geoDefense Swarm is live with an intro price of only $0.99!!!!

The "thinking mans tower defense" is live and on sale with an intro rate of just $0.99. iTunes link: http://tinyurl.com/md3tg4

We will post impressions later, we are going to play!

After a long wait for fans, geoDefense Swarm Dev says it's approved!

The Developer for the long awaited geoDefense Swarm, reported this afternoon that the app has been approved and should appear on the app store soon. Apparently it takes some time for the app to actually appear on the servers after approval.
Bottom line, soon the wait will be over for the huge group of geoDefense fans that have eagerly anticipated the next title in the geoDefense family.

Penny Pincher Alert! Fling is free for a limited time

A very charming puzzle game, Fling is free for a "limited time" We don't know how long this sale will actually last but this game is great even at $2.00 and is certainly worth axdownload whilevits free. Go get em' fellow frugal gamers!

Penny Pincher Alert: Rolando 2 discounted from $9.99 to $5.99. Star Defense available for only $0.99!

Ngmoco's sequel for thier hit, Rolando has just been discounted from $9.99 down to $5.99. You can also pick up Ngmoco's excellent 3D Tower Defense game, Star Defense for only $0.99 an absolute steal. Star Defense is one of my favorites and should not be missed at that price.

The Current Gamer Breaking News: Mediatonics new iPhone game get the info here first!

MediaTonic the developers of the iphone cult classic MustEatBirds has been hinting at a new iPhone game for some time now. They plan to announce the game next week. We took a close look at thier clues, and did some digging on thier website and think we know exactly what they will be announcing....

Clues:

This screenshot was released as one of the clues to Mediatonics next game. Here is another clue they released:

This one has the MediaTonic Logo on top of what looks like a yellow ball of some sort, next to smaller white ball. hmmm.... Here is a pic from a wiki article about lawn bowling:

Look familiar?

After doing some digging on the MediaTonic websites we came across this little pic:

The pic is named Extreme Lawn Bowls.... It also just so happens that domain extremelawnbowling.com was bought on August 15th by none other than MediaTonic!

What is lawn bowling? Wiki: "Bowls is a sport in which the goal is to roll slightly asymmetric balls, called bowls, closest to a smaller—normally white—bowl called the "jack" or "kitty". Bowls, either flat- or crown-green, is usually played outdoors, on grass and synthetic surfaces. Flat-green bowls can also be played indoors on synthetic surfaces. Both variants are collectively known as "lawn bowls"."

So our prediction is that next week Mediatonic will be announcing Extreme Lawn Bowling for the iPhone. We will have additional details as they are available.

2 great games on sale for $0.99: Mecho Wars and I Dig It

Mecho Wars is a turn based strategy game with great art, and I Dig It a very entertaining treasure mining game. At $0.99 each I can highly recommend both. I Dig It has a lite version available fore those who would like to try it first.

Retro 80's fans: Arkanoid is now available for the iPhone

Retro 80's fans will be pleased to find Taito has just released a special version of Arkanoid just for the iPhone. Originally released in 1986 Arkanoid has seen many different iterations. This block busting classic has returned in a big way. The iPhone version has over 100 levels including Boss battles. You will also find a slick 2 player mode. iTunes link: http://tinyurl.com/mlp97j

Let the weekend deals begin! Orbital, Civilization Revolution, Real Racing, Dragon Portals, Azkend all on sale!

Here is a list of deals to get the weekend started off right:

Orbital: Reg. $2.99 Sale. $0.99

Civilization Revolution: Reg. $4.99 Sale. $2.99

Real Racing: Reg. $9.99 Sale. $6.99

Dragon Portals: Reg. $4.99 Sale. $0.99

Azkend Reg. $4.99 Sale. $0.99

All great games that we can recommend. Aren't weekends great?

Moon Drop is FREE today!

An addicting little mini game, Moon Drop is free today. It is usually $0.99. This is a very neat little game, and worth checking out at $0.99. It's a steal if you get to pick it up today for free. iTunes link: http://tinyurl.com/mkzu4t

Developer Interview: Self Aware Games of Taxiball and Word Ace

We recently had the opportunity to interview Self Aware Games, the developers of Taxiball and Word Ace. We recently published a post about Word Ace and will have a full review soon.

