Like word games? Great! Graeme Devine's studio, GRL Games, is launching a new front-facing camera-enabled game this coming September 1 across the iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch. It's titled Word Chat, and it'll release with a total four modes, one of which is an online mode that'll let you chat face-to-face with your pals similarly to how GRL Games' last title, Full Deck Hold 'Em [$2.99], allowed.

The online mode you'll see just below is pretty simple. In 100 second timed rounds, you and your bud are tasked with spelling as many words as you can out of an endless set of tiles. As more words are forged, the tiles are removed and the highest score wins.

The other modes are basic solitaire modes designed for challenge as well as learning. In one, you'll be given 200 titles and an infinite amount of time to come to grips with the game's mechanic. In another, you'll get 200 tiles and the aforementioned timer. The last mode is an infinite mode in which you can juice the game for more time after using every fourth letter.

We're just now getting this into our hands, and will report back to you. If you have faith in Devine like we do, though, this seems like a no-brainer.

Crescent Moon Games missed a fantastic opportunity to help everyone on the PAX Prime exodus have something to do on their respective trips, but it is throwing a sale for the rest of us who need something to do… over the weekend, I suppose? On the toilet? While waiting for Deus Ex: Human Revolution to load?

Anyway, kicking off tomorrow, August 26, the publisher is hacking at the prices of its catalogue of RPGs and offering them all for a meagre $.99. In the case of most of titles, this will be a savings of several dollars for games that should keep you occupied for hours and hours on end.

Here's the list and the prices of what these games will be tomorrow:

• Aralon: Sword and Shadow � $4.99 ? $.99 [Universal]
• Ravensword: The Fallen King � $2.99 ? $.99
• Rimelands: Hammer of Thor � $4.99 ? $.99 [Universal]

The iPhone version of Pocket RPG [$4.99], which is making its debut tomorrow, will also be listed at $.99 and join in on this deal. We're not sure what the normal price of the app will be otherwise, though I'd imagine you'll at least be saving a dollar here.

If I may suggest, Aralon seems to be the steal here. Granted, it's a little clunky, but overall it's an entertaining and deep RPG experience. Above all, though, it's like nothing else on the platform, and that kind of novelty has its draws, too.

Earlier this year, Activision decided that it was done with Bizarre Creations and closed the studio after not being able to find an adequate buyer for it, which stuck me as unfathomable since this is the studio responsible for fantastic games like Blur, Project Gotham Racing, and so on and so forth. Regardless, since then, creators at the studio have made their own independent studios. Hogrocket, led by former Bizarre designer Pete Collier, Geometry Wars [$.99] creator Stephen Cakebread, and community manager Ben Ward, is one of those, and thankfully, they're pooling their talents in service of an iOS game.

Todays news is a release date: the first game from the studio � which remains unannounced for the time being � is coming September 1. In a recent chat with Eurogamer, Collier talked up the release and the challenge:

"We're mega excited to be releasing our very first game here at Hogrocket. The shift from AAA to mobile has been a really rewarding challenge and this launch marks the beginning of an exciting new chapter for us. We hope you enjoy the game," he said.

We've played the game and can't comment on it at the moment, but what we really wanted to do here is throw down some context. We're currently trying to wrangle a good time to talk to Hogrocket for an episode of The TouchArcade Show, so we thought it best to give you some sort of foundation to work with. We're awesome like that.

But, seriously, keep your eyes on these guys. They know what they're doing and it'll be great to bring you more in the near future.

[Via Eurogamer]

When I first heard about Match Panic [$.99], I had the same reaction to it that a lab ape does to a banana attached to an electrical current. Its super casual conceit and its ridiculously cute aesthetic are as sweet as banana juice, but there is a price in succumbing to cutesy and simple in the form of credibility and overall well-being. In this delightful scenario, I'm referring to mental health, as opposed to physical health which our dear lab ape would be short of if it happened to be really, really hungry one afternoon.

As flat-out stated in our original review, the core play boils down to this: moving a cartoon object to one of two columns with a matching object. There's a gentle escalation of action as the columns fill up with more objects to match, but that's it.�On the iPad or iPhone it feels great since all you're doing is flicking, so this isn't the kind of game that begs for iCade support. Still, a torrent of surprise drizzled me when I rigged it into my device and gave it a go.

