Touch Arcade

Prepare for Wisdom or Weirdness with Zach Gage's #Fortune, Out This Week Posted: 03 Feb 2015 01:01 PM PST Zach Gage, creator of Spelltower [$1.99] and Bit Pilot [$1.99], who also worked on Ridiculous Fishing [$2.99], has a new app in the works, #Fortune. What this app does is that it generates fortunes based on tweets, hopefully creating meaningful sayings, or randomness worthy of an ebooks Twitter account. The app will be free and will give you new fortunes over time, though you can also watch a video ad to get 2 more fortunes instantly. You can share out the fortunes to Twitter or Facebook, and there's different visual flourishes for different times of day. Some of the fortunes may be inappropriate due to the third-party content being fed in to the app, so there is a report button. The app is based on a physical machine that Zach Gage built over the last couple years that would print out a similar fortune, which he had shared to Twitter often. Now you can enjoy the occasionally-enlightening weirdness for yourselves, starting this Thursday, February 5th.

'Daytona Rush' from Invictus Games Releases February 12th Posted: 03 Feb 2015 12:39 PM PST Invictus Games has announced a release date and released some new screenshots for their upcoming Daytona Rush game, inspired by stock car racing, the classic Sega game Daytona USA, and the upcoming annual Daytona 500 race. This is a lane-based endless runner, where you'll be driving your car of choice through a race track filled with opponents, making your way through hazardous crashes, and any number of hazards that lane-based runners will throw at you. There will, of course, be an upgrade system for your different cars, as you can upgrade their engine, tires, and body to perform better and better in races. A Nascar-style endlessly-looping track makes perfect sense for a lane-based runner, and the game should promise to be bright and colorful to boot. So, until the actual Daytona USA or the Daytona-inspired 90's Arcade Racer hits iOS (which is planned), then this may just have to do. Check out the forum thread for more, and to possibly get a promo code for the game before the game's release date on February 12th.

Hulu is Running Acura Ads Featuring... The Angry Birds Music? Posted: 03 Feb 2015 11:34 AM PST Working from home my house is often weird and quiet, so I've usually got something running in the background like Spotify, Netflix, or Hulu I'm paying about 3% attention to. Today's background noise happens to be Hulu, where they're running a new (Or at least this is the first time they've been shuffled into what I've been watching) ad featuring the Acura TLX and... Angry Birds? It's a weird crossover, that's for sure. When I think "Acura" I don't really think "These cars remind me of Angry Birds" or vice versa. But, hey, whatever works. It's just sort of amazing to me to see mobile gaming permeating so much of our pop culture. There were three huge budget commercials during the Super Bowl, and now Angry Birds in luxury car ads? That's neat any way you slice it.

Noodlecake and Other Ocean Announce 'RAD Boarding', Featuring Giant Eyepatch-Wearing Bears Posted: 03 Feb 2015 11:15 AM PST Noodlecake Games and Other Ocean Interactive have just announced their next title, RAD Boarding, a game that indeed looks radical. This Canadian collaboration has you controlling Rod Geiger, a burnt-out celebrity from that wondrous decade of the 1990's, which is now far enough in the past for us to wax nostalgic about, apparently. You hop on your snowboard, and outrun the oncoming end of the world, with volcanoes, and giant eyepatch-wearing bears coming after you, pulling off tricks along the way. Because if the world's going to end, might as well go out in style. Other Ocean is a veteran development studio, with a number of games including the ultra-cool (but currently unavailable on the App Store) Dark Void Zero and the bizarre "NBA stars outrunning an alien invasion" game NBA Rush [Free]. As well, Noodlecake Games is a consistently-solid publisher and developer of cool games, so the pedigree here makes this one seem ultra-fascinating. You know, in case trying to outrun a giant eyepatch-wearing bear wasn't intriguing enough. Keep an eye out for this one, and join the forum thread to chat more about RAD Boarding .

