It's bonus podcast time! This week, we pulled Ten One Design's Czar of Top Doggery, Peter Skinner, from his work to talk to us about… well, his work. Ten One is responsible for the Fling and the Fling Mini, two peripherals we've been raving about since they hit store shelves. In our conversation, we ask Peter what gave Ten One the initiative to create the joysticks. We also delve into the company itself and learned how its culture informed the products it creates.

More importantly, we (as in Brad) learned that 3D printers exist and, theoretically, you can print out a physical 3D model of whatever when using one. I've never left a conversation so sure that I needed to drop 15 to 30 thousand dollars on something.

But in all seriousness, Peter was a great guest and he shed a lot of light on how Ten One does business and thinks. I think you'll enjoy the conversation.

Speaking of that, you can give the interview a listen just below. Additionally, you grab it on iTunes or the Zune music marketplace via our channels.

iTunes Link: The TouchArcade Show
Zune Marketplace: TouchArcade.com Podcasts
RSS Feed: The TouchArcade Show
Direct Link: TouchArcadeShow-Bonus-001.mp3, 16.1MB

Music for this episode was provided by the super talented Jim Guthrie. The song is "Audio Pepsi" off the album�A Thousand Songs. You can buy the entire album or stream all the songs�at his Web site. Guthrie is also responsible for the�Sword & Sworcery [$4.99] soundtrack. Additionally, you can visit Ten One Design here.

Ice T once said, "I'm on the front line, and I am a rapper." He's also said, "I have to grow my audience." The latter is something most game publishers can get on board with, while the former is… well, an Ice T quote. Regardless, we see the attempts to draw more people in every single day. Why, actually, Capcom is in the thick of fleshing out its audience right now with a new sale that sees four of its most high profile titles reduced to 99 cents.

Here's the list:

• Street Fighter IV [$.99]
• Resident Evil Mercenaries VS. [$.99]
• Dead Rising Mobile [$.99]
• Devil May Cry 4 Refrain [$.99]

We're not sure, exactly, when the sale will end or if other titles will join the mix at a later date, but it's probably best to just be safe and gobble up these titles ASAP if you're in the mood for any of them. Personally, I think SFIV is the best of the bunch.

Jared did a marvelous preview of 1-bit Ninja early last month, and the game originally was scheduled to be released a few weeks later. Since then, we've gotten comments, emails, and forum threads wondering where in the heck it was. Well, good news, it's coming this Thursday.

Check out the new trailer:

And here's some screenshots to whet your appetite:

Looks awesome, right? I love the idea of a classic Gameboy-esque platformer with the 3D twist to find hidden parts of each level. It'll be out this Thursday, and you can bet on us having a review out shortly afterwards.

Feeling a little cynical about politics? Pick up Frogame's TITUS [$1.99]. You won't feel any better about the world, but you might enjoy being the one on top of a corrupt system for once.

This is the oddest title I've played in a while. The art is strange enough (though quite attractive), with sinister-looking characters that look like something Edward Gorey might have thought up. But the story is even stranger. You play Titus, an agoraphobic watchmaker who wants to become president of Wealland. You're up against the sinister Black Squirrels, a secret society lead by a mime named Desmond who seems oddly obsessed with destroying you personally. You'll have to employ all manner of dirty tactics to take them down, most of which are played out in a collection of 3D mini-games.

For example, you're going to need funds to run your political campaign. Fundraising puts you out hat in hand in front of the bank, while a wealthy donor tosses wads of cash down to you. You'll use on-screen buttons to move your hat back and forth to catch the cash and dodge his (rather uncalled for) bombs. And you'll need to regularly give out propaganda using a Doodle Jump[99�] style game where you leap from mailbox to mailbox.

None of these mini-games would stand on their own, but the whole thing is wrapped in a compelling political simulator. You have to win nine elections before facing down Desmond, the despotic mime. They require increasingly large amounts of strategy, and a little luck, as you draw closer to your goal. You need to make sure you're bringing in enough funds without angering your donors, seek out rumors and scandals for the appropriate candidates, pay bribes for journalists that are high enough to score the interview without being so high as to sully your reputation, and decide just how dirty to get. Want to shake down passers-by for cash? It's an option, but it might come back to haunt you.

The meat of the game is in the main campaign, but if you're hooked on the electoral process you can run single elections with any of the characters you've defeated. You can also play the mini-games individually if you're really into them, but I'm not sure why you'd want to�they're fun enough in the context of the campaign, but they don't stand on their own very well. There aren't any leaderboards, unfortunately, and the achievements aren't synced to any online service. While we're talking negatives, the translation isn't fantastic. It seems like TITUS might be a more humorous game in the original French, but it stands as a quirky dark comedy as it is.

In a market that often rewards copycats and me-tooism, it's refreshing to play such an odd little game and find that it's also a lot of fun. Darkly cynical fun, but fun nonetheless. I didn't expect to recommend you a political simulation about the showdown between an agoraphobic watchmaker and a despotic mime, but here we are. It's definitely a happy surprise.

