There are many Tap Tap Revenge fanatics out in the real world, along with me. Being such a big fan gave me extremely high expectations, but rest assured, this is the best game to date.

Tapulous hit the trifecta, Tap Tap Revenge 3 on its way

Big changes and a small price tag. Tapulous have submitted and are awaiting approval of their latest instalment of the highly popular Tap Tap Revenge game, according to Business Insider. A myriad of new features include in-app purchasing of avatars and music, a new feature of 3.0, allowing users to download two tracks for $0.99 or six tracks for $2.99.

Tap Tap Revenge 3 is due to be live on the App Store “sometime next month” at the price tag of $0.99 (£0.59). The price tag was unavoidable with in-app purchasing, which Apple requires all developers to price the application itself also. Expect to hear more in the next coming weeks, and as always, we’ll have a review up within days of its release.

Strategy board game will have you buzzing

Puzzllotto, First Release From United Lemer Due Monday

Puzzllotto the first release from United Lemur is due to be released Monday with a huge promotion attached. While the game briefly showed up in the App Store tonight, it quickly disappeared. The game itself is puzzle based set in an amazingly lush jungle. The actual method of game play and the goal is unknown at the start — it’s all part of the exploration aspect of the game. Similar to Myst in that aspect, it’s all up to the player to figure out. What is known is that the first person to finish the game is in for a big surprise.

We got a chance to play with a pre-release version of this game and the graphics and sounds are fantastic. The sounds have been provided by the amazing Dr. Douglas Quin — who also did the sounds for EA’s Spore. While the graphics have been done by Louie Mantia who made many of the Tapulous apps look so goodDavid Lanham. While we’d like to say that we don’t want to ruin the surprise on how the game is played, the truth is we haven’t spent enough time with it yet to figure it out.

While we can’t tell you everything we know about the promotion that’s backing this game’s release — well not until the embargo is lifted, hopefully Monday, United Lemur has set up an amazingly huge promotion lined up for this first release. The name of the app may give you some clue as to the direction, but you will be amazed at the details.

One small clue from the description of the game in the App Store:

Be the first to uncover its secrets and claim the title and trophy of the Puzzllotto Champion. The malevolent spirits are all in your head, but the fun—and the treasure—are real.

United Lemur, you may remember, is the group of veteran developers many of whom were most recently at Tapulous. After a few of them left the company, Mike Lee formed United Lemur as a socially conscious indie development house.

Check back Monday for more on the game and the promotion. Until then, keep hitting this URL as you might be able to get it early and get a head start.

Another Big iPhone Development Company Implodes

Tap Tap Tap, developer of a couple of the most popular and beautifully designed applications like Where To? (4.5 stars), Tipluator (3.5 stars) has imploded over differences in direction between it’s founders. It’s a theme we’ve seen before in iPhone developer Tapulous.

In this corporate divorce, most of the software has gone to Sophia Teutschler and will go under her Sophiestication Software name. This includes Tipulator, Groceries (unreleased), and Where Am I? (unreleased). The one odd ball, Where To? will be sold off by Tap Tap Tap and has already been removed from the App Store.

Tap Tap Tap has a few other projects in the works, though no details have been released.

For more info on this, see the latest Tap Tap Tap blog post here.

Tapulous Loses 2 More Key Employees, Down To Skeleton Crew

What’s going on over at Tapulous? They have now lost two more employees, Sean Heber (engineer, employee #1) and Louie Matia (designer/UI) has left as well. They must be down to 3 employees now after losing Mike Lee and most recently Tristan O’Tierney.

Originally, the future looked so bright for Tapulous as they had built the top notch development team. But losing the majority of the company in just over a month can’t signal good things for their future.

Tristan O’Tierney, Developer of Twinkle Leaves Tapulous

In another sign that Tapulous is having some internal problems, Tristan O’Tierney sent a tweet tonight that he is no longer at Tapulous. No reason has yet been given nor any indication if the parting was amicable, though a blog post has been promised by Tristan.

You may remember that Tapulous also lost a co-founder Mike Lee just a few weeks ago. Does this latest loss show continued signs of problems at Tapulous or just a direction change? It has been speculated that Tapulous is looking to VCs for money, a decision that could easily change the direction of the company and it’s products. A change that could disagree with some of the original employees.

Tristan is the developer of Twinkle, Tapulous’ first officially released application in the App Store.

Tapulous Loses Prominent Engineer – Signals Problems at Company

Tapulous, the developer of some of the most popular free applications in the iTunes App Store has lost a prominent engineer and co-founder, Mike Lee. Mike Lee, self designated toughest programmer in the world, was asked to resign from the company over voicing concerns the engineers had on the direction of the company.

This is a rather shocking turn and points to obvious strife in the company. Something that can destroy a young company like Tapulous. Especially so in such a rapidly growing industry like iPhone development where talented people are at such high demand. With the current boom in iPhone app development, the engineers at Tapulous can all pretty much name their price at dozens of companies.

Consider this a turning point for one of the brightest stars in iPhone app development. From this point they either get stronger or implode.

Tapulous is a development company behind Tap Tap Revenge (iTunes) and Twinkle (iTunes).

[via Mike Lee's Blog ]