Check Out Lonnie Trying to Figure Out What the Hell is Going on in 'Disney Infinity Toy Box 2.0' Posted: 03 Feb 2015 10:52 AM PST These kids these days with their YouTube, it's all the rage. In the world of iOS gaming YouTubers, Lonnie Randall is the king, as he's just recently passed the 400,000 subscriber milestone on his YouTube channel. We're big fans of his zany videos, and yesterday we posted a couple of them where he played through two of Rovio's soft-launched titles Angry Birds POP! and Angry Birds Fight! Today Lonnie attempts to dive into the newly-launched Disney Infinity Toy Box 2.0 [Free], and after suffering through some insanely fun loading screens and the World's Longest Intro™ he finally gets into the game proper, only to discover he has no idea what the hell is going on. That sounds like a metaphor for life, doesn't it?

Era-Spanning RPG Homage 'Evoland' Finally Hits iOS Posted: 03 Feb 2015 09:30 AM PST Shiro Games' Evoland [$4.99] has finally made its way to iOS, sneaking on to the App Store on Monday night. This game is an homage to the history of RPG gaming, as you start out in a pixelly, monochrome world, and eventually evolve into a full 3D world. The game even mixes in a number of combat styles, as you fight in top-down Zelda style, as well as turn-based Final Fantasy style. You'll spy a number of homages to classic RPGs all over the place while progressing through the story, so if that sort of thing is candy to you, you'll want to check this out. The game has been on desktop for a couple years now, and at last it's made its way to mobile, both on iOS and Android. The game is a pretty impressive mixture of styles, and you'll likely be able to at least recognize the different eras of gaming that are being represented. Honestly, even just seeing the PS1 and N64 eras of gaming represented in a world where pixel art is the norm (not that I'm complaining!) makes Evoland stand out. Check out the forum thread to chat with other players, and keep an eye out for a review from us. They're also working on a sequel, hopefully that makes its way to iOS quicker than the original!

'Potatoman Seeks the Troof' Review - Because I'm a Potato Posted: 03 Feb 2015 08:13 AM PST "Well, that was something that happened." That was my reaction after completing Potatoman Seeks the Troof [$1.99], an oddball little platformer from Pixeljam Games that's certainly an experience. It's a brief platformer, with five different levels, which don't take too long to beat, necessarily, but it's as much about the odd story running through it. You control the eponymous Potatoman, seeking the "troof" – about existence, life, who knows? It's a game that you probably shouldn't play for pure platforming challenge, but because it's an odd experience. The quest for the troof does involve avoiding cacti, eggs, and cars on the way to the end, with Potatoman only able to jump and move horizontally to dodge hazards. Each level gives you ten lives, and you'll need them, as trial and error plays a major role in the proceedings here. The game throws in plenty of "gotcha" moments that you have to figure out, moments where you have to react quickly to falling objects, and complex patterns that you have to sort out. The difficulty winds up being a bit of an illusion: once I beat the game the first time, knowing the game's tricks and patterns, I was able to defeat it without running out of lives on a second run-through. Why beat it twice? Well, the point of the game is its message, whatever it is. I don't want to spoil too much about it as I think it's best to experience and see it for yourself, and because I don't really quite understand it myself! I don't think a second playthrough really enlightened much beyond the illusory nature of the difficulty being about surprises and pattern recognition. Still, the ride up until then may be challenging enough. There is one thing that I wish the game would improve with the game. There's a little indicator that you've beaten the game when you start it anew, and it'd be amusing if it kept adding up for each completion. Instead, there's just the one object that indicates you beat the game once. I'm being vague because, again, I'd rather that you find out this all for yourself. I wish there was an achievement for beating the game without running out of lives, or a speedrun leaderboard, but considering that the one achievement in the game is about the silliness of achievements and collectathon games, perhaps I'm missing the point. Or perhaps the game isn't making its point well enough. I get that this is meant to be more artistic than a speedrun experience, but it's perfect for that, and I don't think there's any shame in both making an artistic point and then giving players a reason to come back again, to track those game-y things. Perhaps in this case it would be dissonant to have a game about the pointlessness of making it to the end and to collect random tiffins, but it's so perfect for an experience that you could try to beat as quickly as possible, or even to collect goofy little signifiers of how many times you've beaten it. But I consider myself a formalist when it comes to games being games, and there's no shame in a video game celebrating its nature as a video game in my eyes. Heck, even the irony would be interesting. The controls are kind of an odd duck, too, because the ground is so low on the screen, that you have to place your fingers low on the screen on a phone in order to move without obscuring anything. It works a lot better on the iPad. There are some issues where certain traps are a lot easier when approaching them after a death than running through in one life, for whatever odd reason. It may be intentional, I never quite know with this game. I think from a functional level, I'm not a huge fan of Potatoman Seeks the Troof. But at least it was an interesting and memorable experience, and one that has that unique Pixeljam look to it. The game is hardly the lengthiest platformer, and its challenges can be mastered once their surprises wear off, though a couple may give you fits like they did me with trying to catch on to their patterns. But this game is interesting and uncertain, and there's far worse fates for a game to be than that.

