I don't think I give�Chair enough credit. Not only did it make a good game in Infinity Blade [$5.99], but it also created an entire mobile game structure and set of mechanics that has caught fire with both developers and mobile game fans. There are good reasons, too: the instance-based conflicts, progression, repetition are perfectly bite-sized for mobile and tablet play and visuals, while the over-the-shoulder slide, tap, and swipe controls are undeniably touch intuitive.

This didn't hit me in a vacuum, by the way. I just spent a couple of hours with Uppercut Game's Epoch and describing the way Infinity Blade gets down is the easiest way�to start a conversation about Epoch.�Sure Epoch is cover-based shooter based in a broken-down sci-fi world populated by robots, but on a finer level it takes and adapts a lot of what made Infinity Blade so great and applies it to its own action model and structure.

The proof of what this does for Epoch is in its pudding: the game's�top-notch�visuals are allowed to look great all the time, while the core play consistently stays fun and intuitive. It doesn't hurt to mention that it has the breeziness to make it possible to play on-the-go, but I don't think many of us will be able to put it down as quickly as our loved ones would like.

Epoch is a "guided experience," meaning exploration is a no-no. Actually, you'll never be allowed to leave its bread-and-butter, the cover you'll need to sit behind to take out foes. That's because the entire game's action model, and the fun you can have, hinges solely around sliding, jumping, and shooting, and positioning around cover objects.

It sounds like a bummer on the surface, but�Epoch doesn't suffer from this decision. Swiping to move from piece of cover to piece of cover is a fairly smooth and excitingly kinetic experience. You move fast with flair and there's some variety to it. Different enemies with different kinds of guns are constantly challenging your choice of barrier. Some enemies, for example, can shoot timed grenades, while others a steady stream that can clip through a barricade as if it didn't exist, forcing you to jump over the wide beam. It's really fun to play with the cover system, which is an unusual sentiment since guns are involved.

But while shooting takes a little bit of a back seat due to the more action-oriented style of the cover part of the equation, shoot you will. Epoch is seperated into insance-based fights, all of which are gated by kills. Swipe to move from cover, tap to target. Shooting is automatic once you target an enemy, but you never feel out of control. Your robot dude only shoots when you put it in a position to do so. If he's shooting like a moron, it's always because you are making stupid tactical approaches.

Speaking of robots, Epoch takes place in some bizarro future where machines may or may not have had an uprising of some sort. Every area I've seen in the game so far has been ultra-bombed out, while every robotic enemy has seemed to have been made purely to kill any opposition that swings its way. To be fair, the robot protagonist you play as seems to have been tuned in the same fashion, but your dude has a mission: find a princess -- at least, I think that's the mission.

The story-telling in particular in Epoch may not be the greatest thing ever, but I love the approach. Uppercut Game's isn't telling you much. Your robot doesn't talk and you're just exploring a world in which, obviously, something has gone horribly awry. To piece events together, the game dishes out optional diaries and messages from important people to the game world's civilization.

The lack of story cut-scenes keeps action clippy, and it's obvious that this is the kind of game that wants you to keep re-doing missions before going to the new ones. Your robot can upgrade its gun through an in-game store with credits earned after battle. There's also a basic level-up system and a host of upgradeable special moves you can deploy in battle, including armor, missile, and grenade abilities. These in particular are cool, as they operate as crowd-clearing mechanisms and factor into the overall strategy. And, as I've discovered, you get pretty wrapped up in upgrading everything you possibly can.

Epoch does enough via its weapon systems and cover-based action to make it play and feel like a different game. And that game part, taken outside of the structure, seems to be pretty good. There's a lot of Infinity Blade mixed into it, too. The controls, the game's focus on�repetition for better loot, its entire presentation, and a lot of its systems are undoubtedly influenced directly by Chair's work.�I'm not sure if this formula and structure are wearing on you yet, but if it's not, you'll probably want to check this one out when it launches. According to Uppercut, expect it soon.

