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Relax Japanese-style with Yoritsuki
Here's an app I picked up early last week that's earned a permanent home on my iPhone. Yoritsuki* by HYBRIDWORKS places you in a (virtual) Japanese inn complete with a beautiful view. More of a toy than a game, Yoritsuki lets you customize the scene's appearance and behavior. The main screen depicts the perspective of someone sitting on tatami mats and gazing upon a wooded pond through shoji (sliding doors). The doors are customizable: Choose from 15 designs, slide them open and closed or eliminate them entirely. The time of day depicted depends on your iPod/iPhone's clock, and the season is determined by the date. Of course, you can opt to show winter, spring, summer or fall at any time. Birds fly by and chip, leaves fall in autumn and snow in the winter while the sound of rushing water is ever present. At night, fireflies (or "lightning bugs" as we called them in Scranton) fly past. OK, Yoritsuki isn't all form; there's some function, too. With a tap, the mats and doors disappeaer leaving you with the nature scene and a 24-hour clock. Once you've come to appreciate the app as I have, pick up the additional goodies, like gorgeous Mac desktop icons and wallpaper for your Mac and iPhone/iPod touch. Yoritsuki costs US$1.99 and is available now [iTunes link]. *Note: "Yoritsuki" is the name of a fictional inn.
TUAW First Look: Hippo High Jump
There are beautiful games on App Store and there are fun games on App Store, and there are some games that are cool just because of the story that goes along with them. Hippo High Jump [iTunes link] falls into the categories of strikingly beautiful, somewhat fun, and great back story. The story goes like this. Keith Shepherd and Natalia Luckyanova attended the 360iDev conference a few weeks back and joined in in the iPhone game jam. The jam offered an all-night coding marathon, where "people teamed up and had to build a fully working game in 1 night. We built the first version of Hippo High Dive from 8pm to around 6am the next day." You can see a video of the early prototype here. After polishing the game up with the help of their artist pal, Kiril, the pair submitted Hippo High Dive to App Store where it just recently went live. Costing just a dollar, Hippo High Dive does not offer a huge amount of play flexibility. You basically jump your hippo off a diving board and navigate her through burning hoops to a bucket of water below. I'll admit I have the attention span of a gnat with ADHD, but the game did not really keep my attention. The art on the other hand definitely did. The video above does not do justice to the beautiful look of the game. The artistry both retains the original hand-drawn "let's whip up a game" style while pushing it forward into gorgeous design. The layered three-d effects while "climbing" the ladder as a prelude to the dive took my breath away. So, in the end, it's a bit hard to rate the game. I found the actual gameplay a bit meh. My coordination skills are weak at best and this is not the kind of fine motion control I generally enjoy. At the same time, I absolutely adored the visual design. If you're a game developer, consider hiring that artist.
Local paper profiles TCG $50k winner
This is cool -- after local paper the Winter Park/Maitland Observer (near Orlando, Florida) heard that the winner of Upper Deck's last WoW TCG World Championships was from the same area, they went and found him, fittingly, in a game store. William Postlewaite, a.k.a. Billy P, won $50,000 just for playing the WoW Trading Card Game very, very well. While there's not a lot of info on the actual mechanics behind his win (this is a local paper, after all), it's very interesting to get a look at the player himself -- he works at the game store while going to school to learn finance, and spent about two months testing decks of cards with a friend before he found the one that he thought could go all the way. And what's he doing with all of his winnings? He's planning to buy a house. Smart play. You always hear about these wild sums being won by card game players -- good to know that this set of winnings is going to what seems like a good guy.
EA CEO says digital gaming sales will overtake console numbers next year
Need more evidence that physical media is inching towards the door? Enter this Reuters conversation with Electronic Arts CEO John Riccitiello. While the company -- the largest publisher of "interactive entertainment" (AKA video games) -- is hurting on sales during the awesome global recession currently underway, he thinks the future is digital. All digital. Riccitiello had this to say on the matter: "When people think of games, they traditionally think, in the U.S., of what sells on the Xbox, the PlayStation, and the Wii, and they forget about all these online services that are out there... if you add all that stuff up, it's almost half the industry now. It's about 40 to 45 percent. Next year it's likely to be the larger share of the total industry and it'll be bigger than the console games all put together." He went on to say that if EA's digital arm was a standalone company, "it would be like the darling of Wall Street." Of course, he's not just talking about XBLA and the App Store -- this is an all-encompassing view of the digital market, including casual gaming, Facebook apps, and WoW transactions as well. It may not be the kind of all-encompassing push needed, but we are hoping this sort of noise rattles the industry enough to mobilize smarter, more centralized methods of online distribution.