The Current Gamer: First things first, can you tell us a bit about the Self Aware Games Team?

Self Aware Games: Self Aware Games is a clandestine secret society whose goal is complete and total word domination. Well, that's not exactly true - we're not all that secretive. We're a small developer, located in sunny Redwood City, California. We're really excited about the potential of devices like the iPhone and the Pre, and our goal is to make games that people love to play together.

The Current Gamer: Your first release, Taxiball has gained a passionate fan base since its release. It was generally well reviewed in the iPhone gaming press, known best for its smooth gameplay, vibrant art, and stylish music. What lessons were learned from this initial release that were brought over to the development of Word Ace?

Self Aware Games: Our experience with Taxiball taught us a lot of things, from business issues to designing for the platform. It'd be impossible to relay all the things we learned, but the two that really stuck out and influenced the design of Word Ace were these:


1.) Taxiball was a tilt game, like those old wooden Labyrinth games you might have played as a kid. Since the iPhone didn't have any buttons, and we hadn't found any of the virtual controls all that satisfying, we wanted to use a method of control that was really accessible and easy to understand. And while Taxiball's tilt controls are second-to-none, the simple fact is that a lot of the more casual gamers we know found that it required too much "gamer skill." For Word Ace, we wanted to make a game that could appeal to *everyone*, so we focused on making something that even the least-coordinated person could play easily.


2.) The second thing that we learned, and probably the most dramatic, was that trying to price your game on the App Store is... challenging.

The Current Gamer: Word Ace is your first multi-platform release on both the iPhone and the Palm Pre. What made you decide to go this route?


Self Aware Games: We started Self Aware Games to build games for this new generation of mobile devices - basically with the goal of allowing people to play games with their friends, wherever they are. So the question isn't so much why, but why not? I have friends who love their Palm Pre, and friends who are equally passionate about their iPhone or iPod Touch. Rather than keeping those groups apart, why not bring them together? We can't support every platform, unfortunately, but we'll be extending Word Ace's reach into as many platforms as we can.

The Current Gamer: Word Ace is available for free. After playing the game for quite some time myself, it is clear that the level of polish and attention to detail in this game would easily warrant a premium price. This is certainly a different approach to then you took with Taxiball. Can you talk a little bit about your strategy here?


Self Aware Games: Here's the thing - your success on the App Store is tied almost exclusively into whether you can make it into the top 25 apps, since that's the most accessible list that users can browse. If you're not in the top 100 in your various categories, unless someone's looking for your game by name, you're completely invisible on the App Store, and no one will ever find your game on their own.


So getting into the top 25 is absolutely critical. But doing so requires people to download your game, since the top lists are based heavily on sales. So companies drop their price to $0.99 to generate sales, and as a result, if you're not at $0.99, it's very, very difficult to be competitive unless you're coming from an established publisher, or are tied to a well-known license. The other side to that equation, though, is that it requires volume to make up for sales at $0.99 - and unless you're in the top 25, you're not selling enough copies to keep a business afloat. With Taxiball, we played that game. We went from anything from $4.99 to $0.99, and in the end, what we learned was not that we found the perfect price for the game - we learned that we wanted to get off the rollercoaster, and find a new solution that worked for us.


So, with Word Ace, we're trying something radically different. You get Word Ace - the full game - for $0. You get a thousand chips for free every day you play. You can play forever and never pay a cent unless you want to.


How do we make money off that? Two things. First, we'll be making additional chip packages available. For a couple bucks, you can pick up a variety of extra chips, which are useful if you've run out, or if you want to play at the higher-stakes tables we'll be unlocking as the community grows. Second, we'll have ways that you can simply donate to help support continued development of the game. In exchange for a donation, you'll get a little icon by your avatar for 30 days that shows that you're helping to support the game, and keep running.


What it comes down to is this - you can play as much as you want to, and pay whatever you want to pay. If you think the game is worth $0, you can have it for $0. If you love it, and we *love* it, how much you pay for it is all up to you. You get to play the entire game for however long you like, and if you think it has value, we hope you'll choose to support the game. We think we've made an incredible game that you'll be able to play with your friends for years, and we're betting that our players will feel the same way.

