As it so happens, America and Japan aren’t the only places that know how to make indie games. Ireland is eager to make a showing coming into 2013, and Ku: Shroud of the Morrigan is looking like a good start.

bitSmith Games is an Irish indie company that recently released a solid-looking RPG for the iPad. Ku: Shroud of the Morrigan is rooted in Celtic mythology and has a very crisp, distinctive visual style. Check out the official launch trailer below:

It’s currently an iPad exclusive, but bitSmith Games doesn’t intend to leave it that way for long. They have put Ku up for voting on Steam Greenlight, so those gamers who happen to lack an iPad may yet get a chance to experience some Celtic-punk! (Celtic-punk is described by bitSmith as being similar to steampunk, but set in Ireland with Irish mythology rather than Victorian-era England.)

Ku: Shroud of the Morrigan is on sale for a limited time on the App Store, priced at 0,89€ ($0.99 if you’re an American). More information can be found on the game’s official site or on bitSmith Games‘ official site. If you happen to have an iPad and pick up the game, feel free to join our discussion in the forums to share your thoughts! If you don’t have an iPad, I suggest you head on over and give the Greenlight a vote.

Everyone has those pesky moments in their game where they make a fatal error—missing a jump, running straight into spikes, or failing to dodge that last monster, to name a few. In other words, those foolish little flaws of timing that wreck our game and occasionally bring on a torrent of words that shall not be repeated in this article. These are the moments where gamers stares at the death screen that is politely asking them whether or not they would like to try again and wish with all their heart that they could undo those last few seconds. It sure would be nice if your game had a rewind button, wouldn’t it? The people down at Kumobius Games couldn’t agree more.

Enter: Time Surfer. This new game by Kumobius plays very much like Tiny Wings, but has more than enough additions to the basic play style to distinguish it from its predecessor. As I mentioned earlier, this game gives you the ability to rewind time and re-try those facepalm moments where your otherwise perfect game is soiled. The following video should give you a good feel for how the game works:

As the video displayed, there is actually quite a bit of content to Time Surfer. You can unlock costumes, effects, and pets (which serve to provide you with useful abilities during future games), many of which pay homage to famous movies and internet memes. My personal favorite is the Xeno Tuxedo costume, which like most other items can be purchased with the space cakes you catch or earn in-game by completing missions. All of this unlockable or achievable content adds to Time Surfer‘s replayability, as many of them are just too amusing to pass up unlocking.

The time-rewind mechanic is an interesting one, allowing you to go back and retry a spot where you recently made a mistake or died. This alleviates the frustration of playing without making the game significantly easier than others of its genre. Combine this with the crisp, stylized graphics and music that remains stuck in my head even now, and you have a game that makes you wish you could rewind real time to let you play for just a little bit longer.

For those players who like a challenge, Time Surfer is willing to oblige. Part of the challenge, however, is actually finding the “Hell Zone” mode. Here’s a hint—it’s a tiny little unmarked button on the bottom center of the home screen. Time Surfer will never tell you about the button itself, just as it will never tell you that you can actually skim off the rims of Saturn-like planets, so consider this a little tip from your friendly neighborhood reviewer.

Time Surfer has a lot going for it that makes the game an all-around enjoyable experience. It’s simply fun to play—nothing more and nothing less. The mechanics are intriguing, the atmosphere is lovable, and the controls are simple to pick up and play. If you are looking for a game that will tell a riveting story, challenge you intellectually, or or allow you to play it for hours on end without getting repetitive, I suggest you search elsewhere.

Time Surfer can be purchased from the App Store for $0.99 and has an official website that you can check out as well.

