FingerGaming

In this round-up, Gamasutra highlights some of the notable jobs posted in its industry-leading game jobs section this week, including positions from Microsoft’s Halo team to a level designer for Blue Castle’s Dead Rising 2.

Each position posted by employers will appear on the main Gamasutra job board, and appear in the site’s daily and weekly newsletters, reaching our readers directly.

It will also be cross-posted for free across its network of submarket sites, which includes content sites focused on online worlds, cellphone games, ‘serious games’, independent games and more.

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Tags: career, gamasutra, jobs

Rating:

• Price: $1.99 (Get It)
• Version: 1.0
• Official Site: NinjaBee

I loved Outpost Kaloki X, and it’s still one of my favorite Xbox Live Arcade titles. Part tycoon game and part corny story, it’s something like running a lemonade stand in the middle of a Douglas Adams novel. The iPhone port — now titled Kaloki Adventure — stays true to the Xbox title and its PC predecessor, and it’s a fantastic way for newcomers to enter the action, despite some minor control issues.

There’s an odd narrative to Kaloki Adventure that builds around your role as the manager of a space port, but the basic gameplay is quite simple: Ships arrive, demanding any number of services — from pawn shops to chemical labs — and you’ll need to build them while dealing with a number of financial and electrical constraints.

Your space station is a sphere, and the touch screen provides an especially nice means of moving around the station. Each of your managed outposts has a variety of individual “ports” to which you attach some sort of commerce sites, and like similar tycoon games, these ports can then be upgraded or sold.

The buttons for managing these smaller tasks, however, are frustratingly small, and without tiny and/or nimble digits, you’ll likely find Kaloki Adventure to be a game filled with a lot of mis-pressed menus.

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Tags: kaloki, kaloki adventure, ninjabee, reviews, tycoon

Though the upcoming iPhone OS 3.0 will allow applications access to user music libraries, developer TheMusic Co. circumvents the iPhone’s current limitations with BeatRider Touch ($4.99), a beat-matching rhythm game that generates note charts based on user-submitted MP3 and M4A files.

Note that the MP3 conversion process isn’t as intuitive as some might hope, however. In order to put your own personal tracks in the game, you’ll need to register at BeatRider’s website and upload your music manually. The app will then access your account via a WiFi connection and generate note charts based on your streamed music.

It’s a little convoluted, but assuming you can deal with the skimpy playlists (players can only store up to 20 custom tracks at a time), BeatRider Touch could in theory boast infinite replayability. TheMusic Co. has also released a free Lite version, which allows limited (one song) access to the game’s MP3 upload feature.

Tags: Action, beatrider touch, mp3, Music, rhythm, themusic co.

1UP.com’s Jeremy Parish notes in his latest blog post that something about Capcom’s recently announced 8-bit-styled underwater shooter Mega Man: Rush Marine seems suspiciously iPhone-like.

Specifically, the screenshots released so far are sized at a resolution of 480×320 — the exact same resolution used by all iPhone games. It’s a safe bet, then, that the title is likely bound for Apple’s platform, despite Capcom only revealing that it’s in development for an unspecified “mobile” device.

Mega Man: Rush Marine appears to be a new direction for Capcom’s retro-themed Mega Man revival, which began late last year with the multiplatform release of Mega Man 9. Rather than being an NES-inspired platformer, however, Rush Marine appears to be an entirely new game that uses a mixture of existing sprites and new artwork.

Little else has been revealed about Rush Marine so far. Capcom notes that the game is a horizontally scrolling shooter that will feature 10 bosses, each of which will grant Mega Man a new weapon after its defeat. No release date has yet been set.

Tags: Action, capcom, mega man, mega man: rush marine, shooter

After recently devoting “the majority” of his time to iPhone development, id Software’s John Carmack has posted a status report regarding the development of the iPhone port of the classic first-person shooter Doom. In short: it’s going well!

Carmack admits that the recently released port of Wolfenstein 3D was largely an experiment to test the platform’s capabilities and to gauge interest in future releases. After an enthusiastic App Store reception and several appearances in the top paid app charts, it can be assumed that the game was a success. Carmack soon after began work on Doom, a port that he describes as “a more serious effort.”

Though Doom has been ported to dozens of platforms since its 1993 debut, Carmack notes that actually getting the game to play well on a format like the iPhone is “an honest development effort.” In the rest of his post, Carmack describes the challenges he’s faced so far, which range from music compression to upscaled artwork.

Carmack expects to submit the iPhone version of Doom for App Store review next month. A release will follow soon after.

Tags: doom, fps, iPhone, john carmack, port

Unceremoniously yanked from the US and UK App Stores a few weeks ago,  award-winning puzzler Edge has yet to resurface. Wondering just what had happened to the FingerGaming favorite, we decided to contact developer Mobigame.

“We have legal issues with a man named Tim Langdell,” says Mobigame’s David Papazian. “If you already asked why Soul Edge (the Namco game) was called Soul Blade and later Soulcalibur in the US, you have your answer.”