Airport diversion: Adrenaline Golf Online
I think the iPhone really solves the 'sitting at the airport with hours to kill' problem quite well. As iPhone owners, we know we can browse the web, catch up on email or the news, even check to see why your flight is late. I have another suggestion. Give Adrenaline Golf Online [iTunes link] a try. It is one of the few games that really harnesses the power of 3GS graphics, but look quite good if you are on older hardware, and it works fine on an iPod touch too. The game is basically miniature golf, with a pretty accurate physics engine. There are 72 courses in 3 different game modes. You can play online with golfers all over the world, or just play by your lonesome. There are 4 different playing environments for 18 courses, which is how you get a total of 72. There is beach, forest, lava, and night. The animation and rendering of water and reflections is really stunning. The game play is challenging, and I easily blew an hour working through a couple of the courses. All the courses have 3 difficulty levels, and have interesting challenges in getting your ball in the hole past a series of animated obstacles. I'm not really a big game person, but I was instantly hooked by Adrenaline Golf. If I have any criticism it is that it is hard to predict how a particular hole will play and how far the ball will roll. Eventually I got the hang of it. It might seem a little pricey at U.S. $4.99, but I think the effort involved in making this game was substantial, and I didn't mind the higher tariff. If you're stuck at an airport or have time on your hands I suggest giving this game a try. I think it is especially good for people who like pool and miniature golf. Here's a gallery of some screen shots: %Gallery-79255%
Song Summoner and sequel coming to iPhone
I actually did buy Song Summoner, the strange, out-of-nowhere tactics RPG from Square Enix that was made for the iPod last year. Yes, that's right it was made for the iPod -- at a time when everyone was waiting to see pro apps on the iPhone and the iPod touch, Square released a game controlled with a click wheel that used your iPod's songs as characters in a tactical RPG. And now, we've heard that Song Summoner is returning -- this time as a touchscreen based iPhone app. I have to say -- especially if you like Square Enix RPGs in the style of Final Fantasy Tactics, and you're intrigued by the "song conversion" engine (you choose a song in your mp3 playlists to import into the game, and then it becomes a character with specific stats), it's definitely worth a look. And for Song Summoner completists, the game comes with a sequel as well, unreleased due to Apple's dropping support of clickwheel games (which makes sense, given the App Store's popularity). It'll be in the App Store on December 3rd. No price listed yet, but there will be a lite version to try as well.
Super Monkey Ball 2 arrives for iPhone
Super Monkey Ball 2 [iTunes Link] is now available for the iPhone. There is good news and bad news, and yes, some of it relates to App Store policies which are out of developers' hands. I bought the original Super Monkey Ball [iTunes Link] for US$10 on the first day the App Store was available (July 10, 2008, for those who might some day want to win a trivia contest). I had seen the demo and couldn't wait to get my hands on it. I also bought Bejeweled 2 [iTunes Link] for $10 on that same day. Bejeweled 2 is now selling for $3 and the original Super Monkey Ball is selling for $4. If you ask me, Bejeweled is a steal at the price, and the original version of Super Monkey Ball isn't worth $0.99. It was far too "twitchy" for my taste. I tried everything to steady my hands, but I was never able to get enough precise control to be able to enjoy the game. In all the time I've had it, I bet I've played it less than an hour. Every time I tried, it ended quickly in frustration, usually with my shouting "Drown, stupid monkey! Drown!" I wasn't alone in my frustration. Macworld's first look at Super Monkey Ball 2 begins with this look back: "The original Super Monkey Ball was an App Store launch game and sold like gangbusters. Taking advantage of the iPhone's accelerometer controls and already possessing a huge following thanks to its console success, Super Monkey Ball was one of the most highly anticipated apps on the iPhone. The only problem was: it wasn't very good." Macworld went on to say that Sega had (at that point) not announced a cost. Part of me deeply hoped that they would release it as a free update. As I see it, there are two big remaining flaws in the App Store (ignoring, for the moment, the whole approval process): 1) the lack of demo versions (either timed or number of launches), and 2) no way for developers to provide for upgrade pricing. That means that there is no way for people who bought Super Monkey Ball to get a deal on Super Monkey Ball 2. That left Sega with two choices: 1) release it as an update, meaning anyone who bought Super Monkey Ball would get it for free; or 2) release it as a separate app, meaning that anyone who bought v. 1 has to pay full price for v. 2. The App Store does not give them any other choice.
