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Daily iPhone App: Solstice Arena is Zynga's shot at multiplayer online battle arenas
I first got to see Solstice Arena, Zynga's latest iOS entry, at GDC earlier this year, and then had a short meeting again last week with the publisher at E3. But you no longer have to take my word on what it's like: The game arrived on iOS worldwide last week, so you can grab the free-to-download title at your leisure. And I recommend you do. Zynga has a reputation for pushy freemium elements in goofy casual titles, but I can confirm this game has none of that. This is a true mobile MOBA (multiplayer online battle arena) title, similar to League of Legends, but very iOS-centric in its delivery. The game has been simplified in a lot of very smart ways, producing a high-quality title that's very impressive. In my own play, I've found some minor balance issues (the healer character, for example, seems awfully overpowered, especially when teamed up with a burly bruiser), but I am sure those will get evened out as the game gets periodic updates and tweaks. And while yes, this is a freemium title, that part is also done very intelligently. The freemium elements are mostly confined to customization and convenience. Just like League of Legends, the game opens up a number of free heroes to play every week, so there's ongoing variety even if you never spend a dime. And if you do, real money can only buy you custom skins for the heroes you own, or can pay for boosts in your own XP, so spending money doesn't affect the gameplay at all. Prices are a bit high (which is something else I expect will likely be tweaked in a future update), but all in all, the freemium elements almost never get in the way of the gameplay, which is very respectable on Zynga's part. In short, Solstice Arena is exactly the kind of game Zynga needs to help cleanse its reputation as a money-grabbing casual publisher. I would hesitate to call it truly hardcore (I think the game needs about double the heroes and maybe another map or mode to really start comparing its depth to a standard PC MOBA), but it's definitely a "mid-core" experience that delivers a lot of fun. If you're a MOBA fan or just want to see what Zynga is doing right lately, give it a download and a try on iPhone or iPad.
Harmonix's Fantasia: Music Evolved is made of pure magic
I can name the exact moment that I fell in love with Harmonix's latest game, Fantasia: Music Evolved, at this year's E3. Periodically throughout the game, you're presented with an on-screen globe, and you can wave your hand over it to create a tune. The science of how it works isn't exactly clear (you're adjusting the pitch and rhythm of a tone somehow), but the tool is simple, it works, and the game will periodically play back your creation to you, and then allow you to redraw it over if you don't like it. Once the tune is set, you can swipe both your arms outward to zoom out to the game's "overworld" level, which in this case was a beautifully rendered, very animated robot factory, with various pipes and pistons jumping up and down in time with a rhythm. This was the moment Fantasia showed me just how magical it was. As I tried to navigate around the stage and solve a problem by manipulating the world with the Xbox One's new Kinect sensor (a group of robots needed to get into a small doorway, so I had to swipe over some magic to shrink them down to fit), I suddenly realized that I recognized the tune that the pipes and valves were dancing to in the background. It was the one I'd just made, subtly mixed into the rhythms of the stage itself. %Gallery-190255%
Gameloft releases an impressive trailer for Modern Combat 5
You can say what you will about Gameloft (and lots of people do, as the company has earned a reputation for essentially copying HD console games onto Apple's iOS platforms), but this is at least true: The developer knows how to put a game together. Modern Combat is Gameloft's take on the extremely popular Call of Duty: Modern Warfare series, and the company has just released a trailer for Modern Combat 5, which serves as the latest and greatest full first-person shooter on iOS. Thanks to the success of Angry Birds, most iOS trailers consist of a series of cute animals playing around to some overly sweet music, but not this one. As you can see below, Gameloft has figured out how to draw a whole lot of realism out of the iPad and the iPhone. Modern Combat 5 is set for a release in the fourth quarter of this year, so we do have a while yet to wait. But Gameloft should be showing it off next week at E3, so I should have some hands-on time with this title and whatever else the developer is working on. So stay tuned to hear more about this already very impressive title.
