Don’t ask me to lay down the scientific logistics, but there’s almost never a time when punching things doesn’t feel right. Why, back in the heady days of my school life, I used to punch myself in the face just to stave off the vapid boredom of quadratic equations.

But most people aren’t quite that stupid, which is why punching orcs in the face in a video game is sufficient for the more rational members of the developed world. Satiating their masochistic thirst within the confines of virtual entertainment this Autumn will be PunchQuest, a side-scrolling beat-em-up from RocketCat Games. Merging together a retro graphical style, classic 2D smack-a-thon gameplay and a who’s who of mythical creatures ripe for a good face-stoving.

Here’s a trailer below. Check out the giant wasps and laser-blasting dinosaur.

Looking the part, don’t you think? Sadly, those with iOS devices will have to wait until Fall 2012, or Autumn 2012 if you’re a fellow resident of the tea-sipping and pub brawling nation, before getting their mitts on the game. Either way, more information is likely to crop up on the game’s official site during the months leading up to PunchQuest‘s release.

]]> http://mobile.indiegamemag.com/thwack-punchquest-coming-to-ios-later-this-year/feed/ 0 http://mobile.indiegamemag.com/the-human-league-boom-brigade-2-arrives-on-ios/ http://mobile.indiegamemag.com/the-human-league-boom-brigade-2-arrives-on-ios/#comments Fri, 22 Jun 2012 15:44:35 +0000 Richard Glenn http://mobile.indiegamemag.com/?p=9784

Harvesting alien souls has become the gentlemanly art du jour, thanks to the release of Boom Brigade 2 on iOS devices.

Combining the genres of real-time strategy and tower defense, Boom Brigade 2 follows in its predecessor’s footsteps by offering an unabated focus on micromanagement and team-based warfare on the go. Alongside a 30-mission strong single-player campaign is a raft of complementary game modes, including survival skirmishes and a spate of hectic “Medical Emergency” romps to satiate one’s fix for high-pressure rescue missions whilst on the train or potting the brown.

On the maiming menu are hordes of malicious extraterrestrials who probably looked at you funny, hence the outbreak of a full-scale military onslaught. Gratifyingly, aiding one’s struggle against said aliens is an arsenal of barnstorming weaponry, least of all a gosh-darn minigun. Furthermore, each playable character may reap the benefits of up to five unlockable upgrades, ensuring that all budding war-mongerers are ready to pre-heat their ovens to death.

Boom Brigade 2 will retail for $4.99/€3.99, although a temporary price discount, which will run until the end of today, has brought the admission fee down by 25%. It’s available for purchase through the App Store, whilst more information on the game can be found on its official website.

$2. That’s the price of admission for the Android port of Ido Yehieli’s adventure dungeon crawler, Cardinal Quest, and yet that’s apparently too much for some players to stomach.

In a chat with IGM earlier today, Yehieli revealed that the game’s Android version, released a couple of days ago, has been the subject of sickening levels of illegal downloads, thanks in no small part to its illicit circulation on a number of Android-centric torrent sites.

“I’d say there are maybe ten times as many pirated copies as legal ones,” stated Yehieli. ” There are tons of pirated copies around.”

Making the news all the more depressing is the fact that Yehieli is a staunch advocate of DRM-free gaming, having released the original PC version of Cardinal Quest without the imposition of any spurious anti-piracy measures, opting to place his faith in the independent gaming community who, by and large, champion the notion of giving developers their due for a job well done.

It appears that most cases of the game’s piracy has come from a narrow source. According to Yehieli, approximately half of the pirated versions of the game have been registered on devices whose native languages are set to Russian, suggesting that many of the illegal version have cropped up in Eastern European territories.

Sales figures on iOS devices, however, have reportedly been largely unaffected by the looming threat of piracy, a revelation that Yehieli credits to the App Store’s more restrictive development procedures. On the flip side, the Android version has enjoyed almost as many legitimate sales as its iOS counterpart, suggesting that, despite all its concerns, the game’s financial success hasn’t been completely crippled.

If you, like many others before you, would like to make a legitimate purchase of Cardinal Quest, head over to the App Store or the Google Play Store.

