Earlier this morning, Eli and I gave Pudding Monsters [$0.99 / $0.99 (HD)] a spin. It’s the new puzzle game from ZeptoLabs, the dudes behind Cut the Rope. In Pudding Monsters, you’re tasked with sliding gelatinous blobs into each other in order to form one single mega blob. Paying attention to each level’s obstacles, in [...]
I credit Square Enix’s Final Fantasy IV as being the first game to really make me see the wonders of the role-playing genre. Just as FF4 ushered in the golden age of 16-bit RPGs on the SNES, it also began an interest in me that continues to this day. Thus, one could imagine my excitement [...]
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 / [...]
Happy New Year, everyone! Now that we’ve finally got another year of raw site traffic analytics under our belt, it’s always fun to go back and see which stories were our most popular. Keep in mind, these are just articles that were posted in 2012, as for whatever reason, things like this five paragraph story [...]
There are so many new games coming out for iOS every single day, and we spend our lives trying to point you in the direction of all the ones that are worth your time. But games don’t just appear out of thin air, and it’s worth keeping tabs on some of the more interesting upcoming [...]
Polytron’s indie puzzle platformer Fez launched back in April on Xbox Live Arcade, and was featured prominently in the film Indie Game: The Movie. Shortly after it came out, we pondered on our podcast about if it would be possible to put Fez on the iOS platform, and a few months later we learned that [...]
When Grand Theft Auto 3 hit the video game scene over a decade ago, it caused a pretty big splash with its shift to 3D action as well as the elaborate (for its time) narrative being weaved in Liberty City. However, I think Rockstar really started to hit its stride when it released Grand Theft [...]
This past October when we first heard that Team Meat was putting the iOS version of Super Meat Boy on hold to focus on finishing and releasing a new project called Mew-Genics, we were bummed, but intrigued. Details are somewhat sparse on Mew-Genics, but Team Meat has been teasing bits of the game and its [...]
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 [...]
I don’t typically get too excited for games that are a pretty long ways out, but there are so many awesome things going on in this video for Dragon Runner that I just had to share it. Dragon Runner is yet another auto-runner game, but with a lot of unique things going for it. There’s [...]
Mike Singleton’s The Lords of Midnight [$4.99] was originally released for the ZX Spectrum in 1984, on magnetic cassette tape. It was quite possibly the most ambitious game of its time, and you can see the roots of the modern open-world RPG in it as well as its influence on later strategy games and the [...]
Mister Frog! [$0.99] is Coconut Island’s follow-up to the impressive One Tap Hero, so it has big shoes to fill. In this case, they’re probably clown shoes, as Mister Frog! presents itself as a Vaudeville act, in which the titular frog is performing to entertain an audience: perhaps you and the child you’re trading turns [...]
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: [...]
Have you been asking Santa for an arcade cabinet for the past 30 years and every Christmas you wake to look under the tree just to be disappointed yet again- Maybe that’s just me, but if you have a similar longing for some button mashing action then I have something that just might ease the [...]
On this week’s episode of The TouchArcade Show, we kinda didn’t talk about iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch games. Instead, we celebrate another year of our podcast in the best way possible: by talking about Warhammer, kittens, Magic: The Gathering, and Apple TV. This is probably our most off-topic podcast ever, so buckle up if [...]
Well, it’s Friday and our week of the best iOS games of 2012 is over. Looking back on all these posts, we saw an incredible amount of amazing games over the last year. No matter what genre(s) you prefer, we dug through everything the App Store had to offer and came up with the best [...]
2012 had a lot of cool surprises and good games, as you’ve probably noticed. But not all of those good games could be neatly categorized. This post is for the weirdos, the games that straddled too many genre lines or are members of genres that have too few rad games to sufficiently flesh out a [...]
So maybe the physical arcade is dead, but the spirit and experience of the arcade lives on in the App Store. It’s a platform with a ton of simple titles with one goal: score a lot of points. It’s also a platform rife with disposable games — games that have kick, but allow you to [...]
I’ve always hated trying to categorize games into their different genres. Heck, not even in just games but music, movies, pretty much everything. However, as is especially the case with video games, some things could fall into a number of different categories. While an “action” category is a bit nebulous (don’t pretty much all games [...]
In 2012, puzzle games continued to shine in a big way on the App Store. Branching out from the typical word games and block sliders of days of yore, 2012 brought some seriously unique and innovative experiences- Both as spinoffs to existing App Store franchises and from developers that came completely out of left field [...]
While looking quite a bit different from each other on the surface, all of the shooters here actually have a lot in common. Fast, frantic action that will test your reaction times and aiming ability, both offline and online. The major difference here is perspective. Some are first-person affairs, some are behind the back, and [...]
The platforming genre has been a staple of video games since Mario invaded our living rooms nearly three decades ago, and it’s a genre that thrives on iOS as well. Plenty of fantastic platformers were released to the App Store this year, in a variety of flavors. Some take the more traditional route and offer [...]