Daily iPhone App -- Zoombies: Animales de la Muerte is cute, arcade fun
Zoombies is a fascinating little game. It's made by a company called High Voltage that is probably best known for the Conduit shooter series, though they've been making licensed games for years (I remember visiting the studio for a tour back when I lived in Chicago -- they were based out in the Hoffman Estates suburb back then). Zoombies is a title that's been in development there for a while -- it was first considered for the Wii, then possibly for Xbox Live Arcade and finally has seen release on Apple's iOS. It's easy to see why High Voltage was trying to make this game as a motion control title -- the idea is that you're a kid trying to fight an army of invading undead zoo animals ("Zoo-mbies," get it?), and you are armed with a weapon that you can toss according to a line you've drawn on the screen. Control on the Wii or Xbox would probably have been more direct, but on the iOS touchscreen it means you swipe your finger around, and then the weapon will follow your path. This creates some interesting timing issues -- you want to throw where an animal will be, not where they are. And once you've thrown your weapon, you can't throw it again until it finishes the path, which requires you to keep things as compact as possible. Zoombies' real charm, however, is in the tone and the art style. The whole game, as you can tell by the subtitle, is done in a joyous sort of Mexican mariachi style, and it just oozes fun. The animals are menacingly cute, the kids are great and every level has plenty of "skull goals," which are super satisfying to complete. Even if you don't like that core line-drawing mechanic, this game is totally charming anyway. Clearly, this was a labor of love for High Voltage, and you can tell they had a lot of fun making the game. Zoombies is available for US$2.99 on the App Store now, though there are a lot of in-app purchases included, so I wouldn't be surprised to see that price come down sooner if not later. Still, $3 is cheap, so if Zoombies interests you, you might as well grab it right away.
Valve now selling a Balloonicorn plushie, with in-game code
You can now buy a Balloonicorn Plushie straight from Valve's official Team Fortress 2 store. The cute pink union of a balloon and a unicorn is 14.5 inches from horntip to tail and comes with a code for a genuine Balloonicorn in-game item, for $24.99. The Balloonicorn serves as the "Municipal Ombudsman" of Pyroland, which is the cute and creepy world as seen through the Pyro's eyes. Like the best things in life, it's adorable yet horrifying.
The Summoner's Guidebook: Playing LoL's new ARAM mode
Many of you already know what ARAM is -- it's a phenomenon that is hardly exclusive to League of Legends, and even in MOBAs where there isn't a map built for it, ARAM matches are played. Before the 3.6 patch, I tended to play ARAM matches either before or after my normal play sessions. I typically played a couple of games of Classic or Dominion, with a game or two of ARAM either before or after. As I've mentioned in the past, I enjoy ARAM as a way to unwind and practice without stress. Patch 3.6 changed this by removing the Proving Grounds, replacing it with the Howling Abyss, and making ARAM a dedicated gametype with its own matchmaking. Now I play probably twice as many games as before, typically 8 to 10 ARAM games with no other matches. As it turns out, even I'm vulnerable to casual fun. The 3.6 patch also added in quite a few cool features that make ARAM much, much better than the pick-up custom games. I think that it's a great addition to League of Legends, especially for those who aren't particularly hardcore.