New Trailer And Details For Sonic Team's 'Sonic Runners' Posted: 03 Feb 2015 07:04 AM PST Around a month ago, we brought you news of SEGA creating a new Sonic The Hedgehog game for mobiles, this time developed by Sonic Team themselves instead of SEGA's usual stand-by developer Hardlight. The game's title was announced as Sonic Runners, and that was basically all of the information we had at the time. Well, a lot more information came out today through Japanese gaming magazine Famitsu, and we've even got a trailer with absolutely no footage whatsoever of the game. SEGA, you're spoiling us here. The information came in the form of an interview with current Sonic Team head Takashi Iizuka, the man responsible for a few well-liked Sonic games and a lot of, er, less-well-liked ones. It's quite a lengthy interview, and he went on in great detail about the game, but I'm just going to give you a few choice cuts here. It seems like it's going to be a side-scrolling stage-based auto-runner, with each level (he calls them episodes) running about two minutes in length. Although the focus will initially be on Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, and Dr. Eggman will be in the game, along with special power-ups similar to those in Sonic Colors. He mentions that they're shooting for a huge amount of content, throwing around numbers like 50 "episodes" or more. There will be hidden routes you can discover in each stage, and all the usual Sonic gimmicks like loop-de-loops, springs, and ramps should be expected. The game is expected to release rather soon in Japan, and I suspect it should hit worldwide around the same time, since Japan really doesn't care much about Sonic relative to the West. It will, of course, be free-to-play with IAP items you can buy. From the sounds of things, Sonic Runners is more or less exactly what we expected. As to whether that's a good or bad thing, I suppose we'll know soon enough. Source: Famitsu Magazine

