If you're at the point where your frog breeding factory in NimbleBit's Pocket Frogs [Free] is running at 110% capacity and you're looking to get your next freemium fix, I've got just what the doctor ordered. Ian and David Marsh, twin brothers behind Pocket Frogs has been hard at work on their next game, titled Tiny Tower. They haven't even started beta testing their game yet, so details are still being worked out, but here's what we've been told:

Tiny Tower tasks you with constructing and managing a tower populated with bitizens and businesses. Put your bitizens to work and keep your businesses stocked to earn enough revenue to expand your tower skyward. Unlock and collect one hundred plus floor blueprints that will make your tower stand out from the rest.

Check out the screenshots from an early development build of the game:

What made Pocket Frogs so awesome was that NimbleBit designed the game from the ground up to be a fun game first, and a freemium money maker second. There never really was a stopping point in Pocket Frogs where you had to pay to continue, unlike far too many freemium games where it's entirely too easy to spot all the time sinks and "optional pay walls which rarely feel optional on any level. We've been told Tiny Tower is going to be the exact same way, and I can't wait to give it a try.

One down-side of the sheer madness of planning for, scheduling meetings, and actually attending two back to back conventions (GDC and PAX) was the amount of things that slipped through the cracks during that time. I've been going back and pouring through releases from the last few weeks and one that sticks out is Shadow Era [Free], a collectable card game by Kyle Pool, the man responsible for bringing Battle for Wesnoth [$4.99 / HD]. Shadow Era is universal, and there's even a browser version that can be played at ShadowEra.com. There's also plans for additional clients for PC/Mac/Android, with all of your cards and decks synchronized online.

The one drawback of that kind of cross-compatibility is that Shadow Era requires an internet connection, but as someone who is constantly frustrated by having game saves that are trapped on a particular device, this seems to be a worthy sacrifice. Gameplay seems to be a cross between Magic: The Gathering and the World of Warcraft card game. An in-game tutorial does a great job of explaining how the game works, but if you really want to get in to the strategy of the game I'd recommend taking a look at this thread on our forums as well as the Shadow Era forums themselves.

Judging by the overwhelmingly positive response on our forums about this game, I know I'm in the minority here, but these kind of collectable card games drive me crazy. I've played Magic: The Gathering on a competitive level on and off for close to 15 years now and all of these home-grown CCG games just pale in comparison. The card pool is limited, gameplay feels like an amalgamation of elements from existing games, and so much of the fun of playing a CCG is the social aspect� Something sorely missing from Shadow Era. But would you pick up on this if you haven't spent most of your life playing collectable card games? I doubt it.

That being said, the way Shadow Era is being sold is a fantastic representation of what freemium games should be. It's totally free to download and try, and you're given one starter deck from the get go that allows you to just go to town playing the game. Similarly, winning games awards you an in-game currency which can be used to buy more cards. You can either slowly grind this currency up by playing, or you can just flip out a few bucks and buy whatever you'd like. Also, because this is a strategy-based game, throwing money at it doesn't necessarily make you any better, so it's not like you're at much of a disadvantage if you only ever play with what you can get for free.

Even though it's easy for me to complain about nitty gritty CCG details that likely few people even care about, I still highly recommend giving Shadow Era a try. I hope the game is wildly successful too, as maybe it will prompt Wizards of the Coast (or Hasbro via EA or whatever corporate dragon is sitting on top of the M:TG pile of gold) to release a iOS version of either the Magic: The Gathering Online client or Duels of the Planeswalkers. I'd be satisfied with either.

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"The alien forces have arrived, but why are they dancing?"

It's to do with all the pixellated collaborative gaming goodness they're bringing to iOS gamers, I'm guessing.

During the mid-week TouchArcade party we hosted out at GDC 2011, Cole Krumbholz of Koduco Games walked up with his iPad and challenged me to a match of his then-upcoming�PongVaders Max [App Store], a follow-up to PongVaders: Episode One, his studio's two-player, face-to-face, collaborative mashup of Pong and Space Invaders that sports a lovely retro aesthetic for both the eye and ear. The sad thing is, for one reason or another, we never covered the game. It was released back in August � and it's awesome.

The game presents a playfield filled with Space Invaders-style aliens bent on pummeling the cities that you and your playmate are defending with swipe-controlled Pong-style paddles at the far edges of the screen. Said playmate is ideally a human friend, but in-game AI can take on the task for the lonely gamer. But whatever the case, it's cooperative play � both players try to help each other destroy the alien horde.

The field of invaders in the center of the screen fire outwards, towards both players, and those shots can be repelled back upon them to turn their attacks into yours. Asteroid obstacles here and there make things especially challenging. An alien bolt deflected directly to the other player's paddle supercharges the volley and, along the way, various power-ups can be collected to gain special abilities. When the aliens dwindle, shots can be directed in slow-motion by tilting the device, making for some wonderfully animated (in the physical sense) two-player fun.

As mentioned earlier, the original PongVaders: Episode One [$.99] is an iPad-only release that hit the App Store back in August. The big news from Koduco is the release of PongVaders Max [App Store], which landed since our demo at GDC.

The original PongVaders: Episode One featured 10 levels plus a boss fight. After listening to feedback from users, Koduco created a remastered Universal version of the game that runs natively on both the iPhone and iPad, available for free with 10 bundled levels, with 20 more available as an in-app purchase (for $.99). PongVaders Max features tuned physics, power-ups, sound, and visual effects � still retro � along with rebalanced levels and a tutorial for beginners. The game includes new invaders, two more boss fights, and new music from Nullsleep.

If all we were talking about here was the original release, we'd be talking about an awesome game. But the new PongVaders Max takes it to the next level. As a free download with 10 included levels, there's no excuse for not grabbing this one for your iPhone or iPad right now � even if you have no friends.

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