We've been asked a couple of times about what's up with the iOS version of Super Crate Box. It's been in the oven for awhile and people are starting to wonder if it's going to come out or not. Good news: it's still a thing Vlambeer plans to release.

Convienently, a new post on Vlambeer's official blog is giving us all a glance behind the curtain. The studio is currently continuing work on Super Crate Box's controls, and while the overall project is taking "longer than expected," Vlambeer believes it'll make it out of the door by the end of this year. It also admitted that this version is harder to get into, but people are putting up high enough scores for that to not be a concern.

In other Vlambeer iOS-related news, Ridiculous Fishing is still happening, too. In the same blog post, the studio notes that the focus "is on getting everything nice for IGF," while adding that it has been "ridding the design of useless junk." To Vlambeer, it seems as if "everything is falling in place" with the project.

So, there you go. Super Crate Box is still coming and, hey, it'll be better for its long-ish cycle. As an aside here, Vlambeer just released its Serious Sam project, Serious Sam: The Random Encounter, on PC and I'd imagine that took some time away from its iOS projects.

Mark Jacobs, the co-founder and former CEO of Mythic Entertainment recently unveiled a new development studio, City State Entertainment. They've apparently been building up a team since March, and are anticipating the release of their first game later this year. City State Entertainment will be focusing on "mobile, tablet, and social networking spaces," which generally seems to be a noncommittal way to say "iOS and potentially Facebook."

Mark Jacobs and the rest of his team have some seriously fantastic games under their belt. Most notably in my eyes would be Dark Age of Camelot, a PvP-centric MMO that featured massive realtime battles that were basically unheard of in the MMORPG space at the time. Mythic was also responsible for Warhammer Online, which seemed to have tons of potential but basically floundered in the shadow of the World of Warcraft juggernaut. Other titles Jacobs and his team have dabbled in include Elder Scrolls: Skyrim, Neverwinter Nights 3, Knights of the Old Republic II, and more. We're talking some serious talent here.

We're cautiously optimistic about whatever game City State Entertainment is planning on releasing this year. It's fantastic to see Jacobs working in the mobile space, and hopefully his team can make a good transition from AAA to the often lower budgets and tighter development cycles of iOS games.

Contre Jour [$.99 / UHD: now with more. Courtesy a new update, Mokus' beautiful puzzle game boasts a fourth world called "Moonlight" that contains 20 additional stages to play in and a few new mechanics including "moving pulleys and tentacles." Interestingly, Moonlight also features a slightly off-kilter visual style that sets it apart from the rest of the its content. Everything in it looks rendered in negative, as if the art dude(s) at Mokus hit the wrong button on Photoshop or something.

The results are pretty cool. Check out these screens publisher Chillingo blasted us this morning:

Smaller device woes aside, Contre Jour holds up. It's a beautiful game with some really challenging puzzles that'll keep you testing and delaying that endorphin-pumping "a-ha" moment whenever you figure out how to reach the exit of a level.

One of my favorite thing about the iOS world is how many AAA industry veterans are returning to their roots of indie development, potentially bringing decades of experience with them. This is the case with Glenn Corpes, whose 20+ years in video games has had his hands in Populous, Dungeon Keeper, and a ton of other great games. On the App Store, he's released Ground Effect [$2.99] and is hard at work on Topia: Age of Creation.

Anyway, in a recent interview with PocketGamer.biz Glenn explains that even though the iPhone 4S looks identical to the iPhone 4 on the outside, the internals represent an even bigger leap than the one between the iPhone 3G and iPhone 3GS. Corpes calls A4 devices "irritating," as they had tons of potential utilizing shaders, but were ultimately too slow at processing the actual pixels. Things were only made worst by the Retina Display, as App Store customers quickly became disinterested in anything that didn't push all 614,400 pixels.

He explains that some of the cool shaders we've seen in Infinity Blade 2 could be done at a lower resolution, but you just can't release games like that. A5 devices, on the other hand, are powerful enough to use shaders that would have only been useful on PC's and current-generation consoles before. While fully utilizing the 3GS required code rewrites, developers can take advantage of the 4S by simply using better shaders. Even more spare horsepower can be utilized with anti-aliasing, post processing effects, and other things A4 devices weren't capable of.

