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Early App Store hit Eliss expanded in upcoming Eliss Infinity
Steph Thirion's celestial puzzler Eliss emerged as a standout release in the early days of the iOS App Store, serving up unique multitouch gameplay suited for Apple's then-fledgling platform. Almost five years after the original game's release, Thirion revealed that an expansion, Eliss Infinity, is due to hit iOS devices later this week. Eliss challenges players to join like-colored celestial bodies together within each level's cramped boundaries while using skillful finger placement to stabilize on-screen objects. Infinity will include all content from the original Eliss along with the new score-based Infinity mode, which Thirion describes as "Tetris meets Super Hexagon." A sandbox-styled Spacebox mode is also included, offering a laid-back style of gameplay for newcomers. Eliss Infinity will be priced at $2.99 when it premieres for iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad devices on February 6. [Video/image: Little Eyes]
Indie iPhone games marked down to 99 cents for Child's Play
The latest indie gaming charity drive allows you to simultaneously be stingy and charitable: six popular iPhone games have been discounted to 99 cents each through December 31, with one third of that lowered price (after Apple's cut) going to Child's Play. The games in the Indie iPhone Holiday Sale include Canabalt, Solipskier, Spider: The Secret of Bryce Manor, Osmos, Drop7, and Eliss, all of which we can safely say are required for your iPhone to work properly. And unlike other charity game bundles, which allow you to pay what you want, these are locked at 99 cents, so you can't feel guilty for not paying more. Well, you can, but you won't be able to do anything about it.
GDC 2010: Interview with Faraway's Steph Thirion
Steph Thirion is a game designer who's been releasing some of the most inventive games I've seen on the iPhone. He started out with Eliss a little while back, and he recently announced Faraway, which I got to play at GDC. The night after I played the game (it was at a party called Gamma IV), I sat down with him to chat about developing for the iPhone, why Eliss wasn't bigger, and his biggest inspiration for the more casual gameplay of Faraway. Read on for the full interview.
Best iPhone games of the year picks start to roll in
Gamasutra wins the award for being the first (that I've seen) to pick awards for their best five iPhone games of the year, and the list is respectable, if a little short for such a huge set of possibility. Unfortunately, they don't win any TUAW points for going with Skee-Ball over our preferred Ramp Champ, but Rolando 2 was a worthy sequel to a worthy game, Edge (now Edgy) and Eliss are both great games (too bad you can't play the former, but the latter was underrated for sure), and Space Invaders Infinity Gene deserves to be on almost any end-of-the-year iPhone game list. Good picks in there for sure. DigitalTrends also has a long list, though strangely, they tend to stick to big names and brands. There are a few gems in there -- Spider, UniWar, and Vay may be a couple good choices that you haven't heard of yet. And here's another top 10 list with some repeats from the ones above and a few more nice picks. I guess with the end of the year upon us, we'll probably have to choose TUAW's favorites of 2009, too, eh? Stay tuned.
App Store devs get "edge"-y as a reaction to trademark threats
App Store developers can be a rebellious kind -- we've already covered the story of a company shooting their price up to $40 just to show their customers how much they could be charging, and now, in response to an overly defensive trademark owner, developers on the store are putting the word "Edge" in their titles. Even high profile releases like the sequel to Eliss and the popular Canabalt are becoming Edgeliss and Canabedge. Critter Crunch becomes Critter Edge on their main page, and so on. The story starts with a guy named Tim Langdell, who started a company a while back named Edge Games. Since he founded that company, he has mercilessly gone after any other game company who dares to use the word "edge" in their title, claiming that he has the trademark to any and all "edge"-related gaming. He's gone after EA's Mirror's Edge and a few other titles, but the App Store has been a prime target, where he simply contacts Apple, claims the app is in violation of his trademarks, and gets apps pulled without a problem. The latest target is a title called Killer Edge Racing by a company named PuzzleKings, and reportedly Langdell has gone so far as to trademark that name, despite the fact that the game using it has been around for years. Hence the indie game developers' "edge-volution." They aren't actually renaming their games in the store, just showing off solidarity with other developers against what they see as Langdell's wrongdoing, and getting the word out about his actions against "edge" on the App Store.
Indie devs incorporate 'Edge' into titles to lure out Tim Langdell
Indie developers are having a little fun at the expense of trademark troll Tim Langdell. As TouchArcade reports, several devs have created mock games to get under the skin of the abusive IP bugaboo, who pops up like a rabid prairie dog when a company uses the word "edge" in a video game. In response to Langdell's attack on Killer Edge Racing, several indie devs have jokingly renamed their games. Fez is now Fedge and Critter Crunch has vomited out Critter Credge. In their posts on the name changes, the developers use the word "edge" as many times as is edgeingly possible to edge in there with edginess. Inspired by Langdell, we are currently discussing with our attorneys if we can trademark the words "war," "warfare," ... oh wait, "Mario," yes! That's where the infringement bucks really are.
IndieCade 2009: The finalists
IndieCade 2009 was held in Culver City, CA this past weekend, and the local art galleries and restaurants were filled with independent games and their developers from all over the world. The festival billed itself as the "video game Sundance" and lived up to this self-made reputation, putting 29 different indie games on display, both throughout the weekend and during a Thursday night opening ceremony MC'd by Uncharted 2's Richard Lemarchand (shown above with festival founder Stephanie Barish).We've rounded up the festival's finalists in the gallery below. You may be familiar with a few of them, including Twisted Pixel's The Maw and a selection of well-known iPhone titles, but all of these titles deserve your attention -- and a playthrough!%Gallery-74606%
Eliss releases version 1.1
Unfortunately, I missed Eliss the first time around, but I won't make the same mistake this time. It's a game designed by a French and Portugese graphic designer named Steph Thirion, and it's sort of an abstract multitouch puzzler -- you can pull and push together differently colored planets all floating around in a sort of space-like environment, with some groovy synth sound effects and music cuts to back up the gameplay. The game got nominated for an IGF award, and for anyone interested in fun puzzlers (not to mention the possibilities of multitouch in gaming), it's a must-see.I say "the first time around," because it's been on the App Store for a while now, but the game just got updated to version 1.1, and the main tweak is in the difficulty -- there are now 25 levels instead of 20, and the curve has been adjusted to make moving through the stages a little smoother. And the game got a price drop, too -- you can pick it up for a mere $3.00. As I said, definitely worth it to get a little multitouch practice in for what might be the future of gaming.
