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Carmageddon free, The Incident and more on sale
Just in time for the weekend, here's a few apps that have dropped their (already cheap) prices even lower, meaning that you've got plenty to play here for just a few bucks' worth (all prices USD). The PC classic turned iOS port Carmageddon has gone completely free for today only. The Incident is on sale for 99 cents. The Sky Gamblers: Storm Raiders flight-simulation title has dropped down to just a buck. Just a few weeks after release, Sega's dropped The House of the Dead: Overkill to just $2.99. The game's not fantastic, but it does have a really innovative shooting mechanic built for iOS. Crazy Taxi is also on sale for 99 cents. Zach Gage's Halcyon is currently completely free to download. Chillingo has dropped Tiny Troopers 2: Special Ops down to free as well. Velocispider is on sale for 99 cents. NetherRealm's impressive Batman: Arkham City Lockdown is just under a dollar, too. Excellent price to try that one out at if you haven't. Cavern is a roguelike RPG with some good buzz that's on sale for $1.99. Big Fish Games' cute and polished point-and-click adventure title Fetch is only $2.99. That's just a buck off the usual price, but the game's well worth it. Finally, the retro arcade space shooter Plasma Sky is also available for free right now. Personally, I'm still enjoying Firaxis' free Haunted Hollow, but I'm loading up a few of these on my iPad as well. Enjoy!
The Incident creators' new game is Space Age
Way back last July, we first heard that the developers behind the great iOS game The Incident, Neven Mrgan and Matt Comi, were working on a second game. That title's now been revealed as a game called Space Age, and we're starting to see video and images from it, hopefully leading up to a release later this year. It's described as a cross between real-time strategy and adventure, and it looks like a very different game than the duo's first title. There's a dynamic weather system included, as well as a mineral-harvesting system. In general, the game seems to be about a set of humans setting foot on an alien planet, and having to build up their civilization through various means there. Sounds exciting to us. The game has an official page, and you can sign up for email updates on the game there as well. We'll look forward to seeing more of this one very soon.
New game coming from creators of The Incident
Developers Neven Mrgan and Matt Comi are also known as Big Bucket. They're the team behind the popular and acclaimed iPhone and iPad game The Incident. They've just announced a brand new title, coming out later on this year. The as-yet-unnamed game will be announced at Portland's XOXO Festival (the gathering funded by Kickstarter and organized by Andy Baio), and will be previewed there. According to Mrgan, parts of XOXO will be open to the public, so if you're in Portland, you can stop by and see it if you like. We'll look forward to hearing more about this game. Both of these guys are super talented, and whatever they're planning to show off will almost certainly be a lot of fun. #next_pages_container { width: 5px; hight: 5px; position: absolute; top: -100px; left: -100px; z-index: 2147483647 !important; } #next_pages_container { width: 5px; hight: 5px; position: absolute; top: -100px; left: -100px; z-index: 2147483647 !important; }
iOS game The Incident recreated in real life
The Incident, a retro-style game for iOS devices that makes players avoid and jump on mountains of debris falling from the sky in order to reach the top, has been recreated in real life by some enterprising young gamers. Brought to our attention by MacStories, the video of the "sweding" (remaking something from scratch using whatever you can get your hands on) of The Incident is quite amusing to watch as these guys remake everything, from the opening credits to the music and the large items "falling" from the sky that the real-life player must avoid and climb up on. Our own Mike Schramm reviewed The Incident back in August of last year and called it "worth every cent of the US$1.99" it sells for on the App Store, so you gamers into retro action may want to check it out. We've seen some creative sweding of games before, like this live-action version of Angry Birds, but the video of The Incident is a must-see for gaming fans of any ilk. Click Read More to watch the real-life video of The Incident in action. [via Kotaku and MacStories]
The best iOS apps I used in 2010
After looking back over Mac and Mac/iOS hybrid apps, it's time to look at the best iOS apps of 2010. As before, this list comes from my particular experience over the past year with these apps. 1) iCab Mobile (US$1.99, universal) is a replacement for mobile Safari. While it is hindered by the fact that iOS doesn't have anywhere to set a "default browser," and therefore most URLs that you open from the Springboard or email/Twitter/etc... will open in Safari, iCab offers plenty of features that make it worth the effort. It is the first app on my dock, and I much prefer it over Safari. Although it uses the same rendering engine as Safari, it comes with a host of features that Safari doesn't have. iCab Mobile will let you download files, which you can either offload to your computer later or upload to Dropbox from right within the app. Tap and hold an image, and you can save it right to your Dropbox. iCab on the iPad also does "real" tabs, with a visible tab present (it will auto-hide when not needed, if you want). You can set it to open links in new tabs, or open only links to different domains in new tabs. It has content filtering built-in, as well as module support for things like Instapaper, viewing HTML source or even downloading videos from YouTube. It also has a forms manager and a kiosk mode, and as Mike pointed out in November it supports VGA mirroring for presentation use. Web browsing is one of the primary uses of my iPad, and iCab Mobile is well worth the minimal asking price. Find out more at iCab Mobile's website. See the rest of my choices below.