Creative uses for App Store icons: Ransom Apps and App Icon Quiz
Brian Stucki is the developer behind MacMiniColo (the Mac mini colocation outfit in Las Vegas), and he recently sent us a fun project he's hosting called "Ransom Apps." It's just a silly little web app, but the idea is that you enter a phrase of text, and Ransom Acts returns your phrase written in App Store app icons. I don't know if there's a real use for it, but it's fun and creates some neat designs. Speaking of using App Store icons creatively, Ransom Apps reminded me of App Icon Quiz (free), which is kind of ingenious. It's a trivia quiz based around identifying App Store icons. The app uses real icons (with the permission of the actual developers -- more on that in a second) to create quiz questions, challenging you to match the icon with its app. It may sound goofy, but in practice, it's actually fun, especially if you spend quite a bit of time browsing the App Store. App Icon Quiz is clever in another way as well. The developers, GameVision, told me back at GDC that they're using the app to market and brand new icons, so users' feedback is going the other way as well. Developers whose icons are included receive information about how easily players ID their icons as well as the word people tend to associate with their images. Personally, I think that can be a little shady. There's no indication in the app's description that the "game" is being used for marketing purposes. But as long as you know and agree to that use, it could be a fun way to give feedback on an app's most important visual element. App Icon Quiz is available on the App Store now
Guild Wars 2 gets a retro 2D platformer, thanks to an April Fools' joke
ArenaNet, the developer behind Guild Wars 2, has released a 2D platformer called Rytlock's Critter Rampage, available to play for free in your browser.The game's derived from an '80s-style commercial the company made as an April Fools' joke earlier this month. The commercial itself was for a 3D platformer called Super Adventure Box, which ArenaNet also created for real inside its popular MMO.ArenaNet says Rytlock's Critter Rampage was going to be cobbled together from a few sprites for the sake of the joke, but cinematic artist Delly Sartika had wanted to build a retro platformer and did the whole thing in about three weeks.
Friday Favorite: Sock Puppets
Sock Puppets allows just about anyone to quickly and easily create short animated movies using not only sock puppet characters, but (via in-app purchases) aliens, politicians and Halloween characters. The adorable app is from a software company Smith Micro -- not exactly known for its consumer wares. Sock Puppets is powered by Anime Studio, however, and some time ago the company bought up applications like Poser, and now offers some cool specialized visual artist tools. As for Sock Puppets, I can tell you the app is a lot of fun. My kids have already created a number of short films with it. The free version comes with a few basic sock puppets, but for about $5 you can unlock all the added characters, plus extended recording and the ability to save to your camera roll. There's also a fully unlocked version of the app for $4. It's well worth it. Basic recording time is 30 seconds, but extended is 90 -- just enough time for kids to get in enough story. Creating animated puppet shows To create a video you select your puppets, a background, some props and tap the record button. The app detects voice, and attempts to move the mouth of the puppet along with the vocals. The puppet animations are well-done although more than once the audio clipped, causing a small glitch in some movies. Since this isn't a pro app, you're not going to see extensive support for phonemes or the ability to separate vocals from music -- it's just mostly going with the overall sound. Still, it's quite good and looks fluid and natural. Combined with the animations used when moving a character around, it's a lot of fun to see. While recording you can move your puppet around, not just side to side, but in a pseudo-3D which scales the puppets up or down, depending. Not all puppets can do this, as the sock puppets are locked into sideways motion only. In-app purchased puppets like the aliens and Halloween characters can move all over and can be resized during the animation. My kids enjoyed scaling a creature up or down as if they were shrinking or growing. What's cool is you can just tap and move any character at any time, and pinch to scale them. Sock Puppets alters your voice as well on a per-puppet basis. You can tweak the settings of the voice changes, customizing them to your liking. I found the defaults to be quite pleasing and well-done. They matched the look of the characters, especially (my favorite) the aliens. Recording is easy enough, as there's a record button available while you move stuff around, but saving your masterpiece to the camera roll will require an in-app purchase. You can share your video to YouTube without this, although the export can take a while. Conclusion While there are a lot of apps to distract kids out there, I found Sock Puppets easy to use and a lot of fun. My kids agree -- they created over a dozen short movies within a few days, and all of them looked excellent. If you're willing to spend $4 you can buy the "complete" version with all characters, sets and utilities unlocked. I'm hopeful Smith Micro will expand Sock Puppets with more characters in the future, but it also has me more intrigued with their pro apps (which was perhaps the goal as well). We'll keep an eye on the consumer efforts from the company going forward, especially if Sock Puppets is an indication that the company is looking to provide more of these fun tools.