On the first night of Christmas, my true love game to me - free game apps
The folks at Blacksmithgames have come up with a really nifty idea. They've created an Advent calendar, or in their words, an appventcalendar. Each day from now until Christmas, a new door will open showing an iPhone game app that you can get for free, but only for one day. Being December 1st, the first door just opened and what's behind it is 33rd Division [iTunes Link] a line-drawing stealth game where the goal is to escort your troops while avoiding enemy patrols. 33rd Division is for any iPhone or iPod touch running OS 2.2.1 or later. Tomorrow its price will go back to US $0.99 and another door will be opened. Blacksmithgames promises a mix of well known and undiscovered games to keep things interesting. So go on over and pick yourself up a free game. Then keep checking back for new surprises.
Xbox Live app for iPhone
360 Live [App Store link] certainly isn't the first Xbox 360 app to hit the iPhone, but it's definitely one of the most full-featured, offering gamertag management, complete friends list access, messaging capability, games library browsing (with achievements and all), and even a CoverFlow-style friend browser just for good measure. It is pretty darn impressive -- if there's anything you need to do with your Xbox Live account (Gold account required for messaging) while away from your actual 360, this app will let you do it. There is one issue: it's $1.99. Technically, that's not bad -- an app like this is probably worth the $2 especially if browsing your friends' games is something you do often. But the catch is that Microsoft recently stated that all apps that tag in to Xbox 360's online service must be sold for the low, low price of free. So one of two things will probably happen here -- either the app will drop down to free (in which case, you might as well save your $2), or Microsoft might end up blocking it, either on the App Store or in the actual Xbox Live connection. Hopefully, whatever happens, we'll end up with a solution
The Daily Grind: Did you take advantage of Black Friday sales?
So, it's Tired Saturday -- the day when you spent the previous night with your friends, out enjoying the beginning of the long weekend after stuffing your face on Thanksgiving. Of course, you might have been doing something else that was very important yesterday -- shopping.Whether it was online or in the stores, the Black Friday sales were everywhere! We even made a guide about some of the deals so you, the MMO fiend, would know where to shop and what to keep your eye on. With so many deals, we couldn't help ourselves to picking up a few titles.So did you guys take advantage of what was being offered? If so, tell us all about your Black Friday spoils, or perhaps any other sales you're looking forward to! We're eager to hear what you claimed in the madness for yourself!
Nintendo Wii has lion's share of female console gamers
Nintendo's been doing a bit of digging and it turns out it's already won the console wars. If we're only talking about the ladies, that is. A whopping 80% of American female primary gamers (the person who primarily uses the console rather than the occasional dabblers) do their thing on the Wii, which we see as a clear indication to the graphics-obsessed Xbox 360 and PS3 developers that women prefer their games to be fun to play, rather than just look at. Maybe if we also stopped dressing female characters in swimsuits, they'd find non-Wii games relatable too -- that's just a guess though, probably wrong.
Gameloft backs iPhone and backs away from Android
To iPhone or not to iPhone? That is the question on which a number of high-profile app developers are weighing-in. A couple of weeks ago it was Facebook app developer Joe Hewitt and software maker Rogue Amoeba saying they'd had enough of jumping through hoops to be on the iPhone and that they'd be working on other things. Last week, Instapaper web-service and iPhone app [iTunes link] developer Marco Arment said, "Go if you want to, but there are more than enough people in the App Store to keep me fat and happy and not nearly enough in any other mobile app ecosystem to draw me away." I'm paraphrasing of course. Now, French mobile phone game developer Gameloft has given its two cents. According to a company exec, Gameloft and other software developers are drawing down the resources spent on developing applications for Google's Android platform. Gameloft finance director Alexandre de Rochefort said at an investor conference late last week, "We have significantly cut our investment in Android platform, just like ... many others." Did he say what others? No. Did he say why? Yes. Rochefort, like Instapaper's Arment, says the people just aren't there for the Android. "It is not as neatly done as on the iPhone," says the exec. "Google has not been very good to entice customers to actually buy products. On Android nobody is making significant revenue." Meanwhile on the App Store, money flows like water for Gameloft and the water's fine. Games for Apple's handhelds generated 13% of Gameloft's revenue last quarter. According to Rochefort, Gameloft is selling 400 times as many games for the iPhone and iPod touch as it is for the various Android powered phones. [via Reuters]
Apple tablet(s) in 2H 2010 with OLED screen and tailored content in tow?
