesting to see if Crayon Physics comes out on top in App Store sales when both titles compete in January.
Indie game developer Jason Rohrer makes his iPhone debut with this week’s App Store release of Passage ($0.99). Previously available as a PC freeware title, Passage comes to the iPhone this week as a direct port with a new touch-based control interface.
An extremely brief life simulation game (it takes less than five minutes to play to completion), Passage earned acclaim from both the gaming public and the mainstream press upon its PC release last year. Rohrer’s latest efforts include the arthouse title Gravitation and the multiplayer-only puzzler Between.
Passage’s commercial release on the iPhone is an interesting development in the world of independently developed games. The title earned attention and praise when it debuted as freeware, but how will it fare against the thousands of paid apps already available in the iTunes Store? More specifically, how will iPhone users respond to its short length and simple gameplay? You can bet that more than a few iPhone-curious indie developers will be watching this one closely.
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David Papazian of Mobigame announced that the company’s debut iPhone title, 
There are no shortage of cricket applications on the iPhone. At last count, at least five App Store programs will keep you abreast of all of the latest news and scores in the world of cricket. Several applications calculate manual scoring for the sport. Others miss the point entirely and allow you to play the noise of crickets chirping…at any time!
B3 United released a cute-looking iPhone game recently — 
