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Temple Run 2 appearing today on the App Store
Uber-popular game Temple Run's surprise sequel has hit is about to hit the US App Store. Released earlier today in the New Zealand App Store, Temple Run 2 builds on the success of the first Temple Run, while ratcheting up the graphics, physics and gameplay. TouchArcade got its hands on an early copy of Temple Run 2 and the site says that everything users loved from the first game is still there. Namely, that's our hero running his butt off from scary monkey monsters. However, Temple Run 2 builds upon its predecessor in leaps and bounds. The game takes place during a perpetual dusk in a floating temple in the sky. All the graphics have been improved, but the real pleasure in Temple Run 2 comes from its more fluid movements. In the first game, turns were made very mechanically -- at 90 degree angles. Temple Run 2's environments are more hilly and curvy and turns and movements have a more real, natural feel. Also the game adds other improvements, like stretches where you're operating a mine car and the ability to play as four different characters. Temple Run 2 is available now as a free download. Stay tuned -- we'll have an interview with Imangi Studios, the creators of both Temple Run versions, on the site later on this evening.
The staggering size of iOS's game collection
Update: see below for an updated graph that supercedes this one. How big is iOS as a gaming platform? I wondered to myself on an idle rainy afternoon. After all, we hear a lot about how the App Store has passed eleventy gajillion downloads, or how it makes people richer than astronauts, but I wanted some context around these numbers -- something to make the abstract mean something. I chose a subject close to my heart: games. And then I compiled the data that lead to the graph you see above. iOS has nearly three times more games than the previous twenty-five years of gaming combined. Now, I have to admit that there are some caveats to this data. The iOS count is just a scrape of the App Store's active titles in the "games" category; there is a lot of double counting in there from demo versions of games. The same thing applies on the other side of the balance for multi-platform games -- there must be at least half a dozen versions of Street Fighter 2 and Doom. I've ignored some smaller console platforms that were hard to obtain numbers for. I couldn't consider games played on computers as there is little reliable data for platforms that don't have the strong publisher control that characterizes game consoles; for example, World of Spectrum lists 9,544 games for the popular 8-bit home computer series. Clearly, including those would change the graph around completely. That aside, I still think there is a message here, which is that the App Store is a huge force in gaming. Apple has tapped into a massive market that was previously going largely unfulfilled, and plenty of developers are making piles of cash out of it. Of course, more software doesn't equal better software, and if it did, we'd all be using Windows instead of OS X. I don't think there are any iOS games in my personal top 50 games of all time list. That isn't to say that I don't play a lot of iOS games, or that I don't enjoy them; for me, they just tend to be pleasant diversions rather than the sort of experience that compels me to stay up until 3AM playing just one more turn. (There's an honorable exception for Civilization Revolution on the iPad, though.)
Words With Friends HD for iPad gets a free version
While the paid version of Words With Friends HD has been enjoyed by iPad owners who are willing to spend US$2.99 for quite some time, those of you looking for the free version are now in luck. Touch Arcade says that, just like its iPhone cousin, this version (released by Newtoy) is supported by in-game advertising, and does almost everything that the paid version is able to do; it even has the ability to play up to 20 simultaneous games. Since this game seems to take up a good chunk of my day, being able to get it for free is just an added bonus for an already great game. And really, who minds the little ads when the app is free? With more than two million daily users, I am guessing that not too many people do.
DOS emulator for iOS released, runs Windows 3.0
This seems like the kind of thing that Apple wouldn't want on the App Store (and indeed, it may soon disappear when they figure it out), but then again, after the relaxing of the rules, maybe they're OK with this one. Touch Arcade has discovered iDOS on the App Store -- it's a DOSbox-based disk operating system emulator that runs on iOS. And it apparently does everything that DOS does, including, as you can see in the picture, running Windows 3.0 complete with the Solitaire game. The app is a 99 cent universal app for iPhone and iPad, and unfortunately, it's not user friendly at all -- if you don't remember your old DOS commands, the app's not set up to make things easy for you. The app also includes what the description calls "freeware/abandonware" like Ms. Pac Man PC, and DigDug, but you can upload other games and files through iTunes. Honestly, this is awesome, but it seems a little too open for Apple's tastes. I can't see how it would ever hurt the iOS device (you're running everything from within the app, and Apple could simply assume that you own any copies of software that you install on there), but this is one app that may have snuck through the gates. At any rate, iDOS is now available on the App Store -- if it disappears later on, we'll let you know. Update: We're getting reports that it's been pulled, not unexpectedly so. We'll have to see if the devs want to fight to try and keep it up. It's certainly possible to release an emulator app on the App Store, but Apple's touchy about the subject, to say the least.