Langdell, CEO of EDGE Games, GDC 2009 speaker and Lead Game Faculty at National University, contacted Mobigame and Apple in April asking that the game be pulled. Langdell claims his company owns the worldwide “trademark” EDGE. Despite this, the game remains up in other territories.

“We have the trademark EDGE in Europe (where the game is still available),” Papazian tells FingerGaming. “And we are trying to register it in the US.”

Currently in negotiations with Langdell, Papazian couldn’t comment on specifics, but assured us him and his partner at Mobigame are in talks with Langdell. The pair will continue to deliver updates on the game’s status via the developer’s Twitter and Facebook.

“We are doing our best to [...] put Edge on the store again without any risk,” Papazian promises.

Tags: Action, edge, interview, mobigame, Puzzle

Rating:

• Price: $9.99 (Get It)
• Version: 1.1
• Official Site: Gammick Entertainment

I’ve searched and searched for an ideal iPhone chess game, and while there are plenty of flimsy interfaces, gimmicky titles, and puzzle-based programs, the truly challenging chess games are few and far between.

Fritz Chess manages to position itself as a deep and difficult chess sim, using a respected engine and a flashy UI. To be competitive at a $10 price point, however, the game needs to be more than a Fritz front end—instead offering features beyond the basic chess match.

While the Fritz engine needs no introduction, Gammick have managed to marry it with an interface that feels entirely native to the iPhone. Pieces are easily managed through the touch screen, and the game has a variety of move possibility/threat indicators that can be turned on or off.

The menus are slick and clear, and there are a myriad of game options: without clock, blitz play, and long games (with blitz and long games being customizable). Games can also be saved and reviewed upon completion.

And the graphic presentation is especially nice: This feels like a professional title. The pieces have a subtle drop-shadow, and they almost look like elegant cutouts hovering aboard the board.

In addition, the light blue movement lines (showing where a piece came from) might be one of the best interface additions I’ve seen in a chess game. While I was initially tempted to turn them off, they offered a nice mental marker of what just happened (helpful on a platform where games are often played across multiple sessions), and added a nice contrast to the otherwise routine white/black chessboard skirmish.

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Tags: board games, chess, fritz, fritz chess, gammick, reviews, strategy

Every Thursday, FingerGaming rounds up the most popular free iPhone and iPod Touch applications, as current that day on the iTunes App Store. This week’s top titles are:

1. Unblock Me Free
2. World War
3. Urinal Test
4. Amateur Surgeon Lite Edition
5. Fishing Frenzy
6. Stunt Car Racing 99 Tracks Free
7. BrainTeaser
8. StickWars Lite
9. iMafia II
10. Warbots

A free demo version of the sliding block puzzler Unblock Me takes the top spot in this week’s free app charts. Storm8′s recently released Mob Wars clone World War finishes at second place, while last week’s chart champion Urinal Test falls to third.

Adult Swim’s Amateur Surgeon Lite Edition rises up to fourth place this week, leading to a boost in popularity for the full version. The free-to-play Fishing Frenzy claims fifth place, leaving BrainTeaser, StickWars, and Stunt Car Racing to compete with iMafia II and Warbots for the remaining chart spots.

Tags: charts, Free Games, top free apps, unblock me, urinal test, world war

Digital Leisure, a company dedicated to remastering and publishing classic full-motion video titles on current-generation platforms, has been keeping a close watch over the iPhone development community. After observing the potential the platform held for modern-day FMV titles like Hysteria Project and The Odyssey, Digital Leisure has joined the App Store with an iPhone port of the 1984 arcade title Space Ace ($4.99).

Space Ace, the sci-fi follow-up to the landmark laserdisc arcade game Dragon’s Lair, featured animation directed by Don Bluth (An American Tail, The Secret of NIMH). Space Ace’s gameplay is also much more ambitious than Dragon’s Lair’s — the game allows players the choice of playing as either wimpy Dexter or the beefed-up Ace during certain scenes, effectively adding branching gameplay paths.

Digital Leisure notes that its next title slated for release on the iPhone is a port of Mad Dog McCree, a Western-themed light gun shooter featuring live-action video. Here’s hoping that an iPhone version of Dragon’s Lair is also in the works…or better yet, an adaptation of Sega’s holographic FMV game Time Traveler.

Tags: arcade, don bluth, dragon's lair, fmv, laserdisc, space ace

THQ has released an iPhone and iPod Touch adaptation of Pixar’s upcoming animated film UP ($4.99). The iPhone take on the film challenges players to guide grumpy Carl Fredrickson’s house through a series of dangerous obstacles during its helium balloon-fueled flight to South America.

The game version of UP follows that basic plot of the film throughout its 24 levels. Two gameplay modes are included — Adventure Mode is a traditional level-based campaign, while Wilderness Mode focuses on collecting badges hidden throughout the game’s stages.

UP also includes a tutorial mode, if you’ve never flown a house before. Assuming it has even a trace of the delightfully crotchety Ed Asner in it, I’m sold.

Tags: Action, disney, pixar, thq, up