I imagine just like the 3GS, it'll take some time for developers to actually start taking advantage of all the new capabilities iPhone 4S. I can't wait.

[via PocketGamer.biz]

A survey was distributed amongst 1,000 video game industry professionals that are attending the upcoming London Games Festival, respondents were asked to compose their own list of the top five people and hardware in the video game industry and, both Apple and Steve jobs ranked in first amongst both categories:

Products

• iPhone: 17%
• Wii: 7%
• Xbox Live: 3%
• PlayStation One: 3%
• Steam: 2%

People

• Steve Jobs 26%
• Gabe Newell 16%
• Shigeru Miyamoto 7%
• Tim Berners-Lee 4%
• Mark Zuckerberg 3%

Curiously enough, amongst all the people who responded, the iPhone was somewhere in 53% of the voters' top fives. Similarly, Steve Jobs made it into 46% of all the top fives. Like most surveys, you can read into them a variety of different ways. If the London Games Conference is like most US video game conferences, it could be nearly taken over by iOS developers, who'd naturally respond the iPhone and Steve Jobs. Alternatively, Steve Jobs is likely still fresh in everyone's memory. Either way, I feel like Shigeru Miyamoto should have gotten way more than 7%.

[Eurogamer via The Escapist]

Yesterday, RedLynx announced via a press release posted in their forums that it had been picked up by French publishing giant Ubisoft. Most gamers came to know RedLynx as the creators of the massively popular and critically acclaimed Trials HD on the Xbox Live Arcade, but the Finnish developer has also trekked into the iOS App Store with Monster Trucks Nitro 1 [99�] and 2 [$2.99], the unique line-drawing racers DrawRace [$2.99] and DrawRace 2 [99�/HD], and the new-level-a-day platformer Thousand Heroes [99�/HD].

Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot had this to say about the acquisition of RedLynx:

The team at RedLynx has developed exceptionally strong digital brands that stand out for their high replay value, their long tail sales and their multiplatform positioning. We are delighted to welcome RedLynx to the Ubisoft family. Their expertise in asynchronous online games and physics-based game mechanics provides us with a great opportunity to bring their powerful brands, most notably Trials, to an even broader range of fast-growing digital platforms.

Did you catch that? He states how interested Ubisoft is in bringing RedLynx's powerful brands to fast-growing digital platforms. Hey, the App Store is a fast-growing digital platform! And he specifically mentions Trials, the company's most notorious and beloved brand. Could this mean there is intent to bring a Trials game to the App Store? Motorcycle physics games have been quite a popular genre on iOS already, like the awesome recently released Bike Baron [99�], among others. But it would be impossible to deny that despite how good some of those similar games are, in my heart I'd really love to be playing the actual Trials HD on my iOS device.

Time will tell if the App Store will finally get its Trials day in the sun or not, but this latest acquisition by Ubisoft makes it seem like there's a strong possibility. A Trials HD successor, Trials Evolution, is set to debut in the coming months, and if it's bound for the App Store in any way then you can be sure we'll let you know.

[Via Joystiq]

SpinTrip [99�] from ClickGamer (Chillingo) is a 2D platform game about a rolling wheel with magical abilities. Your task is to hop inside the wheel, then roll, jump, fly or float it to the end of the level. There's things to collect and enemies to avoid or kill, but it's the wheel and various magical abilities which makes this game interesting and differentiates it from other platformers.

In the introduction, an old woman explains that the nasty gants have stolen five magical shims and 'Tisu must now use his chibwheel to collect chibs and find a shimloon portal to rescue them. ...umm, say what? But don't let the unusual names put you off, because this game is actually really easy to play.

