Tag: Foursaken Media »

Everyone's favorite (or not, because of free will and all that) bug-themed action defense game has received a sizable new update from the "Man Gods."

In addition to the various tweaks and balancing changes (listed below), an entirely new game mode with over 20 missions has been introduced. Turret Defense places a much heavier emphasis on building turrets and making use of pathways in an effort to stop waves of enemies from noshing on your food supplies. It also includes a new hero (the Garden Beetle), new power-ups, and makes use of the newly-introduced Laser turret.

Assuming you haven't already (why the heck not??), you can grab Bug Heroes 2 off the App Store for $1.99.

• Added a new turret: Laser!
• Many higher star missions made easier
• Balanced turret upgrade prices
• Balanced stun scroll effect on high rate of fire heroes
• Fly Bandito and Army Ant Cavalry abilities have unit caps
• Sniper Turret bullets move much faster, but they no longer target heroes in versus mode
• Revamped mission system to allow many more mission choices and options at once
• Fixed an issue with versus local multiplayer
• Miscellaneous bug fixes

Bug Heroes 2 has been approved and is now set to launch on February 20. The sequel to the game that blended tactical action and defense elements is set to offer players 25 unique heroes that include a Waterbug pirate, Bumblebee boxer, and a grenade-launching worm. Players will also be searching for food and material, fortifying their base, building turrets, leveling up their heroes, and more, all while playing alone, in 2 players co-op, or 2v2 competitive multiplayer battles.

Block Fortress War is coming soon, bringing a redesigned spin-off of the original Block Fortress. In a forum post on Touch Arcade, Foursaken Media said that it blends MOBA, RTS, and block-building gameplay together in both single and multiplayer modes. It features four different races that each have their own traits and abilities, and each race has three unique heroes to choose from.

Once players get themselves in combat, they'll send their squads out to build key resources on the map and fortify them with blocks and turrets. Whoever gains control of the map is more likely to gather all the resources to use in destroying the enemy's base.

Block Fortress War is set for a tentative release in December of this year.

Just like their motto says, Foursaken Media makes some awesome iOS games. From Bug Heroes to Block Fortress, their library is full of excellence. And now we've got their upcoming "Pokemon + Roguelike + Action/RPG," Monster Adventures, to look forward to.

It's been a long time coming, but the developer recently announced the game's official release date via Twitter so now we know it's just around the corner. October 10 to be exact.

It's good to know Monster Adventures is almost here, but it's still going to feel like a loooong couple of weeks.

Heroes and Castles receives the biggest update yet, says App Advice. The update to the popular strategy game adds three more heroes, including a female assassin that can sneak in, kill, and sneak out. There is also a campaign that features a new environment with new enemies, though you must first beat the previous campaign before you are able to unlock this one. Additionally, there's a new versus and co-op map along with new ally units and upgrade levels for units and buildings.

• New hero added: Barbarian - Get in the fray and build your strength to untold levels!
• New hero added: Druid - Use the power of nature to support your allies and destroy the enemy!
• New co-op and versus map to battle on!
• New ally units! Destroy the enemy with a Dwarven Tank, hit long range targets with the Hunter, hold the line with armored Dwarven foot soldiers, or achieve victory with the powerful magic of 2 new Wizard classes!
• 3 powerful new upgrade levels for units and buildings! Take your units to new levels to match your high level heroes!
• Dynamic, real time shadows added to high gen devices for even better graphics!
• Evil units in versus mode now scale up slightly along with the the Evil hero, to help compensate for additional Good unit upgrades

Sky Gnomes is a game about a world where gnomes have taken to the sky. For entertainment? They race each other by free-falling from the sky. The player controls a gnome of their own, with the goal being to get the end of the level as quickly as possible. Players pick up speed by flying through snowflakes, collect coins for upgrades, powerups to help get a leg up on opponents, and try to avoid storm clouds and lightning. These gnomes are falling from the sky, after all.

The name of the game is asynchronous multiplayer competition, in particular against random online opponents. Players will have two ghost gnomes to race against, based off of the performance of actual opponents. Five different cups are available, each taking place in a different environment.

Having actual opponents to race against, even if they're just ghosts, adds a compelling aspect to the game. The drive to succeed is just that much greater when there's an actual name to chase on the leaderboard, rather than some random opponent. Sky Gnomes is both universal, and supports cloud saving. It doesn't appear to use iCloud, instead using Game Center authentication to pull data from the servers between platforms. Good enough!

Sky Gnomes just winds up feeling kinda samey – falling through the sky, avoiding clouds, trying to hit snowflakes; no matter the level, there just doesn't feel like there's a lot of variety. Better integration with friends that play the game would be great, especially since there's already the ability to race ghost opponents. A battle mode is coming in a future update.

As well, the game winds up feeling like it's pushing in-app purchases. Yes, this is the world we live in, but stat upgrades require a lot of grinding, and those rarer parts might be given out at the end of the game, or perhaps not. So that $0.99 parts pack sits there, tempting the player. After all, maybe some increased speed and acceleration would help get things going along. It's a potentially slippery slope, of course. While the highest pack only costs $14.99, and certainly seems like it has more items than a person could reasonably use, the whole thing still just feels like it's necessary. At a certain point if I want to do something more than just grind and actually compete, I feel like I'll need to spend money.

Sky Gnomes is an interesting short-term play experience, but those that try it out should be warned: the temptation to spend money on IAP will hit. Progress just feels too slow otherwise.