Last month, CAVE released Mushihimesama Bug Panic [$4.99/Lite] to the App Store. Like their previous offerings Espgaluda II [$8.99/Lite] and Dodonpachi Resurrection [$8.99/Lite], Bug Panic offered frantic bullet-hell style gameplay, intense explosions, and attractive pixel graphics. But instead of their trademark vertically scrolling shooter, Bug Panic was a dual-stick affair. We really enjoyed the game in our review, noting that it was a satisfying and unique take on the typical dual-stick shooter formula. However, Bug Panic contained a high level of difficulty, and many players felt frustrated as they got stuck at the harder levels later in the game.

CAVE has addressed this pretty effectively with the latest 1.0.1 update for Bug Panic that hit a few days ago. They have tweaked the difficulty across the board to make things more balanced, and added an auto-bomb mechanic to help prevent cheap deaths. If you have at least one explosion seed saved up (the red seeds above the charging meter that build up as you collect sap bottles), upon getting hit by an enemy or stray bullet the explosion seed will automatically detonate, creating a large blast around your character that destroys any enemies or bullets within its radius. The tradeoff is that this will wipe away any explosion seeds or collected sap bottles, but it does prevent you from losing a life and is a welcome change. The auto-bomb only works in Adventure mode, and isn't a part of the survival-like Score Trials modes.

This video explains the new auto-bomb feature, as well as gives some hints for finding the hidden Kabutans in the game:

Also worth mentioning is that since our original review a free version of Bug Panic has been made available for those who want to give the game a spin before plunking down the cash for the full version. Mushihimesama Bug Panic Lite [Free] only features the first two stages from the first world, and no Score Trial modes, but should give players an adequate taste of what to expect from the full version. In related but significantly stranger news, CAVE has also released Mushihimesama Bug Timer [Free], a kitchen timer app featuring Reco from Bug Panic. It seems like an odd thing to come from CAVE, but it's free to download and useful if you need a timer for whatever reason.

If you thought Bug Panic was a bit too hard before, check out this newest update and give the game another try. It's still a difficult game, but it feels a lot more fair with the changes that have been made. Also, make sure to give the lite version a try as Mushihimesama Bug Panic is still one of my favorite takes on the dual-stick shooter.

Zach Gage, who earlier brought us Unify and Bit Pilot, has recently released an iPad-specific musical action puzzler called Halcyon [App Store], a game with a lovely aesthetic and a powerful dose of addictiveness.

In Halcyon, the playfield consists of a number of parallel strings. Along these strings numerous, triangular "currents" of varying color travel towards each other, entering from both sides of the screen. Uninterrupted, these currents will shortly collide with one another. A collision of two like-colored currents will cause them to eliminate each other, while a collision between currents of differing colors means Game Over. The task at hand is to draw a line from one string to another, in such a way as to bridge a current to another of like color, causing an elimination. The play mechanic is somewhat reminiscent of Voxel Agents' Train Conductor.

Accompanying the gameplay is an ethereal, generative soundtrack that you are a part of, thanks to the "strums" you perform while bridging one current to another. It's a scenario that brings to mind�Rez and the various musical action titles that have come since.

The game starts off easy enough, but in short order the difficulty really ramps up. But then so, too, does your understanding of the gameplay. The brief tutorial shows you the very basics, but after a bit of time with the game, you'll come to realize that there's more flexibility to the how's and where's of what you can do than you likely assumed initially, allowing for more complex strategies to be employed. I enjoyed the process of discovery, there.

The core playmode features 36 levels of play through four different environments (basically, differing color schemes, audio tracks, and string arrangements). There are two additional, endless playmodes � Aggression and Harmony � that add some variation to the formula. Game Center and OpenFeint integration drive your competition.

Halcyon is one of those games that's something of a Zen experience to play, but is also downright maddening, both due to the difficulty in the latter levels as well as the "Ok, just one more time!" spell it casts upon you.�I've spent a fair amount of time with Halcyon so far, and I haven't yet made it all the way through. But I can promise you I won't stop playing until I do.