Home » Articles and Reviews by 'Dave Flodine'
The Finalists for Atari's Pong Indie Dev Challenge Revealed
Yup, looks like Atari has been holding an independent developer challenge. Teams have been tasked with creating a new innovative take on Pong, the game that kickstated the whole medium. Well we have a list of finalists now. Following the link will take you to a page where you can view a youtube video of each studio's entry that made it, and can vote on your favourites yourself. My personal fave is by Eppy Games, but also am intrigued by the entries of Zgames and Mad Ruse. Have a watch of all the entries and tell us which one you find the most interesting or potentially fun to play! [Atari Pong Developer Finalists]…
The Journey Down to Mobile Devices
The Journey Down is a point and click adventure game that looks to have taken visual inspiration from Grim Fandango. The game is available now for PC, Mac, and Linux... but the reason we're mentioning it here is that developers SkyGoblin are porting it for iOS devices sometime soon. Have a look at the trailer here: As a fan of adventure games, this looks like a lot of fun. For those of you who don't want to wait, the game can be purchased from their website. [The Journey Down]…
Punch Quest Lets you Punch Things
Well one would expect as much from a game called Punch Quest. Being released sometime in the fall (or Spring for you southern hemisphere people, which i happen to be a part of), you punch things in a dungeon, and there's apparently an egg that turns you into a gnome, who then has to fight bees. It looks and sounds engaging from the trailer. Have a look for yourselves. It looks to have bit of score attack going on as well, what with the multiplier for punching things. It's also rocking the 8-bit presentation. We'll be keeping an eye on this one as information develops.…
Knights of the Round Cable unleashes website.
Long time Appspy readers/watches as well as my friends should know how much i love wordplay. What a way to start off the week then with information on Chillingo and Focus Home Interactive's new game, Knights of the Round Cable. First shown off at E3, they've just released a trailer and their new website. It looks to combine a fun cartoon art style with a rope swinging mechanic that many games on the app store have used to good effect. Slated for a July release, this has the polish that we've come to expect from a publisher like Chillingo. Now we just have to see if the game itself is engaging. [Knights of the Round Cable Official Website]…
Puzzle-Rocket Review
Those poor sight seeing aliens. They're out and about in the universe enjoying themselves when they're hit upon by a meteor storm. It's time for damage control. Help guide the aliens to their rescue ships with the use of paddles that deflect, bounce, drip, and contain all manner of other strange properties as you navigate around the meteor fields. One of the most amusing things about Puzzle Rocket is also one of the most horrifying if you stop to think about it. The goal of each stage…
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physics
Astronot Review
One of the things that make the best games of the Metroid series such a joy to play after all these years isn't just the large map ripe for exploration, but also the sense of loneliness and danger the player feels when traversing a hostile, alien world. You are the lone survivor of your ship after it has crashed on an uncharted planet. Can you stay alive long enough to possibly make it off it? Astronot uses a traditional on-screen button control scheme. There's a left and right button…
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New Water Physics Puzzler Making a Splash on July 5th
Another physics based puzzle game starring a cute animal? You betcha! The App Store has no shortage of these, but hey, as long as they play well (and most of them do), it's all good. Here's the trailer... Rolling up the ramps looks especially fun. The developers are taking some extra time to polish up everything (which is always a good sign), so look for this to release on July 5th.…
Blindside - an Audio Only Adventure
Recording games that utilize the gyros in Apple's devices can be difficult enough (it's for this reason we've not reviewed any alternate or augmented reality games), but if a game comes out that does something interesting enough with a unique control scheme, it deserves a shoutout, and Blindside definitely falls under this category. Now Blindside has already been out for a little while but it's due to the recent update that we here at Appspy caught wind of it. What we're dealing with here is an audio only adventure game. How would such a thing work? Well let the developers' game introduction video explain it. Retailing for $2.99 in the appstore, this promises to offer a very imme…
Zombie Quest - Mastermind the hexes! Review
We've seen a lot of games involving zombies in our tenure as reviewers, and most of them are pretty much the same. After all, the zombie is a great opponent in an action game. They're slow, there's a lot of them, and most importantly, they're not human. It's been a while since there's been a unique take on zombies in the app store, but Zombie Quest – Mastermind the Hexes most definitely fits that description. More a monster game than a zombie game, but what we have here is a stra…
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The Ominous Countdown of Industry Veterans
Johannes Vuorinen & Juhana Myllys are two industry professionals who have decided to go indie and form Frogmind Games. Both were employed by Redlynx with Johannes being the in-game editor programmer for Trails: Evolution and Juhana the lead artist of Motoheroz. There is a countdown timer on their new website, and when it reaches zero on July 2nd, they will unveil their first project. The only hint they've given on it is that if you like the atmosphere of games like LIMBO and Machinarium, you'll love what they're creating. Ominous indeed! We'll let you know more on July 2nd. [Frogmind Games]…
Virgin Media's 100 day Game Project
Picking from a team of six finalists, the Virgin Media 100 day game project is about to get underway. Surface Tension Studios have been picked the winner, awarded ten thousand pounds, and are beginning the arduous task of completing their game Superfluid in the alloted time. The goal of the challenge is to - with the help of industry professionals - create the next big title for mobile and tablet devices (as part of a goal to further foster Brisith entrepreneurial spirit). Superfluid is a puzzle game in which the main character can change its state from solid, to liquid, to gas. Each state has its own abilities that can be used to solve puzzles and defeat enemies. Luke Southern, head of spo…
Darkside Arriving in the App Store Next Tuesday
Generic name aside, if you look at the trailer, Darkside is shaping up to be a rather impressive twin stick shooter... at least visually. Being released on the 26th of June, Darkside will be free featuring the arcade mode and game center support. An in-app purchase of $0.99 will unlock two additional modes plus the ability to carry smart bombs. This is a more clever use of in-app purchases because it acts more like a demo that you unlock to recieve the full game. Try the standard mode at your leisure, and if you like what you see, there's a small price to play to get everything else. We'll see if Darkside is worth a look or a purchase upon its release.…
A Sequel to Boom Brigade - Out Now
It seems a lot of the news this week is releases for this Thursday. Well, here's another. Remember Boom Brigade? It was a tactical tower defense / line drawing game all the way back in the distant year of 2009. Well it seems that almost three years later 10tons Ltd. have made a sequel. Here's a trailer of some of the gameplay... It looks to play very similar to its predecessor, but all this time later, it's hard to say whether or not such gameplay will resonate with gamers. Still it's been quite a while since both the line drawing and tower defense crazes of that period so it might be a blast of not only nostalgia, but a fun experience. We'll have a review of Boom Brigade 2 up in…
Fish Heroes Bringing Underwater Physics Action to the App Store
Craneballs Studios is bringing their new game Fish Heroes to the App Store later this week on June 21st. The trailer doesn't tell much but gives a look at the cartoony art style, and there is some gameplay footage at the end. It's looking like an underwater version of the Wii game Boom Blox, and considering how fun Boom Blox was, it'd be nice to have a similar experience on a mobile device. We'll know more of course upon release.…
Squids Wild West Hitting App Store June 27th
For fans of the original Squids, released by The Game Bakers last October, the follow-up has been approved by Apple and is set to hit the App Store on the 27th of this month. The price will be $1.99 but it will be on sale the day of release for only $0.99. For extra information check out Andrew's hands on preview with the game here, or to get an idea of what to expect game wise, check out our review of the original Squids here. It will be interesting to see how the wild west theme affects the turn based gameplay. We'll certainly find out on launch day. [Hands-On Preview Squids Wild West - Review Squids]…
