As most of you already know, we're a man down for the next two weeks on The TouchArcade Show as Jared explores the infinite wonders of Europe. Have no fear, though, for we grabbed a capable voice to join us this week: Adult Swim and Player One Podcast's Chris Johnston. At the top of this week's show, we discuss Adult Swim's new initiative and then flow into the usual: video games, video games, and more video games.

Specifically, we have a good time talking about the PS Vita's impending launch and possible line-up, the whole "Nintendo won't developer mobile games ever" thing, and dig into a really great user e-mail. Also, we give a lot of room to our recently played games section. If you'd like to give us a listen, you can do so just below via these links. You can also subscribe to us on iTunes and Zune to get our latest podcasts the second they're listenable.

�

iTunes Link: The TouchArcade Show
Zune Marketplace: TouchArcade.com Podcasts
RSS Feed: The TouchArcade Show
Direct Link: TouchArcadeShow-017.mp3, 43MB

Here's your show notes, but before you leave us, know that Destructoid's Jim Sterling will be our special guest next week. Should be fun! We'll see you soon.

GAMES

I think at this point it's safe to say that Backflip Studios has embraced the free-to-play market. From the acclaimed Army of Darkness Defense [Free] to iOS classic Paper Toss [Free / HD], most of its titles have gone free and are now supported by ads or premium currency options. DragonVale [Free] is something a little different, though. It's built from the ground up to compete in the crowded freemium marketplace that have you managing zoos, pet stores, restaurants or, in this case, dragon parks.

Just between you and me, dragon parks are pretty rad.

Even with it's blazing dragons, DragonVale isn't going to set the freemium sim world on fire. It's not revolutionary in any way. So if you're not interested in games where you breed animals, build habitats and collect resources, you're not going to be interested in this one. If, on the other hand, you're looking for a strong contender that's well made and has dragons, read on.

You begin with a floating island that is completely devoid of dragons. To remedy this unfortunate situation, the game walks you through the early steps of creating a dragontopia: building your first habitat, buying and hatching your first egg, and learning how to use gems, the premium currency. It kindly lets go of your hand almost immediately, and with the help of the Goals system you won't have much trouble finding your own way.

In the broadest sense, your goal in DragonVale is to breed or buy dragons to entertain the visitors who come to your off-leash dragon park. Seems like a lawsuit waiting to happen, but these dragons have a diet of treats, not people. You build farms to harvest those treats, habitats to house your dragons and decor to pretty up the place. Much of my time in DragonVale has been spent getting my habitats and decor laid out just so.

But dressing up your islands is just a sideshow to the main act: breeding. Once you put a few levels behind you, you'll start getting your hands dirty with the fine art of cross-breeding. You begin with access to a few basic types of dragons, like plant, fire and earth. When you unlock and build a breeding cave the game opens up. Nearly every combination of those basic elemental types has a hybrid or two to be bred, and getting them into your park will occupy the days, weeks or months you're playing this game.

It's not that it's particularly difficult to find the combinations to produce hybrids. All but one are eventually available for sale in the game's Market, and the combination of dragons to breed is plainly listed. But there's an element of randomness to the results, and hybrids take their time before hatching. It's not uncommon for hybrid eggs to be bred over the course of a dozen hours or more, and then the eggs take that long again to hatch. The impatient can purchase gems or get them from friends to speed up the process, but it won't be cheap.

There's still plenty to do while you wait for your dragons to get down to, um, business. Aside from decorating and farming treats, you need to pop in fairly often to collect the money your dragon exhibits earn. Thankfully, DragonVale doesn't have a decay mechanism. The only thing to lose if you walk away from the game for too long is potential profits when your habitats fill up.

This is one of many smart decisions apparent in the game. Another is the granular notification control Backflip Studios has given players. There are four types of notifications available, and you're free to turn off any or all of them. It's little touches like that that make me so fond of this game. That and the dragons. Each one is adorable and weird in turns, especially as they grow.

Interested in taking up a second career as a dragon breeder? Then swing by this thread once you've picked up DragonVale. It's filled with folks who are looking for friends to give gems to. There's also an ongoing hunt for the secret of the Rainbow Dragon, the one missing breed. I haven't found one yet. Will you?

I can't help but want to think that Calibre Games' Hunger Calls [99� / HD] is meant as a metaphor for fast food culture. The purpose of the game is to shove as much food into people's mouths as you can, as quickly as possible, then after they overeat, you have to either hit them with some Alka-Seltzer or they die.

At first, I thought�Hunger Calls was just going to be some kind of resource management game in the vein of Diner Dash, then after a few minutes, I was worried it might be a clone of the Flash game, Sweatshop, but it's neither � the only way I can think to describe Hunger Calls is as a reverse tower defense game.

The premise is that you need to get food to people by manipulating the direction of a conveyer belt. You swipe your finger across an arrow to change the belt's direction and you need to deliver the correct food to the right patron. They will continue to sit there eating until they start to turn green and they need some Alka-Seltzer. They literally gorge on what you send them until they're sick and in need of help and if you don't help them, either out of conceited spite, or because you can't, they die.

I didn't want to help these people. I wanted them to die right there because they sat there and ate a burger followed by a soda followed by a pizza. It was disgusting and I didn't think they needed saving. But, if two of your patrons die, you have to start over, so for the interest of the game and the overall success of my apparently soulless restaurant, I keep feeding them.

You feed them until you make a certain amount of money, then you close up shop for the day, just like one of those obnoxious restaurants in small neighborhoods that don't have hours posted on the door. The amount of money you make off each sale depends on how quickly you serve them and how much you've upgrades the "tastiness" of that meal. There's a time limit on each level, but I never got close in any of the 39 levels to running out of time.

That's the bulk of the game, but as you move on, you get access to more food to serve out and you can upgrade your food and your restaurant. I don't think upgrading your restaurant actually does anything, but it seems like upgrading your food makes it worth more money. There are power-ups as well, where you can gift your denizens, slow down and speed up time. Gifting is handy if you've screwed up a bunch of order because it resets everyone, and the speed power-up can help you get that burger into the hands of a pissed off person before they storm out.

The feeling of reverse tower defense comes from the fact you're essentially playing on a small, predefined area with limited paths to a destination. Just imagine if in Anomaly: Warzone if you had to deliver specific goods to one section instead of having a certain type of unit. You have to change the direction of your conveyer belt to keep up with the food churning out of it and it quickly challenging and overwhelming.

I can't exactly say what compelled me to play through Hunger Calls in its entirety. The look and feel of it screams cheap Flash game, but something about it makes it difficult to walk away from it. You put the game down for a few moments and suddenly want more. You want to continue shoving food down the throats of these people until they explode and die, then send a "revive" pill over so you can continue on with your business.

I've never had any desire to work in a fast food restaurant because this is how I imagine it actually being. �total chaos while one customer is nearly dead and the one next to him is complaining about not getting his burger yet. It's awful, addicting and worst of all, you stop caring about the health and well being of your patrons and just want to make enough money to finish the day.