'Trivia Crack' is Like that Addictive Drug Whose Name Escapes Me Posted: 03 Feb 2015 05:00 AM PST Working in the world of mobile games, it's easy to become jaded. There are so many games released every day, and the stuff that rises to the top of the iTunes charts tends to be targeted at the non-traditional gaming masses, aka the "casual audience." Not that I don't enjoy plenty of casual games, but when I see one rise up the ranks of the iTunes charts I tend not to pay it much mind as that sort of thing happens all the time. Such was the case with Trivia Crack [$2.99 / Free]. You've probably noticed it yourself. Its colorful, smiling icon has been atop both the free and paid charts for the past couple of months. However, at the urging of my not-typically-a-gamer fiancée, I've fallen into the black hole of Trivia Crack and have come to realize that it's actually one of the best trivia games I've ever played. The easiest way to describe Trivia Crack is that it's like Trivial Pursuit condensed into an asynchronous, mobile-friendly package like Words With Friends. You'll spin an ever-popular gameshow-like wheel which will land on one of six categories: Entertainment, Art, Sports, History, Science or Geography. Answer three multiple-choice questions right and you'll earn an opportunity to answer a question in the category of your choosing and win the "Crown" for that category. The basic goal of the game is to win all six category Crowns before your opponent is able to do so. There's also a seventh bonus Crown segment on the wheel which, when landed on, will bypass the need to answer three questions correctly and will take you directly to a shot at a category Crown. In a cool twist to the formula described above, you can also opt to "Challenge" an opponent instead of going straight for the Crown in a category. This will allow you to attempt to "steal" a Crown that your opponent has already won by answering more questions right than they do out of a series of six questions. Should you both tie, the person being challenged will get an opportunity to answer one final "winner takes the Crown" question. In addition to the Classic mode which I've laid out above, there's also a Challenge mode. Here you're pitted against up to 9 other opponents in an all-out battle to answer the most questions right out of 12 as quickly as possible. This is a nice alternative to the Classic mode if you're just interested in answering a bunch of trivia questions without the time-consuming part of the asynchronous 1v1 mode. So, with most of the "how it works" stuff out of the way, what is it exactly that's so appealing about Trivia Crack? Well for one, its asynchronous nature is super conducive to mobile gaming. It's a piece of cake to pop in and play a few rounds when the mood strikes. Comparatively, getting folks together and sitting down to play through an entire game of Trivial Pursuit is something that rarely if ever happens in my life anymore. Just as important as the streamlined gameplay is the trivia questions themselves. As much as I love trivia and games like Trivial Pursuit or Jeopardy, I'm also often frustrated when the questions are just too darn difficult for me to answer. Trivia Crack has a brilliant system to combat this called the Question Factory. Here you can suggest questions of your own, rate the questions that are currently out there, or translate other peoples' questions into your native language. It's highly community-driven and as such there are a whole lot of "regular people" questions out there. The questions feel along the lines of the type I hear at my local pub trivia nights. Now, I'm not saying that all the questions are super-easy, though some definitely are, but this approach gives a nice balance of questions that span from easy to hard and pretty much everything in-between. This also means there are some lame duck questions in the pool, but in my experience they're very few and far between. Also the Question Factory ensures that there's a ton of trivia questions to go through. There's nothing I hate more than a trivia game with a very limited amount of questions that causes you to cycle through the same questions over and over. You might have noticed that's there's two versions of Trivia Crack: one free and ad-supported, one that's $2.99 and ad-free. However, both versions have a very free-to-play structure which I'm sure will turn some people off. Both versions have an energy timer, but it's honestly not that bad. You start out with 3 hearts and every game you play costs you a heart. A heart will regenerate every hour. For most people, having 3 games going at once will be enough, and having to wait an hour to start a new one isn't a big deal. If you want to eliminate the heart system completely you can buy an unlimited heart IAP for $24.99, a steep price for a mobile game but probably worth it if you're a hardcore player. There's also a $4.99 option which bumps up your heart allotment to 5, and this is the one I went for and I've found it more than adequate to play the game basically as much as I want. The more worrisome elements to Trivia Crack are the consumable Spin and Coin items. The Spin item lets you re-spin the wheel if you land on a category that you don't want, and the Coins let you enable one of four "power-ups" which can affect the question you're given. These power-ups are: Extra Time time to answer the question (you're given 30 seconds by default), a Bomb that eliminates two of the four answer choices giving you a 50/50 shot at picking the right answer, Double Chance which gives you a second chance to answer if you choose incorrectly the first time, and Skip which will get rid of your current question and fetch you a new one. The power-ups definitely have an element of "pay to win" but they're also balanced out by being restricted: You can only re-spin for a new category once per spin, and you can only use one power-up per question. I don't personally use either of the consumables, but it's never felt like they've affected my enjoyment of the game one bit if other people are using them. I was surprised to find that Trivia Crack launched on iOS way back in October of 2013. Based on its ranking charts at AppAnnie, it's bounced up and down a lot since then before finally topping the charts this past December. I have no idea what caused it to finally break through into the masses, whether it was some sort of paid user acquisition or just the nature of word-of-mouth, but I honestly don't care. Trivia Crack is a really phenomenal trivia game and has become a daily habit for me. The whole cliché of "addicting" iPhone games is so tired that you may have seen the name Trivia Crack and simply dismissed it. I know I did. However, if you enjoy trivia and are looking for a way to more easily enjoy it with a busy lifestyle, I'd urge you to at the very least give the free version of Trivia Crack a download.

