:: APOCALYPSE POW
The game has you building and curating a tiny village for bug people. Your goal is to try to increase your population as high as possible by leveling up to increase your population cap of bugs and bees. You do this by building more houses, but to build more, you have to use the game's primary currency, acorns. You acquire acorns by sending ants to harvest resources from piles and sending bees to harvest nectar, both of which go towards your total acorn count. You'll occasionally have to help ladybugs who have fallen on their back and can't get up by tapping on them, and ward off stink bugs by tapping on them 3 times until they disappear; both activities will net you experience points. Your bugs will get hungry over time, so you have to buy them food to replenish the village's collective hunger bar.
Otherwise, the game follows the standard mechanics we've seen from other Glu games. It consists of a 2-tiered currency system, consisting of Acorns that can be earned through in-game tasks, and Coins that you can only acquire by paying for them or by completing offers like downloading free apps. Most items are bought with acorns, but some items can only be bought with coins. Coins are also used to speed up building and resource collection. The game engine is entirely 3D, and supports the Retina Display. The game is a universal app, but there's no cross-device save synchronization yet, so you can't play across multiple devices. The launch of Bug Village, being more focused on family-friendly audiences, is coincidentally interesting considering the recent lawsuit alleging that Apple was out to defraud parents of money through in-app purchases by allowing other family-friendly freemium titles like Smurfs Village on the App Store. Bug Village includes a warning that buying additional coins or acorns will cost you real money on the screen where you can purchase them. Parents worried that their kids might spend their money by buying acorns and coins can disable in-app purchases can be restricted from the Settings app, under General -> Restrictions. Bug Village is available as a free download from the App Store.
In addition to Magic Life and Gun Bros. launching soon, there are a few other games we got to take a look at recently. All of them coming later this year from Glu.
Toyshop Adventures - launching late September, price: free
This is a cute puzzle / platformer based in a toy shop. The owner of the shop has literally lost his marbles in the store and you, a animated toy, are tasked with finding them. While mainly a platformer, there are some puzzle elements to get you through the levels and find every marble. While not as deep and with no announced customization options, the game does have some elements that remind me of Little Big Planet. The camera angles / 2.5D graphics and the overall fun, toy-like qualities remind me of LBP.
Toyshop Adventures will be released in September with the first 10 levels included free. There will be additional episodes, each with multiple levels available for in app purchase. Further episodes will be released over time.
Family Guy: Time Warped - launching mid-November, price unknown
This Family Guy game is based on the episode where Stewie builds a time machine and gets stuck jumping through time when that time machine breaks. The games is developed for and by fans of the show, so expect lots of inside jokes. You'll be able to play the game as Stewie or Brian in this 2D action platformer. That's about all we know so far. Expect more as the game release gets closer.
Lord of the Rings - Middle-Earth Defense - launching early December, price unknown
This movie tie-in game is as interesting as it was unexpected. Middle-Earth Defense will be a tower defense (TD) game based in the Lord of the Rings world. The game uses the actors' faces from the movie to represent the characters from this Tolkien classic series. It's a modifiable path type TD game, wherein the enemies have a set path which you can modify slightly by placing barriers to redirect them. You only have a limited amount of resources, however, so you can only change the course so much.
Different characters will obviously have different capabilities. Some characters are stationary while others will travel within their circle of influence to attack. To add a bit of an RPG element, you can upgrade characters in multiple areas -- unlike normal TD where you can only do an overall character upgrade.
Expect this one to ship in early December for an unknown price.
Gun Bros. is a different kind of free to play game. One of my biggest complaints with most free to play games is that they are designed just to get you to spend lots of time in the app. This usually means that these "games" are really short on game elements. They focus on checking in, skill free tasks and quests, and interacting with your friends' playfields in the same way. While Magic Life from Glu fits that description pretty well, Gun Bros. doesn't.
Gun Bros. is what I had hoped to see more of when we started seeing free to play / freemium titles released for the iOS. A real game built with free to play elements and not just a social network with colorful characters and tasks. In Gun Bros., you have strong social elements and lots of customization possibilities.
The basis of the game is a top-down shooter with a team of two players on the screen at once. You and your partner go to planets to fight revolutions. There are multiple revolutions, each with multiple waves per planet. One of the players is controlled by you and the other player is someone from your buddy list playing with their weapons and armor. The bonus you get by having friends playing with your character is that you get XP when they play -- the more they play, the more XP. This leads to the desire to upgrade your character and weapons as the stronger your player becomes, the more likely your friends are to play your character.
Back to the customization options -- there are currently 30 different weapons and 40 different armor pieces you can purchase. Most of the items will be earned by playing the game and getting XP. It's unclear at this point if you can earn all of the weapons and upgrades or if you will be required to purchase some of them.
