Tag: Halloween »

The Ball of Cthulhu is a game that will drive you mad. Insane even. Get ready for maddening difficulty in this arcade-style puzzle game that's full of "elder gods, crazed cultists, and the dread of looming insanity." Eek!

The Ball of Cthulhu has 50 levels that feature an old-school classic challenge and a high score mode that adds an insane amount of replayability. There's that word again, "insane."

So, with that, go insane this Halloween for only $2.99!

What helps get folks prepared most for Halloween? How about some headless chickens? And how about running with those headless chickens? Well believe it or not, and just in time for Halloween, players will be able to run with a headless chicken that's spurting blood all over the place. Lovely, eh?

The chickens in Headless can only last for so long, so it's important to collect health and pull off combos. Also, be sure to collect tin cans that can go over the chickens head to help stop the bleeding. It's pretty much up to you to keep the chicken "alive" for as long as possible to get a high score.

Time for some headless fun with those bloody chickens!

Voodoo Runners is a creepy runner which has players taking part in an illegal event. You control a blindfolded character with their hands tied behind their back and it's up to you to guide them down the street while collecting objects and avoiding vehicles.

Now go save the poor blindfolded fools from danger! Or, at least get them a high score before they... well... you know.

The Walking Dead: Dead Yourself gets an updated experience for the new season of The Walking Dead. This adds over 100 new parts, filters, camera types and more that allow for millions of new walker combinations.

The best part yet is that you can easily bite a friend on Facebook and turn their picture into a walker. Get it done!

Many understate the importance of feedback. Certainly not ZIO Studios. We reviewed their debut game, Vampire Season, a few months back, and while we enjoyed our experience with it, we did highlight a few issues that stopped it from being perfect.

Fortunately, they were listening. As CEO of the company, Jairo Nieto explains, 148Apps actually helped structure the game that Vampire Season has now become:

The 148Apps review shed some very much needed light on two things: 1- We were still very naive about monetization, to the point where we were trumping the gameplay experience, 2- Our User Interface was still far from ideal. We were glad that the Vampire Season was found enjoyable and charming, but we were aiming to make the best game possible, so we took this feedback and sat down with our team to create what is now known as Vampire Season - Monster Defense. We wanted the economy to feel like part of the game, we didn't want to force players into purchasing stuff, and we wanted everyone to easily understand the game, and to intuitively know what everything in the interface did.

We decided that the economy should feel like a game by itself. We got rid of all the invasive pop-ups, and we created an additional currency, called Sapphires, while making sure earning them

was as fun as everything else in Vampire Season. We integrated Sapphires with the revamped Survival Mode, giving players the ability to earn them by chance in the Roulette, or by beating their friends in timed tournaments.

Sapphires are a logical and unique way to support the microtransaction mobile model. Most importantly, it's much less expensive, and as Jairo points out, less intrusive than before. Many of the criticisms we made about the previous version of the game have been erased, improving the overall experience, making it feel more natural, instead of invasive. As a reviewer, there is no greater satisfaction to know that you've been able to help a developer evolve their product. Jairo continued:

Vampire Season is the culmination of various efforts and expectations, long months of creativity and coding, all wrapped up into this game that we hoped would be as enjoyable to play as it was to make. To our surprise, launching the game was just the beginning of a long (and exciting) learning process for a studio that is passionate about delivering the best kind of product it can create.

The other element we critiqued was the user interface. This is an area the development team seemed to take very seriously. Said Jairo:

We moved forward to tackle the User Experience and Interface as a whole. This turned out to be quite a challenge, as we iterated many times, taking the tutorial as a starting point. We redid levels, balanced many of the monsters and enemies, and then did it all over again. Then we took to the main menu, the loading screen and finally the in-game HUD. After a couple of months of hard work from all our team, we were finally satisfied. The game had reached a new level, as we had as a studio. We now firmly believe that reviewers are not just talking to the audience, but they are also talking to the product. Its our role as developers, to listen.

It's Halloween Night tomorrow, and of course it's time for the little ones to head outside and trick or treat, as well as time for the rest of us to celebrate some scary fun of our own. What better way to gear up for an evening full of apple bobbing, costume wearing, or several other activities of horror-themed debauchery than to grab a few Halloween-flavored games?