'The World Ends With You' Is Broken On iOS 8, But Square Enix Will Be Fixing It Posted: 02 Feb 2015 06:03 PM PST Well, that was quick, wasn't it? Like several other of Square Enix's games, The World Ends With You [$17.99 / $19.99 (HD)] doesn't play nice with iOS 8. They've been updating their titles one by one, but TWEWY is still in a sad state of disrepair. This past weekend, a whole lot of fans of the game decided they were tired of waiting for the end of the world and emailed Square Enix's North American support asking when an update was coming to fix it. I was pretty surprised when people started hearing back on Sunday, personally. I can't speak for how things are set up in the US, but nobody with the information to answer that kind of question fully is going to be in the office on Sunday in Japan. At any rate, the response everyone got back was not a happy one. It seemed that Square Enix was cruelly going to leave the game on the vine to wither, and advised people to seek refunds if they weren't able to play it. My initial response was likely similar to many of yours, a little upset and kind of bewildered, especially when word came out that the fix wasn't all that complicated. Someone even whipped up a patch for jailbroken devices. That got me curious, because while not wanting to go through with a complicated compatibility update might be worth the loss of customer confidence from a pure dollars and cents point of view, I really couldn't see Square Enix sacrificing their reputation over something that small. I checked the description in the Japanese App Store, and like the English one, it seemed pretty clear they were intending to update it at some point. I decided to contact Square Enix on the other side of the Pacific to see what they had to say. The response just arrived this morning and while it's in Japanese, through the magic of sorcery, I can tell you what it says. First, they apologized for how long it's taking, but said that the update was proving more complex than they had originally anticipated. They can't provide an exact date when the update will be made available, but it will in no uncertain terms be getting patched. They apologized once again for any confusion about the matter and thanked me for my patience. So basically, it's a happy ending for everyone. The World Ends With You will be getting its update, on Square Enix's schedule, as always. Just as a general rule, when you're dealing with an international company, it's best to wait until everyone's back in the office before getting too upset over any particular response. Now, let's redirect our torches and pitchforks to getting updates for Final Fantasy 1 [$8.99] and 2!

The TouchArcade GDC Sticker Swap 2015 Party is Official, Here's a Sticker Mule Coupon and Event Details Posted: 02 Feb 2015 04:23 PM PST We're rapidly approaching GDC in San Francisco, which takes place between March 2nd and 6th at Moscone Center. Our historical GDC coverage is a deep back catalog of games we saw for the first time at the event, and if you're a TouchArcade reader, prepare for a similar blitz of hands-on videos during the first week of March. If you're an iOS developer who is going to be at GDC, or are a TouchArcade fan that lives anywhere nearby, we hope you'll join us in the TouchArcade GDC Sticker Swap 2015! Alright, so here's the idea- A few GDC's ago, Keith from Imangi Studios was handing out 2" x 2" stickers with the Temple Run icon. Everyone saw those and were like, "Whoa, that's an awesome idea." The following year, we made it a thing, and had a whole party focused around the idea of trading stickers. We didn't really do anything special for the following GDC, but this year I've had tons of requests that we make a big push for the sticker thing again, so here we are. We've teamed up with Sticker Mule to offer anyone interested a pretty sweet deal for securing stickers to hand out at GDC. You'll be able to get 50 of their 2" x 2" rounded corner stickers (Perfect for app icon art!) for $29 with free shipping (assuming you're in the US, they ship international too). That'd normally run you over $50. Of course, like ordering anything you're getting printed, things get much cheaper in greater quantity... So while you could order 50 for the $29 promotion, you might as well just order 100 for $37, or 200 for $51! This kind of dangerous logic has lead me to have an entire shoebox packed full of TouchArcade stickers. So, while I'm not going to tell you how many to order, just getting 50 seems, well, you know. It's also worth mentioning that they make tons of other types of stickers too, and everything I've ordered from them has exceeded my expectations. If you want to go wild getting other stuff besides the 2" x 2" app icon stickers made, well, you just do whatever feels necessary. If you've already ordered stickers, this coupon is a great excuse to get more stickers, as more stickers is the solution to all problems. Once you've got your stickers, the next thing to do is bring them to GDC. Typically developers will have stickers on their shirt, of iPad, or computer, or somewhere else obvious. You need to make it your mission to collect as many different stickers as possible, while spreading your stickers around as much as you can. One interesting thing that came out of this when we first did it was that some stickers naturally were more rare than others, as developers who only got 50 printed obviously are far more careful spreading them around than if you got 1,000 made. Everyone had a Pocket Frogs sticker, but the die-cut Blockheads guy sticker? That one goes straight in the rares page of your trade binder. On a more serious note, we had more than a few people tell us what a fantastic ice breaker sticker trading at GDC can be. It's always a little awkward going up to someone you don't know at a convention like this, but if you're doing the sticker thing you've automatically got something to talk about before segueing into nifty Unity tricks or your latest monetization experiments. This brings us to... The TouchArcade GDC Sticker Swap 2015 Party If you're not into the idea of hunting down people lurking around San Francisco who might have stickers, we're throwing a party specifically for everyone to get together and trade... And, you know, hang out with the TouchArcade crew, iOS developers, and anyone else who decides to show up. Also, as mentioned before, if you're just in the area and love the site, please come by! When: Tuesday March 3rd, 2015 - 7:00 PM to 11:00 PM Where: Bin 55 in the lobby of the Marriott Why: Stickers, of course! Bin 55 is just the Marriott lobby bar, because of that they don't really put aside any special space for us, so just look for the obvious group of game developers. Also, we've actually found that our parties are better when we don't do open bar as the only people there are people who actually want to be there instead of people who just want free beers. As such, if you plan on drinking, and you totally don't have to, bring some cash to tip the very overworked servers they always have working there when we do a event. If you want to make a GDC meeting request, hold your horses, I'll post how to do that a little bit closer to the event. For now, just make sure you've got our party in your calendar, and tell your friends!

