If you haven't heard of it yet, Kickstarter is currently the largest funding platform to creative projects in the world. It's the kind of site that you can sink hours into looking at all the incredible proposals people have. If you find something you like, you can "kickstart" it by throwing some money at the project. Each project has rewards to thank those who fund the project and one of the lower-rungs of the funding ladder usually involves getting a copy of whatever game/movie/product/etc is being proposed. It's a great system, and I really recommend looking into it if you've got some extra cash and want to support some great projects.

Anyway, something that caught my eye today was a project called "Tweet Land � The first set of games that play with reality!". It's a really cool idea, and it's already well on its way to meeting its funding goal. The basic premise is to release a series of iOS (and web) games that use tweets to create events in the game:

The game works really simple. Every time someone in the world tweets something, his or her tweets could affect the gameplay of Tweet Land by triggering certain action-keywords. It could be a "car accident" in your racing game, it could be your hate-gun gets reloaded in the action game, it could be anything.

I think what sounds so cool about this is that I've been a huge fan of randomized games on the platform. Various roguelikes, endless runners, and others games that are different every time you play them really appeal to me. Using the real world as a "random" event generator seems like such an amazing idea. Although, thinking about it, the real world really is far more random than any random number generator ever could be. Chew on that for a bit.

The down-side of all this Kickstarter business is that since we're essentially being pitched a concept, it could take quite a while for that to actually materialize into a game. Regardless, I'm excited.

While the rest of the world anxiously waits for GLaDOS to reboot, Gamevil announced on our forums late last night that Zenonia 3: The Midgard Story will be released on April 28th. In fact, if you want to know basically anything about the game, the beta testing thread on our forums is full of more information than anyone would likely ever need to know about it.

We also got a good amount of time with the game back at GDC, and explained the game's premise:

The story goes like this: The world of Zenonia was divided into the Heavenly Realm and the Earth Realm until a war between the Divine Tribe and the Devil Tribe caused the creation of the Midgard Realm. The main character of the original Zenonia, Regret, appears to his son, Chael, the hero of this story. Chael, shortly thereafter while walking in a wood with his fairy friend Runa, disappears into the mysterious Midgard Realm. Your goal, as Chael, is to help the Divine Tribe get back to the Heavenly Realm and return yourself to Earth.

Exciting stuff eh? Among other improvements Zenonia 3 will also sport Retina Display graphics and some of the best animation we've seen out of the series yet. In other related news the original Zenonia [99�] dropped to a buck in anticipation. We had a great time with the game when we reviewed it back in 2009, although admittedly the original Zenonia is a little old and busted by today's standards. The sequel, Zenonia 2 [$2.99] is also worth checking out in anticipation.

Last December, MacRumors reported on survey results showing that users of portable games are increasingly defecting from dedicated devices such as the Nintendo DS and Sony PSP to smartphones such as the iPhone.

New data from analytics firm Flurry comparing overall video game market share in 2009 and 2010 reveals a similar trend, with iOS and Android combining to take 8% of the overall market and a full 34% of the portable gaming market as measure by revenue. In the overall market, console games continue to dominate, growing from 71% to 76% on only a slight increase in total video game revenue.

From 2009 to 2010, iOS and Android game sales increased from 5% to 8% market share within the U.S. video game market. Specifically, we estimate that iOS and Android game revenue increased from $500 million in 2009 to more $800 million in 2010. Of this, the significant majority of revenue was generated by iPhone games.

But setting aside the console market, the success of iOS and Android (primarily iOS according to Flurry's data) as gaming platforms is more obvious in the portable market, where the smartphone platforms have increased their share of revenue from 19% in 2009 to 34% in 2010 at the expense of Nintendo's and Sony's offerings.

From 2009 to 2010, iOS and Android game sales have spiked significantly, resulting in nearly a doubling of their market share. With both Nintendo DS and Sony PlayStation Portable shrinking in sales, while smart-device game sales simultaneously grew by more than 60%, iOS and Android games now represent more than one third of the portable game category.

It is also important to note that the surge in revenue share for smartphone platforms comes at a significantly lower average price point than for dedicated devices, meaning that even the strong growth from those platforms has eaten into the total portable gaming market, which dropped from $2.7 billion in 2009 to $2.4 billion in 2010. The "race to the bottom" has long been one of the main concerns for smartphone application developers, particularly traditional game developers who have been accustomed to the pricing model for dedicated gaming devices. But users are clearly shifting toward more casual gaming at lower price points on their smartphones, and developers that have embraced that market are in many cases seeing solid results.

Originally posted on our sister site MacRumors!

If you were one of the many people who loved Galaxy on Fire 2 [$9.99 / Lite] (and understandably so, the game is great), you're in for a treat with the update landing later this month. Give the recently released trailer a look:

This update essentially includes two components. For free, all players will get access to three "refurbished" space ships from the original Galaxy on Fire in addition to a personal space station where you can store multiple space ships and cargo. The Valkyrie portion of the update is an add-on available via IAP which includes a new storyline (with voiceovers), as well as new ships, weaponry, and improved equipment. There's also new planets, and a "black market trading system" which we're anxious to try out.

