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The beautiful and delightful 'Badland' now has a sequel for iOS
Badland is one of the biggest gaming successes to ever hit the App Store. Its distinctive and beautiful visual style, challenging gameplay and high attention to detail all reinforced the notion that iOS is a great platform for unique and excellent games. Now, some two and a half years after making its debut, Badland 2 has arrived for the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad. The game will feel immediately familiar to the millions who played the original -- the character you guide and the obstacles you dodge are still primarily rendered in silhouette, with beautiful, hand-painted backgrounds providing most of the eye candy.
Ridiculous Fishing, Badland win App Store's Best of 2013 awards
Apple awarded Vlambeer's Ridiculous Fishing its much-coveted iPhone Game of the Year award today, while Frogmind's silhouetted platformer Badland picked up the iPad award. With App Store exposure being so crucial to an app's success, the awards are big wins for the two indie studios, both comprised of just two people. The duo of duos beat competition from major studios in 2K Games and EA PopCap, with runner-up spots going to XCOM: Enemy Unknown and Plants vs. Zombies 2. Kevin Ng's rollercoaster puzzler The Impossible Road and the stylish wordplay of Simogo's Device 6 also picked up runners-up prizes. If you thought those awards, while deserved, were a smidge predictable, be prepared for further non-raising of eyebrows: This year's most downloaded free app (not just games but all apps) was Candy Crush Saga, while Minecraft: Pocket Edition was the best-selling paid app of 2013. It's also worth noting that while Candy Crush Saga is free-to-download, it was also the highest grossing app of 2013 - Minecraft: Pocket Edition came in 11th.
Top App Store game dev says Apple is the gatekeeper to success
Teemu Maki-Patola, COO of Frogmind Games and developer of the award-winning title Badland for iOS (which reached the No. 1 spot in more than 80 countries), has published an enlightening advice piece on GamesIndustry International focusing on how to make a new game a success. Since publishing Badland in April of 2013, the game has shifted from US$3.99 to $1.99 to $3.99 to free to $3.99 to $1.99 to $3.99 to 99 cents and finally back up to $3.99, so there's been plenty of experimentation happening. So what has Mäki-Patola learned about the App Store thus far? Make your game look professional, push it into the light whenever you can and pray that Apple decides to feature it. "Discoverability for new releases is horrendous on all mobile platforms, so like it or not, the owners of the mobile world's very few storefronts are also its gatekeepers," he says. "Getting featured makes all the difference. Instead of battling with the F2P Goliaths to top the charts, focus on making your premium game catch the eyes of the very enthusiastic gamers at Apple who decide which titles to highlight. If your game has a distinct personality and is well-made, this is a battle you just might be able to win." Badland, for its part, is an absolutely gorgeous title with very few equals, so another piece of advice might be to make a ridiculously amazing game to begin with. You can check out Mäki-Patola's full account on GI International.
App store freebies: birds, blades and badlands
Some of the most popular and celebrated iOS games are currently as free as a bird - a tiny-winged bird, that is. Yes, Andreas Illiger's adorable Tiny Wings is one of several big-name apps going free at the moment, and while nothing's been announced as yet, our spider sense tell us this has something to do with the App Store's fifth anniversary, which Apple is celebrating on Wednesday, July 10. Freebies spotted so far include Epic's Infinity Blade 2, the delicious Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery: EP, Disney's charming Where's My Water, and the beautiful Badland. We'll keep an eye out for others, but for now we're going to stare at you with one eyebrow raised and wonder why you're still reading this instead of loading up the App Store.
Badland gets new levels in Day 2 update
Badland is a wild little platformer from Finnish developer Frogmind, and it now boasts 10 new levels thanks to a new update. The developers have been working on delivering a set of content they call Day 2, with 10 levels of "Dawn" released about a month ago. Now, they've added the "Noon" levels for Day 2, which adds 10 new areas for you to explore with the game's little flapping hero. There are also 30 new missions and five new achievements to try and conquer. Frogmind has even released a new trailer for the additional content, so you can see it in action. Badland is an excellent little game that's US$3.99 right now, and with new content like this coming all the time, that price just keeps getting more worth it.