Ido Yehieli has announced the arrival of its popular roguelike dungeon crawler, Cardinal Quest, on mobile devices via iOS and Android.

Having previously been available exclusively for home computers, Cardinal Quest‘s leap onto mobile platforms appears to come without any compromises being made to the addictive old-school dungeon crawling flavour of its desktop counterpart. As before, it’s an 80s-esque adventure-ho affair in which players must trawl through harrowing corridors, slay sinister enemies and acquire a plethora of loot in the ultimate quest to vanquish an evil minotaur posing under the subtle guise of The Evil Minotaur.

Cardinal Quest‘s mobile port also begs the questions as to whether nor not its sequel, Cardinal Quest 2, will also eventually make its way onto iOS and Android. Thankfully, the game’s developers have indicated through Reddit that plans are indeed afoot for the rest of the Cardinal Quest experience to be fully playable on the go in the near future, potentially providing players with several more hours’ worth of exploratory nirvana.

Cardinal Quest can be purchased via the App Store for $1.99, or through the Google Play Store for a similar price.

It says a great deal about our primitive species when a beach ball-sized planet of sprightly little mites can master the art of regular space travel long before we ever could. But that’s exactly what’s happened, in video game form, at least.

That’s the MO of Cwerki Studios’ latest intergalactic escapade, Min: A Space Adventure. Giving players a substantial degree of control over a race of diminutive upstarts called the Minimar, the game focuses predominantly on both the traversal of bizarre 3D worlds and the strategic customisation of their home planet. Purchasable upgrades function as means to make one’s planet safer, more powerful or the subject of a more rapid development process, instigating a degree of forward thinking as the player fathoms how best to tackle the unknown hurdles of outer space.

The game will be released on iOS platforms through the App Store on Monday 18th June, but Cwerki are keen to assure us that that won’t signify the end of Min‘s ongoing cultivation. Using the game’s Facebook page as a platform, the team is looking for community feedback and suggestions regarding potential improvements to butter up the Min experience in the future. We’re told that new maps, planets and game modes to complement the pre-existing Time Trial gametype are already in the works, but the team will be looking forward to implementing fan-suggested tweaks as the game attempts to reach as large an audience as possible.

For more information on Cwerki Studios, visit its official website.

Those among you who’ve recently entered parenthood might be familiar with a popular programme called Lazy Town. If not, I’ll spell it out for you. Basically, a gang of obnoxious young tearaways spend their free time running around, screaming and generally doing what little sods do. Naturally, one of the locals takes exception to the uproarious cacophony and takes it upon himself to bring the noise levels down, usually by executing such ill-conceived plans as disguising himself as a pirate or falsely diagnosing the children with degenerative illnesses (yes, that actually happened). More often than not, though, his schemes fall flat on their face, prompting an Icelandic ex-gymnast to beat seven shades of faecal matter out of him.

Nostatic Software might not serve as advocates for such extreme measures, but their ultimate goals appear to be the same. Their newly-released Android game, Quiet, Please!, sees players assuming the role of a school pupil who, having just returned home from a stressful day of impromptu maths tests, undercooked canteen ravioli and Chinese burns, is looking forward to a few hours’ peace and quiet. The problem? Their family seems intent on being a rambunctious horde of ne’er-do-wells.

With drastic times necessitating drastic measures, the pupil must bring an end to the chaotic aural dystopia by culling the problem at its source. Turning off televisions? Distracting one’s siblings with remote controlled cars? Sabotaging lawnmowers? Sure, if that’s what it takes for a small dose of tranquility. Incapacitating the neighbour, tying him to a chair and holding him to ransom? Probably not, but that’s what DLC is for, eh?

Quiet, Please! can be purchased through the Google Play Store for £0.64 ($0.99). More information on the game is available on its official website.

OK, who’s going to be watching Euro 2012 over the next three weeks? My, that’s a lot of you. And who, pray, thinks that England will channel the late dormant pride of the iconic Three Lions, bringing home the Henri Delaunay Trophy to the land in which the world’s most popular sport was born? Me neither.

Still, there’s always the chance that we, the gamers, can change the fortunes of our ailing European homelands, albeit in virtual form. Step in, Soccer Rally: Euro 2012, a brand new iOS game combining the pulsating end-to-end action of the football pitch with the screeching of tyres and the high-pitch revs of a manic, balls-to-the-wall racing meet.

