Home Features Newly Available On iOS : GOLFINITY, FRAMED, Toca Nature, Space Age, Zengrams...

Newly Available On iOS : GOLFINITY, FRAMED, Toca Nature, Space Age, Zengrams and More

As we creep closer to the Holidays, it is another busy week on the App Store.

Masters of free-to-play entertainment, NimbleBit have launched GOLFINITY this week. A completely free, ad-supported, endless classic miniature golfing game that is completely devoid of any IAP whatsoever. They’ve described the game as “the baby of Desert Golfing and Monument Valley“. This little gift from NimbleBit looks like a good deal of fun and I cannot wait to check it out.

Earlier this week, King.com released Candy Crush Soda Saga, the sequel to its insanely popular and addictive match-3 sensation Candy Crush Saga. In the sequel they’ve traded candy for soda bottles. There are also all sorts of interesting new combos like fish that go swimming around and more. If you liked the first one, you are going to be instantly familiar with the gameplay and that habit you kicked…may just have a relapse. Judging from the popularity the game has already garnered on Facebook, I suspect that they have another hit on their hands.

Kuyi Mobile has traded in the streetfood for hair styling in their latest time management game, Barber Hero, in which players try to run their own Barber Shop, cutting, shampooing, styling and coloring the hair of an eclectic mix of customers.

Ubisoft is trying to make fitness fun with their new app Shape Up Battle Run, in which you always have a virtual running buddy and/or challengers to keep you motivated and audio cues and beats keep you “at the right pace for the best workout”. You can choose to “run through the jungle with lions on your tail, make a mad-scramble through a zombie-infested cityscape, or blast off into space in STORY MODE”. Plus points earned in the mobile app, carry over to the Shape Up console game.

Pachinko Pop! is Big Fish Games’ entry in the recent Peggle-style game resurgence. Complete with boss battles, power ups and cute graphics, plus the fact that it’s from Big Fish, lead me to believe that this will be a solid new entry in the genre.

I personally haven’t been all that enamored with Ravenous Games’ Random Heroes series of games, but this retro action platformer is back for a third (and final?) installment in Random Heroes 3. According to the app description the game features “refined gameplay, over 75 levels and more than 25 weapons and 25 characters. If you are a fan o the series, you can snag this one for the usual price of 99¢.

One genre that I love, especially on the iPhone are logic puzzles. They are a perfect way to pass some time while traveling or just waiting around in line. Newly released, Zengrams is a minimalistic abstract puzzle game which takes some inspiration from Tangrams. Using only a specified number of moves, players must move, combine and separate semi-transparent colored shapes such that they can fit completely into the larger dotted lined shapes. With 70 levels, the game is a nice mix of tricky and not so tricky challenges that require a little special relations and outside the box (no pun intended) thinking.

As usual, we have a couple of good looking new apps to entertain the little ones in your house.

First up is Little Luna – Big Talent, an interactive storybook app about a farting bug. If your kid(s) haven’t already clicked the ‘BUY’ button, it is funny tale of individuality featuring Luna, a Bombardier Beetle with a very special talent…the talent of the toot. Little Luna is an entertaining app for kids with a number of mini games and interactive activities as well as an important message about embracing your own unique talents.

Toca Boca is back with another fun interactive toy this week, Toca Nature. Kids get to grow trees, raise mountains, build lakes and more as they explore, play and shape nature. They can interact with wildlife, feeding the animals the berries, mushrooms and nuts that they’ve collected. Educational and encouraging both exploration, this is another fun, open sandbox-style learning app which allows your child to set their imaginations free.

Space Age: A Cosmic Adventure is a neat, retro style space-themed adventure game set in the year 1976 when “a small band of explorers land on a seemingly uninhabited planet, Kepler-16”. The game brilliantly recreates that classic 90’s adventure game aesthetic and comes from Big Bucket Software, the team behind the 2010 hit, The Incident.

Crystal Siege HD is a beautiful looking blend of RPG and tower defense from FDG Entertainment. Players get to decide if they want to take an active role on the battlefield engaging head-on with attacking monsters or assist from a safe distance, casting powerful spells to help defeat the demonic horde. It appears to have varied collection of maps, each with their own unique characteristics which can be utilized in battle.

FRAMED is another of the exciting titles which I got to see at PAX East earlier this year and which I’ve been eagerly awaiting to be released. It features a rather unique game design in which players “grab comic panels and swap them with a touch of a finger” in an attempt to order them appropriately such that the heroes survive the page and the story progresses. The nicely draw animations are accompanied by a lively jazz soundtrack which perfectly scores the game’s noir theme. Loveshack certainly has come up with something fresh and innovative with FRAMED.

Finally I just wanted to mention that my podcasting partner Trevor Sheriden has released an official app for his website, Apple’N’Apps and you should definitely check it out, it really came out great.

Universal