Daily iPhone App: Fish Out of Water! makes a gorgeous splash in a shallow pool
Halfbrick Studios is one of the most popular developers on the App Store, so much so that I can guarantee you've played their work before: Fruit Ninja and Jetpack Joyride are their two biggest titles. And now, the Australian developer has released a brand-new iOS game, called Fish Out of Water, available on the App Store now for US$0.99 cents. Jetpack Joyride is one of my favorite iOS games of all time, and one of the main reasons for that is just how polished it is. It just oozes quality, and Fish Out of Water has that same feeling. The game runs perfectly, looks great and just bubbles over with well-crafted art and design work. Unfortunately, Fish Out of Water's weakness is that it's simple, almost too simple to stay interesting for long. Here's the game's core: You throw fish. That's it, really -- the goal is to try and throw fish and earn both "skips" (where your fish tap across the water) and "distance", which you're then rated on by a panel of cartoony crabs. Your rating is placed up against a daily leaderboard for the world and your own league, and that's the game. There are six fish to toss in total, and they each have their own strengths and weaknesses, and the game boasts an excellent weather system that's set to the clock every single day. But even with those complications, this game doesn't change all that much: You just toss fish, as hard as you can, at the right angle. Once you've tossed a fish, you can hit a boost button to try and speed it up at certain times, but in my experience, it doesn't matter much. Even when you rate high or low, the game doesn't do a great job of telling you what you did wrong or right, leaving the whole contest to what basically seems like chance. The game's fun for a few throws, and it does do a solid job of keeping you interested -- you level up by performing various missions, and there are tons of social elements in there, so much so that you're notified as you play on how your friends are doing and whether you're beating them or vice versa. Halfbrick can't really make a bad game, as far as I'm concerned, and Fish Out of Water is good. It's just a little boring, is all -- the company opted for casual here, and they certainly hit that target. Hopefully we'll see something a little more involving, with the same amount of quality, from Halfbrick in the future.
Firaxis bringing Haunted Hollow to iOS
Firaxis is one of my favorite game developers -- they're the group behind the Civ series as well as the recent (and excellent) XCOM: Enemy Unknown reboot. Today, they've surprise-announced a game called Haunted Hollow, which is coming to iOS later on this spring. As you'd imagine from Firaxis, it's a strategy game, but it's a little more colorful and fun than Civ or XCOM -- you'll be building up a mansion full of monsters, trying to scare townspeople and slowly take over the town you're in. Each monster can be powered up, and there are even some multiplayer modes, either over Game Center or with pass-and-play. It sounds really great. The game will be available for free from the App Store, with the title supported by microtransactions (probably for currency, though extra themes and architecture are mentioned as well). We'll watch out for a release, and let you know when we spot the game available for download.
Five World of Warcraft machinimas you need to know about
It's true that nearly every day we feature a machinima on WoW Moviewatch, but we here at WoW Insider occasionally feel compelled to pick favorites, or at least memorable ones. Today, I want to focus on some older gems that haven't had any time in the spotlight for a while and deserve some love. If you're new to the game these videos might provide you a glimpse into an inaccessible time now gone, and if you're new to machinima it might spark a desire to seek out more. Regardless, I've chosen a variety of films that hopefully showcase the enormous potential in using WoW's game engine to produce cinematic content, as well as the boundless creativity and talent within the WoW community. Read and watch on below the cut.
The Soapbox: Be as bad as you like
There are a lot of reasons I love MMOs, but one of the reasons is the fact that there are so many possible goals in any given game and so many different reasons to pursue them. Even in games with more limitations, you've still got a surfeit of character options, moreso than in almost any other genre. I love to roleplay a character who wouldn't normally be the main character of a story, explore what makes her tick, and give her space and the ability to be heroic and skilled as she deserves. What I'm less enthusiastic about is when someone asks why in the world I'm playing a particular race and class combination because obviously my character is now sub-optimal. There's an emphasis on optimization in most MMOs, a push to create the best possible version of a character in gameplay terms that I'm not entirely on-board with. It's one with comprehensible origins, but it's unfortunately taken on a lot of ugly dimensions that sometimes short-change what MMOs can be.