Rumors of the mythical Apple tablet's release were just starting to coalesce around an early 2010 release, so naturally DigiTimes is now reporting that the much ballyhooed device won't show up until the second half of next year. Apple is said to have given itself more time to swap out internals and install a 9.7-inch OLED display from LG, which meshes with earlier rumors about where the relationship between the two companies was heading. Sources expect the opening retail price to be around a hefty $2,000, but for the budget-conscious there will also be a 10.6-inch LCD version that will land somewhere between $800 and $1,000. Or so we're told. Somewhat more concrete is the news that Conde Nast, publisher of Wired Magazine, has openly confirmed that it is developing a digital version of its tech magazine for consumption on the Apple tablet, with the rest of its content catalog to soon follow. Its own estimate of having the paid-for digitized magazines, which will include Vogue and GQ, ready for the middle of 2010 also jibes with the reported delays. Then again, Apple has refused to discuss the unannounced device with anyone, leaving Conde and Adobe developing the necessary software in the dark.
iAssociate: Mind mapping fun
Last year, I was introduced to Funny Farm while working on a team project with my inlaws. I absolutely loved the idea of a puzzle that grew as you solved parts of it. The game works by associating words with their natural connections, e.g. "On the Farm" could inspire you to think of cow, chicken, and farmer (among other words). You then spin out those ideas to further connections. The chicken might be associated with rooster, hen, and egg, and so forth. So I was really excited to encounter iAssociate (iTunes link). Developed by Fredrik Wahrman, iAssociate brings Funny Farm-style interaction to the iPhone. It's a really fun (and quite challenging) implementation with over a half dozen separate puzzles to work on, promising hours and hours of game play. Each puzzle starts you out with a core idea. It's up to you to brainstorm ideas that fit around that idea, expanding each node into a wider set of associations. The word map is easy to scroll, and even though the iPhone display is quiter small, you can interact with a virtually large puzzle. The game play is slightly different from Funny Farm in that instead of entering text into a central guessing area, you type text directly into nodes. If there are five nodes with six letters each, enter your guess into the central node, matching against all connected nodes. (You do get partial credit for guessing the right starting letters but the wrong word.) I have only one real beef with iAssociate, which Wahrman promises me is being addressed in the next release. And that is the text size, particularly for the instructions. As you can see in the following image, helper overlay text is tiny. Speaking as a member of the graying community with weak eyes and a growing obsession with high fiber foods, iAssociate proved to me that I really need to look into bifocals or reading glasses. The text was headache-inducing small. Beyond that, iAssociate was a blast to play. I enjoyed stretching my neurons a little and it makes a very good game for collaborating with friends. I do wish that Wahrman had built in some kind of multi-player feature, so groups could work on the puzzle together rather than be limited to pass-and-play. Hopefully that will be added in the future. iAssociate costs $1.99 on the App Store. You can download a few versions (under the name "Associate This" (iTunes Link) as well, allowing you to try the game play before committing to buying the full product. TUAW received a review promo code for this write-up.
OnLive claims to run gaming service on iPhone
OnLive is a company that has been claiming to do the seemingly impossible -- they plan to set up a sort of "cloud gaming" console, where instead of hardware in individual houses (like we have now; you buy a console for your home), they'll have hardware over the Internet, and stream your game to you like watching television. All of the processing and coding will be done on a remote server, but with signals flowing from your controller, it'll seem like you're just playing Xbox at home. It all works in theory, but in practice, Internet connections aren't solid or stable enough to send commands and full HD video back and forth without enough lag to make things unplayable. Still, without actually releasing a product so far, OnLive claims they can do it, and now they're claiming to do it on the iPhone as well. AppleInsider reports that at a recent event in New York, OnLive showed off the same game service running on "2 iPhones, a tv, and a computer" simultaneously, with gamers on all the devices able to communicate and watch each others' gameplay. CEO Steve Perlman admits it's a "tech demo," but doesn't go into detail on what that means (it could simply be a demo running separately on the devices, to show what it would be like, or I've heard of OnLive events where the server is sitting in the room next door). And of course, there's no date or information on an actual release yet. OnLive's service definitely sounds possible someday -- as Internet connections get faster and hardware gets even cheaper, it's not a stretch to think we'll eventually move the heavy processor lifting to another location, leaving much tinier consoles and PCs taking up space on our desks and TV stands at home. But so far all it seems they've got is an idea (and the money that excited financiers have put into the project). We'll have to believe it works when we see it.
