There’s no denying Kumobius’s Time Surfer [$0.99] owes a lot to Tiny Wings [$0.99 / $2.99 (HD)]. It has the same swoopy hills, the same leap-and-glide movement, and the same joy of flight. After that, things go a bit off the proverbial rails. If the ’80s exploded all over Tiny Wings, we’d be part way [...]
Hundreds [$2.99] could almost get away without an explanation. Here’s how the first level plays: you put your finger down on a circle. It starts growing, and a number counts up. When it hits 100, you win. You will never need a tutorial—anyone can learn to play. Audaciously simple, no- Of course, Adam Saltsman and [...]
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Are you the sort of person who knows all about the majestic alot- Have you considered sending your friends posters to help them with their little their/there/they’re problem- Well then, we should probably hang out some time, since insufferability loves company. Also, you might want to take a look at The Grading Game [$0.99 / [...]
The first time Lost Treasures of Infocom [Free] hit the scene it was 1991. The treasures weren’t actually all that lost at the time —all the games had been published in the ’80s and Activision had only dissolved Infocom two years earlier. Now, over twenty years on, it seems a bit more reasonable to call [...]
The Walking Dead is starting to seem like quite the media empire, given its ever-growing pile of retellings. The Telltale game, the AMC series, the novelization, the original comic series-all unique takes on the same story of the end of the world and the horrible things we do to each other afterwards. The Walking Dead: [...]
There was a time I was content to simply match three. This was around the same time I had, no joke, a Palm Pilot so I could play Bejeweled with a stylus in class. Nowadays I need a little something more with my matching, and Pixel Defenders Puzzle [$0.99] has plenty more to offer. For [...]
There is no hope of survival. Either you keep going, one step after another, or you die. This is the truth of most zombie films – that oft-promised sanctuary just doesn’t exist – and it’s also the truth of endless runners. Most runners don’t acknowledge that underlying horror. Into the Dead [Free] embraces it. It [...]
You’ve probably already made one big, incorrect assumption about Matchblocks [$1.99 / Free], so let’s get this out of the way: it’s not a match-3. Yes, it does look a lot like one in its poppy, colorful way, but it’s that other kind of matching, the kind where you see a color or pattern and [...]
About twelve years ago, I went through a phase where I was convinced that blood sport would be the next evolution of American entertainment. This was around the time Survivor hit, and I was watching videos of a lot of very unsettling Japanese game shows. Then reality TV took a sharp left turn into the [...]
I envy writers who can always find the word they need, who can tumble through phrase after phrase and arrive at the end in short order. I tend to write ponderously, poking around for the best word for the job and questioning whole paragraphs as I go. That’s the kind of thinking that’s sure to [...]
Motley Blocks [Free / $2.99] takes little voxel statues and blows them into pieces. They probably didn’t deserve it. They probably didn’t know what hit them. Now they’re scattered to bits, and you need to put them back together. It’s a set up for a matching game, but not quite the usual one. Blocks of [...]
You know that feeling you get when you play an RPG and you manage to work your way down every trail and fill out every inch of the map- Apply that to word games and you have Chris Garrett’s QatQi [Free], a game that’s as much about exploring as it is about spelling. That’s not [...]
How to explain Arranger [$0.99]- It doesn’t quite fit into any bucket I’m familiar with. It’s a mini-game collection, a classic adventure and a music game all rolled into one strange-looking package, each part coming together into a surprisingly cohesive whole. It’s about using the power of music to help people, but also about solving [...]
Way back in the spring of 2010, when No Can Win’s Cubed Rally Racer [$0.99] hit the scene, the lay of the land was a little different. Retina graphics weren’t yet a thing, everyone was using the now-shuttered OpenFeint, and there were all sorts of game genres that didn’t begin with “endless.” Cubed Rally Redline [...]
Down for a little mindless self-indulgence- Want it on the cheap- If so, you might want to take a look at Chillingo’s Storm the Train [Free]. It has everything an endless action fan could want: guns, trains, gorey deaths, trains, and a huge list of upgrades. Also: trains. And, oddly enough, the ability to go [...]
When I first got my iPad, I hadn’t been playing physical board games for long. Sure, I played Monopoly and its ilk as a kid, but it wasn’t until I got into things like Arkham Asylum and Carcassone as an adult that I really understood the appeal. Before that, they seemed slow, finicky and sort [...]
I’ve been doing the pen and paper role-playing thing for over a decade now, and there’s one problem I’ve seen over and over with new players: they’re often uncomfortable committing to the absurdity. It’s hard to take yourself seriously and pretend to be a half-elf assassin with a bounty on your head or the best [...]
You’d expect Airtight Games to put together a quality puzzle game. This is the studio responsible for Quantum Conundrum, after all, headed up by Kim Swift of Narbacular Drop and Portal fame. Given that pedigree, you won’t be surprised when I tell you that the studio’s first iOS release, Pixld [$0.99], is a great little [...]
Totem Runner [$0.99] is the rock-paper-scissors of runners. Rock: your warrior form, good for running and drawing grasses up from the earth. Paper: bird form, which can soar and dodge. And scissors, boar form, which can smash through any obstacle and most enemies. Deciding which one to pull out isn’t luck or psychology, though-it’s one [...]
It’s not as though I need another word game. I mean, just look at the embarrassment of riches we’ve had in that genre over the past year or so. But Kieffer Bros. keeps making these little games that don’t seem like much on first look and then sink in their hooks and never let go, [...]
Half of every one of Polara’s [$0.99] levels is out to kill you, but which half is up to you. This auto-running platformer is made up of two colors, and you can swap which one you interact with with the tap of a finger. It’s not just a matter of red versus blue, though. Sometimes [...]