'Lamp And Vamp' Review - This Campy Vamp Is Hoplite-Like And That's Alright Posted: 02 Feb 2015 03:44 PM PST It was just over a year ago that I reviewed Douglas Cowley's excellent strategy game Hoplite [$1.99]. I found it to be a superb game, as many did, with tremendous depth and not an ounce of fat on its bones. It's one of the most efficiently-designed mobile games I've ever played. I can't say for sure if Mucho Party [$3.99] developer GlobZ was inspired by Hoplite when they made their latest game, Lamp And Vamp [$1.99], but it sure feels like they were. Not in a bad way, mind you. Lamp And Vamp certainly feels familiar, but it's different enough that it doesn't feel superfluous. Like Hoplite, you're trying to make your way across a single board, divided into hexagons, to an exit. In this case, it's a coffin. All you need to do is survive the gauntlet of enemies that lay in the path. It's harder than you might think. The story is pretty cute. You play as a vampire who has just purchased a sweet new house on the other side of town. The only problem is that it's quite a long walk, and just about everything between you and your house will try to kill you if they see you. Well, that's fair, you are a creature of the night, after all. The stages get bigger and more densely packed with danger as you move on, and survival is very unlikely. If you can stick to the shadows, you're not defenseless. Provided they haven't spotted you yet, you're able to chow down on any adjacent enemy and remove them from play for the rest of the map. You'll even get a little health replenished for your troubles. In addition to feeding on your enemies, you can also use the standard vampire shape-shifting abilities to help you if you're in a pinch. Vamp can change into a bat to cross over any space, or turn into mist to harmlessly pass through enemies. Both come at a considerable health cost, so you can only use them sparingly, but it beats getting caught. While you have a health meter, enemies deal such heavy damage that you won't be long for this world if they see you. There are 20 levels between you and your freshly-minted home, covering four different themes. Each theme has its own unique enemies in addition to the basic villagers and priests that you'll encounter the whole way through. Learning the behavior of each enemy is one of the most important elements in the game. They all have different lines of sight, movement patterns, attack ranges, and abilities, and you need to keep them all sorted if you have any hope of setting foot in your new pad. Your health will likely be slowly whittled down even in a best case scenario, since your powers are sometimes the most efficient means of getting to your coffin without trouble. Your primary means of restoring it is simply clearing a level, but you can also press your luck by trying to feed on enemies. When you clear a stage, you can choose one perk to carry forward. The list includes things like increased healing from coffins or decreased costs on your shape-shifting powers. When you clear a set of five stages, you can choose a special power upgrade like being able to move immediately after turning into mist or being able to feed in one turn instead of two. It's a great reward for surviving a tough challenge, and it certainly does make you feel a lot stronger. It's perhaps too much of a confidence booster at times, and the next theme's new enemies will probably bring you down to earth again in short order. Lamp And Vamp is tough, and small mistakes can have grave consequences. While you can sometimes get out of the enemy's sight long enough for them to stop looking for you, it gets more and more difficult to do that as the maps increase in size, complexity, and enemy density. Lamp And Vamp isn't quite as elegantly designed as Hoplite. Given how easily enemies can kill you if you're spotted, there's very little incentive to go near them unless you absolutely have to. If you're lucky enough that the RNG gods make a map with a straight route to the goal, there's no reason to do anything but go right for it. There's also very few surprises in store for you beyond new enemies. The modifications to your existing abilities are very useful, but they aren't typically game-changers. While I'm on that point, the perks are a bit imbalanced in my opinion. The ones that reduce the cost of shape-shifting do so in such small increments that you're very unlikely to survive long enough for them to start making a real difference, especially compared to more directly valuable perks like increasing your maximum health or how much you recover from your coffin. These are small nitpicks on a very entertaining game, however. The flaws are even more easily forgiven when you consider this game was originally made in a matter of days for a Game Jam. That's likely also the reason why the graphics and audio aren't quite as sharp as in GlobZ's previous game. The graphics have a certain retro-charm to them, and the enemy designs are distinct enough that you'll never mistake one for another, so it's all very functional. Little arrows clearly indicate which direction enemies will move next, a helpful cue that makes this a slightly more friendly game for beginners than Hoplite. Vamp himself is pretty cute, his head shiny and bulbous like a light bulb. He does a little dance every time he reaches his coffin, which I thought was pretty funny. The music is sparse, generally only playing on the title screen and in cut-scenes, with a little jingle playing when you clear each stage. Mostly, you're just left to ambient sound effects like howling wolves and so on. The controls are really easy to use, with simple taps handling pretty much everything. There's also Game Center support, with a leaderboard and a set of hidden achievements to work on. All in all, Lamp And Vamp is a surprisingly fun little strategy game that skillfully manages the tricky task of differentiating itself meaningfully from its obvious inspiration. Its light-hearted take on the concept is welcome and refreshing, and the challenge is stiff enough to keep you coming back for more. Even though it's strictly turn-based, it has that great quality all good stealth games have: it tempts you to take risk even when there's a much safer route, just to see if you can get away with it. While there's a little more flab on its restless bones than Hoplite, it's easy to love Lamp And Vamp for its sense of humor and its success at achieving that wonderful feeling of vulnerable empowerment.

