It’s Friday (hooray!), and App Store developers are dropping their prices for weekend shoppers. This week brings a selection of discounted titles that includes PopCap’s word game Bookworm, Paramount’s aerial combat sim Top Gun, and Bulkypix’s multiplayer arena fighter My Brute.
Laurent Mascherpa at Massive Finger brings word that his studio’s first iPhone release, the 3D pinball title Pinball Ride, is nearing completion and will hit the App Store in the next few weeks.
I love a good video pinball sim, and this one looks particularly ambitious. Pinball Ride boasts a 3D playfield, a smooth framerate, and an illustrated narrative that accompanies the action.
Pinball Ride’s full feature list follows:
Looks like Pinball Dreams and Pinball Fantasies have some new competition on the horizon. Pinball Ride recently entered its second round of beta testing, and could debut in the App Store as soon as next month.
Hysteria Project and My Brute developer Bulkypix has released its latest iPhone title — the trivia game Daily Quizz ($1.99).
Unlike many trivia apps, you’re not likely to see a repeat question in Daily Quizz…or at least, not in your first 365 days of play. Daily Quizz tailors its trivia to the current date, and challenges players with questions about famous events that have occurred on that date throughout history.
Daily Quizz boasts more than 1,800 questions in all, and includes Facebook Connect functionality and a worldwide leaderboard for maximum bragging rights.
In this round-up, Gamasutra highlights some of the notable jobs posted in its industry-leading game jobs section this week, including positions from 2K Boston, Sony Santa Monica, and more.
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.
Exorcist on the iPhone is a game that’s hard to describe on paper but works well on the platform. Players tilt the iPhone in one of four directions and tap hot spots in one of four corners to direct a magic wand to pick up ingredients for a spell.
A spell is completed once the quadrant it’s in has all the necessary ingredients. Completed spells also add mana to a potion which can be then tapped for special moves like slowing down time or clearing the quadrants.
It took me a while to get the hang of the mechanics because it’s very much like tapping one’s head and rubbing one’s stomach at the same time — or was it the other way around? Surprisingly, the strangeness of the controls doesn’t hinder the game; it’s actually quite charming. It feels like completing a spell takes a great deal of brain-work.
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:
Last week’s chart winner Waterslide Extreme continues to top daily App Store download numbers, fending off competition from Glu’s hunting sim Deer Hunter 3D Free and the iDare follow-up iDork Lite.
Ragdoll Blaster again ranks at fourth place this week, though Rope’n'Fly drops to fifth after finishing last week at second place. The minigame compilation All 51 Games Free takes sixth place in today’s results despite an overwhelmingly negative reception among App Store customers, while Paper Toss, Mega Man II Lite, Racing Live, and Wooden Labyrinth 3D account for the remaining chart spots.
Chillingo is on a roll, following up on this week’s well-received boxing sim Touch KO with what looks to be another quality release — the overhead-view shooter Minigore ($0.99). Minigore puts players in the role of everyday blockhead John Gore, who finds himself up against a horde of, uh, “furries.”
According to Chillingo, furries are “hairy, round creatures with particularly sharp teeth.” Yeah, pretty much.
Early reviews are comparing the game to Chillingo’s last twin-stick shooter, the horror-themed iDracula. Many note that while Minigore plays better, it lacks the depth that iDracula eventually received in its software updates.
Developer Mountain Sheep is already on the case, however, announcing that Minigore’s first update will include a cooperative multiplayer mode and, amazingly, the addition of Enviro-Bear as an unlockable character. I…wow. Yes. Episodic updates will follow, adding new levels and challenges.
Freeverse, publisher of popular iPhone titles like Flick Fishing and SlotZ Racer, announced today that it has partnered with ngmoco’s Plus+ social gaming network.
Freeverse plans to integrate Plus+ functionality into all of its upcoming App Store releases, starting with the 3D space trading title Warpgate. Flick Fishing will also receive a Plus+ update in the near future.
ngmoco’s Plus+ Network adds an Xbox Live-like social infrastructure to supported iPhone titles. Plus+ users are able to manage friends lists, issue challenges, and earn awards for in-game accomplishments.
Though similar iPhone social gaming platforms like Chillingo’s Crystal and AGON Online are competing for their share of the market, the combined support of prominent App Store publishers ngmoco and Freeverse gives the Plus+ Network significant exposure and a large install base. Flick Fishing boasts more than one million users worldwide, while ngmoco’s Rolando was honored by Apple as one of the best releases in the App Store’s first year of operation.
The Toy Bot Diaries series may have wrapped up months ago, but since then, developer IUGO has quietly been at work on a follow-up title. Spy Bot Chronicles has been submitted to Apple for review, and should appear in the App Store shortly.
Judging from the screenshots released so far, Spy Bot Chronicles appears to offer a more traditional take on the platforming genre. Whereas the Toy Bot games featured tilt-based movement and grappling mechanics, Spy Bot Chronicles maps its controls to an on-screen interface, apparently nixing the series’ distinctive accelerometer control scheme.
Spy Bot Chronicles boasts the following features:
IUGO estimates that Spy Bot Chronicles will feature as much content as the three Toy Bot titles combined. No final release date or price has yet been announced.
Developer Witch Beam joins the iTunes App Store today with Magic Chain ($1.99), a witch-themed action-puzzler with a neat visual style and unique gameplay mechanics.
Problem: witch-in-training Tabitha is stuck in a forest full of scary creatures. Solution: use Tabitha’s magic to chain approaching enemies together and make them disappear. If your chaining skills are up to snuff, you’ll be rewarded with bonus cake at the end of each level.
Witch Beam promises easy-to-learn mechanics and chaotic gameplay — a great combination for any puzzler. Magic Chain’s campaign mode spans 13 stages, with between-level cutscenes exploring Tabitha’s dreams of winning the annual witch bake-off.
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