Tony Hawk Ride ready to rock indoor tricks in the US (video)
After that false alarm about an October release date, the Tony Hawk: Ride bandwagon was all set for departure on November 17 and that's exactly what's happened. Available for a cent under $120, the new game / peripheral combo will allow players to shimmy, gesture, and ollie their way to (simulated) skateboarding immortality on the PS3, Xbox 360, and Wii. The earliest European availability we can see is offered by Amazon UK, which indicates a December 4 launch for the Queen's isles and a discounted £89 ($149) price. You can check out our own feets-on with that wireless controller right here or, if you so wish, peruse the full PR at the read link. What's not optional, however, is missing the bonus "making of" video for that most radical of peripherals, which we've lovingly prepared for you just after the break.
Star Wars: Trench Run for the $5 Jedi in all of us
Simply put: Star Wars: Trench Run [iTunes link] is awesome. The idea is fairly simple: you are re-enacting the final battle scene from the first Star Wars movie, and if you think that refers to The Phantom Menace, may God have mercy on your soul. There's a dogfight, with you in your X-wing versus several TIE Fighters. That's followed by your descent into the trench on the Death Star where you face off against TIE Fighters, cannons, and obstacles that you have to fly over or under, all while avoiding being lined up Darth Vader's crosshairs. When you get to the end of the trench, you have to try to hit the exhaust port and blow up the Death Star. My method of evaluating games is simple: 1. Is it fun to play? 2. Is it something that I'll still want to play after I've played it for awhile?
Apple seeks game guru for app development
While some say Apple never wanted the iPhone to be a gaming device, the company knows which way the wind is blowing and wants to get involved. Apple is looking to hire a game and media software engineer for its iPhone and iPod touch team, which could mean it wants to make games of its own. The job description doesn't say "games" specifically, focusing instead on "interactive multimedia experiences." However, the ad is looking for someone with "3-4 years of video game development experience," someone who has "shipped at least one AAA title," and someone who is a "passionate gamer." id Software co-founder John Carmack says higher-ups in Apple aren't overjoyed with the growing status of the iPhone and iPod touch as gaming devices. But there's big money in games. Research firm DFC Intelligence sees profits for dedicated game-device makers like Sony and Nintendo shrinking 27% over the next five years, while expecting revenue from games for Apple's handhelds to rise from $46 million last year, to $2.8 billion dollars by 2014. That's a lot of money flowing through Apple, though most of that will go to developers. With over 100,000 apps available in the App Store, only four available today are made by Apple, and only one of those - Texas Hold'em (iTunes link) is a game. [via Apple Insider]
Entelligence: Got game?
Entelligence is a column by technology strategist and author Michael Gartenberg, a man whose desire for a delicious cup of coffee and a quality New York bagel is dwarfed only by his passion for tech. In these articles, he'll explore where our industry is and where it's going -- on both micro and macro levels -- with the unique wit and insight only he can provide. There was a lot of buzz last week when Apple announced that there now more than 100,000 applications in iPhone App Store, and more than two billion apps downloaded. Those are impressive numbers. A former Palm executive recently told me that in the heyday of Palm OS, two thirds of users never installed a third party app and the average "power user" installed around ten. That averages out to about two apps per device -- a pretty low number compared to most iPhone users, even novice users. But that's only part of the story. A few months ago, I discussed the viability of multiple mobile OS platforms and how it's not likely that they all will survive long term, and one big reason Apple's platform looks better and better is entertainment apps. Looking at my own device, once you get past the three core apps I use all the time (Mail, Tweetie, and Byline, a Google Reader app), the bulk of my hundred plus apps are all entertainment related -- and most of them aren't available on any other platform. When you look at the out-of-the-box experience of most smartphones today, they're all pretty good when it comes to basics. Email, web browsing, personal information management, and voice are all acceptable. What's missing are the applications and experience that make up mobile entertainment. Media and content consumption are one core pillar. Games are another.
Zune HD 3D games video hands-on
It took us a tick to get our Zune HD loaded up with those new 3D games that were released this morning, but we thought you might want to check out a quick hands-on. That Tegra chip is no joke -- the graphics in PGR: Ferrari Edition are easily on par with the PSP and quite possibly better, with intricate textures, high-quality reflections, and smooth framerates. The other games aren't nearly as intense, but they're just as smooth. Best of all? They're free -- although you will have to look at a Zune ad while they load. Not the worst tradeoff in the world, but we'd love to see what paid app developers could do if Microsoft would open this beast up. Check the video after the break.
