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Posts tagged with "games"

MacStories Weekly Game: Robokill

This week’s featured game is the latest effort by Wandake, Robokill. See, Robokill on the surface may look a lot like other games available in the App Store such as Minigore or Age of Zombies. You control this robot, with a bird’s eye view, and you have to face enemies coming from all sides of the screen. Unlike Minigore, though, Robokill provides a greater attention to details in level design and enemy attack patterns.

For instance, Robokill’s droids are smart, while Minigore’s monsters just care about running against you. Enemies in Robokill shoot, cover, attack, back up. That’s not bad a simple action game for iPad. Plus, once you clear levels in the game your character will evolve and become able to equip new weapons and shields. With more than 450 levels and 13 missions, that’s quite an inventory to build. You can also collect cash and hidden loot to purchase upgrades through a virtual store – which is always welcome. I like this RPG-like side of Robokill, something the aforementioned similar games surely don’t provide. Not like in Robokill. Read more

Grand Theft Auto Trilogy Coming To The Mac

GTA, one of the most popular “mature” videogame series which sold million of copies on consoles and handhelds, is coming to the Mac. And it’s coming with a trilogy, a package containing GTA III (the first 3D episode of the series), GTA Vice City and the acclaimed GTA: San Andreas, my favorite GTA episode so far. The games originally came out on Sony’s PlayStation 2.

The Grand Theft Auto series has been one of the most highly demanded titles by the Mac community. The availability of this incredible franchise on the Mac underscores TransGaming’s role in transforming the overall Mac gaming market,” commented Vikas Gupta, President & CEO of TransGaming, in the press release. “These games will be widely available and will be a great catalyst to the increasing popularity of gaming on the Mac.

GTA Trilogy for Mac will be released on November 22nd. You can preorder it now on Amazon. Can’t wait.

iOS: Single Biggest Gaming Format On The Planet→

iOS: Single Biggest Gaming Format On The Planet

The remarkable truth of that figure, then, is that it’s entirely possible that measured by software revenues the iPhone/iPod is already the single biggest gaming format on the planet. And if it’s not already, it very shortly will be – the App Store is still growing while the others are moving downwards, and more and more publishers are devoting serious resources to making some very serious games for the iOS machines.
For a platform that’s only been around a couple of years, that’s already a pretty astonishing feat. Include the fact that it’s being done by selling the vast majority of games for less than $2 and it’s mind-blowing.

And the App Store is coming to the Mac now.

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Quake 3 Arena Coming To Jailbroken iPads Today

If you have a jailbroken iPad and happen to like first-person shooters, you must be happy to know that Quake 3 Arena is coming to the tablet in a glorious full-resolution version with high-res textures and on-screen controls.

Based on the original id Software game and the iPhone port released by Seth Kingsley in 2008, Quake 3 Arena for iPad has gone under a complete makeover thanks to Alexander Pick’s efforts, who squashed lots of bugs and turned the game in a full tablet-enjoyable experience. It can even run on non-jailbroken devices using a developer certificate and on a jailbroken iPad running iOS 4.2, with installation happening via manual APT, I guess.

The game can be played offline and online, levels can be added via iTunes file sharing and you can also drop high resolution texture files into it. We can’t wait. Additional info available on Paduser. [9to5 via Giz]

Project Sword Renamed “Infinity Blade”, Coming This Holiday

Remember Project Sword by Epic Games? Yes, that impressive tech demo we saw at Apple’s last music event on stage, the one that made our jaws drop due to that stunning graphics, light effects and animations. The same day, we were also able to download a demo of the demo, called “Epic Citadel” and based on the same graphic engine (the Unreal Engine 3 for mobile devices) but limited to a single town without any people and / or enemies.

Today Epic Games announced the final title of the game, which is now dubbed “Infinity Blade” and will be available on iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch this holiday season. Infinity Blade will feature both a single player and a multiplayer mode based on Game Center, RPG elements, even better graphics than before and free updates with new features in the next months.

The developers worked hard for 4 months on the development of Infinity Blade and, hopefully, we’ll enjoy the great results of the Unreal Engine 3 together with an equally great gameplay in a few weeks.

Check out the press release, screenshots and the old demo video of Project Sword below. Read more

Backflip Studios Making Half A Million Dollars Per Month With In-Game Ads

So much for in-app advertising being a non-sustainable business mode. Backflip Studios, developers of the popular Paper Toss and Ninjump games for iPhone, is making half a million dollars per month from in-game ads alone. The company dramatically increased ad revenue since last May, when they confirmed they had managed to make $1 million in six months.

Backflip generated more than 45 million installs on iOS, 5.5 million on Android devices.

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The History of Trainyard→

The History of Trainyard

I tried a variety of mini-marketing escapades, including spending $50 on AdMob, $50 on Project Wonderful (Axe Cop, specifically), and $50 on Google Adwords. None of that worked. $50 is almost too tiny an amount to spend, but it became immediately obvious that any ad campaign within my budget would have no effect on sales whatsoever.

I should add that I definitely wasn’t disheartened. I knew it would take time, and that I had a great game that would eventually be successful. I just really wasn’t sure how to get there, but that was part of the adventure.

Great story, and congrats.

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FarmVille Lands On The iPad

Uh oh, look at what Zynga released today: an update to their world-changing (really, must be something like that) game FarmVille which includes native support for the iPad. The latest 1.09 update allows in fact iPad users to enjoy cultivating their farms with much more real screen estate and redesigned and more accessible menus.

The app is free. Go download it, but you’ve been warned: I heard this one’s pretty addictive. Screenshots and changelog below. Read more

Super Twario Turns Twitter Into A Platform Game for iPhone

Of all the great things you can do with Twitter (such as following Forstall or Conan O’ Brien), can you imagine turning it into a platform game for iPhone where you literally jump on tweets and earn Game Center achievements by replying to mentions or faving tweets?

Super Twario, a $2 game available here, does just that. You simply move around after the app has fetched tweets form your timeline and start walking and jumping and running. With Game Center integration, you can unlock achievements by doing things you would regularly do in any other Twitter client, without getting rewarded.

This opens the road to non-games achievements I think, like “read 150 articles in Instapaper” or “write 15 articles in Simplenote”. We’ll see. Check out the demo video of Super Twario below. [via Engadget] Read more