New version of The Incident offers glimpse of world where Apple TV is the console, iPhone is the controller
We love us some big fancy grown-up consoles like the PS3 and Xbox 360, but ever since we saw the new Apple TV we've been wondering what would happen if Apple gave it the App Store and let developers go wild. Surely the results would look a lot like the video above. The developers of The Incident are showing off the upcoming 1.3 build of their ultra-addictive falling objects platformer, which allows for an iPhone to control the game while it's running on an iPad, which is in turn outputting video to the TV. Of course, The Incident guys aren't the first to think of this, we actually saw an SNES emulator running on a jailbroken iPad months ago, and plenty of other apps use the iPhone as a controller. Still, it's some pretty great execution, and the iPad video out seems to be key. Still seem tame to you? Imagine the OnLive iPhone app up and running on this thing. Mind = blown, right? Right.
The Incident update includes iPhone as iPad controller
I'm a sucker for retro 8-bit games, and the addicting iPhone/iPad game The Incident is no exception. Its interface is simplistic, but gameplay is fast and fun. What's more, it's a universal app that costs only $1.99 -- a bargain! The app has just recently undergone a significant update, including a new "Endless Night" mode, additional objects and music, and new balloon power-ups/downs. But the neatest addition to the app is the ability to use your iPad as the gameplay screen and an iPhone as the controller! I gave the game a go in controller-mode, and it was surprisingly responsive. Tilt the phone to move Mr. Soloway to the left and right, tap the screen to jump -- that's all the controls you need, and they work flawlessly. Thankfully they made it difficult to accidentally tap out of controller mode, requiring you to use a slider to deactivate. Of course, you need both an iPad and iPhone to try the new controller feature. If you have both, definitely give it a try. Hopefully we'll see a lot more games give this feature a go in the future.
App review: The Incident
Like its contemporary, Canabalt, The Incident is a game that knows exactly what it is -- and is not -- and plays to those strengths to a T. The basic premise of this iPhone title is simple enough, and in that simplicity (as with many great games) lies its power. You are Frank Solway, a lone man involved in a day that has gone completely out of whack -- namely, objects have begun falling from the sky, and you need to get out of the way. That's it. That's the whole game. You dash and jump while all manner of items come hurtling towards you from above; Mini Coopers, Ikea bookshelves, bikes, fences, arcade cabinets... really just about anything you can think of. Your goal is to avoid what's coming next (teased by a flashing white strip along the top of the screen), grab the variety of power-ups that happen by, and keep getting as high as you can to reach checkpoints. It's amazingly fun, and the charm of the game is doubled by developer Big Bucket's use of retro, 8-bit graphics along with a pitch-perfect chiptune soundtrack. The effect is terrific, blending the best of what we love from our NES years with the kind of gaming that's perfectly suited to a mobile device. We can't overstate how polished The Incident seems -- the developers have made all the right decisions, and the result is a game you pick up quickly, but can't put back down. If you've got $1.99 to spare, why are you still reading this?
TUAW's Daily App: The Incident
The Incident makes for one of the best reasons to be a gamer and own an iPhone -- it's a purely indie affair, with excellent pixel graphics and game design by Neven Mrgan and Matt Comi and terrific chiptunes by Cabel Sasser. And it's a wacky little concoction that doesn't sound like it will work, but of course does, and well. You play a little guy who, standing in the street one day, is suddenly assaulted by falling objects from above. There's a little bit more to uncover, but that's really all you need -- you can tilt the iPhone back and forth to move your guy around in 2D, and tap on the screen to jump out of the way of falling objects above, marked by a warning flash on top of the screen. It sounds strange, and it is, but it works. The controls are responsive, the graphics are colorful, and the game perfectly captures that "one more try" feeling as you ascend through the seven levels, climbing up on the fallen objects all the way to the top of the sky. There are lots of coins, med packs, and extra lives to collect as you go, but the tough part is just staying out of the way -- three hits on the noggin costs you a life (and gives you a trophy to remember what wacky object killed you). There are many, many objects in the game, too, and you'll undoubtedly be surprised by what falls on you next. It's a great game, worth every cent of the US $1.99 they're selling it for in the App Store. Terrific little indie games like this are what make the iPhone platform really shine.
