DrinkBox Studios - makers of the fantastic action platformer Guacamelee! - is turning its talents towards touchscreens with Severed.
Details regarding the gameplay are scant at this stage, but judging from the newly released trailer below, it looks like the mechanics of Infinity Blade and Fruit Ninja have been thrown into a blender with some mind-altering desert drugs. Sounds like a fun night in.
I love the music in the video as well - Jimi Hendrix mashed with some 21st century electronica. Are you ready to take a ride down the rabbit hole? Enjoy.
We've been following Cascadia Games' reboot of '90s MS-DOS classic Wacky Wheels for some time now. Today we got to see some very early alpha gameplay footage courtesy of a blog post by Cascadia's Chris Jorgensen. A fan of retro kart racing, Jorgensen is looking to nail down three key areas to make Wacky Wheels the best it can be - engagement, intensity and proximity.
Engagement in that there should never be a dull moment while racing; intensity in that the game should always require the player's focus; and proximity in that there should always be another racer nearby, going beyond arcade racer into bumper car territory.
Taking inspiration from the SNES's Super Mario Kart, and the Game Boy Advance's Konami Krazy Racers, Wacky Wheels looks to try and bring the pure fun and intensity of those classics to iOS. Lofty aspirations sure, but we applaud Cascadia for shooting for the moon and can't wait to take Wacky Wheels for a spin.
Keep in mind the video below is very early alpha footage. Jorgensen notes in his blog the sound effects are mostly temporary, and many details are missing, but it looks like things are off to a good start. Check it out.
Cascadia Games' most recent release 2-bit Cowboy was showcased in Grab It Episode #5 alongside an insightful and exclusive interview with Jorgensen, and the game is an absolute blast of 2D action platforming fun. Grab it right here, or the ad-supported free version here.
Also, for more from Chris Jorgensen, check out our interview right here as he talks about the future of mobile games, retro inspirations, and MFi controllers.
The answer is Midnight Star, easily one of the most exciting mobile releases of 2014. Midnight Star is being developed by Industrial Toys, a relatively new indie game studio led by industry veteran Alex Seropian, who co-founded Halo developer Bungie. True to his roots, Seropian has created in Midnight Star a sci-fi, narrative driven first-person shooter and one glance at the screenshot above (or the trailer below) should be enough to confirm that Master Chief's blood flows thick through the man's veins.
If that pedigree wasn't enough, Seropian has signed-up Serj Tankian of System of a Down fame to deliver the soundtrack, which is sure to test out your earbuds like few other indie titles.
Midnight Star is set 150-years into the future and looks a treat, although it will be the implementation of the touch controls that will make or break the experience. The game is currently in soft-launch over in Ireland, so we anticipate a worldwide release isn't far off, ending what will have been a two-year development cycle. We can't wait!
Imagine if there was a magazine dedicated to iPad indie games, and that instead of reading like a bunch of PDFs, it was a fully interactive, rich media, multi-layered experience akin to playing a game in itself? Well there is - have you collected every episode of Grab It? - Episode 1 - Includes The Making of République (*free sample issue) - Episode 2 - Includes The Making of Oceanhorn - Episode 3 - Includes The Making of Monument Valley - Episode 4 - Includes The Making of Last Inua - Episode 5 - Includes The Making of World of Tanks Blitz - Grab It Presents Nihilumbra - Classics Collection
You're going to need a bigger iPad by July 30 with news that classic B-movie Sharknado is becoming an iOS game. Sharknado 2 will be hitting cinemas on that date, and SyFy has promised the game will be out in time for the big occasion. While we would have liked to have seen a cross between Scuba Diver Adventure and Kawaii Killer (see trailer below), Sharknado will instead be an endless runner - doh! That said, this endless runner promises to provide some bizarre gameplay sequences, including surfing through city streets dodging hammerheads, using tiger sharks as trampolines and jumping into a Great White tornado armed with a chainsaw to readjust the food chain manually.
Sounds like crazy fun, but we've been burned by these types of games before. This image gives us hope it will at the very least have novelty value. We'll let you know more when it emerges.
Update: It's time to start building your deck - Magic 2015 is out now. Grab it here.
Original Story: You can almost hear the collective intake of excited breath from hardcore Magic: The Gathering fans with only two weeks to go until Magic 2015 – Duels of the Planeswalkers launches on iOS. As you might be able to tell, we’re totally not excited about its impending release at all. We had to force ourselves to write a rather glowing preview and some optimisitc hands-on impressions. End sarcasm.
Any little bit of information we find out, we’ve been hastily passing on to you all. As we mentioned in our preview, this year’s entry features a number of cards designed by some pretty famous people in the gaming industry. Perhaps you’ve heard of little known personalities like Markus “Notch” Persson (Minecraft), Brian Fargo (Fallout) and Rob Pardo (World of Warcraft)?
Blockbuster console franchise Assassin's Creed isn't adverse to spreading its wings, with previous iOS game Assassin's Creed Pirates already offering solid entertainment and a number of PlayStation and Nintendo handheld spin-offs in the bag. It appears the collection will grow shortly, with Ubisoft's Uplay platform lifting the hood on a coming iOS release called Assassin's Creed Memories. The game itself has not been officially announced, and wasn't mentioned at E3 (which is curious), but is apparently "coming soon." Little is known outside the following blurb:
Assassin's Creed: Memories blends card battle, RPG and strategy gameplay. Chase down your targets throughout history and assert your dominance over rival guilds. Equip your character with the most powerful gear and recruit history's deadliest Assassin's and Templars to be your allies.
