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:
They’ve been cloned thousands of times before, but today’s most popular downloads take advantage of one simple, unwavering fact: iPhone owners love free stuff. Find the Differences ranks in at first place, while the Snake clone A Snake takes second. An unlicensed clone version of the classic memory game Simon finishes third.
iPhone owners also love stick figures and games with the word “Doodle” in their titles, explaining the popularity of Stick Olympics, A Doodle Fly, and Doodle Kart. Playfish’s FarmVille knockoff Zombie Farm also finishes among today’s top titles, beating out Donut Games’ Monkey Flight, Hellkid Free, and Tap Fish.
Want to instantly win me over? Here’s how. 1: Create an appealing gameplay concept. 2: Wrap it up in tasteful retro-inspired graphics. That’s all it takes, in most cases.
iJumpman ($2.99) is an excellent blend of classic mechanics and new technology. While its gameplay is basic platform-hopping stuff, players can manipulate gravity at any point by tilting the iPhone, resulting in an experience that tests both reflexes and mental agility.
iJumpman also includes a fully-featured level editor with online level trading.
The original version of the game, Jumpman, is available as a free download for PC, Mac, and Linux platforms here. A gameplay video is below. Warning: there’s a kitty at the end.
So, you like Frogger, huh? Well, let’s see you play Frogger…on fire!
Frogger Inferno ($0.99) is a challenging variation on Konami’s 1981 arcade game. As in the original Frogger, players control a frog who must cross a dangerous freeway and then hop across logs, turtles and alligators in order to return to the safety of his swampy home.
For some reason, however, Frogger now leaves a trail of fire in the wake of every hop. This eliminates the player’s ability to double back on a jump, making for a much more difficult game.
Frogger Inferno includes Facebook Connect functionality, allowing players to compare scores with friends and compete against others on a global leaderboard.
Every Monday, 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:
After dropping in price to 99 cents this weekend, Ludia’s iPhone adaptation of Where’s Waldo? takes first place in today’s free app chart. The game previously ranked as a top seller upon its initial release in December.
Last week’s third-place title Alpine Crawler World falls to sixth place this week, as All-in-1 Gamebox and Doodle Jump remain steady sellers at second and third. Maverick Software’s baking sim Cupcakes! takes fourth place today, leading over Freeverse’s Skee-Ball.
Bejeweled 2 and Monopoly rank in at seventh and eighth place this week, leaving Moto X Mayhem and Plants vs. Zombies to close out today’s top ten.
Many big-name App Store hits are on sale this weekend. Gameloft’s FPS N.O.V.A. gets a price drop, and so does Assassin’s Creed II: Discovery. Ludia’s former chart-topper Where’s Waldo? is now available for 99 cents, while the casual blockbuster Diner Dash can be had for only $2.99.
Steph Thirion, creator of the multitouch space puzzler Eliss, announced his next project for the iPhone and iPod Touch — the single-switch action game Faraway.
Faraway retains Eliss’s outer space setting and vector graphic style, and introduces a new single-input gameplay mechanic. Players control a comet careening through endless space; by pressing anywhere on the screen, the comet will latch on to a nearby star’s gravitational pull and will begin to rotate. Lift your finger, and the comet will take off in a new direction.
The object of the game is to guide the comet to sections of the gameplay map in which constellations can be created. Each constellation is assembled in a brief, challenging minigame in which the comet must connect a series of nearby stars. Bigger constellations award more points.
Faraway will be the first game to be released under Thirion’s new company, Little Eyes. No release date has been announced.
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:
Inert Soap’s destruction sim FingerZilla captures the free app chart’s top spot during a one-day free download promotional offer. Donoma Games’ shooter Sniper Strike finishes at second place, as BayView Labs’ virtual aquarium Tap Fish takes third.
Slingshot Cowboy returns to the chart after a long absence at fourth place, narrowly beating NimbleBit’s ice cream-themed accelerometer title Scoops. Two online multiplayer titles — Original Gangstaz and Ninjas Live — also rank among this week’s top downloads, while the cross country vehicle racer Alpine Crawler surpasses Solitaire to take seventh place.
Gameloft demonstrated a pair of its upcoming App Store releases at the Game Developers Conference this week, giving attendees the opportunity to play the Resident Evil-inspired Zombie Infection and an iPhone version of Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Conviction.
Based on Ubisoft’s upcoming console and PC stealth-action title, Splinter Cell: Conviction is a third-person shooter built using an upgraded version of the company’s N.O.V.A. engine. Conviction features 10 levels, with gameplay mixing stealth, action, and cover-based shooting mechanics.
Gameloft’s second offering, meanwhile, continues in the publisher’s controversial tradition of cloning popular titles on other platforms. After previously targeting Modern Warfare, Cooking Mama, and SoulCalibur, Gameloft now intends to capitalize on Capcom’s Resident Evil series with Zombie Infection.
Zombie Infection duplicates major portions of Resident Evil 5, in particular — Gameloft’s game is set in an African village, and features a female partner character named Shawna. As in Capcom’s title, players are tasked with discovering the cause of a zombie outbreak while fending off hordes of the undead.
Zombie Infection will include 10 single-player levels and a survival-based Arena Mode when it launches later this month.
THQ’s dedicated iPhone development studio is no more, but one of the company’s last efforts, De Blob Revolution ($2.99), has made its way to the App Store despite Universomo’s recent and unfortunate closing.
Following up on one of THQ’s early App Store hits, De Blob Revolution scales down the town-painting action of the original title for an altogether different kind of gameplay experience.
De Blob Revolution is a puzzle game in which players must plot a straight path through as many graydians as possible before reaching each level’s exit. Cross your own color path, and the level restarts. Don’t do this.
De Blob Revolution features three gameplay modes and five difficulty levels, giving players the choice between laid-back puzzles and frantic reaction-based challenges.
In this weekly feature, FingerGaming rounds up the top-grossing iPhone and iPod Touch applications, as current that day on the iTunes App Store. This week’s top titles are:
EA’s Monopoly finishes as this week’s highest-grossing game in the App Store, boosted by a recent television advertisement highlighting popular iPhone titles. Square Enix’s former chart leader Final Fantasy drops to second place, while Backflip Studios’ physics puzzler Ragdoll Blaster 2 takes third in its debut week.
Activision’s Call of Duty: World at War Zombies holds steady at fourth place, though Gameloft’s competing title Brothers in Arms 2 has fallen out of the top ten after a strong performance last week. Plants vs. Zombies also sees a drop in popularity after placing third last week, and finishes behind Triniti’s app compilation All-in-1 Gamebox and PopCap’s Bejeweled 2 in today’s chart results.
EA’s Rock Band moves up to eighth place this week, as Gameloft’s recently released iPhone version of the classic 3D platformer Rayman 2 closes out today’s chart.
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