Kihon Games, the minds behind Baby Monkey and several other games, recently released a game called Sketchphrase. For those of you unfamiliar with it, the game is sort of a mix between Pictochatting on a DS and the old-school game of telephone. There are three roles in each round of the game: one player writes a phrase, the next must attempt to draw it, and the third attempts to guess what the phrase was. As you may have guessed, the result is ensuing hilarity. But don’t worry, all you lone wolves out there—you don’t need three friends online to play the game. Other players can be selected by the game from the massive pool of people who play, or you can just do your part and wait for your buddies to get their tails in-game. The following video sums it up pretty well:

Kihon has recently added some updates to the game, including “lowered prices for in-app purchases, a new Hall of Fame and gallery browsing abilities, and more chances to earn coins.” If you are considering buying the game I’d suggest doing it now, while the price is only $1.99. If you enjoy tormenting your friends with impossible-to-draw phrases or showing off your amazing artistic ability, this looks like a good game for you. (Well, I suppose you’ll need either an iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch to go along with your general sense of mischievousness if you want to play this game—it’s currently an iOS exclusive, and optimized for the iPhone 5.)

The game can be purchased on the iTunes App Store, and more about Kihon activities can be learned at their official website. Speaking of Kihon activities, everyone should keep an eye out for their upcoming game, Dojo Danger, which is scheduled to be released in the coming weeks.

Alright racing game fans—it’s time to assess a new addition to the ranks. Namely, lets put our hands together for Robot Race! Now the ever-present concern when looking at a new racing game, at least for me anyway, is whether or not it actually is a new racing game in its own right rather than a see-through knock-off of Mario Kart or Burnout. I am pleased to say that while that mustachioed plumber’s influence is visible in the gameplay, Robot Race has several mechanics of  its own to bring to the table. Combined with an overall atmosphere that is genuinely fun and unique, I believe it deserves our commendations for working to take things its own direction.

As far as unique mechanics go, Robot Race has several that are worth mentioning. For starters, those of you who are terrible drivers can rest a little easier—it’s impossible to drive off a cliff or off the track. If you attempt it (on purpose or otherwise) your robot will be given a chastising course-change to put you back on the right track. While this little bump of assistance by the course will not slow you down or drop you back in after losing a significant amount of time, it does have the tenancy to be a little less than gentle, potentially flinging your racing robot into a much more debilitating nearby trap or obstacle.

This next mechanic is one I find personally to be rather interesting—every robot has a batter gauge at the lower left of their screen which begins filling as soon as the race begins. Once it is full, it can be expended for a speed boost that negates negative effects of your opponent’s weapons and accelerates you rapidly forwards. This boost begins filling as soon as it has been used, can be used at any time during the race to either negate weapons or simply pile on the speed. Coupled with a jump button that can send your robotic avatar hurdling over obstacles and a brake that can be used to drift sharply, there are many strategic ways to avoid weapons rather than simply trailing turtle shells behind you.

The weapons themselves are nothing particularly special— the standard array of stationary obstacles and seeking weapons is available for the attempted annihilation of your foes. All of the non-stationary attacks, however, have a target-locking system that allows you to single out one of the bots in front of you and blast at them with precision. The weapons, interestingly enough, can be purchased for use in the races along with additional playable robots, courses, and robot skins by means of a gem system. Gems are either earned by winning races or by purchasing via the App Store, as is typical with most gem systems.

But those of you who fear change need not panic—many of the classic elements of a racing game are present as well. You may choose to play either single races or circuits, and each circuit is unlocked by taking first place in its predecessor. There are several different robots to choose from, each with its own set of stats and a personality to complete the package. The robots can be driven either by tilting the device or by switching to touch controls. The control design is simplistic and easy to use, so full marks for that can be given.

Robot Race‘s graphics are clean and well-detailed for an iOS game, and the music that goes along with each track has been stuck in my head for days. The game’s replayability is good, especially if you are the type of person who simply must unlock everything. There’s also a system of badges that can be achieved every race to help motivate you to play again and finally earn all of them. But if you don’t have that urge to catch ‘em all, you may quickly become bored with the game’s six courses and two modes.

All in all, Robot Race is a fun game. All the elements come together nicely to create a racing game that is easy to pick up and play whenever you have a few minutes to race a robot for jewels, badges, and glory. But it’s a casual game for single players only. If you’re looking for something to suck you in for hours or a game to challenge your friends with, you will have to turn your eyes elsewhere.

The game can be purchased on the iTunes Store for iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch systems. You can also check out Easley-Dunn‘s website for more information on Robot Race as well as their other games.