All of this is landing on the 28th, so make sure you clear out that weekend if you're a Galaxy on Fire fan.

Early this morning Gizmodo spotted what might be the craziest iPhone accessory I've seen yet. Creating steering-wheel attachments for iOS devices is nothing new, in fact, we reviewed one a while back and found that it basically added nothing to the experience aside from a piece of plastic to lug around. For �1,599 (roughly $19 USD) you can now get a steering wheel with with speakers that are actually powered by a Nokia battery (sold separately, oddly enough).

Even though the whole steering wheel attachment thing might not add that much to the game, I can't help but think a (comparatively) huge set of powered speakers hooked up to your iPhone 4 while playing a game like Real Racing 2 [$6.99] might do something for you. Although that "something" might just amount to annoying everyone nearby.

[Gizmodo via IT Media]

You may remember nearly a year ago when perpetually busy developer Crescent Moon Games announced a new title by the name of Ultra Kid: Mystery of the Mutants. It was a platforming game with a combination of 2.5D and fully 3D gameplay, set in a colorful and cartoonish 3D world with the cute space boy Ultra Kid as its main character. A couple of months later, late last June, we got a peek at the first teaser video for Ultra Kid, and it looked really promising.

About this same time, Crescent Moon had taken on the massive cosmetic overhaul of Aralon: Sword and Shadow [$9.99], and due to that project taking up most of their focus Ultra Kid: Mystery of the Mutants got put on the back burner. Unfortunately, we haven't heard much about him since then, despite the upcoming thread in our forums still receiving a fair bit of interest.

Then yesterday, Ultra Kid was resurrected, but not quite in the way you might think. Crescent Moon announced a brand new game, Ultra Kid Sprint, which is an endless running style game using the same graphics and set in the same universe as Ultra Kid: Mystery of the Mutants.

With the glut of endless running games already on the App Store, Ultra Kid Sprint hopes to differentiate itself a bit from the pack. First of all, it is comprised of fully 3D graphics and looks fantastic. It also utilizes a dynamic camera that will zoom in and out during play, and is offset slightly behind the character giving a pretty unique perspective to the game. Also, levels will feature multiple elevations and different paths to take, and are chock full of enemies to dispatch and power ups to collect. At one point, Ultra Kid will even be able to transform into a moon buggy to take out enemies.

You can get a quick taste of the gameplay in Ultra Kid Sprint in the following teaser trailer:

Ultra Kid Sprint should have approximately 6 endless levels to play, and Crescent Moon is hoping to have the game out sometime next month. As for Mystery of the Mutants, it's still in development and should see the light of day at some point, though no firm time frame for release has been committed to. In the meantime, Ultra Kid Sprint is looking pretty cool, and may just be an interesting new take on the endless runner formula. There's currently a discussion in our forums for Ultra Kid Sprint, and we'll have more from this title in the coming weeks.

Back in January at a Capcom preview event, I was able to get some hands-on time with Resident Evil Mercenaries VS [$2.99], a new multiplayer focused entry in the Resident Evil mobile series. During that preview, I could see that there was some potential fun that could be had battling it out with other players Resident Evil style, but was left with many reservations. The game's performance was pretty atrocious, and it was slated to only ship with 2 playable characters and 1 multiplayer map. Even with the potential of the actual gameplay, these shortcomings left me doubting how the game would turn out.

Yesterday, Resident Evil Mercenaries VS was released in the App Store, a little more than a month after originally planned. The good news is that the extra development time went to fixing some of the problems I saw in the preview version, tightening up the performance a great deal and adding a 3rd playable character and 2 additional multiplayer maps to the game. The bad news is that even those additions can't really overcome the poor presentation and mundane gameplay of the title.

Let's get one thing out of the way first: Resident Evil Mercenaries VS is not a pretty title. The character models look halfway decent, but the entire game has a grainy, low resolution look to it that is full of jagged edges and a muddy color palette. These graphics may have been impressive a few years ago, but they don't come close to cutting it in this day and age of iOS visuals.

Looking past the graphics, the game controls very well, utilizing the same scheme as the other Resident Evil iOS titles currently in the App Store. A control stick for movement and a set of context sensitive buttons for performing every action, along with a handy quick inventory for using items and switching weapons. The problem is that the Resident Evil style of gameplay just doesn't suit what should be a fast paced multiplayer battle. Having to stop moving in order to enter an aiming mode, and then line up your shot on an enemy is an exercise in frustration as the other players and AI-controlled enemies that inhabit each level lay waste to you.

On the good side of things, the game does run relatively lag free while online. There's even a single player component that lets you play the 4 player free-for-all or team battle modes with AI bots. The mode I had the most fun with was ironically not a versus mode at all, but rather the coin hunt game where you seek out and shoot 15 hidden coins in any of the 3 levels within a certain time limit, with your final score uploaded to a Game Center leaderboard. Even still, I don't think this is enough to warrant recommending the game when what should be the star feature � the online multiplayer � is so sub-par.

With enough practice, some people may warm up to the style of multiplayer battling in Resident Evil Mercenaries VS, but with so many far superior online multiplayer experiences on iOS already it doesn't seem worth the effort.