Match Panic when played with an iCade uses two buttons, both on the far side of the lower layout on the machine � there is no joystick support. The far left-hand button puts the center object in the left-hand column, while the right-hand button puts the center object in the right column. It's pretty straightforward, but because developers can't really document these kinds of things in their official app notes due to Apple being nuts, I had to stumble around and figure this out myself. I just threw you a bone, here.

It's hard to express exactly how the game makes me feel with ThinkGeek's ridiculous little device, but when I play, I enter into that weird zone that Pavlov discovered � you know, the one where you drool whenever you hear a bell because you really, really like food? That one. Match Panic is a super simple, visceral kind of game designed specifically around rewarding and dazzling you for matching. With buttons and that tactile feedback the iCade provides, these feelings it inspires multiply in a scary, drool-inducing-dog-hears-a-bell sort of way. It's wild.

As a result, you'll catch yourself spending way too much time with it happily matching shapes. I got to the point where I forced myself to unplug, just like how I have to yank myself out of Pac-Man Championship Edition DX, which has a similar style of rewarding.

If you don't own Match Panic, you probably should. And if you have an iCade, you definitely should. Match Panic nowhere near as complex as other titles that the platform supports, but it's a grade A example of why the iCade is so cool and how it can flesh out experiences in new, and in the case of this, dramatic ways. I've been having a blast at least.

Previous games we've covered in this series:�Mos Speedrun / HungryMaster. Check out our list of iCade titles�here.

The one thing that I really love about our "bonus" podcasts is the fact that we only talk to people who fire from the hip: no boilerplate, no scripting, and no dodging. Game Revolution had the same kind of dialogue with an industry figure at Develop. In its conversation with Fish Labs CEO Michael Schade, you get the sense that he's an unfiltered and passionate type of dude. He has a lot to offer as a result, especially when it comes to pricing models on the App Store, and as you'd assume by looking up Galaxy on Fire [$9.99 / Lite] on iTunes, he's not a fan of the "race to the bottom."

It's not really fair to toss a headline up there and just move on, but the interview does revolve around "premium" price tags. Schade wants a premium $10 market on the App Store because he thinks developers of high-end games deserve it and consumers actually want it.

His answer when GR asks about the definition of a premium game and the part Apple could play in that:

"Every time I bring that to the table Apple asks the same question. I'd say it could be completely editorial, they decide what they think is premium � that'd be good enough for me, we'd just need to try hard enough to meet their internal premium criteria. I would appreciate if there was a floor price, and my gut's feeling is that it should be $9.99 because that's the lowest price for pay-per-play that I've seen on Steam for instance.

There are good 2D games, really good 2D games that are being sold for 9.99 Euros, so if you go $9.99 it's even lower than that. So I think that's the premium price. If somebody's not willing to pay 10 bucks for a game on a platform he paid 800 bucks for, then that's not premium."

His stance against the myth that if games are cheaper, users will buy more games:

"I think the consumer is cleverer than that, they realize that if you pay just 59p for a game, you can't expect the same experience as if you paid �5.99. Especially if your target group is more in the traditional hardcore gaming space, these guys are coming from a different price point anyway, and I closely follow discussions on forums where people discuss "what can you expect from a game that's only 59p?"

"So if this category is targeted, and marketed at, I think it would be very successful. To a certain degree, it's kind of a surprise that Apple have premium products, for a premium audience but don't have a premium category for premium content, I think it's a natural fit."

If you're into Schade, we heartily suggest you go check out the rest of the interview, which is laden with candor and even some talk on Android. Turns out that, despite the OS' massive reach, developers aren't really making money on the platform. Piracy, among other things, are big issues.

Again, it's neat to see this kind of talk from a bigwig. We should bring him on the show sometime, eh?

[Via Game Revolution]

This morning while making my morning coffee and browsing through my email, I came across the most amazing announcement I've seen come out of Sega since the Dreamcast. (Yes, I realize Sega has made other, potentially better announcements since then, but still.) Sonic CD is coming to the App Store. If this doesn't have you squealing with glee, you must not have been alive during the Sega CD glory days, as Sonic CD is by far the absolute best Sonic game. It comes from the era of gaming before everyone felt the need to shoehorn needless 3D into games that are perfectly suited to be sidescrollers, and it was packed with the various benefits the Sega CD could offer: Full motion video, a fantastic soundtrack, and tons of content. There's even a radical time traveling mechanic where you can travel between the past and future on the same level.

