army of darkness defense
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TUAW Best of 2011: Vote for the best iPad game
The nominations are in, and the poll is ready to go! The TUAW Best of 2011 awards are all about you -- the readers -- and what you think is the cream of the crop of Apple or third-party products and software. To vote, select one entry from the top nominations made by readers. We'll be announcing the winner in just a few days. Vote early and often! TUAW is asking for your votes for the best iPad game of 2011. This was a tough call, as we had a wide spectrum of nominations, all of which are excellent and top-rated games for iPad. There are six nominees in this category: Osmos for iPad (US$4.99), Words With Friends HD ($0.99), Carcassonne ($9.99), The Bard's Tale ($4.99), Army of Darkness Defense HD (free), and Ascension: Chronicle of the Godslayer ($4.99). And now, let the voting begin! The results will be announced on December 31, 2011. %Poll-72371%
Spirits, Supermarket Mania 2, Tesla Wars free, Evil Dead and Golden Axe 3 out now
For whatever reason, there are a few solid free apps available on the App Store today. First up, Spirits, the excellent and artsy Lemmings-style platformer, is free for download on both the iPhone and the iPad. Supermarket Mania 2, the supermarket-based time management game, is also free for a limited time. Rat on a Skateboard has gone completely free after a recent update, and stick figure tower defense app Tesla Wars has also decided go for the low, low price of zero dollars (while adding some in-app purchases). All excellent apps -- pick them up for free if you haven't yet. Elsewhere on the store, there are a few big releases that are not free. Backflip Studios has released its long-awaited Evil Dead game: Army of Darkness Defense uses clips and characters from the great Bruce Campbell movie in a sort of reverse tower defense game, and it's only a buck for a limited time. And Sega has released Golden Axe 3 on the App Store for $2.99 -- not only is the fantasy hack-and-slash sequel finally available, but this also means Sega has run out of old-school Golden Axe sequels to release on iOS. Maybe this means we can get an original Golden Axe game for the platform?
Army of Darkness brings Ash, boomstick to iOS
The Evil Dead series has spawned a handful of mediocre video games throughout the years. Surprisingly, the third film, Army of Darkness -- which centers on a giant medieval battle between humans and the undead -- has never been tapped for a game adaptation. Backflip Studios looks to change that with Army of Darkness: Defense, a tower defense game for iPhone and iPad. The game has players taking control of Ash, summoning up troops to defend Lord Arthur's castle as the Deadites attempt to steal the Necronomicon. Army of Darkness: Defense also includes "over 150 direct lines of dialogue from Bruce Campbell as Ash Williams," so we hope you're not sick of hearing this just yet. Army of Darkness: Defense debuts this Thursday for $0.99 on iPhone/iPod and $2.99 on iPad.
GDC 2011: Backflip Studios' Boss Battles, Army of Darkness Defense, and more
Backflip Studios' Julian Farrior was here in attendance at GDC 2011 this week. His company has been doing quite well lately, and he tells me that they've recently hit 85 million downloads across all of their free apps, with over 23 million monthly active users. In plain terms, that means that tons of people have downloaded Backflip's apps (like Paper Toss, Ragdoll Blaster and the popular NinJump), and they're playing them often as well. As I heard at last year's conference, Farrior is all about experimentation, using paid downloads, freemium apps and a large, well-organized network of in-app advertising to drive traffic around and monetize his company's users. He has a relatively large slate of games due out in 2011, including four social games that we'll be hearing about later in the year, and a few games using various models that I got to see in action. Boss Battles was the first -- it was still in an early stage of development, but the idea is that Farrior wants to try to marry a scrolling arcade shooter (like Gradius) with the freemium business model.
