In Game Dev Story, you can develop games! Game Dev Story by Kairosoft is a game management simulation game. You are the manager of a game company, and have 20 years to turn a no-name company into the largest corporation in the world. This game tests your ability to make right decisions at the right moment. Instructions are told through dialogue by your secretary, allowing smooth and continuous gameplay. Even if you don’t remember everything, you still have the help section as reference.

You start out in a small room with 2 employees. Initially, you have 2 job options: ‘New Game’ or ‘Contract’. As the name suggests, ‘New Game’ lets you develop a game. You can choose the game platform, genre, type, and direction. Additional types of platform, genre, and type can be unlocked as your company grows. Game direction sets whether you want to focus on speed, quality, or research. At first, you may need to do contract jobs to rack up some capital. As the company becomes more famous and gets more fans, your secretary will let you move to a larger room with more employee slots.

A game has 5 attributes: fun, creativity, graphics, sound, and bug. The attributes affect magazine reviews and game sales. Points for attributes are earned by employees while developing games. They each have their own attributes: program, scenario, graphics, and sound. Generally, employees with higher attributes will contribute more points towards the game.

Game Dev Story tries to create a realistic industry market by introducing several factors. New consoles are announced after a period of time, and old consoles are removed from the market. This means that to get the most sales from your fans, you need to invest money into getting different platform licenses. Your fans will also change every few years, with older fans replaced by younger fans. It is important to keep the number of fans as high as you can. Kairosoft did a great job with a realistic world, but one mistake they made was including blackouts. Blackouts, or equipment failure will severely decrease game points while in development, but nowadays backups are used to prevent those sorts of things. 

While developing, you will earn research points. Research points can be used towards training and leveling up employees as well as using items. To create a console within your own company, you need a hardware engineer. The only way to get a hardware engineer is by getting an employee’s level to level 5 on 7 different types of profession. Research points can also boost your game quality.

If a game gets a review score of 32 or higher, the game will be put in the Hall of Fame. Then, you can start creating sequels. Occasionally you will receive a fan letter, which will tell you if a sequel will sell well.

Graphics and sounds are decent; it’s nothing high-end but gets the job done. The game doesn’t make use of retina display, but the text is still easy to read. The soundtrack doesn’t have much variety when changing offices, but isn’t out of place. You can’t change the design of your games and consoles, which was a little disappointing. In addition, this game requires a lot of patience. You can only watch the screen as your workers code, and there isn’t much action involved. The price of $3.99 can deter many from trying this game. If you are a fan of action or real-time strategy games, this might not be the best fit for you. Game Dev Story won’t bore you in 10 minutes, but perhaps after a few hours. Still, you will most likely devote hours to beat all of your competitors if it is your kind of game.

More information on Game Dev Story is available on their official website. The iOS version can be downloaded at the App Store for the iPhone for $3.99. The Android version can be downloaded at the Play Store for $2.50.

For each of the 13 levels, there are three available modes (plus two game modes: Easy and Normal) — Campaign, Heroic, and Iron; every level also has their own restrictions that decide which towers you can use and the max level they can be upgraded. The Campaign mode provides 20 lives, but Heroic and Iron mode offers only one life, essentially making the game many times harder. The gameplay is much like the original tower defense games, but the game introduces NPCs (on your side), a nice specialty to the game. There are 3 save slots so you can pillage the enemies with friends, without messing up your precious game. After beating a level, you are awarded stars to spend on tower/power up upgrades and there’s a great reset feature (that doesn’t cost anything!) which allows you to experiment on the best possible upgrade combination. Of the upgrades, there are ones to increase fire intensity, artillery precision, solider strength, etc.

I forgot to mention something important, the towers. In Kingdom Rush there are four tower types — Archer Towers, Barracks, Mage Guilds, and Artillery Cannons. There are also eight tower upgrades that vary from Rangers to Barbarians. In addition, there are also 18 tower abilities that you can equip including Teleport, Poison, and Sniper Shot.

There are 30 creeps that range from Ogres and Yetis to Necromancers and Demon Hounds. Many people have a hard time memorizing each enemy’s ability, so there’s a handy Encyclopedia for the incompetent. Did I mention there’s a strategy guide included (for free)? Another thing to mention is the special ability weapons you can use for limited amount of time. You can call out Reinforcements every 10 seconds during the campaign, which brings up troops to help slow down the incoming enemies. Another ability is Rain of Fire, which is literally a hellfire of meteors. I don’t think bringing that umbrella will help. The gameplay is what you’d expect from a typical fixed-path TD game. Along the path are spots for placing towers, however, they are fixed locations. Once your ready, the attack waves begin once you tap the Start Battle button. With a colorful forest or snow-covered range as the background, Kingdom Rush does a terrific job in creating a fun and engaging experience.