Daily iPhone App: Rivals at War is fun but way too freemium
Hothead Games is a studio that's been all over the place -- it's a Canadian developer that started out making some interesting PC titles, but lately has transitioned over to iOS, making freemium games that recently have been more freemium than games. The company found a sizable hit with its Big Win series, combining a collectible card game with a virtual sports simulator. But now Hothead has made yet another right turn, spinning the Big Win formula into a combat game. Rivals at War is the company's latest title, and it uses Big Win's collect, upgrade and then watch mechanics to simulate combat rather than a sports game. The formula is interesting: You open up different types of soldiers that you can upgrade via the freemium currency, and then you can assemble them into teams and pit them up against opposing teams in a battle. Unlike a lot of other combat games though, this one's all about assembling that team in the right way, because once the battle starts, your soldiers just fight for themselves. It's up to you to make sure you have the right troops in the fight instead of controlling them directly. Because of that similarity to the Big Win series, Rivals at War has essentially the same pros and cons. It's definitely a well-polished game: Hothead knows how to make these by now (after making five Big Win titles), and the move to a more gritty combat setting is a welcome change for the often cartoony Big Win series. The battles are very well-portrayed. But because the series is so heavily targeted on collecting cards and spending boosts and abilities, there's way too much freemium here, and just not enough game. Watching a battle makes you want to jump in and play it rather than just sit back while your virtual soldiers fight. Hothead is a solid game developer -- they clearly know their craft, and they've got a lot of good ideas to put into action. But whether because of financial pressure or other reasons, both the Big Win series and this Rivals at War game just spin too much towards making money rather than focusing on fun, engaging gameplay. Rivals at War is worth a try if you want to see how it all works (the game is free, of course), but hopefully Hothead will make another swing back towards focusing on the fun rather than building in innovative ways to sell more in-app purchases.
DevJuice: Apple exception snarks
Life is hard for Apple engineers. Long work hours, high demands and little exposure for individual achievement. That's why it constantly amuses devs to find little bits of humanity interspersed among their development tools. Incept Development's Dimitar Ivanov sent in an email today regarding an exception he encountered. He writes, "Someone at Apple must have been quite irritated when writing exception strings." Here's the exception in question: [23877:907] *** -[__NSCFCalendar components:fromDate(): date cannot be nil I mean really, what do you think that operation is supposed to mean with a nil date? An exception has been avoided for now. A few of these errors are going to be reported with this complaint, then further violations will simply silently do whatever random thing results from the nil. I did a little searching through the CoreFoundation frameworks and confirmed these strings for a variety of errors (components, from dates, to dates, etc.), as well as a few other cute messages like: *** ERROR: this process has called an NSArray-taking method, such as initWithArray:, and passed in an NSSet object. This is being worked-around for now, but will soon cause you grief. For the record, my very favorite internal string comes from the MobileDevice framework: This is not the droid you're looking for (is actually %@). Move along, move along.
Daily iPhone App: Hackycat makes kicking the cat fun
Stick with me on this: Hackycat is basically a game about kicking cats. In real life, of course, I love cats, and would never want to kick one. But Hackycat, designed by a very talented artist named Ken Wong, is all about playing hackeysack with a bevy of cartoony, colorful and surprisingly serene cats, kicking them in mid-air by tapping on your iPhone's screen to keep them up ... and letting them grab cheeseburgers along the way. Yes, as you might have figured already, Hackycat is a silly game, but it is a lot of fun. The gameplay itself is relatively simple, as all you'll need to do is tap the screen to keep the cats bouncing where you want them to go. If any of them falls to the bottom of the screen (or if you hit a bird bomb as it flies by), it's game over. The game's progression system is very well-designed, however: as you collect cheeseburgers, you can use them as currency to unlock more cats to play with, open up new heroes or powerups, or help yourself to completing certain goals. And since the game uses Wong's great art, all of the designs are very slick and fun. Hackycat is not extremely complicated, but then again that's part of the charm. It's a solid game with an unlock system that will keep you playing for quite a while if you want to open up everything. You can grab a universal version on the App Store now for just US$0.99.