Now, before we (justifiably) start grumbling about the quality of Sega's various emulated ports, there may be a glimmer of hope out there that Sonic CD might be everything we could ask for and more in an iOS Sonic game. Long-time readers might be pickin' up what I'm puttin' down. If you're new to the scene, let me introduce you to this video from over two years ago:

To make a long story short, in the summer of 2009, pioneering iOS developer Christian Whitehead announced his "iPhone Retro Engine" and "Retro Engine Development Kit." Sonic CD was the proof of concept Christian used to show just how incredibly well his technology works. We quickly followed up with an interview with Whitehead who got into some details, and made mention that he did in fact pitch this whole project to Sega.

Not long after that, all traces of the Retro Engine and Sonic CD running in it vanished from the internet. All of the communication after the fact was strictly off the record, but one could easily assume that when someone approaches Sega with a working proof of concept to not only port their games to tons of platforms, but do it quickly, easily, and with great performance, they're going to jump all over it.

If you're not quite ready to equip your tinfoil hat and go with me on this, consider this: Everything from Sega's PR blast this morning perfectly describes Sonic CD as we saw it running on the iPhone two years ago. It's hitting multiple platforms, widescreen graphics, "special iOS features," achievements, and more. If this were anything but Christian Whitehead's Sonic CD, my gut is telling me that it'd be running in some wacky variation of the Sega CD's original 320�224 resolution wrapped in a crazy emulator and not enhanced in the slightest… Because, really, that's how Sega rolls.

We likely won't have to wait too long to find out either, as it should be playable this weekend at PAX. Hopefully they've got the iPhone version there, and I'd put my money on it looking almost exactly like the above video.

The first thing that struck me about Contre Jour [$0.99 / UHD] was how beautiful it was. Everything about this game is lush and gorgeous � the art, the music, I could just bury myself in it. The second thing that struck me was that everything seemed a little familiar. Was the art too World of Goo? Or maybe too Limbo? Was this mechanic borrowed from Cut the Rope? Or was that one from Bumpy Road? Or, heaven forbid, Angry Birds?

Familiar elements litter Contre Jour, and I've already seen some people write it off for that reason. Let me be frank: this would be a mistake. This isn't some cheap knock-off that's stolen something from your game of choice. If anything, Contre Jour is an elegy to games past. Developer Mokus has taken the best aspects of any number of physics games and platformers and recreated them into a single imaginative whole.

You control the world of Contre Jour, not its hero Petit (named for La Petit Prince, an inspiration for this game). It is a hostile world, but you have the tools you need to see him safely through. Over the course of 60 single-screen levels, you will nudge, swing, shoot and fling Petit to the safety of a glowing blue light.

To get Petit moving, you can nudge the ground he sits on, lifting it and lowering it to move him into place. Rarely will this be enough to get him to his destination, however. In most levels, you'll employ tentacles, both elastic and not, that can be attached to him and detached at will. Timing perfect swings and launching him with a variety of these tentacles is a skill you'll need to pick up quickly.

There are other tools to play with, too. Some levels have movable tentacles, which you'll need to maneuver carefully to keep from impaling Petit on a lurking spike. Air geysers shoot him away. And, in a pleasantly familiar touch, you can toss Petit through a portal and trust that he'll fly through the other side, inertia intact.

The levels themselves range from simple to sadistic. Nothing actively opposes Petit, but gravity, spikes and hungry plants do an admirable job of standing in his way. Should you find the challenge too much, any level can be skipped freely � but you need to collect a certain number of lights (there are, of course, three in each level) to unlock the second and third worlds.

Each of the three worlds is lovely and distinct from its fellows. Three instrumental themes accompany your journey, and they deserve a listen through a good pair of headphones. The worlds also manage to look quite different from each other while maintaining Contre Jour's monochromatic aesthetic. The neon glow of the Night world is particularly appealing.

The one drawback of Contre Jour is that on smaller devices some of the later levels require a bit too much coordination. The game supports multi-touch input, so it's possible to tap, nudge and launch all in a few moments, but it's awfully hard to be precise about what you're touching when you're covering the screen with several fingers at once. If you want to collect all the Game Center/Crystal achievements and top each chapter's leaderboard you may find it easier to do so on the iPad where you'll have a bit more room to pull off some of the more complicated maneuvers.

If there is room in your heart for another three-star, one-screen platformer, Contre Jour is more than worthy of your purchase. It's a beautiful, challenging experience. Our forum users seem impressed so far, and I am too. I can't wait to see what's still to come for this game.