The Current Gamer: Where did the idea for Word Ace come from?

Self Aware Games: When we decided to make a multiplatform game, we sat down and thought about the most popular types of mobile games. Card games and word games were obvious candidates, so we were focusing on those, and trying to figure out exactly what to do to make something that'd be interesting, and not just some cookie-cutter thing that'd get lost in the shuffle.


One night I suddenly woke up at 2am, sat bolt upright, and banged out an e-mail describing an idea I'd had. Literally, just woke up in the middle of the night and had this thought to combine word games and card games into an online multiplayer game. I was worried I'd forget about it if I just went back to sleep, so I wrote down the idea and sent it off to the other people on the team.


The next morning, we were talking about it. Everyone was pretty jazzed about the idea, but somewhere in the conversation, it became clear something was up. We weren't talking about quite the same thing. I went back and re-read the e-mail, and while it gets the basic word/card game idea across, it's otherwise a completely incoherent mess. So the people who read it had understood parts of it to mean totally different things that I'd intended. But as we kept talking through it, it was clear that the misunderstanding was actually better than the original idea. So we went with that, instead.


The moral of the story isn't, "Don't write incoherent e-mails about crazy ideas at 2am," (because you TOTALLY SHOULD) it's, "Recognize a better idea when you hear it, and don't get stuck on the original idea just 'cause it's yours." If there's anything I'd say about Self Aware's development process, it's that we're an incredibly collaborative bunch, and more than happy to take good ideas from wherever they come.


The Current Gamer: We saw some very cool Word Ace prototype pictures on your blog. Can you talk a bit about the development process between taking the initial idea that you had for your game, and turning it into the finished product that we see today?


Self Aware Games: One of the things that we focus on first in the development process is making sure the core mechanics of the game are fun by prototyping them in the simplest, fastest way possible. I've worked on console games, where the development process takes years and can involve hundreds of people. If you don't make sure your basic ideas work early, you end up wasting a lot of time and money, so you have to make sure the ideas at the core of the game work as fast as you can.


So for Word Ace, the really basic question was, "Is a multiplayer, social, poker-based word game fun?"


To answer that question, you don't need to write a single line of code. To figure out the letter distribution and scoring doesn't require anything more than a pen, some index cards, and time. We played dozens of hands of Word ace, tweaking the letter distribution and values, with varying numbers of players, before ever touching a computer. We were able to change things about the game by crossing out one value and writing in another, and we could test it instantly.


When you're building a game you already know is fun, you don't have to worry anymore about whether it'll come together in the end. It's *already* together. You get to focus on the details that make the game shine - like our picture-based emote system, which grew out of the fact that when playing in person, gloating when you won was a heck of a lot of fun. Being able to get the big questions out of the way let you focus your attention on the small ones, too.





The Current Gamer: Before the release of the iPhone version of Word Ace, you mentioned on your twitter feed that you were already over 40,000 registered users. I assume these were mostly Palm Pre users. In the last hour as I write this interview out, your app has jumped from 13th to 9th in the Top Free Word Games in the iTunes store. There is clearly quite a bit of buzz surrounding your game. How do you feel so far about the fan reception of your latest release?


Self Aware Games: There were 50,000 players on the Palm Pre before the iPhone version hit the App Store. Response on the Pre has been phenomenal - and we got a lot of feedback from early players on the Pre that are going to help us improve the game going forward. In fact, the little tutorial popups that show up when you first start playing on the iPhone were added in response to community feedback from players on the Pre!


The response on both platforms has been great. People want to play with their friends, so word of the game's been spreading like crazy - beyond our wildest expectations.


In the months leading up to the game's release, we sent out the code to a couple of our trusted friends. Every night, we'd end up playing Word Ace - often intending only to play for a couple minutes to test some feature, but we'd end up playing for hours. As we got closer to the release date, the thing that we were all the most excited about wasn't the critical reception, or how many downloads we'd get... it was simply that we wanted to play with new people. That's how psyched we were about still playing the game, after having played it for hundreds of hours during development.