Tangled, the puzzle game of inseparable strings, has made the jump to its fourth platform — the Google Play store. A fairly impressive accomplishment for an indie puzzle game. For those of you unfamiliar with the game, its concept and mechanics are fairly simple. The puzzles themselves, less so.

As stated in its game description, “the goal of the game is to ‘untangle’ the lines and make sure they don’t overlap. Touch the dots and drag the lines to untangle them.”  Seems easy enough, right? But as with any puzzle game, ease of controls does not equate to ease of puzzle-solving…

The game features 90 levels, six worlds, and a feature that I personally found very interesting: a progress bar that lets you know how close you are to solving the puzzle. You may also try your hand at randomly generated levels once the original 90 are completed. Oh, and there’s a star system to rank your level-completions of course. What’s a puzzle without a star system to let you know how well you did?

As I stated at the beginning, this is the fourth app-selling store for West Side Studios’ Tangled to land in. The other three include the Apple, Mac, and Amazon App Stores. The Google Play version can be viewed here and is sold for $1.99. Tangled also has its own website, where you can go to find out more about it. If you’re in the mood to untangle some lines, you can feel free to download this puzzler onto one (or all, if you are so inclined) of your miscellaneous mobile devices.

Our good buddy Axis Sivitz has been working hard to make his awesome game Button Brigade even more awesome. Everyone’s favorite button-loving, finger-following robot worm has upgraded three times since the game’s release, bringing us to version 1.3. Let’s take a look at the changes:

Version 1.1 of Button Brigade brought us the stress-relieving advantage of checkpoints. The game’s more lengthy levels now include these check-marked buttons at opportune times in order to alleviate the frustration wrought of restarting from the very beginning if you fail. Considering how often I personally was forced to witness my segmented robot-worm’s destruction, I’m grateful to have a new tool to make the pain of those losses a little less.

The update to version 1.2 gives our glorious game a little cosmetic touch-up to make it even more glorious. That’s right– graphics update! As stated on Button Brigade‘s official site, “Every texture has been redesigned for better visual clarity and consistent style.” The comparison is above, with old on the right and new on the left.

And finally, last but not least, we arrive at the latest enhancement to our button-busting adventure. Version 1.3 brings us a redesign of the first three levels, the intent of which being to provide a better introduction to the game and its mechanics.

While not an update to the game itself, a Lite version has been released for those of you who like to try before you buy. If this is the first you’ve heard of the unique iOS action-puzzler that is Button Brigade, we have previously released a news article on and review of the game which should provide you with a bounty of information if you’re interested. You can also head over and check the game out on iTunes or the official Button Brigade website.

Everyone likes free games, right? (For those of you who answered “no” just to spite me, I feel sufficiently spited. Now continue reading.) The majority of us do in fact enjoy adding Apps to our App collection, especially when they are free. So allow me to introduce to you a platformer-shooter named Panda Quest- Ep. 1 Dragon Invasion, which has been recently numbered among the freebies.

Panda Quest involves helping a panda defend its bamboo forest against dragons as it attempts to make its way to its pagoda in the clouds. Luckily, our panda friend is not foolish enough to take on hoards of dragons empty-pawed. This panda has access to guns, and it knows how to use them. Utilizing a massive arsenal of weaponry as well as spectacular jumping and platforming skills, the panda shall strive to fend off the draconic hordes and protect the forest. But not just any forests— dynamically-created, ever-changing forests of doom!

This game of pandas, dragons, and guns was created by Andre Khromov for the App Store Christmas 2011. Unfortunately, it got buried alive in the Christmas shuffle and flew straight under the radar. So Mr. Khromov decided to drop the game down to the low, low price of free for you lovely App Store consumers. No ads, no in App purchases. Now is the perfect time to snag it if you’re looking for a new game.

If the game begins getting some love, the developer plans to add some updates and extra content. A Mac, Windows, and Android version ay eventually be created as well. How far Panda Quest goes depends on how much love it gets.

The iTunes page for Panda Quest can be viewed here. It can be played on the iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad. Go check it out while it’s still free!