The game is set up to be infinitely expandable. With 50 levels per chapter and multiple chapters per planet, there can be a nearly infinite number of planets added to the universe.
I really think that Glu has set up the possibility of a very fun and long-lasting game with Gun Bros. As long as they hit the sweet spot with game players and can maintain their interest, this game could be a hit for a long time.
Gun Bros. will launch early October and be free to play with in-app purchases used to level up your player more quickly.
Glu has started down the freemium path. They've seen good returns from their current games released as ad-based and with in-app purchase upgrades. So we can expect to see more from them in this area. So far they have announced two of the five freemium games they plan on releasing this year, Magic Life and Gun Bros. The next three games will be announced in early October as Gun Bros. kicks off.
Magic Life is a game similar to many of the other free to play games we've seen released -- well, the more popular ones anyway. They require lots of time in the game doing simple tasks and quests to level up your player. They also include lots of social interaction with other virtual players.
In Magic Life you play a new wizard learning the ropes in a magical world. You do this by gathering items (fruits, rocks, etc.) that then go into magic spells (that you have to mix yourself in the game's cauldrons), which then allow you to complete quests. It's that mix of multi-part complex, yet very simple and easy to complete tasks that typifies a freemium game like this. And Magic Life hits all the right points for that.
Will Magic Life become the popular hit social game for Glu? Time will tell. Personally, I don't really like freemium games that depend on marginal game play elements and are mainly task focused. We Rule, Farmville, etc., are all similar in that aspect. But there are lots of players that really love them and spend lots of time playing them. And that's why they make money. Expect to see Magic Life at the beginning of October.
:: NOM NOM FUN
So far we've got sales from EA Games, Glu, Gameloft, and Namco, as well as a few bonus apps.
Hit the break for a full listing of on-sale apps and games.
Namco
Namco is the developer behind lots of games, not just the Pac-man titles, and they'd like us all to remember that with this crazy sale. Many games are $0.99; others are still significantly cheaper than their already-low App Store prices. From retro greats like Galaga to brand-new concepts like Isaac Newton's Gravity, Namco's sale should have something for everyone. Indeed, for sheer quantity of games on sale, I think they take the cake...
Gameloft
Five Gameloft games are on sale for $0.99, which is a drop from their early $0.99-extravaganza but still provides some nice deals. Gameloft is calling it a "Rerun" of their first sale. Check out Oregon Trail, Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X., and more. The list of games might be small, but the price drops are rather significant.
Glu
Glu's portfolio of iPhone games has been steadily growing. From the original Glyder to more recent hits like Beat It!, they have a number of impressive titles to their name. Now, in celebration of the 4th of July, Glu is running a $0.99-sale on many of their games. The sale lasts from July 1st to July 6th.
EA Games
Well, you should definitely be able to find something in this sale! EA has placed top hits including Tetris, Scrabble, Mass Effect Galaxy, Battleship, and more on sale. Maybe now the official Scrabble app can finally catch up to Words With Friends on the Top 100 charts...
Assorted Apps
Here's some random apps that are apparently on sale as part of the holiday celebrations. Sweet!
In Jump O' Clock, you play a tiny robot with magnetic feet in a Steampunk world trying to climb as high as possible. You do this by jumping from rotating gears and jumping off of the wall.
Along the way you can gather bolts that are scattered around the levels. The more bolts you gather, the more energy you get. If you gather enough energy, you can activate a super jump that nearly instantly bumps up your travelled height by a few hundred feet.
Jump O Clock marks the first game from Glu Mobile to integrate the leading social gaming network, Open Feint. It allows you to track your score and achievements against your friends and everyone else in the world.
Jump O Clock is available in the App Store now, for $0.99.
Hit the jump for the official game description and features and some more screen shots.
:: DRAGON TIME
:: SOARS HIGH
:: MAD SKILLZ
:: PLENTIFUL POCKET POKERGlu invited us into their offices again yesterday to take a look at some of their upcoming games. We saw some old favorites, some early prototypes, and a really innovative take on music games.
First up, let's get what I really came to see out of the way... I finally got my hands on Glyder 2. It's still early for that title -- just a few builds past first playable, but this exciting sequel to easily my favorite Glu game ever is already looking good. As we mentioned previously there will be customization of your character available -- both in the form of the suit she wears and the wings she uses. The different wings give you slightly different skills -- climbing, turning, speed, etc. Not enough to make a huge difference in the game, but enough to be noticeable.
There will be six or seven new worlds to explore. And in addition to the crystal collection aspect of the previous game, you will also have multiple point quests to go on. Glu heard from the passionate users of the game that they wanted more of everything in the first one and new things to try. And we're going to get it.