Don't ask me why, but there's something about a videogame with a�ridiculous�premise that always appeals to me. In this case, it's the story of a fat cat named Tombo who lives in a tall tower and gets food air shipped in on a weekly basis to fill his growing belly. For me, this brings up a lot of common sense questions. How does he pay for the food? Who has such a delivery service that they send orders in by air balloon? Do they deliver in my area?

Anyway, this goofy premise is the story of�Fatcat Rush [$0.99], an on-rails 3D sidescroller that allows you to go on an eating rampage. It seems one of your food deliveries has made a wrong turn and exploded all over the tower you live in, so you can either sit up at the top like the proud fatass you are and starve, or you can go on an adventure to recapture your food. Not much of a choice here, guys.

You'll control Tombo's jumps as the game automatically propels him along. You can also slide using a button on the far right which will let you kick barrels open to reveal food, but beyond that the game keeps it pretty simple as far as controls go (and they are very accurate, which is lovely.) Both buttons can be combined for a long jump, which you will certainly need as you go plowing through the later levels in search of hamburgers, sushi and whatever other weird stuff you apparently order every week. What the hell is a ketchup lollipop, anyway? Gross!

You have three hearts in each level you play, and the only way you can lose them is by crashing into things like the aforementioned barrels or falling too far. Keep the rhythm of your jumps going, and this shouldn't be a problem, although it certainly gets trickier as you go, but you can pick up health shakes to restore hearts as well. Also good to look out for are fish, which help your boost meter and score. For each fish you grab, your score multiplier is going to go up, so if you're in it to rack up the points (which you will also earn in-game achievements for), you're going to want to keep an eye out for these guys.

There are a total of 15 levels in Fatcat Rush, and they are very well designed and engaging. Different�environmental�hazards await you as you make your way up the tower, and it keeps the gameplay interesting. I think this game's biggest appeal is going to be with score hounds that like to replay each level to perfection and figure out a way to get every little secret food item and rack up plenty of fish on the way for big numbers. You can unlock outfits too, including one that makes you look a bit like Mario, which ought to please the old school fans.

Fatcat Rush is lovely to look at and fun to play, and I have a feeling that it'll capture a lot of attention, especially at such a reasonable price. I think it could have benefitted from online leaderboards since it's clearly a score-oriented title, but it ought to still provide plenty of solid on-the-go action regardless. And let's face it � watching Tombo hurl his fat body around trying to capture foodstuffs is kind of great in itself. Fat cats are always the best.

Sometimes with a multiplayer game, simplicity is the best way to go. It makes it so friends and family can pick up a game and play with little explanation and in turn, you can all jump into having fun with little setup. Sandstorm Interactive's iPad-only title, S.U.B. Steampunk Underwater Battles [$1.99] does just that.

For most, all you'll need to know is that you're in control of a submarine and your goal is to kill your friends, who are also in control of submarines. Each of the four different submarines has a different weapons loadout and require different strategies to be successful. You get a good variety of control options to fit your needs, but considering you only control the left and right turns, a tap to shoot and a few buttons for�special�attacks, most of the options should be just fine for everyone. Which brings us to rule number one of enjoying S.U.B.: find three friends with iPhones.

That's because Sandstorm Interactive has built a remote control for iPhone and iPod Touch that allows each player to use their own device to control their ship so you don't have to huddle awkwardly around an iPad. Setup is a cinch and only takes a couple seconds, although we did have trouble getting the WiFi synch to work and had to resort to Bluetooth. You have to play together in a room, no WiFi multiplayer here.

The second rule to enjoying S.U.B. is to ignore the streampunk in the game's title. Other than a few menu choices, there isn't really anything steampunk about the game. You don't control an avatar of an old man with a giant beard and goggles, you don't pilot dirigibles and you certainly won't be forced to embarrassingly explain to your friends what steampunk means. Instead, you'll control some submarines that look sort of steampunkish, but could just as easily be anything else. There is certainly a lot of bronze in the UI, but that's it.

The third rule�is to keep your expectations in check. This isn't an in-depth game, nor is a game with a ton of options. You'll get a few maps to play on and the goal of each is to kill each other before they kill you. There is an endless wave mode available for single player, but it's not particularly enjoyable or interesting. The only way you're going to be happy you dropped $1.99 on this title is if you play it friends. It's a fast paced, arcade title where you float around arenas and kill each other, nothing more.