In reality, the best part of Kingdom Rush is the visuals. In fact, as strange as it sounds, the graphics are enjoyable to watch. Whether its mages dropping a lethal curse on crazed ogres, or troops in hand-to-hand combat with demon dogs, it’s a visual treat. On that note, the SFX are definitely worth mentioning, because when you activate Reinforcements, for example, a great voice actor actually yells out “Reinforcements!”, which is a great add-on to the experience. When you tap on a NPC (friendly), a small pop-up appears at the bottom of the screen with the name of the defender and his attack power. Of course, every king knows not to get attached because your defender will likely get torn apart by an ogre soon enough. The AI feels pretty balanced with waves increasing in frequency and size as you progress and you can always go back and tweak the difficulty level within each campaign. Within the early levels, a typical campaign can take about five minutes to complete, but as you progress and attack waves increase, the levels get progressively longer. One of the levels took about half an hour, so the exclusion of a 2X button is sorely missed here.

As campaigns are completed, a map keeps track of your progress. Kingdom Rush doesn’t technically bring anything new or even evolutionary to the tower defense genre. However, Kingdom Rush does put the fun back with a creative and terrifically presented game. The cartoon-like characters on both sides and the balanced gameplay make Kingdom Rush a must-have for tower defense fan boys. The game is a smoothly polished and I hope to find more top quality apps like it on the App Store!

More information on Kingdom Rush is available on their official website. The iOS version is located at the App Store for iPad for $2.99.

EPOCH. is essentially a cover-shooter (like Metal Gear Solid Touch) where the player picks targets for a robot to shoot at. Simple and sweet – but in the end, it hinders the game. The gameplay is similar to Infinity Blade and Dark Meadow, though not because they all use the Unreal Engine. In combat, you roll or jump aside to dodge the incoming bullets (sound familiar?), and pick targets to fire at when stationary. The gameplay is similar to the melee combat, but not entirely.  This game simply lacks the finesse that Infinity Blade had.

This game doesn’t lack graphics, smoothness, or even sound effects. The only problem is that the repetitive gameplay has no goal. Of course, in Infinity Blade, there’s the God King to defeat, and Dark Meadow gives you an urge to explore. In EPOCH., I don’t notice much of a storyline when playing the game; in fact, it can be a bit boring at times. Yes, there are a variety of enemy robots, but the plot felt foggy. The story is explained through data intercepts found on robots, and it took more than playing through the 10 stages through different difficulties to really get the story.

EPOCH. has many great points, even though I spent about two paragraphs complaining. The controls are fluid and intuitive, and they make sense. Flick left to roll left and vice versa, double flick right to jump two spaces over, flick down to go into cover, flick up to get out of cover, and flick down while in cover to manual reload. There are some basic special powers like a grenade, missile barrage, and slow-motion – each with a timed recharge.

There’s also an extensive shop, containing a large variety of weapons like laser rifles, kinetic energy guns, grenade launchers and more. Not only are there weapons, there are also different armors, grenades, missiles, and slow-motion devices, too. The best part of the game is the vivid visuals and textures. They’re vibrant, crisp, and clear. The scenery is realistic, and there’s a decent amount of shading/shadows as well. The robots’ steel textures are sharp and detailed, as well as everything around. The special effects are decent, including nice laser beams and bomb explosions. The enemies are predictable, but it’s alright. This game is repetitive, it’s overall a decent game. Just as a side comment, doesn’t this look like a bad-ass WALL-E?

More information on EPOCH. is available on their official website. The iOS version is located at the App Store, universal for iPhone and iPad for $2.99.

Tower Defense: Lost Earth may be Com2uS’s best game yet, featuring a hefty campaign and full of upgrades. However, many developers are annoyed at Com2uS for trademarking “tower defense”, making this game an “official” tower defense game. The game delivers, but while I played, I felt there was something lacking. The gameplay and graphics are well done, and the visuals are crystal clear. The sound effects perform on par as well.

As the name describes, this is a game where you protect your base from invading creeps/enemies, much like Kingdom Rush. There are different “slots” to put the towers of your choice (that you can afford), which can blast and destroy the incoming invaders. In this game, there are many available towers to choose from, varying from gun turrets to lasers. Each tower has its own effectiveness on incoming enemies. For example, turrets are usually good against smaller, weaker creeps, while the cannons are targeted towards bunched up enemies for effective splash damage.