Valentine's Day around the virtual world
Do you hear the chirping of songbirds in love? Do you see the flirtacious glance that cute Orc is giving you from across the battlefiend? Do you smell the flowers of romance in bloom all around you? If so, man, you've got it bad. Fortunately for those suffering from VDAS -- Valentine's Day Addiction Syndrome -- plenty of MMOs are on hand to provide you with a temporary fix until you get proper medication and are carted away to a professional love care facility. It may not be the biggest of holidays in the virtual world, but when love arrives in February, it cannot be denied. And who knows for you single folk? The man, woman, or one-eyed Gnome of your dreams might just stumble over you on this fine day! Read on as we sum up some of the larger Valentine's events in MMOs today.
You Don't Know Jack gets celebrity guests
I am a big fan of the You Don't Know Jack series as a whole, and I think the recently released iOS version is one of the best ways to play the game: It's social, it's quick and easy, and oh yeah, it's completely free. And now that version is getting even better -- Jellyvision has made some deals to include celebrity guests in the game. Not only will celebrities appear over the phone during the entire show (similar to the old "celebrity phone call" gag on the old versions of YDKJ, which I really loved), but they'll also have a place in the competition, competing alongside you and your Facebook friends as you play. The first celebrity picked to join the game is Mad Men's Rich Sommer, and model Adrienne Curry is set to join the game next, with other updates coming out on a monthly basis. I played through Sommer's show, and it's certainly chock full of plugs for his TV show, so presumably there's either some money going back and forth for these appearances, or the guys at Jellyvision are just big fans of AMC. Even if these are paid appearances, I'm not bothered. YDKJ is a great game that's been offering lots of great free content, and adding in celebrities in this way is an excellent way to both liven up the formula and keep the lights on. You can play the first celebrity ep of the game on iOS now, and more should be available soon.
The Soapbox: Can we reward fun over persistence?
MMOs are games of repetition. Advancing past a certain point is always a matter of doing the same thing over and over, whether it's repeating raids in World of Warcraft, playing the market in EVE Online, or taking part in the same event to clear daily achievements in Guild Wars 2. Whether or not you enjoy these repeat performances can make the difference between the grind from hell and a pleasant upward climb, but it's still a game of repetition. It's not exactly the ideal state of being. Nearly every new game seems to recognize this and advertise itself as free from grinding, which at best is true in a very narrow sense. You won't be grinding daily quests, but you'll be grinding events or PvP maps or dungeons. So why don't we have a game out there that rewards fun instead of persistence? Is it possible to create a game that's free of repetition and focused on enjoyable experiences?
Officers' Quarters: 3 resolutions to improve your guild in 2013
Every Monday, Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership. He is the author of The Guild Leader's Handbook. If your guild has been struggling during the last weeks of 2012, now is the time to take steps that ensure a better 2013. Here are three ways you could get the New Year started off right. 1. Add fresh blood to the officer ranks. Are your current officers pushing themselves too hard? Or are they doing barely anything at all? If so, then it's high time you took a look at what needs to be done around the guild and who's actually doing it. You may have some lame-duck officers who shouldn't be officers anymore, and some hard-working regular members who deserve a promotion. Adding new officers -- and/or culling useless ones -- can energize your leadership corps. Having more hands to man the ship can spread the work around and ease burnout symptoms. New officers also means new ideas that can spark new guild activities or better approaches to old ones. New officers can also inject some much-needed enthusiasm as they seek to make their mark and prove to the vets that they are worthy of the rank. If your guild has been stagnating lately, a new officer or two can liven things up.