You start by choosing a character to stand inside the rolling chib-wheel. The options are: Noss (boy) or Lillme (girl), It doesn't matter which you choose as this is purely cosmetic. By using the left, right and jump buttons, you can gain enough speed to roll the wheel across hilly terrain, caves and platforms, bouncing off leaf-trampolines and gaining points from snowflakes, stars and kidney beans. Actually they're given another unusual name, but I don't want to translate more words like: nietche, zlepts, popples and powkiss, so lets just call them kidney beans!

Within the levels are colorful little characters to collect, called "chibs". Once a chib hops inside the wheel with you, you gain their magical ability. For example the "leap" chib makes the wheel jump higher,� "spitter chibs" spit seeds at your enemies like a weapon, and the "swim" chib makes the wheel buoyant, so you can cross pools of water.� Specific magical abilities are needed to pass certain obstacles, so sometimes you need to backtrack to explore for a certain type of chib.

Once you've collected multiple chibs, the wheel starts looking pretty crowded, but that's good because it means you're loaded up with plenty of abilities to choose between. Eight icons are displayed along the top of the screen, representing each type of chib you might find, but you can only select one at a time. The main action button at the bottom of the screen triggers whichever ability is selected at the top. Some platform games are almost non-stop movement, but in SpinTrip there's plenty of starting and stopping as you reach different obstacles, choose the appropriate ability, use it, then switch back afterwards.

Each special ability can only be used a limited number of times, so you need to activate them carefully, otherwise your swim ability may expire while you're floating or you could get stuck at the bottom of a cliff with no way to climb it.� In these situations you can search for more chibs, or restart from the last milestone on the level. Once you locate and enter the portal at the end of the level, you're given a 3-star score based on points from collected treats, enemies killed and chibs collected.

The world map shows 16 levels (each of a reasonable size) which you unlock sequentially. However the map doesn't display an overview of your 3-star ratings, making it difficult to easily spot which levels require another attempt. Leaderboards and just five achievements for finding collectables are managed via Chillingo's Crystal and Game Center.

A few minor issues were noted. Firstly, it's frustrating when your spitter weapon occasionally misses an enemy right in front of you or beside an almost in-perceivable rise in the ground, since the aiming is automatic. Secondly, the sound effects seem rather quiet compared to other games.� Thirdly, two levels appear to have the same name listed. And lastly, there's a "Chib Index" in the main menu, which lists the various chibs, but once you reach the bottom of the list you can't scroll back up.

SpinTrip isn't the first platform game to use a rolling mechanism, as there's various ball rolling games available, but it's a nice twist to gain power-ups by collecting little characters who jump into your wheel. It's not the most challenging platform game, with chibs generally being plentiful and easy to locate, but it's fun to play, making this a casual but solid platforming experience.

This past August, Firemint brought us its first release since being acquired by Electronic Arts, called Spy Mouse [99�]. Taking their expertise in the line-drawing genre that the developer almost single-handedly popularized with their premiere iOS offering Flight Control [99�/Lite/HD] and applying it to a stealth-heavy action/puzzle game, Spy Mouse offered an incredibly enjoyable and straight forward experience that we highlighted in our review.

The task at hand was to direct the game's mousey protagonist Agent Squeak safely through a level, staying out of the path of roaming cats and collecting cheese and powerups along the way. It's a formula that proved quite successful, and most importantly, fun.

Today, Firemint has released the latest update to Spy Mouse which adds in the often requested online leaderboard functionality. You'll need to sign up with EA's Origin service which is built into the game and then can track your level scores with fellow Spy Mouse-ers across the globe.

Also part of this update is the addition of 5 brand new Challenges to be found in Agent Squeak's Backpack. Additionally, Firemint has lowered the required Squeak friends requirement to unlock additional elements in the Backpack to just one. If you find yourself having trouble passing certain levels, Kiska's assistance is now available once per hour instead of just once per day, and Firemint has posted an online help video on getting past the game's first boss, and I'd imagine they'll have similar videos coming out in the future.

Spy Mouse was definitely a fun game to begin with, and a fresh mix on both the line-drawing and stealth genres. Plus, it's just plain cute pretty much all around. Be sure to grab this latest update to Spy Mouse and check out the new features for yourself.