Games updated for Game Center (soon)
As you might have noticed if you've added a few friends in Apple's new Game Center service, the backbone social components are working great. But where, exactly, are all of the games? Developers have actually had access to Apple's service for quite a while now -- it was introduced to them under NDA way back at WWDC. But for some reason, Apple seems to be waiting on approving Game Center-enabled games. Fortunately, they're coming, probably as soon as Apple can approve them. Touch Arcade forum member Project-79 has been keeping track of which games have said that they'll be Game Center-enabled. As soon as updates roll out for games like Field Runners, Flight Control, Super Mega Worm and Angry Birds, you'll be able to jump in and earn achievements with them. Keep in mind that some of the best games on Game Center are still to come: Gameloft's Dungeon Hunter 2 was leaked via a Game Center screen, and of course we're all waiting to see what Epic Games' Project Sword looks like, ever since it was shown off with full GC functionality at last week's Apple event. There are games coming for Game Center, and they should be here soon. Update: Apparently Ms. PAC-MAN is the first game to get updated with Game Center support. You might want to wait, though -- we've heard it's not a very good version.
360iDev: Game Jam creations
Tuesday night at the 360iDev conference in San Jose, around 60 developers gathered in a room on the eBay campus around 8pm as security locked them in for the night (one developer joined the group via Skype -- that's him on the big screen above). Their goal? A game jam. Before 8am the next day, they would put together working prototypes of games, either based on their own ideas, or revolving around the night's theme of "Tiny." Not all developers were there to make new games -- a few were there to work on current projects or offer up their help to others. But up until 2am and beyond (that's about when I chickened out and let them work), the room was full of developers punching away on their keyboards, writing code, designing art, and, well, developing. I originally thought that it was just a lark; a fun project that gave everyone an excuse to spend the night on the eBay campus. But no, this was serious stuff -- apparently at least one App Store game has its origins in past game jams at these conferences. So while developers were just testing their skills at putting their ideas into motion, it's possible that we may see some of these prototypes show up on the App Store eventually as working products. After the break, we'll provide a look at what a few developers were up to at Tuesday's game jam.
GDC 2010: The secret to App Store success
For the last panel of GDC 2010 day two, David Whatley of Critical Thought took the stage to talk about the App Store success he found with his games geoDefense and geoDefense Swarm, and almost dared other iPhone developers to follow his "guaranteed plan" to go from "zero to Time Magazine." He's got quite a background in the trenches of coding and game development, having designed and run online mulitplayer games for over a decade with his "day job" at a company called Simutronics, but he decided to take to the iPhone in his spare time both to learn the platform and see what he could do with it. First things first, he said, to make an iPhone game, you've got to figure out your goals as a business. He talked about the potential on the iPhone in terms of millions of dollars, but of course, since "99.9% of businesses on the App Store make no money," it's much more likely that if something goes wrong during development or something doesn't click right, the money will drop down to just "a few bucks." It's a balance of costs (which he relabeled as "risks") vs. revenue -- it's very easy, he said, to make money on the App Store, but the issue most developers have is that they let costs get away from them by having too big a team or by investing too much development time, and that comes straight out of their bottom line.
Zen Bound 2 coming soon with beefed-up graphics, smoother interface
The fine gents at Touch Arcade have the first confirmation and screenshot of the sequel to one of our favorite games of 2009, Zen Bound 2. As you can see above, the new version (on the right) is a little more subdued with a cleaner UI, although Secret Exit stresses that this is still a work in progress (and obviously they'll have new objects to wrap up in rope to score points). But the new engine will be upgraded to use the most current version of OpenGL available in the iPhone, and you can see that on the rope above -- there are cleaner textures, and supposedly it'll move more smoothly as you play. Looks awesome to us. There still isn't an official announcement yet (this is actually a teaser picture), but that's expected soon, with a release still a few months out. So if you haven't tried out the first Zen Bound [iTunes link] yet, you've got plenty of time to pick it up and get good before the sequel.
TouchArcade: Second-generation iPod touch faster than iPhone
TouchArcade interviewed Handheld Games Corp's Thomas Fessler, who noted an interesting bit of the company's research: Second-generation iPod touch devices are significantly faster than their predecessors when it comes to 3D rendering. In fact, it's faster than both iPhone models as well. In its tests, the iPhone 3G ranked second, the original iPhone third, and the first-generation iPod touch lagged behind in fourth. Fessler is paraphrased in the interview, even suggesting he would not recommend anyone interested in gaming to buy a used first-generation iPod touch. The primary difference is a faster processor: The second-generation iPod touch has a 532 MHz processor. The iPhone, iPhone 3G, and first-generation iPod touch all have 412 MHz processors. Fessler also speculates in the interview that the GPU has also been improved, but has no evidence to support that claim. These performance differences may also explain why certain apps only run on second-generation iPod touch devices.