The thing that's been the most satisfying about the launch has been that we're seeing that kind of passion & excitement from our players, as well! As a small developer, we don't have the advertising budget of EA, or the other big publishers - we're relying on people to spread the word. All the buzz the game's gotten has come from the users - and honestly, we couldn't be happier about the response.

The Current Gamer: How do you plan to support Word Ace moving forward?

Self Aware Games: We've got a plan for the next few updates to add features to the game. In addition to rolling out the ability to buy chips and donate to support the game, we'll be adding in-game gifts that you can buy for other players, and as the community grows, higher-stakes tables. We'll also be making the Friends feature even more robust, and including ways of avoiding players you don't want to play with - an anti-Friends List, if you will. Word Ace will also be extending to the web, so you'll be able to play even against friends who don't have an iPhone, iPod Touch, or a Pre.


We think Word Ace is the kind of game we'll be playing 10 years from now. Whatever support we need to do to make sure the experience is fun and fair for everyone, we'll be doing everything we can.

The Current Gamer: What can we expect next from the Self Aware Games team?

Self Aware Games: Next on the Pre, I'm happy to announce that we're making Card Ace, a Texas Hold 'Em app that has the same Friends List, Awards, emotes, and other features that makes Word Ace so fun to play with your friends. If there's a demand for it, you'll see that on the iPhone as well. We're also working on Word Ace for the web, which you'll see on Facebook in the next few weeks.


Beyond that... you'll have to wait and see.

Interview with Word Ace developer goes up tonight! Stay Tuned!

We will be publishing an interview with Word Ace Developer, Self Aware Games in just a few hours. Stay tuned!

Gameloft releases Modern Combat: Sandstorm

Those of you craving a top notch FPS can finally pick up Gameloft's Modern Combat: Sandstorm. We at The Current Gamer did not have an opportunity to preview the title, but Gamelofts reputation means this is likely a new standard fir iPhone FPS games. We will post early impressions as they come in.

Word Ace is here and it's free!

Self Aware Games the developers that brought us Taxiball have just released Word Ace. We have been eagerly awaiting this release here at The Current Gamer, and look forward to spending many hours with this game.

Word Ace is a hybrid mix somewhere between Scabble and Texas Holdem' poker. Here is the developers description:

"Word Ace combines the strategy and competition of Texas Hold ?Em with the intellectual challenge of classic word games into a fast-paced multiplayer online game you can carry in your pocket.

With built-in friends lists, text chat, and a unique picture-based "emote" system, Word Ace makes it easy and rewarding to play with your friends. Can you rack up the highest-scoring word, or are you going to have to bluff your way to victory?"

We will have a review for you down the road, but for now we will be online playing some Word Ace!

GTA Chinatown Wars coming to iPhone

PC and console giants Rockstar games announced that they plan to bring GTA Chinatown Wars to the iPhone.
Chinatown Wars was created from the ground up for the Nintendo DS and made clever use of the DS touch screen. The title also featured an art style and camera angle that felt like a throwback of the early GTA games.
Gameloft's 3D open world GTA clone, Gangstar has not been out long and we have seen a handfull of other clones such as Car Jack Streets. It appears they will have some very tough competition this Fall.

Inkvaders back on sale for $0.99

Fans of the side scrolling shoot em' up Zombieville will feel right at home with Chillingo's Inkvaders. For those of you who missed out on the intro price, you can now grab this title again for only $0.99.

Penny Pincher Alert: Boulder Dash Rocks on sale for $0.99

Boulder Dash Rocks, a spinoff of the popular and long standing Boulder Dash series is new on the iPhone and just discounted to an introductory rate of $0.99. The regular price is $4.99.

Geodefense Swarm Update

We are sad to report the developer of the much anticipated geodefense swarm said this morning that the app was rejected. The good news is the app has already been re-submitted. Hopfully we will have better news for you soon.

Penny Pincher Alert: Pickup Rolando at 1/2 price

The very popular Rolando is currently available for $2.99. They just submitted an update to include thier Plus+ network online community and additional secret levels. There is a free lite version avaiable if you want to try the game first.