The gameplay was up-to-standard; there are multiple locations to place a wide variety of towers, and nice “pods” which contain resources if you blow them up (while you shoot  the “pods”, the towers cannot shoot the enemies). During the level, you never stop to pause and enjoy the scenery because you always have to keep building/upgrading or you’ll begin to allow enemies to pass through. Even after you beat a level, there are multiple difficulty levels to replay the certain map.

While there is one essential goal throughout the whole game – to defend the base – there are actually four other gameplay modes within the game: Defense, Survival, Resource, and Attack. Defense is your average cup of joe, no creamers or sugar, but it’s the backbone to your Monday morning. Defense is all about preventing the little creepers from reaching the base within the given waves. Every wave consists of different amount of enemies (including different types enemies). For Survival, it’s just the same thing, but you replace waves with a time countdown. It’s a little bit harder because it doesn’t give you the few seconds to strategize as Defense does. Resource replaces waves and the time limit with a resource requirement. Attack is probably the only frappuccino in this Star Bucks, where you strive to kill a stationary enemy on the map. In layman’s terms, its where you have to kill off the surrounding enemies before the waves get too strong.

For the most part, the game played smoothly, and felt well polished. Sometimes there were frustrating moments where you can’t get a perfect score on a level, and you dearly wish the rewind button found in iBomber Defense was available. Of course, that’s just a small OCD I can’t stress over, beating tower defense games without losing a life. Nonetheless, the hard levels were nice and challenging, and the gameplay wasn’t all that easy. Overall, the game is fun, stimulating, and definitely worth the money.

More information on Tower Defense: Lost Earth is available on their official website. The iOS version can be downloaded at the App Store for iPhone or iPad for $0.99.

8-Bit Rally brings back memories of old school arcade games such as Outrun. As a classic racer, it’s easy to learn, while retaining  the amount of difficulty hardcore fans love. This game has three difficulty settings, giving even the “non-gamers” a shot at this game without breaking their iDevice. A classic arcade-styled racer, like this one,  features multiple terrains and environments. The gameplay remains simple: pass all the other A.I. racers in the allotted time (recorded in laps), and the closer you are to first, the bigger the prize money. It’s very similar to Grand Prix Story, but in this case, you take control of the racer.

Each race consists of various amounts of laps, which you compete for first place, starting from two to five. Every time you pass an A.I., you achieve a bigger cash prize at the end of the race. With the money, you can purchase a new car or upgrade your current one. There are a variety of upgrades including nitro, drift, and speed boosts. In addition, there are new cars that you can purchase with pre-upgraded stats. There are two control options, touch and tilt, which provides accurate and precise driving, even when playing in on the road. Even though accelerometer controls doesn’t work well in some games, the controls were accurate and precise throughout the game.

The idea of the game is both simple and minimalist, but still providing tons of fun and entertainment. During the campaign, after each race, you travel to a new locations every time, bringing new topography with interesting scenery. The whole game is pretty long, and it encourages replaying a few levels to gain a higher position (for bigger cash prizes). The soundtrack had a nice chipmunk tune, which was pleasing to my ears. The music went nicely with the game, and I didn’t have a problem with it. The graphics are detailed and crisp, even though it is in 8-bit.  I found the landscape simply stunning, both intricate and visually pleasing. This game is surly entertaining and I recommend it to almost everyone.

For more information on 8-Bit Rally visit their official website. The iOS version can be found at the App Store, universal for iPhone and iPad for $0.99.

Shogun takes your average bullet-hell shooter and kicks it up a notch. The game itself isn’t on par with ESPGALUDA II, but it certainly makes itself comfortable in my new iCADE. I took into consideration how ESPGALUDA II was about four times the price of Shogun,  and the game does play very consistently. Bullet-hell games have been around for a while, dating back in the arcade days with games like Raiden and DonPachi. We all know that CAVE’s specialty is danmaku (弾幕, meaning bullet curtain), but coming from an indie developer, this game is actually quite entertaining.

Shoot’em ups (or bullet-hell shooters) are undoubtedly some of the best retro game genres. Essentially, a shoot’em up is where the player takes control of a space/aircraft and they shoot down large amounts of enemies coming down on the screen, while also simultaneously dodging their attacks. General attacks usually encompass bullets, laser beams, or energy orbs. The attacks mostly come in memorable patterns, inducing memorization. Some games like Jamestown (PC) will allow multiple players to control many ships on the playing field at the same time.