To help, we've pulled together a list, with the help of the kind folks over at Touch Arcade and Pocket Gamer, of spooky sales, awfully-free apps, and spooktacularly updated apps and games for your viewing and downloading pleasure. Don't blame us, though, if you binge on too many apps and end up feeling nauseous. Consider yourself warned.

UPDATES:

Chillingo Sale

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Other Sales

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See the rest of the sales after the break

While all the little kiddies are out gathering candy - assuming they aren’t out on the East Coast because that would be fairly dangerous given the current circumstances - it can be tough figuring out what the rest of us can do with our time. Sure there might be the odd Halloween party and there’s always sitting around waiting for trick-or-treaters. But what’s a person to do with their downtime? Why not take to the App Store and sample a bunch of new Halloween content that’s just been added to a number of DeNA titles?

Blood Brothers - The most recent “gather creatures and strengthen/evolve them” game to come from Mobage is having a special Grave of Kings event. Players can nab some event-only familiars (complete with jack-o-lantern masks) until November 1st. Or until the special raid boss event ends. Which will also be on November 1st. So yeah.

Deity Wars - Starting now and continuing through October 31st players will be able to participate in a special live event to try and earn both rare cards and the expected Halloween-themed in-game items. Nothing like mixing a few ghosts and goblins with gods, right?

Fantasica - Guard your dreams! A bunch of Halloween nightmares have been let loose and players must band together to fight them off. The special event runs through the 31st and will give us all the chance to win some special loot and cards. I feel like I should reinstall this just so I can ogle the new characters because I love the artwork so much.

Kingdom Wars! - Get your hands on some limited time Halloween Edition Dungeon card packs and hopefully bring a ghost, witch, or other nightmarish monstrosity into the ranks. “Mwahahahahaha!!!” and all that.

My Monster Rancher - Rather than focusing on special event monsters (although there are those, too), My Monster Rancher is tossing lots of special prizes and costume items into the pot cauldron. Witch hats, pumpkin heads, and more await!

Ninja Royale - This Halloween a bunch of vampires chose the wrong ninja to try and snack on. In addition to the special themed drops a special jack-o-lantern clan, CARVER, has been added. Seriously though, of all the human prey to hunt why would vampires want to go after a ninja?

Pocket Planes - We’re all familiar with ferrying bitizens back and forth to earn some cash. We’re also accustomed to hauling a bunch of the little pixel people and their gear to special destinations for specific purposes. Now we can fly lots of ghouls, candy, and whatnot around until the 31st. Let’s make sure these bitizens have a Halloween they’ll never forget!

Rage of Bahamut - Granted I’m used to special events in this CCG but I’ve yet to take part in any that were holiday themed. This time it’s going to be the Manor of Illusions, complete with plenty of special items and cards to earn. I suppose it’s time to start stockpiling more cure waters.

Tiny Tower - Not even Tiny Tower is safe from the horrible spirits roaming the App Store. Granted the ghostly costumes have been available for bitizens to wear for quite some time but now there’s a special Halloweed-themed mission to complete. And you can dress them up and start haunting your tower’s floors now through the end of the month.

This week at 148Apps.com, the crypts went creak and the tombstones shook as we got ready for Halloween. Site editor Rob LeFebvre helped kick the season into gear with his overview of Halloween-related apps: "While Halloween night is actually this coming Wednesday, many of us will be out and about this weekend engaging in some costumed fun, no doubt. What better way to gear up for a weekend full of apple bobbing, costume wearing, or several other activities of horror-themed debauchery than to grab a few Halloween-flavored games for your weekend fun?

To help, we’ve pulled together a list, with the help of the kind folks over at Touch Arcade and Pocket Gamer, of spooky sales, awfully-free apps, and spooktacularly updated apps and games for your viewing and downloading pleasure. Don’t blame us, though, if you binge on too many apps and end up feeling nauseous. Consider yourself warned."

Get the full list of games and apps at 148Apps.