I’m usually not concerned about how game developers want to make their money. Premium costs up front, IAP, or some combination thereof—it’s all good by me. And 11 Bit Studios made Anomaly Warzone Earth [$3.99], our runner up for 2011′s Game of the Year. In my books, it’s earned whatever it wants to charge for [...]
Seating arrangements can be killer. If you’ve ever helped plan a wedding, you already know this: the last thing you want to do in the last weeks before a big event are sort through RSVPs and figure out if your Aunt Maude still has a grudge against her sister, and if so, where on earth [...]
There are journeys in the real world that we can’t make on our own. We can’t travel to the center of the Earth. Most of us won’t walk on Mars. And we’ll never be tiny enough to explore the innermost reaches of the human body. Instead, we visit these places through fiction and film, through [...]
I’m not usually a fan of toilet humor, and Wimp: Who Stole My Pants [$0.99 / Free / $1.99 / Free] takes place in a land reached by toilet, more or less. You hunt down stolen underpants, platform through toxic sewage and solve puzzles to claim toilet paper rolls. This hasn’t triggered a moment of [...]
Some times you want to save the world. Other times, well, you just want to see it burn. Having a bad day- Smash a city or two with natural disasters. Car won’t start- Release a deadly plague. Got a bad grade- Pick up Infectonator [$0.99] and unleash an undead horde on unsuspecting populations. Mass-scale slaughter [...]
I was afraid Granny Smith [$0.99] would be one of those games. You know, the ones that are only funny because ha, look, an old lady doing something young people do- Puns might be the lowest form of wit, but that has to be in the bottom ten. It surprised me, though, with its simple [...]
One room. Four walls, a ceiling, a floor-a claustrophobic space, if you can’t leave. Dark music, heartbeats and whispers. You could imagine the walls closing in while you scrabble for an exit. But The Room [$4.99 (HD)] never lets you worry about any of that. There’s a time you stop caring about your surroundings, when [...]
If I tell you that Lili [$4.99] is a game about picking flowers, please don’t stop reading. It’s also about being a freedom fighter, if that helps, and bringing down an authoritarian regime. Hope that sounds good, because it is-fantastic, even. The plucky star of the game traipses through the gorgeous world of Geos, stalking [...]
I am the worst at pretending to like sports. I can usually muster up the enthusiasm to cheer on my hockey team when they’re in the playoffs, and I watched at least a couple hours of the last winter Olympics here in Vancouver. Summer sports, though- Before this week, the best I could offer was [...]
Huebrix [$0.99] is a frustrating game to talk about. I want to tell you all about its puzzles, which are good and clever and rarely aggravating. I want to warn you about its flaws, which are found in nearly every other part of the package. I want to say it’s a great little game, one [...]
If you’re a fan of gorgeous puzzle games, keep your eyes open this Thursday, when Cipher Prime’s Splice is due to arrive on iPad. Splice is a microbial puzzler. The game doesn’t get into terminology, so you’ll have to excuse my jargon here. You’ve got broken microbes, magnified until they’re large enough to accommodate your [...]
When you’re dealing with truly classic puzzles, you have to have a twist. We’ve all long-since found our favorite tangram apps or sliding block puzzles and moved on. The Heist [Free] is one example of pulling off the classic puzzle twist to great effect. Now Toy Studio and Mojo Bones are trying something similar with [...]
Lost Cities [.99] is a game that’s hard to quantify. It’s built on Reiner Knizia’s formidable game design talents, and made into an impressive asynchronous experience by The Coding Monkeys, developers of board game delight Carcassonne [.99]. It has a robust single-player campaign and most of the online tools one could hope for. It looks [...]
If you’re a matching game aficionado, you’re probably familiar with Dungeon Raid [ If you're a matching game aficionado, you're probably familiar with Dungeon Raid [$2.99] and Triple Town [Free]. The first turned a pretty basic match-3 formula into a full-on roguelike, and the second layered matching into an ever-more complex system of tiered upgrades. [...]
Final Fantasy Dimensions, “an all-new entry” in the Final Fantasy series for iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad, has been dated: according to an update on the game’s site, it should be released at the end of this month, August 31. We’re a little confused by the billing of Dimensions. New might not be the best [...]
When I was six or so, I spent my afternoons in the house of a woman named Joan, tagging along with her three kids in an after-school care situation. It was there I got my first introduction to console games, playing things like Paperboy and Jeopardy! on their NES. But my first true love was [...]
The worst way for a studio to introduce a game may well be “it’s like X, but with Y.” It’s like Temple Run, but with zombies. It’s like Tiny Tower, but on a boat. It’s good to be honest, but it’s a hard sell. Why should you, savvy App Store customer, care about a game [...]
I’ve been delving into a lot of, well, let’s call ‘em obscenely difficult games lately. Bitless [[substring:0:600] I’ve been delving into a lot of, well, let’s call ‘em obscenely difficult games lately. Bitless [$0.99], for example, hit my masochistic streak just right. Seems that sort of thing appeals to some of you as well. If [...]
You know how so many free-to-play games get more and more frustrating the longer you play, as you find all the cool things that are locked behind paywalls and realize there was never all that much going on- Pocket Army [Free] does the opposite. It starts out grindy and dull, harasses you constantly, and has [...]
I have a confession to make: I kind of, sort of like Twilight. I can’t tell you if I’m team Edward or team Jacob, but there is some real trashy vampire fun going on in that series. I just can’t get behind Bella, though. Moping, sighing, putting herself in harm’s way for a hint of [...]
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