Today marks the launch of the first paid expansion for the acclaimed iOS version of the railroad building board game, Ticket to Ride. The Ticket to Ride Pocket: 1910 expansion includes three brand new game modes for players to enjoy and adds 35 new destinations to the game’s US map.

The 1910 Classic mode brings updated route tickets and a slight change to the rules that makes completing the most tickets crucial to winning. The 1910 Mega mode starts each player with 5 route cards instead of 3, doubles the number of available route tickets, and awards bonus points to the most completed routes. Finally, the 1910 Cities mode is a faster game mode in which players contend over a few specific routes, all starting and ending with major cities. Ten new achievements, most of which are from the 1910 pack, are also included.

The Ticket to Ride Pocket: 1910 expansion is available via in-app purchase now for $0.99, so get ready to ride the rails again.

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.”

In their first game for the App Store, Trionit Inc. has released Amberground, a universal game app that treads some new ground for the App Store, though savvy gamers may notice some similarities to the indie hit on Facebook, Little Cave Story.

Amberground sets players with the task to help Amber, the titular heroine of the story, find her way through maze-like caves, digging up soft ground to obtain gems and other treasures and avoiding obstacles such as hard ground, bombs, and monsters. There are 100 unique levels set in five different locations, and gamers can use their puzzle solving wits to solve them all. Bonus points are achieved by picking gems of the same color in 20 combo runs. In addition, they can use bombs and boulders to kill monsters and destroy specially marked walls.

Other features mentioned:

-use magic to grab gems, push stones and bombs or dig soil to open passages
-farm gems by enclosing up to 39 mushrooms before they turn into a pile of stones
-kill monsters to get their treasure
-get 1-3 stars for your mining performance (1 star required to advance level)
-choose between left and right handed controller layout
-Invite your friends to compete for the top rank in leaderboard and see who unlocks more achievements.

If the visual style and whimsical level design in the screenshots below don’t inspire, there’s always the gameplay video, showing the first five levels of the game, as well as a 50% off sale for the first week.

As a person that works on a computer for a living, I will have to cop to sometimes lacking a smidgen in the social norms and common sense department.  Though I am no social ignoramus, there comes a time when a person that you are conversing with is harder to read than a left turn sign from the cockpit of a race car.  It is moments like this that having a app to do the heaving lifting for you might be a handy aid.  Thus, the Mind Scan Camera was born.

Never again will you be left scratching your head over confusing body language, because the development team over at BlueFinger, Inc. has developed an innovative emotion analysis technology.  With recognition for up to ten different emotions, all you need to do is import an image into this handy little app and it does all of the rest.  In another awesome perk of the software, they even added in a beta version of their real-time scanning software for no additional cost!  Here is a video that promotes some of the key features:

Okay, I am going to level with you, this may not be the most cutting edge piece of software that ever graced the App Store, but it sure is neat.  Impressive as the tech may be, it is pretty evident that the functionality will be gimmicky at best.  That said, there is quite a bit of fun that could be had at another person’s expense, using a entertaining toy like this.

If nothing else, Mind Scan Camera could make one heck of a conversation piece at a party.  “Why hello there beautiful lady.  What seems to be troubling you?  How did I know that? Let me show you this neat app.”  The rest is history, just be sure that you name your beautiful nerd/supermodel hybrid children after me.

Give the app a download.  Who knows? It might just change your life!

Steve Robert, producer of Electronic Art’s Skate It, released May 10, 2010, is a former pro-skater who helmed the development and creation of the game’s port to the iPhone. I sat down for a phone interview with Steve and spoke at length about the game and its subsequent port from the Nintendo DS to the iPhone. Steve provided us with much insight on the game’s development and how it came to fruition on the iPhone.

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Jason (148apps) – First of all, thanks for putting time aside from your busy schedule to talk with me. I’m stoked to be speaking with you. For people who aren’t familiar with you, what’s your background and how did you get involved in skating?

Steve Robert (EA) – Well, I grew up in Huntington Beach, CA, which is a coastal town in Southern, CA and, probably as early as 6th grade I got immersed in the culture of skateboarding. It was a very popular hobby in my neighborhood and I had a bunch of good friends who were all into skateboarding. We kept pushing each other to learn and get better and then it sort of evolved as some of my friends, like Jason Lee, who’s a good friend of mine, went on to become a famous actor, was the first of us to go on and get sponsored and turn pro. I skated with him all the time and he got me sponsored by the same company he was. From then on, I started entering amateur contests and then we shot a video in 1989 called Rubbish Heap and everything just unfolded from there. I was attracted to the culture and it was fun learning tricks and being competitive with my friends and progressing in the sport.

Jason (148apps) – It’s easy to hit a plateau if you don’t have people around you who you can learn from.

Steve Robert (EA) – Yeah, absolutely. I think being surrounded by people like Jason Lee, Ed Templeton, Mark Gonzalez and the older, big pros, they all came from Huntington Beach and we would all gather at night at Huntington Beach High School or these schools you see in all the videos, while others were out partying, we would be spending our nights skating at the schools together and you just kind of get obsessed with it. It was everything I did until I graduated high school, it’s all I really cared about. Skating was just kind of a sub-culture because it wasn’t as mainstream back then, as it is now.

Jason (148apps) – How did you come to get involved in developing Skate It?

Steve Robert (EA) – Well, I’ve been working in video games since 1997. I slowly got out of skateboarding and went to college. When I graduated from college, I got my first job at Interplay in 1997. I found it interesting because the culture was very similar to skating in many ways. It’s obviously less physically active, but the people were the same.

Hit the jump for more with Skate It Producer Steve Robert.
Continue reading 4Q Interview: Skate It Producer Steve Robert »