I love technology, so when I discover a severed robot head, my first instinct is to place it back on its body. This makes me ideally suited for the physics puzzler �D-Capitatrax [99�/HD] from developer�Gamesmold. The background story is simple: a machine known as the "Golden Mistress" became jealous of the new advanced models of female robot, so she decapitated them all. However, she didn't realize the new-and-improved sexy robo-girls possessed wormhole generating capabilities, which would enable them to teleport their severed robotic heads back towards their curvaceous artificial bodies.

This game requires a combination of tilt and touch controls. Tilting your device to the left or right causes a severed robot head, and other objects in the level, to roll about. There are also two portals which you can touch and relocate, to establish a wormhole. Once the two portals are in position, you roll the head into one portal so it teleports to the strategically chosen destination. The goal is to navigate the level, collect three battery packs, then reunite the head with the body. If you've played the popular Portal series, then you'll be familiar with the concept of strategically placing portals. The developer acknowledges that D-Capitatrix is "a kind of 2D interpretation of the Portal gameplay".

To make things interesting, a number of obstacles are placed in your path, including fire, electricity, balls, bombs, concrete barriers, weight-activated platforms and nasty head-crushing wall-traps. There's also the risk of teleporting somewhere without an exit, which leaves you stranded and forced to restart the level. And if you're not gentle with your tilting, objects like bombs may slide unintentionally into your wormhole, with explosive consequences.

Some puzzles require the robot head to build up speed to travel further. This is achieved by placing the two portals in-line with each other, forming an endless loop. The teleported object will move faster and faster through the wormhole, accompanied by a satisfying acceleration sound. When you suddenly move one portal to a new location, the teleported object shoots out at warp speed. This speed burst helps the head move further or, if your bomb supply is depleted, can smash a concrete barrier. You can't tilt your device completely upside down, so instead portals are used to jump into the air.

The robot graphics are retina and lovely. The level graphics are minimalistic which is appropriate, however the fire effect does look a bit average in comparison to the quality lady-bots. Did I mention the robots in this game are sexy electronic she-bots? I can only assume that "D-Capitatrix" is a play on the words "decapitated" and "dominatrix", because once you complete a level her head spins into place and she turns and struts off with a fierce Beyonce-style, hip-waggling sashay. She also talks in an appropriately sexy computerized monotone. And the music matches the futuristic setting perfectly.

There's 30 levels to solve in total. Most levels require some thought to solve, but nothing too strenuous on the brain so far. Unfortunately, efficient gameplay is not really rewarded. There's no time-limits or move-counters, nor any three star rating system, so there's no incentive to optimize your solution or replay for better scores. In fact, there are no scores or achievements, just the satisfaction of unlocking each level and helping the cyborg sisterhood. The original release did experience some crashes, but the latest update appears to have resolved these. There's also a slight delay at times, while levels are loaded.

D-Capitatrix is a strategic puzzler that's engaging and entertaining. Who can resist unique gameplay, appealing graphics, good music and hot bots, for a buck? Not me. This is one of those games which flies slightly under the radar, but is definitely worth checking out.

Space is a pretty lonely place, something you'll discover in Jonathan Mulcahy's A Long Way Home [99�]. Stranded a hundred light years away from Earth after a catastrophic ship explosion, the game's astronaut hero has to find a way home. He travels from galaxy to galaxy alone, with just a haunting piano soundtrack and an occasionally chatty wrist computer to accompany him.

To find his way home, he needs to jump from asteroid to asteroid, collecting enough dark matter to open a wormhole and travel another light year toward Earth. The asteroids rotate slowly, and its your job to pick the right moment to jump. Time it well and aim correctly, and he'll fly in a straight line toward your next target, or near enough to get picked up in its gravity. Aim poorly and he'll fly straight off into the endless void of space. Not a good way to go.

I found it challenging enough to survive many of the game's 100 levels, because jumping across large chasms of space from tiny, rotating asteroids takes a lot of precision. Even if you've got great aim, the challenge ramps up as you're introduced to debris fields, asteroids that limit your jumps, teleporting dark matter and other obstacles. But despite all the potential chaos this is a slow, thoughtful game. Occasionally you'll need to act fast, but for most of the game you'll be waiting for the perfect jump.

A Long Way Home rewards patience, while impatience usually gets you killed. You can walk around the asteroids using your choice of on-screen, accelerometer or hot zone controls, and that speeds things up a bit, but if you jump too soon you'll have to wait until you've drifted away and then start the whole level over again. If that sounds like something that would make you want to smash your iPad over your knee after a few tries, this isn't your game.

Even with the patience of a saint, you may run into a few frustrating spots. You can die unfairly in some levels, skimming the edge of the screen or getting a little too close to a debris field. I also ran into one bug that nearly broke the game, letting me skip a few levels and making my computerized companion wander off for the start of a new galaxy. A reset fixed it, but a major error like that makes me a bit more cautious about recommending the game.

If you can look past those few bugs, though, A Long Way Home is a game worth experiencing. With my headphones in and the music on, the feeling of loneliness was so visceral that I found myself actually missing my chats with the wrist computer. It can really hold up its end of a conversation, but it's only around to introduce new game mechanics. The rest of the time, it's just you and the universe. I wouldn't blame anyone who found that dull, but with a few fixes this could be a real indie darling. If you're up for patient, thoughtful gameplay that makes for an evocative experience, you should give A Long Way Home a shot.