Take a look at this hands-on video of Glyder 2 from Slide To Play:
One of the most exciting bits of news about Glyder 2 was that Glu have committed to providing multiple free updates and expansions to the game after it launches. No specific time frame was given, but if the game remains popular, it could be for a good while.
Beat It takes a new twist on the music game genre. This game actually makes you listen to the music. It turns it from a rhythm tapping game into more of a puzzle game. The result is a very compelling game that I found very hard to put down.
The idea behind Beat It is that you listen to a short 3 instrument rhythm track and you have to re-create it on a sequencer board. You do this by tapping cells to turn on / off that instrument for that beat. You can switch from listening to your current attempt to the original anytime, which is nice to see where you are missing notes. When you have the notes for an instrument in a particular bar correct, they start to twinkle letting you know you can go on to another. The game ramps up from 3 instruments and 4 bars to I believe 7 instruments and 6 bars.
Take a look at this hands-on video from Slide To Play:
It should also be mentioned that this game has some amazing animated art. Your game is separated into multiple worlds and there is a story unfolding behind your sequencer grid in each world. Before each new level you see a little part of the story and as your music clips get more complex so does the story behind you.
In addition to the multiple instruments, there are 5 different instrument sets that are used in the game. These are also available to use in the free play mode that lets you create your own tracks. In a future update you will be able to share your tracks with others.
Read on for details on 1,000: Find Them All, World Series of Poker: Hold'em Legends, and Taxi Fight.
Random musings of the App Store
Alchemize App Store Pricing Protest
This weekend, in a protest against supposedly 3400 emails complaining about the $2.99 price of their app Alchemize, Schiau Studios raised the price to $39.99 for the weekend. Yes, it's a hilarious protest against whiners who complain about spending a few bucks, but Schiau is not entirely in the right. Alchemize was originally priced at $9.99 and then quickly lowered until it was only $.99 for a short time. I can't blame people for waiting for another sale. If Schiau truly wanted to protest App Store pricing, they would have come up with a fair price, stuck to it, and never changed it amid protests. By acknowledging the whiners, Schiau has granted them some legitimacy.
PSP Minis
Sometimes it's good to take a look at our beloved App Store's rival, the PSP Mini store. The store has launched and two of its biggest name games have already made an appearance on the iPhone (and for cheaper): Hero of Sparta and Fieldrunners. In addition, Chillingo and Mountain Sheep's Minigore is on the way. What do all of these games have in common? In my estimation, they're three of the most overrated games on the App Store. Hero of Sparta had good visuals for its time, but the dull one-button hack and slash affair has so many pre-rendered cinematic animations it's like watching a movie. Fieldrunners has a great art style and was admittedly one of the first open-path TD's on the App Store, but there's only a few enemy types and tower types, and it lacks the depth of the genre luminaries such as Sentinel 2 and Defender Chronicles. Minigore has nice aesthetics as well, but it's an average two-stick survival shooter with little depth, easily outclassed by games such as Alive 4 Ever. Sony, wake me up when you manage to get some good games.
Nimblebit's Freebie Friday
This Friday, Nimblebit lowered all their apps to free in celebration of their newly launched site App Classics! Even if you missed the deal, the apps are still worth buying; Nimblebit is the best in the business at creating fun, short, and addictive games such as Scoops and Textropolis. This move was interesting from a marketing standpoint, and certainly created buzz. In fact, Ian Marsh reported via Twitter that Saturday's sales were double normal and more than made up for Friday's losses.
This week's upcoming app that looks frickin' awesome!
This is the inaugural issue of this feature where I'll be showing off some upcoming games that look awesome (though I've been doing it unofficially for quite some time). This week, we have Jet Car Stunts, an awesome-looking racing game in the vein of Track Mania. The game is due to be submitted within the next week. Enjoy!
A few weeks ago, Chris used this space to talk about how happy he was that Glu's awful Family Guy cash-in was doing poorly in the App Store. Well, times have changed, and apparently Stewie is enough to make a poor game reach #9 on Top Grossing Apps.
App of the Week
Soosiz
Soosiz is without question the best platformer yet on the App Store. The game uses gravity-centered gameplay, like that of Gomi, but much more fast-paced, to turn a good platform adventure into something extraordinary. The level design is excellent, and the difficulty curve is just right. Controls are great as well. There's only a left arrow, a right arrow, and a jump button, but they are all perfectly responsive and work brilliantly in unison, making you almost forget you're playing on a touch screen.. The graphics are cartoony and playful, and the only big flaw of the game is the sometimes overly-childish music. Other than that though, Soosiz is a magnificent achievement is App Store platforming, and it's one of the most fun games I've played in a while, coming highly recommended.