Fighting games have really emerged to become one of the most popular genres on iOS. If you had told me that back in the early days of the iPhone, I wouldn’t have believed you. But somewhere along the way developers have found a way to make fighting games work through a combination of responsive virtual [...]
Auto-runners have really found a home on iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch. Built from the ground-up for portability, these games are easy to pick up and put down on a whim. You can play for seconds, minutes, or hours depending on your mood and location. Playing couldn’t be simpler, either — with intuitive swipes, taps, [...]
One of the more interesting things we’ve been observing on the App Store over the last three or so months is the rise of endless racing games. Built like runners, these games have you driving cars with questionable suspensions across craggy levels. The goal is to drive as far as possible before crashing. The longer [...]
Role-playing and adventure games are great when you’ve got a lot of time to burn, want to participate in a massive story, or just want a game that’s meatier than normal. We want them to fill up our lives, to hook us, and not let go. That’s just how it is. These are well-explored genres [...]
Racing games are one of the oldest genres to be digitized into video games, and they make a great fit for a mobile or handheld device. That rings especially true with iOS devices which come equipped with gyroscopes that feel incredibly natural as faux steering wheels during an intense race. This year it went beyond [...]
Scrolling shoot ‘em ups, or shmups if you’re lazy, have found a happy home on iOS devices. The tall screens are a perfect place for the action to unfold, and it’s one of the few genres that actually feels at least as good or better on a touchscreen rather than with physical controls. At least [...]
iOS devices almost seem made for pinball games. It’s the kind of thing that can be controlled perfectly fine with just simple taps, and the added benefit of motion detection by way of the iOS gyroscope means you an get down and dirty shaking your device to get certain results, just as if you were [...]
It happens every time. We’ll boot up a game like Vice City, Max Payne, or Crazy Taxi on our iPads and iPhones, and then it hits us: we’re playing console games on devices that can take phone calls, browse the web, and fit in the palms of our hands. In the case of Vice City, [...]
The coolest thing about strategy games is that they can come in all sorts of different shapes and sizes. Some are contemplative, lean back style experiences. Others are fast and reflex-y. Some strategy games do a little bit of everything as far as pacing goes. We see a nice mix across the board on the [...]
One of my favorite things about iOS devices are their large touch screens, especially on the iPad. Some developers have really explored this facet by offering great same-device multiplayer modes, or entire games built around just that idea. Normally these offer experiences that are amongst my very favorite in all of gaming. In our increasingly [...]
In 2012, free-to-play continued to be a big deal on the App Store. It might have even been a bigger deal, actually, thanks to a couple of fantastic releases. Regardless of your feelings on free-to-play as a model, it’s inarguable that people love these kinds of games. These are simple games that don’t require traditional [...]
This weekend Microsoft released an iPhone version of a popular Windows Phone game through the App Store. Originally a pet project developed by a couple of Windows Live developers, Wordament [Free] is a word game that presents a real-time, two-minute word-finding challenge against on-line players. It’s a quick race against the clock to swipe out [...]
You saw our game of the year post, now listen to how we came up with the choice. This week’s podcast is devoted exclusively to our game of the year debate. In great detail, we break down a bunch of games and stack them up against each other. Then, we somehow come to an agreement [...]
Earlier this morning, Eli and I spent even more time with Waking Mars, our 2012 game of the year. Waking Mars [$1.99] came out before we started our video series, so we decided to do a TA Plays with it to close the coverage loop. It’s a lengthy video, so buckle up. It goes without [...]
2012, like the years before it, have been incredible times for iOS gamers. This year was a little strange in that due to the magic of the App Store, a lot of the great games from 2011 continued to shine even brighter via updates throughout the year. Instead of one stand-out title like last year’s [...]
Double Fine Productions has entered the freemium market with their new Superhero management sim Middle Manager of Justice [Free], a game that has been hotly anticipated since it’s announcement, early release, and subsequent yanking from the App Store. Is this the game that will revolutionize the free-to-play market and bring about a golden age of [...]
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 [...]
I wasn’t expecting Choice of Kung Fu [$2.99] to be my new favorite in the Choice of Games lineup. My first thought was “okay, a gamebook fighting game, well, why not.” I expected plenty of fight scenes and lots of attacks named after animals. The opening scene of the game, a bandit attack, immediately delivers [...]
Cook, Serve, Delicious [$2.99 (HD)] heats up the hardcore restaurant simulation genre to a scorching level of challenge and innovation. What may be too hot (and too bitter, frankly) to taste, this PC to iPad port is terrific to the touch, even if it trades some of its thrill for easier controls. You start out [...]
These days it’s hard to get excited over vague teasers in the iOS space, but this one is different. City State Entertainment has some serious talent behind the helm, as if you listened to our bonus podcast, you’d know that it’s run by veteran game designer Mark Jacobs. He’s likely best known for his work [...]
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