Shogun has many great qualities that popular bullet-hells have, including a great variety of weapons, and a decent plot. There are many great pros hidden in Shogun, and it takes a bit of playing to realize the game’s potential. Firstly, there is a “risk-reward” element, where you get rewarded for flying dangerously close to the bullets. You get bonus shield power that allows you to take more hits, and spend the capsules you earn on wingmen and weapon upgrades. Secondly, there is adaptive difficulty, where the bullet patterns form more complicated waves as you manage to dodge them all. Meaning, the better you do, the harder the game will become. Thirdly, there is strategic weapon switching, where you have to switch the weapons to defeat the enemies effectively. Use the spread for small swarms and missiles, laser for large enemies and big targets, and homing when dodging the bullets. While using touch controls, switching is easy and the slo-mo during the swap menu is both impressive and practical. The controls are easier when on the iCADE, making a button-push easily switch between weapons.

Lastly, Shogun definitely polished  their game, quite a bit. Shogun has stunning visuals, as well as extraordinary SFX & GFX. The graphics are sharp, vibrant, and concise. The artwork is just gorgeous. There is no clear lag or slowdown, even during the intense action. The 16-bit music is pleasing and simply adds to the adrenaline-pumped action, and not to mention the backgrounds. The controls work and they are minimalistic, but not only that, there is iCADE support, which really enhances the gameplay. Shogun proved that it was an excellent shoot’em up, and I believe that even casual gamers will enjoy this game.

For more information on Shogun visit their official website. The iOS version can be found at the App Store, universal for iPhone and iPad for free (plus $1.99 – $2.99 of IAP for full game). The Android version can be found on the Play Store for $2.49.

Semi-Automatic is a standard, wave based arcade game, with a cooperative twist. The controls are scattered, making it difficult to operate the M.A.R.T.Y.R. without extra hands. What makes this game fun is the amount of versatility you have when playing it with other people. You can have one, two, or three partners, each operating their own device and keeping the evil robots at bay. For a four-level game, it’s a brief experience, but the real fun is playing with others.

The beeps and boops in the background you hear as you play fit the overall theme of the game and the feedback noises you get from utilizing the M.A.R.T.Y.R.‘s interface all feels comfortable and in place. The low quality sounds are a bit grating to the ears, and the most annoying element is the european voice actor that insists on telling the player every single time a weapon need to recharge. It is impressive to have a tutorial mode that uses a fully voiced character, and frankly very refreshing, considering that almost every single iOS game employs an instructions screen that utilizes text to guide the player. The drawback is the character talks too much, and his voice doesn’t blend well with the action on-screen.

While simplistic, the chunky, retro vibe fits well with the visuals, the higher resolution dials and knobs make the enemies seem stretched out of proportion. Rather than a flaw, this actually comes off as a bit charming, in my opinion. However, when the weapons at your disposal overheat or lose their charge, the words RECHARGING appears in a glaringly red font. This is not too bothersome, and is really picky at best, but it did make the game seem slightly unfinished. Other visual flaws include some of the characters not loading when they appear on-screen, and instead appear as white boxes until they finish loading. The presentation takes more of a functional approach rather than an aesthetically pleasing one.

The interface is where this game really shines. I could not imagine trying play this game on anything other than an iPad. Each function of the M.A.R.T.Y.R. has its own allocated space on the screen, and features a unique style of control. There is a section that allows you to launch missiles and reload them by flipping a switch, a dial you can spin to activate the shield, a button you can hold down to direct a magnet that will pick up health dropped by the enemies, and a laser with two modes that can be activated by plugging into either one and directing the beam. Cooperative play is subtly encouraged without telling you to play with others. Each level is represented by the number of hands you will need to survive (ex. When you reach level 3, three hands appear on the screen).

Overall, you will not get as much playability as you would out of your average iOS game, but it’s still a very fun diversion though. Playing with friends cooperatively on one screen is an experience by itself that has captured the attention of my friends and me. It is just a shame that there is not enough content to keep you coming back for more that a few times.

For more information on Semi-Automatic visit their official website. The iOS version can be found at the App Store for the  iPad for free.

In a black and white world, the only colors are you, your crystals, and your enemies. Obviously, most creatures aren’t exactly possessions you want to risk a lot for, so your enemies will want your precious gems. Your job is to stop those treacherous creatures and enemies from stealing the crystals, while commanding where your support “towers” go.   In this modern styled, classic tower defense game, you have three available towers and your have to save Diploglobe and the Jelly Nation from doom. There’s an obvious abundance of tower defense games, including both high and low quality games. I’ll get into this stylish tower defense, breaking down each aspect one at a time.