'Crossy Road' Updated with New Characters to Celebrate Chinese New Year Posted: 02 Feb 2015 02:11 PM PST Crossy Road [Free], the popular and profitable endless arcade game from Hipster Whale, has just received a new content update adding in three new characters to celebrate Chinese New Year, which is coming up on February 19th. You may recall that since its launch last November, Crossy Road received several new characters in an update in December, and a whopping 16 Australian-themed characters in an update just last month. Now here we are just starting out in February and we've already got yet another character update. Hey, I'm not complaining at all! In fact this falls right in line with Hipster Whale's aspirations of adding new characters to the game monthly. So what are the new characters? Well, let's start off with Fortune Chicken, who for a limited time is unlockable for free. Fortune Chicken is the latest addition to the game's lineup of chickens, and accompanying him/her is the next new character, a dragon named simply XI. As with most other characters in Crossy Road, playing as either new character introduces a few neat visual flourishes to the game. Every so often you'll come across a firework that will blast into the sky and explode, or a paper lantern which will slowly rise up and float away. There are also pagodas and various other Chinese-themed decorations littering the landscape. Additionally, there are tiny red tickets you can collect with the Chinese yuan symbol on them, and it appears that if you collect enough of them you'll be able to unlock the third character in the game, which is a mystery character. If you aren't worried about spoilers, that third mystery character has been revealed in our forums. So if you're a Crossy Road fan be sure to grab this latest update and set out to collect the three new characters, and I'm sure we'll be seeing plenty more new characters in the months and–dare I say–years to come.