Friday Freebies
Alawar Entertainment and Eye Interactive are bringing a real treat to fans of slicing, Castle Defense, and zombie apocalypses by making Zombie Samurai free! Here’s the iPhone/iPod Touch version, and the iPad version, and check out our review for good measure.
You can also find Red Nova Labs’ Mystery Ball free on the App Store today! You can find out more about this certifiably charming, puzzle-filled ball roller in our review and interview with creator David Howe.
If your missed our earlier “OMG, iOS Games Gone Free” articles during the week, you can find some great games still available for the nabbing. Check out our reports for: Monday; Tuesday; Wednesday; and Thursday.
Sales Roundup
Holy turn-based combat systems, Batman! KEMCO just slashed the price tag on Eve of the Genesis from $8.99 to $0.99. Don’t forget that Fantasy Chronicle is still on release sale too. We’re told KEMCO has more goodness in store for JRPG fans on iOS, and we’ll let you know just as soon as we find out what the next title will be.
Giveaway Contest Recap
Suffice it to say that our traditional Twitter contests returned with a bang this week! No less than four contests are running right now, so here’s a quick recap. Our Soul Caliber contest wraps up tomorrow, and the same goes for the Tongue Tied giveaway Mojo Bones helped us launch in celebration of their latest content update.
Nooskewl whipped out quite the amazing giveaway this week, offering a 60beat® GamePad to one lucky iFanzine reader! Not to be outdone, Digital Frog are serving up three $10 USD iTunes gift cards to promote Crystal War: Blood Field. Both of these contests will continue running into next week.
Clay’s Reverie Goes Universal
Super Glue Studio were in touch this week to let us know that their curious side-scroller, Clay’s Reverie, has just received a Universal update and some checkpoint rebalancing. Future updates are set to flesh out Clay with 10 additional levels, some new types of barriers to get squashed on, and tutorial levels to help beginners along.
Ash II: Shadows Puts Up its Dukes
Ash II got off to a bit of a rough start, releasing with jelly-soft gameplay that didn’t match the pedigree of SRRN Games’ writing talent. Now that’s been addressed in an update that just hit the App Store. Before you rush out and update, be careful to read the instructions on how to keep your game saves from getting mussed up! SRRN Games explains this a bit more on their blog.
An Announcement Made Better Late Than Never
Visual Novels are one of the more unusual things we end up reviewing at iFanzine, and that definitely held true for Moe-heavy Twilight Cherry way back in May 2011. This was a particularly interesting product because it was a rare case of an English-speaking developer with great writing skills helping out a Japanese studio with a tough translation job on their hands. As luck would have it, some of the revised text didn’t make it into the version we reviewed. The translator/script editor dropped in this week to let us know that an August update resolved the noted issues and our spot check agrees. That editor is none other than the creator of Antistar 3D: Rising, by the way! We’re told another collaboration is in the pipeline, so here’s to hoping this becomes a new trend on the App Store.
Arr, Here Be More Gaps to Bridge
Even while they’re in the midst of a new project Monster Robot Studios found the time to add five levels to Bridge the Gap, their debut logic puzzler from all the way back in September. We’ll soon find out more about their latest project, the Metroid-inspired Space Zombie Control.
Live in Singapore? Witching Hour Studios are Hiring!
It’s not often you see the “careers” page on a developer’s website actually filled with job postings, and when it’s a studio this talented it’s a particularly precious occasion. Witching Hour Studios, developers of the hit TBS Ravenmark: Scourge of Estellion, are looking for folks in their area who can sprite, code in Objective-C/cocos2d and Javascript, or who have lots of Unity experience.  Looks like we know what engine they’ll be using for their next game!
A Look Ahead
This week we previewed Electric Pixel Factory’s Gorilla Gondola, and we’ll have a review ready when it hits the App Store on February 2. That day will also mark the final content update to Bean’s Quest, a retro platformer by Melbourne-based Kumobius that’s enjoyed an excellent run since its release last summer. Check out preview videos for both of those below:
Are you an iOS videogame developer or publisher with a cool update, video, or other news that you want to get out to the masses? iFanzine probably has an eye on you already, but don’t hesitate to get in touch via our Twitter feed or Contact page. We want to fill our iFriday Roundups with all your beautiful stuff!