Immediately after starting the game, I took note of the cartoonish style of the game, rather than other tower defense games where they feature “realistic/futuristic” enemies and towers. As I watched their intro animation and cut scenes, I was impressed with the smoothness of the game. The animations were sharp and polished, which was a bonus. The level selector/menu was a nice 3-D (Google Earth-like) globe, where you can easily select the level, or you can browse through the Jelly’s “Earth”. I can certainly conclude that the user interface was quite clean and minimalistic, but at the same time,  very detailed and impressive.

The gameplay following, was the only issue I had with the game itself. The most important aspect of almost any game is how well the game plays or how much fun/entertainment you can get out of it. Before I actually say some of the issues I had, this game is absolutely not for perfectionists.  If you’re any bit similar to me, I almost always have to complete a tower defense game with all my lives. This game just won’t let you, no matter how many times you try. The game is hard and frustrating when you try to keep all your 10 initial gems. In fact, after the first few levels, the game just loves to get you angry and mad, just like a troll. I am a self-proclaimed iOS gamer, and I’ve played probably over 20 tower defenses, and have gotten through quite difficult levels. This game is much more challenging than any of those other games.

There are three towers for you to choose from, a typical rapid-fire, but weak tower (red/blue), an explosive cannon tower (red), and a minigun tower (blue). The color corresponds to what enemy the tower can fire at, if it isn’t the correct enemy, the Jelly Tower will take a nap (won’t fire). Red enemies are known to be fast and bunch up in groups, and the blue enemies are distinguished to take more damage and are a little slower. The trouble with the towers are that they don’t have enough range, leaving enemies to get by extremely easily. All towers are able to have basic upgrades, increasing damage and range, while also changing appearance.

The game is addicting and has a decently long campaign. The replay value is decent, however it probably won’t be as much, unless you’re a tower defense perfectionist. The sound effects are materialistic as well, but sometimes get annoying, because they often repeat a certain SFX for many things.  The game is fun for a while, but depending on your patience, you will probably get as flustered as I did. Jelly Defense a good tower defense game, and really polished, but needs levels based on difficulty.

For more information on Jelly Defense visit their official website. The iOS version can be found at the App Store, universal for the iPhone and iPad for $0.99.

Match Panic is one of the most beautiful 8-bit games I’ve ever seen.  The entire game hinges on the player’s ability to tap  left or right, reflexes, and memorization skills.  Also, the player must also have an unquenchable thirst to unlock all 12 of the so-called unlock-ables.  While the journey to unlocking all the different creatures is long, it also leads to the games biggest problem.

The game begins with two “characters” unlocked in all of their 8-bit glory.  Once a game is begun, on the right, there is one character and another one on the left.  In the middle, there is a huge line of the characters in a random order waiting to be sorted.

The levels are timed, but there are power-ups that make beating the clock a bit easier.  These consist of things such as adding on time to the clock, making a large amount of the characters all one type or even a little explosion which gets rid of a nice chunk of the characters.  As the levels increase, more and more characters end up on each side and it really starts to test the player’s memory.  I mean, when there are six characters in the game, three on each side not only does it test your reflexes it tests your memory too.

There are only a few reasons to play this game on a regular basis:  GameCenter support with leaderboards, but the versatility of those only comes down to how many friends the player has that owns the game. The main reason to keep playing this game is to unlock all the characters.  There is an unlock screen and only the faint outlines are able to be seen until the actual character has been unlocked.  The first couple characters can be unlocked either via reaching a certain level or making a amount of matches.  Eventually reaching a certain level to unlock a new sprite is ditched and making a certain number matches is the only way to unlock them.  The last character I unlocked took over 5,000 matches I believe.  That said they are all achievable goals and seeing a new sprite appear after putting forth some hard work to unlock it is immensely satisfying. Unfortunately this also leads to the games biggest problem.

The only thing that kept me coming back to the game was the knowledge that a little more time and a new character would be unlocked. Once I had all 12 of the characters, I felt as though there was nothing left for me to do in the game.  With no real story mode or some sort of multiplayer, I felt no need to keep returning upon completion.  That being said the ride to unlocking everything the game has to offer was certainly some the best time I have spent on my iPod and the amazing look of the game will keep it on there, if only to show my friends.

For more information on Match Panic visit their official website. The iOS version can be found at the App Store, universal for the iPhone and iPad for $1.99.