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Newly Available On iOS : Fearless Fantasy, Knights of Pen & Paper 2, Gamebook Adventures 10, Twenty and More

May doesn’t seem to be letting up, with another week of plenty more new iOS game releases to go around.

First up is Oddwings Escape, a cute mix of platformer and endless flyer where you drag your finger in front of your bird character to maneuver him (or her) along a winding path above beautiful islands, while collecting coins and avoiding obstacles. Upgrade your character stats like, speed, energy, turning speed and coin magnet, or unlock a number of characters (this will require a bit of grinding), each of which has special abilities. This is a charming little freebie and impressive debut from Small Giant Games.

Adult Swim returns with a tongue-in-cheek take on the popular ‘big game hunter’ style of shooting game which “illustrates the pain and suffering innocent tofu goes through every day in the barbaric name of ‘Veganism’”. Featuring “graphic depictions of violence against tofu”, in Tofu Hunter, players train their sights on a wide range of soy-based creatures, mowing them down like they were a trophy buck.

The next few of titles I’ll mention (once again) all fall into that really quick play-die-retry style of gameplay which seems to be pretty popular right now. I myself, tend to prefer something with a little more meat, but these kinds of games do have their appeal in certain situations, though perhaps just not much in terms of longevity.

From Ivanovich Games, we have an old west bottle shootin’ game called Guns n’ Bottles, which is based on the Timberman mechanic of rapidly tapping either the left or right side of your device screen to match whichever one currently has an object (in this case, a bottle of beer or liquor). If you make a mistake it is game over…try again.

King of Up is a sort of vertical dexterity platformer, where you tap (and hold) the screen to make your hero fly upward. You must time your upward movements to avoid a variety of moving spikes, bullets, and even trigger bombs. It can get pretty challenging and this one probably offers a little more replayability than most since it is level-based as well as having an unlockable infinite endurance mode.

Stop.Rotate.Repeat is fairly similar to King of Up, except that you don’t control the upward movement, that happens constantly and automatically. Instead you can tap on the spinning obstacles to start/stop/restart their rotational movement to allow you to pass through them safely. This one is VERY difficult and will undoubtedly frustrate and infuriate a good deal of people as is requires a little bit different of thought process to be successful.

At first glance Say the Same Thing and Make It Rain developer, 13 Thieves developer, Space Inch’s new puzzle game looks like yet another Threes! clone. However, visual similarities aside, it plays fairly differently. You are trying to get groupings of similar numbered blocks next to one other by tapping to merge blocks of the same number into a single block of the next incremental number (up to 13). It offers that same tension and space restriction of Threes!, but with a lot more wiggle room since you can clear out large portions of the grid with just a single tap.

Twenty offers a similar puzzle gaming experience to 13 Thieves, except played out on a much larger field. instead of just tapping groups of unmovable blocks, you drag numbered blocks around the constantly filling up Tetris-like bin of blocks, smashing two identical blocks together to form a single block of the next sequential number. The player’s ability to freely move blocks around, sometimes means having to move others out of the way first, giving this puzzle game a really neat, almost tactile feel. The base game is free with additional game modes unlockable via IAP.

The Next Arrow is a puzzle game in which you are trying to create the longest possible Arrow chain. To do so, you simply start by tapping an arrow. Each time you tap an active arrow more will appear (somewhere in the direction of the tapped arrow), allowing you to continue your chain. When there are no longer any more active arrows, you lose, so you always want to try to be moving in a direction where there are more arrows so you can continue building your path.

Languinis: Match and Spell is a new mashup of match-three and word game in which players match blocks to unlock letter tiles and then use the unlocked letters to form words to try to meet per-level score, move and word complexity goals. It is a nice combination of gameplay elements.

If you’ve always thought that the one thing missing from your mobile gaming collection was a Viking-themed rhythm game, then huzzah…the wait is finally over. Viking Remix Madness is a rather unique, endless rhythm game which has players listening for audio cues to perform certain combinations of taps and swipes to keep a boat full of rowing vikings afloat.

Set in a post-apocalyptic world, Hardboiled is a game in which everyone is fighting for survival. You take on the role of Max, exploring the deserted and dangerous town to find the stolen car parts (generator, starter, oil filter, lights and battery) he needs to move on. You can decide whether you want to take a “good” or “evil” approach based on your decision to attack strangers or walk away. If you do choose to fight, the game features a complete turn-based combat system involving an action-point system which makes for some interesting decisions of how, with what and on what part of your enemy’s body to land your attacks. I’ve only just touched the surface on this one, but it seems like it may offer a nice amount of depth, even at a price of just $1.99 (and no IAP).

Tin Man Games, one of my favorite mobile devs from down under is back with the tenth title in their very popular Gamebook Adventures series, Gamebook Adventures 10: Lords of Nurroth. The adventure continues as you take on the role of a professional thief in the town Nurroth. You quickly discover that perhaps you’ve stolen something you shouldn’t have and now the Nurrothian Lords are on your trail. Tin Man always puts out a top-notch product and if you act quickly, you can grab this one at a special launch price of $2.99 (50% off).

While Fearless Fantasy’s graphics can be a bit polarizing, this is an excellent gesture-based dexterity fighting RPG adventure game that you definitely do not want to miss. Set in a fantastical world, you play as a bounty hunter name Leon (and several other characters) battling the “weirdest creatures, and saving a girl from an awful marriage”. The gesture, swipe and tap based combat is elegant (almost rhythmic) and setup in such a way that it builds upon itself, rewarding repeat play as you train yourself to pull off greater, more powerful and intricate attacks. It also features and entertaining and humorous story brought to life via some rather great voice-over work. Fearless Fantasy is prob my favorite new game of the week and should be on your short list of pickups this week.

And last, but certainly not least…

Back for a second adventure, Knights of Pen & Paper 2 is a quirky, turn-based, pixel-art meta role-playing simulation game where you “portray both party and game master playing a tabletop RPG, and must assemble both their characters, and the challenges they will face”. The sequel features an all new campaign, adds two additional races (Dwarves and Elves) as well as expanded equipment and crafting systems. JP is playing this one now (he was a big fan of the original) and we should have a full review soon, but it certainly looks like a must buy for fans of the first game in the series.