It's not without its problems, of course. Although there are several different arenas, they are nothing more than backdrops and don't change the core gameplay style. The lack of variety and modes might turn people away as well, as there is only one option for multiplayer. The endless mode of the single player seems like it would have been a good fit with multiple people too, so its curious it's not in the game.

The fancy visuals are certainly nice to look at, but the murkiness of the colors can make it difficult to tell exactly what's going on, especially if you've got four heads eying the screen at once. Thankfully the ships are lit up nice and bright, but it can be difficult to aim and shoot correctly.

It's simple, stupid, fun and it absolutely requires multiple people to appreciate. The arcade action lacks depth or strategy, but it does allow anyone to drop in and play immediately, a reasonable trade-off in a multiplayer-centric game like this.

It should be clear this is a game with a concentration is on the multiplayer dynamic. Where other games might add it in, or worry about it in updates, S.U.B. is preoccupied with the idea that a submarine game can be fun for multiple people at once. The concentration pays off, and although it's probably not going to keep you entertained for days on end, it will provide you with a short relief from talking to friends and loved ones.

Like Tower Defense, one of the genres that saw a resurgence with the advent of iOS gaming is the 'Sniper' genre. Typically relegated to the flash games scene, the touch screen, accelerometer and gyroscopic controls of iOS devices seemed like a natural fit for Sniper games. This lead to an explosion of a wide variety of titles that all sought to put you behind the scope of a sniper rifle.

Hired Gun 3D [$0.99], the newest game from Triniti Interactive, is the latest Sniper game to hit the market. Described as a sequel to Triniti's previous stick-figured sniper title, Hired Gun 3D lookes to up the ante with a revamped graphics engine as well as some improvements to the general gameplay. While it does end up as a marked improvement on its predecessor in an assortment of different ways, Hired Gun 3D fails to differentiate itself from the rest of the Sniper crowd.

If you're unfamiliar with the Sniper shooter genre, let me set the scene for Hired Gun 3D: each mission tasks you with taking out a specific target in one of eight different environments. You'll initially start zoomed out watching everyone walk by. Once you spot your man, tap on the screen to zoom in via your scope and once you've got him in your�cross-hairs, all you have to do is shoot him to get credit for the kill. Missions have you killing multiples of the same target within a certain amount of time. After each successful mission, you earn cash that lets you buy and upgrade bigger and better sniper rifles. As with most sniper games, Hired Gun 3D is all about patience, precision, and observance.

Overall, Hired Gun 3D manages to satisfy those three tenants of sniper games. Each mission location is filled with random civilians, which not only increases the overall ambience but also forces you to pay extra attention to your target. Thankfully, the game's accelerometer controls are relatively smooth and allow you the precision necessary to adequately track and target your victims. Hired Gun 3D's visuals are also well done and are vastly improved over its predecessor. The upgrade system also does a good job of prolonging replayability, although I would have liked descriptions as to what exactly you're getting when you upgrade the various stats on each gun (as well as a price tag for each upgrade).

Hired Gun 3D succeeds at being a decent sniper game, but there are some annoying design issues that bring the overall gameplay experience down. While the accelerometer controls do a good job of allowing you to track and take down your targets, the optional joystick controls are horrendous. Unfortunately, this makes the game almost unplayable when you're in a situation that prevents you from moving your device around in a precise manner. The zoom controls while scoped seemed erratic as they would occasionally throw me out of zoom mode forcing me to have to re-aim, taking precious time off the mission clock. In addition, even though Hired Gun 3D is a paid app with IAP, all the menus still have annoying ads for other Triniti Interactive titles. While this doesn't really affect gameplay, it seems an odd choice to subject your paying customers to ads.

One of the biggest concerns I have with Hired Gun 3D is �the overall lack of variety. One of the game's selling points is the fact that there are an unlimited amount of missions to play and earn money, but they all play exactly the same way. Your target is always one of a handful of people and, while I enjoyed the mission environments, they get old pretty quickly. Even just a little more variety would have made the game far easier to enjoy. The fact that there's no story or motivation to continue playing (besides upgrading your weapons) doesn't help either.

Hired Gun 3D does a good job of providing you the average sniper experience. Unfortunately, that's all it does. If you're a fan of similar games, then Hired Gun 3D is worth a try simply because it's a new game and doesn't suck. However, if you're a newcomer or not necessarily a fan of sniper shooters, don't expect it to convert you.