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Super Crate Box iOS updated, next update coincides with 40 million crates collected
While our mom's word is good enough for us, others may have more fiscal ideas on what makes someone a success or not. For developer Vlambeer, it's neither -- they gauge success on how many crates iOS players have collected in Super Crate Box. The developer has set up a number of tiers for unlocking free content in the game, the first being five million. Players quickly surpassed that and reached ten million, prompting this 1.1 update today which adds new control options (jump and shoot!) based on player feedback, and two new unlockable characters. One is unlocked after collecting 1000 crates, the other by reaching 5000 kills. Finally, Vlambeer teases a new update when 40 million crates have been amassed. You'll also save a princess or something, but we're sure you've already done that once or twice in your lifetime.
Super Crate Box jumping to iOS in September
Indie shooter Super Crate Box is heading to iPad and iPhone next month. The news was announced by developer Vlambeer in a new video, which you can see above. You can also catch a glimpse of the title's wholly excellent gameplay. Of course, if you just can't wait until September, you can always download the free version for Mac or PC. Either way, you should really play it sometime.
Indies struggle with blatant copycats on App Store
Cloning the core concepts of a game for an App Store title is one (profitable) thing, but stealing a game's name, assets and even code -- and reaping the profits -- is just a tad illegal. Ars Technica has such tales of woe from a couple companies. One example is a small dev called Halfbot that was planning to port its Flash-based game The Blocks Cometh to the iPhone. Only, the two-man team soon found out it'd been beaten to the punch by someone who had essentially copied and pasted the game onto the App Store. The Halfbot team scrambled to rectify the situation and got the app pulled, but only after the title was featured on the "new and noteworthy" section of the App Store, eventually breaking into the top 100 as a $0.99 app. Developer Derek Laufman told Ars, "If we don't make it into the top 100 games when our version is released then we'll know it definitely [affected] our game in a negative way." The full Ars piece is a solid read to get an idea of how, in this world of small-scale development, with relatively hands-off platforms like the App Store and Android Marketplace, this could become a serious issue -- well, more serious than it already is.