The Halloween fun continued at GiggleApps.com, where Amy Solomon reviewed Henry's Spooky Headlamp. She writes, "Henry’s Spooky Headlamp is a nice universal interactive game for toddlers where players drag their finger around a darkened screen, as this movement will move a spotlight around the page as if coming from main character Henry’s flashlight. Use this light to search the page for the items seen at the top right of the screen.
Suspenseful music also included, effective in creating a mood appropriate for Halloween, but it is nice that the items one is looking for, such as a candle, scarecrow or jack-o-lantern are not scary, keeping this app appropriate for the toddlers and early preschoolers who will enjoy this app."

Read Amy's full review at GiggleApps.

And not to be left out of this monster mash, Trevor Dobrygoski at AndroidRundown.com reviewed Stupid Zombies 2, saying, "With Halloween right around the corner, seems like more zombie games are coming out. Stupid Zombies 2 is a fun zombie game that’s not quite a physics-based game and it’s not quite a puzzle game. What I mean is, the zombies are just standing there (in the beginning). To shoot zombies use walls to ricochet off bullets to reach zombies."

Read Trevor's fullreview at AndroidRundown.

Scared yet? Just wait till Halloween rolls around! Until then, keep checking in on us through our Twitter posts and Facebook pages. We promise to always give you the latest news, reviews and contests. Until next week, try not to get too many rocks in your trick or treat buckets!

It’s hard to say exactly when it happened, but Halloween has undisputedly crept up on us to become a big league holiday. The kind where preparations begin over a month in advance, with horror movie marathons, costume discussions, and decorations. With that in mind, it would be a grave mistake to go in ill-prepared, so we’re here to do our part to help ring in the festivities. Here are four spooky games that will have horror-lovers shambling on over to the App Store and coffin’ up their dough.

The Room
Perhaps not the most obvious pick at first, The Room makes up for a lack of blood and gore with an ample amount of atmospheric tension. What starts off as Myst-like series of interlocking, symbol-filled puzzles soon emerges as an implied storyline filled with spine-tingling mystery. Much goes unsaid, but plumbing the depths of the unknown backed by eerie music box chimes is a meticulous thrill all its own.

Papa Sangre
From one nontypical experience to the next, Papa Sangre is a video game with no...video? Tasked with saving the soul of a loved one, players will take a frequently terrifying first-person audio journey through the palace of the titular demon. With an elegant interface and gripping story, Papa Sangre is a truly unique title that speaks to the power of sensory deprivation. The horrifying, horrifying power.

The Walking Dead
For a game filled with zombies, The Walking Dead’s horror derives almost entirely from the heart-breaking failings of humankind. Telltell Games has earned a mausoleum full of critical praise for its serialized interpretation of Robert Kirman’s graphic graphic novel, which uses the point and click adventure genre to force players to make tough, lasting decisions about life, death, and the brainless hereafter. All episodes can be purchased from within the app, so start this gripping tale right now.

Dead Space
As far as mobile horror goes, this one may be an oldie, but it’s most definitely a goodie. One of the best, in fact. Not only is it a faithful translation of Visceral Games’ flagship survival horror series to the small screen, but this version may just be scarier. In a dark room, with headphones in, the game’s brilliant tension between all-out action and edge-of-the-seat inaction is brought to the forefront, all backed by a methodical, shriek-worthy soundtrack. Player beware: Necromorphs may induce device dropping. (iPhone version also available.)

Kids get excited about holidays long before they happen. And no holiday is more geared towards kids than Halloween. In keeping with October's spooky spirit  we've rounded up our favorite four apps, new and classic, to keep sugar-buzz-ready kids happy and maybe save mom and dad from a few "how much longer's?"

It's The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown

From Loud Crow Interactive comes the follow-up to last Christmas season's smash digital book, A Charlie Brown Christmas. Borrowing the same general design, they bring another timeless Peanuts classic TV special to iOS- It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown. Narrated again by Peter Robbins, the original voice of Charlie Brown, kids can wait along with Linus for The Great Pumpkin or go trick-or-treating with Charlie Brown, Lucy and the rest of the gang all with digitally remastered drawings. Along with a retelling of the story and some sing-a-long sections there are also avatars, mini-games and lots of touch points. The only thing parents should note is that there are in-app purchases for coins, needed to unlock all the features. This may seem worrisome with little fingers, but don't forget you can turn off in-app purchases in your iOS Settings.

