Here we have another roundup of the hottest apps on the App Store today. We check all the hot trending lists and list them here for you. Why? Because we like you. M – O – U – S – E!

DJ Pauly D – Beat That Boardwalk Christmas Edition
It’s that time of year, and what better way to celebrate than by dropping fat beats in a retro-arcade inspired platforming game? “Help DJ Pauly D collect candy canes and pick up presents while gifting his love to the Garden State girlies. Yeeah buddy!”

Chicken Invaders 3: Revenge of the Yolk Christmas Edition (Full)
From Big Fish Games comes another holiday themed arcade-style romp with plenty of humor and plenty of poultry. Shoot the galactic chickens out of the sky to save earth from their nefarious invasion.

Island Wars 2 Christmas Edition HD (Full)
Another trending Big Fish Game, this one has you defending your south pacific island from gift-stealing baddies disguised as none other than the fat man in red himself. Use a cannon to shoot down the enemies and take back Christmas.

Stay Alive
Looks like arcade games are the trend of the day, right? This one involves piloting a space ship through obstacle courses and collecting power orbs along the way. The orbs can be spent to upgrade ship weapons, shields and ammo supply.

Visual Schedule Planner
Bucking the trend above, yet still trending itself, is this special education app by Good Karma Applications, Inc. It is “a completely customizable visual schedule iPad app that is designed to give an individual an audio/visual representation of the “events in their day”. In addition, events that require more support can be linked to an “activity schedule” or “video clip” to help model the task even further.”

Update: It appears as if the app was not long for the App Store as it is now removed. Was this perhaps just a miscommunication, or did Apple brass re-evaluate the merits of game subscriptions on the App Store only after public reaction?

Big Fish Studios is experimenting with a new way to generate revenue from their iOS games, by going to a business model that was used in previous incarnations of the mobile gaming market. Their new iPad app, Play Insantly, allows users to access a variety of games on their iPad from within the app. Play Instantly utilizes the new App Store in-app subscription service to allow users to pay $4.99 per month for unlimited access to the games in the app. As well, all users will be able to play for free for 30 minutes daily. The service is still in testing, but the Play Instantly app is now available from the App Store. According to Bloomberg, Big Fish had to work with Apple to get approval for their app and service. As well, the subscription cost will increase to $6.99 when more games are added to the service.

I asked one experienced mobile developer, Ryan Evans of Mirror Match Games, for his take. Ryan has worked in mobile gaming since the days of BREW and J2ME, helped develop Topple 2 and MazeFinger for Ngmoco, and is now working on titles such as the upcoming Let’s Play Reversi. Ryan expressed some skepticism as to the viability of the subscription model, noting how games like DC Universe Online on console and PC shifted from subscriptions to free to play, and saw dramatic increases in revenue. As well, he noted that games were offered on subscription plans in the days before the App Store, like how “a game like Prince of Persia would be $5.99 [to purchase outright] or $1.99 [per month]. Many users would pick the subscription price because it was lower, and the publishers would bank on users keeping the game on their phone for more than a few months and not noticing the recurring fees on their bill.” He also says that he thinks that “anything that causes users to be wary of downloading and trying products in the market, like a fear of incurring a subscription fee, is a negative for the industry.”

It will be interesting to follow if this is viable for any other publisher to follow as a business model. Publishers like Gameloft and EA have the kinds of back catalogs that could help provide a wealth of content for a similar service of their own. Will they? Time will tell.

Coming soon to the iPad is Emma and the Inventor, a new hidden object game from Big Fish Games and Tricky Software.

We all should know by now that Big Fish Games are the gods of hidden object games but Tricky Software might not be so well known just yet. They previously developed Spore Origins and Spore Creatures as well as more recently Crayola ColorStudio. Now they’ve taken their skills and applied them to Emma and the Inventor.

Looking at the few screenshots we’ve been given and the previous information from the PC/Mac release of the title, it’s looking pretty intriguing. It’s a hidden object title but one that promises to offer some challenging puzzles too, presumably as part of the inventing side of the game. Hopefully this will mean a deeper casual gaming experience.

No release date has been announced yet but we’ll ensure we have more details to offer soon!