Sounds interesting enough, and the franchise certainly has a rich backdrop to pull from after all these years and entries. In the interim, check out Assassin's Creed Pirates, or perhaps try your hand at other big IPs to go the CCG route - a genre that always has some RPG and strategy elements - such as Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft and Star Wars Assault Team.
That sure is some pedigree. Let's rattle off that list again, just for fun. The Last Guardian, Battlefield 3, Bionic Commando and Killzone. Big fat triple-A gaming titles the lot of them.
That being said, Ivar Dahlberg, Rasmus Deguchi, Rui Guerreiro, Thomas Lilja, and Victor Santaquiteria have turned their backs on the big-budget gaming environment and formed Friend & Foe to set out on the great indie adventure.
Formed just this year the new studio is currently working on Vane - an exploratory and atmospheric open world adventure for PC (with other platforms to be announced) - and Dangerous Men for iOS.
As you can see from the banner above, Dangerous Men screams the 1980s. Details are extremely scant at this early stage, all we have is a brief description of the title by Friend & Foe from its site:
"Dangerous Men is an action arcade game based on 80's buddy cop movies, featuring a city-wide explosionfest as detectives Dan & Don literally jump from explosion to explosion to clear the city of the Punk Gang menace."
Sounds good so far - bring it on Friend & Foe. I don't know about you, but to me that banner looks very GTA: Vice City. I can almost hear my white slacks whispering to me from where I left them - safely vacuum-packed in my panic room just waiting for their time to shine when fashion comes full-circle.
It will be very interesting indeed to see what sort of iOS goodness can be conjured out of nothing by these five self-described "devilishly handsome" artists. We'll keep you posted and let you know as soon as we hear more on Dangerous Men. For now, to get those '80s action juices flowing you can check out Duke Nukem: Manhattan Project and Bill Killem right now. Both tick the obligatory boxes of explosions and cheesy one-liners, and both are a lot of fun.
Have You Collected All The Grab It Episodes? - Episode 1 - Includes The Making of République (*free sample issue) - Episode 2 - Includes The Making of Oceanhorn - Episode 3 - Includes The Making of Monument Valley - Episode 4 - Includes The Making of Last Inua - Episode 5 - Includes The Making of World of Tanks Blitz - Grab It Presents Nihilumbra - Classics Collection
Linkin Park are certainly no strangers to the gaming scene. As part of the band’s ‘Recharge’ universe, in September 2013 the group released the free-to-play action puzzler, LP Recharge, as a Facebook-only title. The group followed up the game with their remix album Recharged in October 2013. Over half a year later and the band still isn’t done with this universe. Joining other well known artists like Radiohead (Polyfauna), Bjork (Biophilia) and UNKLE founder James Lavelle (God of Light), Linkin Park has branched out into the iOS space with their 3D action game, LP Recharge – Wastelands.
Sounding like it could be the plot for a half-decent action movie, Recharge Wastelands is set in the distant future; the Earth is a barren wasteland, ruled by a race of hostile synthetic creatures known as the Hybrids. You control the band members of Linkin Park as they make a last stand against the might of the Hybrids.
After playing Recharge Wastelands for some time, I walked away suitably impressed. Wastelands doesn’t feel like it is simply an excuse for Linkin Park to slap their name on the game. Instead, their experience with LP Recharge (the Facebook game) seems to have made all the difference, with Wastelands coming off as quite a fun title.
We’ve been tracking little known indie dev, Expression Studios, for some time now and we’re excited to report on its first title, the 2D adventure game Clown’s Secret. By all accounts though, Clown’s Secret isn’t shaping up to be your run-of-the-mill title. The devs over at Expression Studios have taken inspiration for their game from classic movies of the silent age, particularly the work of Charlie Chaplin. It's clear already that Expression Studios isn’t merely paying lip service to these movies either. To keep things genuinely authentic, not only will Clown's Secret be presented in black and white, there won’t be any text. Instead, all dialogue will be spoken in gibberish, but mainly presented through animations, and topped off with the classic jazz-style music we’ve come to associate with silent films.
Just when you thought all the next-gen hoopla had died down, along comes TinyMob Games – founded by ex-Electronic Arts, Zynga and Microsoft veterans - with the above statement about its upcoming title Tiny Realms. Due in Q3 on iOS devices, TinyMob is targeting the mid-core strategy fans currently flooding to the iOS scene.
The below trailer looks pretty enough and suggests narrative, mythology and intensely fast action are key pillars. While the world building aspects - where you lay out your realm, construct an army and conquer your neighbours – are genre stalwarts, the ability to take control over single units and fight on the frontline certainly intrigues. There’s also the promise of a persistent experience where the endgame isn’t set in stone and can be influenced by player decisions on the battle field.
Multiplayer is also promised, and the ability to create Warbands – effectively platoons with a variety of different units – sounds strategically interesting, assuming the AI can make the selection process one that holds weight.
Alex Mendelev, CEO of TinyMob Games, believes his company is on to something: “Tiny Realms is going to redefine strategy games on mobile platforms. We’re very proud of depth and quality of the gameplay we have created. It’s combining the very best elements of real time strategy with complete accessibility for a range of mobile gamers.”
While you wait for Tiny Realms, you can get your strategy fix with the recently released OTTTD or find something great to play in Episode 4 of Grab It.