LEGO® Halloween Creationary

Not a building game, but rather a "build-and-guess" board game this LEGO-branded title is ideal for younger kids who enjoy seek-and-finds with spooky twists. A roll of the magic dice determines the category: Creatures, Places, Things and Costumes and then the game starts assembling an item in that category. Kids try to guess the halloween-themed object against the clock.

ClickySticky Halloween Sticker Book

Part sticker book, part Colorforms, kids can move and reuse the dozens of Halloween-themed virtual stickers on four thematic backdrops: Haunted Mansion - Trick or Treat, Candy Bag,  Costume Dress-up and Jack-o-Lantern Creator to make sticker pages that tell stories and are infinitely reusable. This app, like the rest of the ClickSticky series, has a simple and responsive interface that appeals to young children, but remains engaging to my son for a third season owing to his ever-expanding imagination and the free-form play.

Plants vs Zombies

This title is not precisely Halloween-themed but remains a perennial iOS favorite year after year with a perfectly seasonal cast. PvZ is a castle defender, meaning zombies attack a home base, in this case an actual home, and its up to players to place plants, which serve as all kinds of crazy weapons, to keep the undead marauders from making it across the backyard. The iPhone version is a bare-bones iteration of the hit PC/Mac game from PopCap while the iPad version gets continual updates to include features gamers love like the Zen Garden and Vasebreaker Mode. The best thing about the title is kids as young as five or six can grasp the concept but it's appeal is ageless. And these zombies are definietly rated G for goofy, not gory.
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This week at 148Apps, once we were all finished with our Halloween and post-Halloween merriment, writer Lisa Caplan explored the vast landscape of camera replacement apps for the iPhone. Caplan writes, "Apple has done a lot to improve the native camera app with iOS 5 and lucky iPhone 4S owners are already taking the highest quality iPhone images ever. But, even with the tune up, many of the most requested features from manual adjustments to photo bursts, darkroom effects to more sharing options (Facebook anyone?) are still lacking. But, the app store is filled with alternatives so this week we look at our favorite four camera replacement apps."

Unlock your iPhone's photo potential by reading the full article on 148Apps.com.

Over at our kid's apps headquarters, GiggleApps, Amy Solomon took a closer look at an innovative 3D comic book called The Gwaii. Solomon states, "This app does have some 3D effects as well that are best seen as one moves the device, looking at the additional angles that this provides. The 3D here is effective but somewhat overly sensitive to touch and there have been moments that I wish I would have turned this element off, trying to keep my hand steady to minimize the screen movements. I think this effect may be a distraction for some children, while others may really enjoy this effect."

Read more about this new interactive storybook on GiggleApps.com.

Finally, AndroidRundown featured an article by Carter Dotson that attempted to address the iOS versus Android ongoing argument head-on. Dotson says, "The thing to remember, though, is that Android and iOS are different in their very natures. iOS is a piece of Apple software, following Apple principles; it is designed to run on specific hardware. That is a big part of why the experience is often smoother. Android is designed to run on many, many forms of hardware, not just what Google has intended for it to run on. Yes, Google has their stock devices that run a pure Android, but Android is meant to be something bigger, and not as something tailored to one set of hardware. That Android is on the caliber of Android is impressive."

Add your voice to the argument after reading the full article on AndroidRundown.com.

That is the week that was. What started with Halloween ended with the first onslaught of holiday commercials on television, so keep your eye on 148Apps.com and our Facebook and Twitter streams for the latest reviews and helpful hints to get you through the holiday season. See you next week, readers!

Do you love Scribblenauts: Remix as much as we do? Then show your love with a Scribblenauts-inspired Halloween costume and enter to win either a vinyl Maxwell doll (like the one pictured here) or a pair of Scribblenauts headphones.

What do you have to do? It's simple. Just post a picture of yourself (or a family member - pets included) in Scribblenauts gear to our Facebook page, and we'll take it from there. Winners will be announced Tuesday, while you're recovering from your Halloween sugar binge. Get to it, wannabe Scribblenauts!