Big news for those of you on the fence about Continuity 2 [$.99] and for those of you who went ahead grabbed the game after our glowing review: a free trial version of the puzzle title is hitting this Thursday, featuring a total of 11 levels picked from the game's total 50. Also, the full version is set to receive Game Center achievements support in a future update.

The Continuity series began as an award-winning flash game, but soon found its audience with the sequel on the App Store. It's a really creative puzzle game that has you flipping pieces of levels in order to progress or solve puzzles. Like most of its ilk, Continuity 2 features a rich drip-feed of new mechanics and concepts, so you'll never really get settled. Also, if you've a competitive edge, there's completion time level tracking.

You can read more about the game here, if you'd like. I'm digging it so far, which strikes me as odd considering how easily I'm frustrated by puzzle games in general. I guess I've got something for stick figures and simplistic art direction.

I saw a lot of cool things over the week of insanity that was WWDC and E3, but the game that got me jazzed the most was Pocket Heroes. Some of the most fun I've had in my life gaming has been sitting around a table with friends playing pen and paper RPGs. However, as many former Dungeons & Dragons (and similar) players know all too well, once your gaming group graduates college, gets married, has kids, and all that other fun stuff, those dice rolling marathons that used to go until the sun came up become increasingly rare.

As mentioned in my E3 preview, F5 Games hopes to solve this problem by leveraging push notifications and just how stupidly well asynchronous turn-based gaming works on iOS devices. Instead of needing to round up a half dozen of your friends whose schedule all allow for a real-world campaign, you'll be able to play a similar style turn-based RPG right on your phone, with everyone taking their turn whenever they have time throughout the day.

We've got an incredibly active thread on our forums where the developers are doing a great job of engaging our community, and today they posted the following demo video:

Now, before jumping to any conclusions, keep in mind that this game is still heavily in development. As mentioned in the video, basically everything is still being tweaked. For more information on Pocket Heroes, the best thing you can do is check out the previously mentioned forum thread. Alternatively, the F5 Games blog has a few other tidbits of information, including a shot of the crazy contraption used to shoot the above video.

In a move that makes a lot of sense, PopCap Games has announced that it has penned an agreement with Sony Ericsson that will see its titles pre-loaded on the Xperia Play mini and the pro later this summer. News of this comes mere days after EA's acquisition of the casual games developer and subsequent promises to further its reach. This will be the first time PopCap Games' games have been available in Europe on Android.

Chuzzle [$2.99], the lesser-known puzzle game from PopCap, will be pre-loaded in its entirety on new Plays, while trial versions of Plants vs. Zombies [$2.99 / HD] and Peggle [$2.99] will round out the offerings. A healthy amount of native Play games at the moment are PSOne titles, so this is a welcome shot in the arm to an aging line-up of downloadable titles. On the other hand… I suppose these games have been available on a billion other formats for several years, too.

If anything, take this as a sign to come from PopCap as it starts expanding what it can offer under the wings of EA and its larger, consumer-facing bandwidth. "As the Android ecosystem matures, PopCap is committed to providing best-in-class game experiences for Android game players," a rep said in a statement. Fingers crossed for Peggle Nights!

In somewhat related news, Sony Ericcson also wrapped up an exclusive with Mojang. The platform is, at least, trying to be competitive. And really, the best thing that could happen for iOS gamers is for Apple to see some serious competition, especially if you buy into the idea that competition breeds innovation.

[Via TechFlash]