The first week of September’s new iOS releases have launched and we are off to a good start for the month, with a nice mix of titles, quite a few of which are paid offerings.
Starting things off this week is MADFINGER’s latest zombie shooting offering, UNKILLED. In what could have easily been branded as another entry in their popular Dead Trigger series, players take on the role of Joe, a member of the anti-zombie private military unit, WOLFPACK, trying to save NYC from the world’s latest zombie outbreak. With easy, responsive touch controls, auto-fire and the usual array of free-to-play mechanics, fans of MADFINGER’s previous series should feel right at home with this one.
In the reverse situation, Craneballs has taken a break from the usual free-to-play gunfire of their OVERKILL series to return to their casual gaming roots for Cube Worm. It is a free-to play ‘snake’ style game with a memory component, which plays out in three dimensions as you try to safely steer Cube Worm around an obstacle-ridden cube, eating food boosters, growing and watching out for things that may impede your path. To add to the challenge, you’ll be working your way around a constantly rotating cube, but the camera remains stationary. This means at points you wont even be able to see your worm and you’ll have to rely on a combination of luck and memory if you want to survive these visual blackout periods. Cube Worm is an interesting and more challenging take on a casual classic.
A hilarious mix of trivia and choose your own adventure game, Mister Smith & His Adventures is the first of two rather unique and quirky titles I’ll be hilighting in this week’s round up. In this latest title from Ayopa Games, players are working their way through an interactive novel starting from the birth of the title character, Mister Smith and deciding what happens to him throughout his life, thereby influencing whether he is “clever or dumb, kind or evil, logical or insane”. Your answers will take you down certain narrative paths and cause you to have to answer a different series of trivia questions which will earn you points in the various attributes of your character. The game’s storyline has a wonderfully British sense of humor, and is definitely meant for an adult audience. This one will draw you in right away and actually make you care about what happens to Mister Smith and want to progress through more of the tale.
Scroodles is a new level-based word battling game and debut title from Mad Sally Games. It is a battle of wits as players try to literally ‘erase’ their competition and take out Scroodles, each of which offers a slightly different challenge due to their unique stats for health, intelligence, and speed. “Some Scroodles also cast ‘Word Spells’ requiring smart strategies to defeat”. The player and Scroodles take turns trying to spell words from a small pool of letters, the values of which are totaled, determining the strength of attacks. Randomly generated powerups and board layouts with ‘Double Word’ and ‘Triple Letter’ multipliers will keep you on your toes. Cute and challenging, this is a fun new entry in the iOS word game space.
Next, animator turned games artist and Monument Valley co-creator Jonathan Topf, comes Trick Shot, a minimalist physics puzzle game where the goal is to toss, bounce or ricochet a ball into a cardboard box. Place the ball anywhere within the launching box, drag back and release to try to get it into the open box. If you can land it in the box (with a swish) without first bouncing off the flaps then you’ll earn a ‘perfect’, otherwise just try to get it in by any means possible to pass the level. Fun and addictive, the game comes with 90 levels to tackle and hopefully land that ‘perfect shot’.
Rock(s) Rider – HD Edition is not a new game, but instead a completely revamped and updated version of the original (which I reviewed back in June 2012) to completely take advantage of all of the technological advancements that have been made in the iOS platforms since 2012. ECA-Games has painstakingly rebuilt this Trials-style trick motorcycle racing game from the ground up using new, highly detailed 3D models with new textures and dramatically increased resolution. The game features new Ragdoll Physics and many, many more improvements. Side by side screenshots of the old and new versions of this game show just how far iOS has come in three short years.
Worms™ 4, the latest iOS offering in Team17 Software’s classic Worms turn-based strategy game series, made its way to iOS this past week. Designed for mobile play with “shorter, more explosive matches” you are free to blast some worms whenever you have a free moment. The game boasts 80 single player missions with varying goals and access to a number off different upgradeable weapons (including several new designs), allowing you to experiment with different strategies. If you’d like to test your skills against human opponents, the game also offers synchronous online multiplayer matches as well. Daily challenges, rewards and a constant worldwide battle between red and blue mega-teams (to one of which you will choose to pledge your allegiance) will keep you coming back for more.
Chillingo returns this week with a really nice looking arcade ping pong game “with a kung-fu twist”, appropriately called Power Ping Pong. Brimming with polish and a crazy cast of characters the game features an intuitive swipe-based control system, perfectly suited for mobile platforms, fun power-ups and local and online multiplayer to be able to challenge your friends to a friendly (or perhaps not so friendly) match.
Now for that second quirky title I alluded to earlier, the highly anticipated iOS release of indie-favorite, I am Bread. You can always rely on Bossa Studios to bring us something a little different, with previous stellar releases like Thomas Was Alone and Surgeon Simulator. I am Bread casts you as a piece of bread (yeah you read that correctly) and you must master the game’s slightly crazy controls to move the bread around various rooms within a house to reach the room-specific ‘heat source” to toast yourself (on both sides). Fling, scoot and walk yourself along walls and on various objects spread about the room, being careful to avoid floors, water and other things which would make you dirty and thus reduce your edibility. Time is also of the essence, for the faster you can reach your goal and toast yourself, the better your grade for that level. If the thought of a moving piece of bread wasn’t funny enough, the game also has a hilarious back story whereby the owner of the home is slowly losing his mind, convinced (and rightfully so) that a piece of bread is messing up his home room by room. There is definitely a little bit of learning curve with the controls on this one, but once you get it, the game offers an entertaining and nerve-racking puzzle platformer experience unlike anything you’ve played before.
Finally that brings us to Crescent Moon Games’ latest offering. A supernatural and spiritual game of redemption, retribution and reincarnation, The Deer God is a bit of a strange action platformer with some RPG elements. You start off as a deer hunter who is killed by a bear during a hunt and then reincarnated as a deer to make amends for his killings. This is where things start to get a bit confusing and crazy. Day and night you navigate and explore a treacherous forest, fighting off other animals and gathering food. Along the way you’ll meet both humans and deer who need your help. Accomplish these missions and you are awarded with new abilities (like double-jump and new attacks) as well as special items and new missions. Each time you die, you are reincarnated as one of the many creatures that you’ve killed. Graphically the game has a very Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery feel to it and a pleasant soundtrack. If you have an Xbox One and are an Xbox Live Gold Member you can actually pick up the Xbox One version of this game for free until September 15th! Otherwise, the iOS release is on sale for 30% off for launch.
And that will do it for this week.
 UNKILLED |
 Cube Worm |
 Mister Smith & His Adventures |
 Scroodles |
 Trick Shot |
 Worms™ 4 |
 Power Ping Pong |
 I am Bread |
 The Deer God |