New Badland levels available now, more coming soon
The weird but gorgeous iOS platformer, Badland, has ten new levels available now. The new levels introduces more powerups and puzzles for your little flying critter to take on. All of the new content is free in the update, and developer Frogmind says more will come in late June or early July. Badland recently won the Nordic Game Conference's Indie Sensation award, and boasts over 150,000 players according to Frogmind. You can download Badland, with this free update, on the App Store for $3.99.
Daily iPhone App: Badland is a gorgeous alien journey
One of my favorite things about the App Store is that it can offer some completely original and crazy ideas. Developers do have to get approval from Apple to be published, but that approval doesn't require a game to make sense or be clear, only that it works as advertised. Badland is one such product of this system. It's a wild and wacky, totally alien experience that I don't think would get published anywhere else but on a platform such as the App Store. It's a platformer of sorts. You guide a little creature with some weird, flappy arms through a 2D environment on an alien planet, touching the screen to send him flapping upwards and releasing it to let him float back down. I don't know what your creature's name is, or even what he is -- the game works without words, communicating the premise and the story entirely through gameplay. But as you move through the levels, avoiding dangers as best you can, you collect various objects that give you other abilities: You can split the little guy into a few different creatures, grow or shrink him, or speed him up or slow him down. That's just in the first levels. Badland is simply oozing with creativity, both in terms of the gameplay situations it throws at you, but also in that incredible art. The actual levels are essentially drawn in black 2D outlines, but the game's background is a colorful, crazy planet, full of life that seems completely alien. The game's audio is very impressive as well -- you can clearly hear each clank and thump as your creature bounces his way through the world, and the ambient sound is also very well done. Badland is a treat, and we're lucky to have it. It's available for US$3.99, and as far as I'm concerned, it's a must-play game. Developers might argue about how "open" Apple's platform is, but being able to see such an original game like this on iOS makes me believe that Apple's doing something right.
PSA: Badland available now on iOS
Badland, the silhouette platformer by the ex-RedLynx team Frogmind, is out on iOS today. Players tap to jump and flap in order to fly through "40 truly unique levels and more coming in updates." A multiplayer mode crowds up to four people around the same screen, fighting to survive and pushing one another out of the way.The iTunes page for Badland advertises its status as a "Universal app with no [in-app purchases] (player gets the whole game experience optimized to all of his/her iOS devices)." Like Ridiculous Fishing (and every game up until recently!) your purchase gets you the whole game.
Badland roams free on iOS April 4
On April 4, former RedLynx developers at indie studio Frogmind will release their first game, Badland, on the iOS App store. The vivid side-scroller was originally slated to launch in March.Frogmind is a two-man outfit: Johannes Vuorinen, who programmed the editor in Trials Evolution, and Juhana Myllys, who handled art and design on MotoHeroz. Badland is a self-described "atmospheric side-scrolling action adventure located in a gorgeous forest," with support for up to four players in local, single-device multiplayer.In the latest gameplay trailer above, you can catch a glimpse of how power-ups work.
Former RedLynx devs' Badland makes good in March, multiplayer showcased
Picturesque iOS side-scroller Badland has a confirmed release window of March. The game, the first from former RedLynx developers Johannes Vuorinen and Juhana Myllys as new studio Frogmind, caught our attention last year with its vivid look, complemented by simplistic tap controls and some unusual mechanics.Frogmind released a new trailer today showing how those simplistic controls translate to four-way multiplayer on the iPad, with each player allotted a corner of the device. As the final scores show, winning is not just about outlasting everyone else.
'Badland' by former Trials devs doesn't look so bad
Two former RedLynx developers trade high-intensity stunt bikes for comparably placid flight in Badland, but keep the winding paths and devilish side-scrolling level designs they honed in various Trials and Heroz games.iOS game Badland is the work of Frogmind, a new indie developer made up of Trials Evolution editor programmer Johannes Vuorinen and MotoHeroz artist/designer Juhana Myllys. It stars a flying creature exploring a "gorgeous forest" to determine the identity of some unknown threat. Judging from the gear-filled stage in the above video, something is out of place in the forest.Apparently there's more to see about Badland than is shown in the gameplay video; Frogmind teases two "really big features announcements" coming this year.
