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Daily iPad App: Dynamite Jack is a welcome arrival on the iPad
Phil Hassey's great Dynamite Jack game arrived on Steam and the Mac App Store a little while ago, but Phil told us back at GDC this year that he's been planning an iOS release. This week, that finally happened, and Dynamite Jack is now available on the iPad. The game's a 2D stealth affair, where you guide Jack through a series of caverns, trying to dodge guards, cave trolls, lasers, and spiders to collect chips and make it to the exit alive. Hassey's done an impressive job porting the game over here. The virtual controls work just fine and a new line-drawing mode lets you trace a line on the screen to guide Jack's route. At first, I stuck with the virtual controls, but I think for the tougher stealth levels, I actually prefer drawing lines. Impressively, the iOS app includes all of the community-created maps, and a built-in map editor lets you create your own levels. Custom levels come with their own leaderboards. There's a crazy amount of replayability on this one, to be sure. Dynamite Jack is US$2.99 on the App Store, and I think this is the best version of the game released yet. If you've made the mistake of not playing this game yet, now's your chance. This is the version you want.
LittleBigPlanet 2 'Hansel & Gretelbot' pack out now, 1.01 patch detailed
Grab a caffeinated beverage and fire up your PlayStation 3, as the free LittleBigPlanet 2 community level pack is now available for queuing up on LBP.me. In case you missed our announcement post, we'd like to remind you that this "Hansel & Gretelbot" pack was hand-crafted by some of the LBP community's finest -- the levels promise "full story, cut scenes, voice acting, original score, and lots of prizes to collect." In addition to announcing the release of Hansel & Gretelbot, PlayStation Blog has detailed this past Monday's 1.01 patch for LBP 2. A mess of fixes were implemented in the update, most notably for some crashing problems and issues with LBP 1 DLC costumes. Check out the complete patch notes just after the break.
Over 800 Sketch Nation Shooter games created so far on the iPhone
Ever since I first played Sketch Nation Shooter back at GDC, this is what I've been waiting for -- a chance to see what the masses are doing with this wacky little game creation tool on the iPhone. In the app, players can make up their own graphics and assign their own rules to enemies and items within the top-down shooter genre, eventually creating their own full shooter game. And with over 800 games out there in the app, you can see that things are already getting creative in the video above. I love the bug spray one, and the magnet one is pretty brilliant, too. And there's even a "bullet hell" tribute in there -- that kind of game isn't my thing, but it's very interesting that these games are running the gamut from super casual to very hardcore. Creator Nitzan Wilnai says he's been overwhelmed by the response. He says that an update to the game is coming which will allow these games to be shared on Facebook as well, so we'll probably see even more of these come out in the future. If you haven't bought the app yet (it's 99 cents on the App Store), all of these games are both created by and playable in the app, and you can even share them with friends and rate them yourself. Very cool idea -- it'll be interesting to see if Wilnai eventually comes up with some more "Sketch Nation" genres. It'd be wild to use this system to design a game around some dungeon crawler or racing game rules.
iXboxLive allows you to spot friends list on the go
If there's anything iPhone users love to do with their newest piece of technology is add applications that make the experience seem as familiar as possible. Enter iXboxLive, an application developed by first-timer Nicholas Pike that allows users to track friends, browse recent games, reputation and gamerscores.Before you click download keep in mind this application will run you 99 cents and free options currently exist. According to reviews on the iTunes Store, iXboxLive is more feature robust than some free programs but really ... do you need to see what your friend is playing while waiting in line at the movies?
Nintendo: No demos required for Wii Ware titles
We've been annoyed with the Wii's lack of downloadable Virtual Console demos for quite a while now, so we probably shouldn't be too surprised that Nintendo has declared games in their upcoming Wii Ware service will not be required to have downloadable demos. Surprised isn't really the world ... slightly miffed is more like it.We're only slightly miffed because Nintendo hasn't quite banned demos from the service. In an interview with Newsweek's N'gai Croal, Nintendo of America director of project development Tom Prata said that "having demos [is] ... not a requirement from Nintendo." If we're reading that right, that means demos would be allowed on the service, but that they won't necessarily be available for every game.The decision to forgo a demo mandate was made, according to Prata, because demos are a "very costly type of endeavor" for a developer. That might be true in the short term, but overall we wonder if developer can afford not to have demos on a service like this. After all, Xbox Live Arcade has managed just fine by requiring developers to create those "expensive" demos -- in fact, by, early stats showed about 20 percent of XBLA demo players bought the full game, leading directly to increased revenue for all involved. Still, we guess giving developers more choice in these matters is usually a good thing. We just hope many developers will choose to help their customers and themselves by letting us try before we buy.
MetaPlace goes MetaPunk
If you're not familiar with MetaPlace, here's the deal: it's an open platform that allows users to create and share their own casual massively multiplayer games. It's platform-agnostic -- meaning it'll be usable by anyone with access to the web. Oh, and did we mention it's the brainchild of Raph Koster, one of the big names in MMO development, and the guy behind Penny Arcade's hypothetical construction MMO?MetaPlace is still in alpha testing, but fans of the project are thinking ahead. Check out the brand new official website of MetaPunk, a MetaPlace-based "cyberpunk massively multiplayer online role playing game." It's never too early to start planning for the fun. MetaPlace could be one of the most exciting things on the MMO horizon, so if it's something that sounds even remotely interesting to you, get involved in the community.[Via Cuppytalk]