Taking control of one of the 16 teams who’ll be battling for European dominance this summer, players take part in one-on-one vehicular footballing encounters in an experience mirroring that of many popular Flash games you’ve no doubt wasted many a lunch break engaging in. It’s possible to play through the entire European Championship Finals, starting from the tense Group Stages and culminating in the spectacular Final in Kiev, although single exhibition matches in the form of local multiplayer are also on the menu.

Soccer Rally: Euro 2012 can be purchased for iPhone, iPod and iPad devices for £0.69/$0.99 through the App Store.

Popular indie developers Introversion have announced the arrival of their celebrated hacking extravaganza, Uplink, on iPad devices.

Having previously been available on PC, Uplink‘s move to the mobile gaming landscape has been marked by a number of tactile refinements to suit its new portable home. The keyboard and mouse controls of the game’s PC forerunner have been completely remapped for the iPad’s touch-screen interface, giving players the opportunity to hone their hacking prowess with the delicate power of their fingertips.

Those foreign to the Uplink experience are likely to find Introversion’s brainchild a curious beast. Players assume the role of a freelance computer hacker employed by a range of large companies. Of course, being a game that bases itself around the engagement in illegal activities, there’s an all-important risk-reward system of which to be mindful. After breaking into classified file registries, sabotaging the software banks of rival corporations and even falsely implicating innocent people in illegal schemes, players must be sure to avoid leaving incriminating evidence of their involvement, lest they wish to take a trip to the so-called big house.

Uplink can be purchased exclusively for iPad through the App Store. There’s also apparently an Android version in the works, so stay tuned for more information as it becomes available.

Gentleman Squid Studio have released a new launch trailer for Astro Drop, a soon-to-be-released intergalactic motion game for iOS and Android devices.

Astro Drop marks the second commercial gaming outing for Gentleman Squid, who previously elicited a titter or two with Three Dead Zed, available on Windows PC. And much in the same vein as its forerunner, Astro Drop employs a healthy modicum of humour in its attempts to reach a brand new gaming audience, this time utilising the mobile-characteristic motion controls as its primary area of focus.

Playing as a forgetful and impatient astronaut, who, presumably having somehow slipped through the cracks of NASA’s rigorous employment screening, is attempting to land back on Earth, the player must tilt his or her handheld telephone/tablet computer in order to avoid such conventional obstacles as space rockets, giant wasps and airborne octopi.

The game is spread across 20 levels, each of which culminate in the awarding of a rating system to both boost replay value and incite angst among high score-obsessed plebians. There’s also a so-called Endless Mode, which, as you’d probably guess, involves dodging obstacles forever, or at least until your system’s battery goes kaput.

More information on Astro Drop, set to release very soon, is available on its official website.

Just three weeks have passed since news first broke that RadianGames’ measured twin-stick blast-a-thon Inferno+ was to be released on iOS. And now it’s arrived.

The game will retail at a standard price of $2.99 and is available for iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad devices. Using the touchscreen interface associated with the eminent iOS gadgetry, Inferno+ appears to include every major feature of the PC original, including 40 regular campaign levels, three difficulty settings, a New Game+ mode and a veritable mass of collectible upgrades. It’s available for purchase right now on the App Store.

But while the launch of Inferno+ certainly isn’t to be scoffed at, it’s not not the only piece of news emanating from the RadianGames camp today. iOS shoot-em-up Super Crossfire has been given a brand new Survival Mode add-on, whilst Fireball SE, Ballistic SE and Gobs of Fun have also received free updates via iTunes. A new, free-to-play version of Fireball, known as Fireball Lite Edition, has also been released, offering a slightly stripped-down replica of the original, removing such features as Game Center achievements and many of the enemy waves.

Fans of RadianGames’ other component of its PC-based Quadtastic Launch Collection, Slydris, a Tetris-esque block slider rigmarole, have also been boosted by the news that an iOS version of the game is in its final testing phase, with a mid-July release date apparently looking likely. Sadly, it’ll be an iPad-exclusive affair, meaning that iPhone users may have to pray to the deities for a small-screen iteration of the game.