The story revolves around Ittle Dew, an adventurous young girl who washes up on an island and has to complete a number of quests before the mad shop keeper will give her a boat to sail off on.  Ittle Dew sets off with her trusty drunken flying fox companion and tackles castles, dungeons, caves and a slew of weird  and wonderful enemies.

Swedish indie studio Ludosity has done a great job of bringing back the look and feel of the classic Zelda whilst offering a fresh and funny spin on it.

I have added the trailer below to give you a taste of the game before I hit you with the negatives…

OK, now the downside…

I really enjoyed playing this game in the beginning  and I was happy to over look the slow load times and periodic stutter but I had to stop playing when I had to hit four diamonds to open a door. This is a relatively simple puzzle about 30 minutes into the game and has four diamonds that are timed to turn off after a certain time. Using the on screen joypad I found it very difficult to move my character fast enough and after 20 attempts I was still struggling. Frustrated I downloaded the Steam version of the game and found that the same puzzle was infinitely easier on a joypad and keyboard.

So whilst I would recommend the game ‘as a game’ I would probably avoid the iPhone version and try the PC, Tablet or even OUYA version in order to avoid the troubles of an onscreen joypad.

Related articles

• Why do I like grinding?
• Ittle Dew
• The Top 15 Best iOS Games of 2013 That You Must Play
• Booyah for Ouya?
• [Bonus Round] Ittle Dew, Promised Lands, Monster Loves You, And Sketchman

The post Review: Ittle Dew | iPhone appeared first on AppTrawler.

We Rule is a kingdom building game, somewhat similar to the massively popular Facebook game Farmville. Here’s what we had to say about the game from our hands-on preview at Macworld San Francisco:

The game map shows you your kingdom as well as the kingdom of your Plus+ contacts. Scrolling across the map shows you the relative size of everyone’s kingdoms. The goal of the game is to build up your community as much as possible, but with the added twist that your own kingdom can be customized with a number of special cosmetic tweaks. These tweaks will make your kingdom truly unique and personalized.

The game consists of alternating between your daily activities of harvesting or otherwise managing your resources while building up new houses, farms, and businesses. Your kingdom will be bustling with activity from townspeople as it grows, though unlike God Finger, you don’t actually have individual control of the inhabitants. …Read More.

We’ll have a review of sorts when the game hits the US App Store, but in the meantime, if you’re lucky enough to have a Canadian iTunes account and are looking to add kingdoms to your network, my Plus+ username is simply “Eli”. (Although because of how the Plus+ search works, you’re probably better off searching for “Hodapp” or “Eli Hodapp”.)

Admittedly, my kingdom is fairly pitiful right now.

Canadian App Store Link: We Rule, Free

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Designed by code guru Charles Cecil, Broken Sword has a long and celebrated history in the video game world, and Revolution Software has just dropped us a line to announce that protagonists George Stobbard and Nico Collard are now heading to the iPhone.

Broken Sword: The Director’s Cut promises an update on the adventure classic that utilises the interface and control mechanism put together for the remake of Beneath a Steel Sky, which should make the puzzle solving and award-winning narrative very accessible.

“We were absolutely thrilled with the reaction to our first iPhone and iPod touch release,” says Charles Cecil, managing director at Revolution Software. “We’re particularly excited to be introducing [Broken Sword: The Director’s Cut] to a whole new audience.

“I am confident that the quality of the original adventure coupled with significant updates and new assets will ensure that the game appeals both to new players as well as those that played the original first time around.”

The game follows the adventure of Nico Collard as she races against time to uncover a sinister conspiracy linked to an ancient secret.

Artist Dave Gibbons has been drafted in once again to put together some all new cut-scenes and animation, while a similar context-sensitive help system will provide a bit of in-game assistance when the puzzles get too much.

Apparently we can expect the game within a month, though there’s no price announcement as yet. Stay tuned for more Broken Sword: The Director’s Cut iPhone news.

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Attaching the word ‘Dante’ to any piece of entertainment suggests that a hellish experience is in store. Consider the risible 1997 Pierce Brosnan vehicle, Dante’s Peak, or the entire filmography of Joe Dante.

Okay, so Gremlins and Inner Space were pretty good.

Regardless of that, you have to say it was a wise move on part of Javaground to omit Dante from the title of its maze-running puzzler – this despite the fact that The Inferno is indeed based on the portion of The Divine Comedy by the fourteenth century poet Dante that carries the same name.

Tortured artist

The game – as with the poem – charts the writer’s journey through a mediaeval vision of hell, aided by the Roman poet Virgil. Minus some rather overripe between-level dialogue, however, that’s about it for the game’s literary pretensions.

I rather doubt Dante’s journey involved scurrying about trap-laden mazes and collecting glowing orbs like Indiana Jones, yet that’s exactly what you have to do in The Inferno.

It’s a fairly plain top-down 2D affair, with Dante moving along rather jerkily, one square at a time. The aim of each level is to make your way to the exit, which only opens up once you’ve collected each of the blue soul orbs that litter each level (usually in the most awkward spots).

There’s an overall time limit of four hours in which the game must be completed, your success or failure at which determines the ending you receive.

Trouble down below

With such a basic premise, the developer has opted to spread the simple directional controls across the screen. Movement by default is handled via a deconstructed virtual D-pad, with horizontal movement handled on the left side of the screen and vertical movement on the right.

While this two-handed approach would appear to be a wise choice given the lack of any other control considerations, it’s actually unintuitive. In fact, I never found myself entirely comfortable with having to operate two individual controls for simple movement – there’s a lingering feeling of detachment between your thumbs and poor old Dante.

Fortunately, there’s the option to switch to a single virtual control pad, but even this proves to be unsatisfactory given the need for pin-sharp timing and reactions on the tougher levels. Collapsing walkways, patrolling ghouls and intermittent spike tracks invariably lead you on a merry dance of death.

It’s often too difficult and the controls only make it worse. The aforementioned stilted movement and jerky animation must take much of the blame for these frustrations, as the sheer number of untimely deaths you experience begins to resemble a whole new kind of torment.

Judgement day

Still, there’s no doubting the old skool appeal of simply getting from entrance to exit as quickly and efficiently as possible, and the sheer number of levels provides a sizable challenge.

There’s a braveness and a purity to the game’s stripped-back style that proves strangely refreshing – how many digital trawls through the underworld do you know of that don’t involve even a smattering of combat?

Despite the oppressive setting, this is far closer to Edge than Doom. The only trouble is, The Inferno lacks the tightly tactile controls of the former, which are absolutely essential in a game with such a narrow focus.

The Inferno, then, while certainly not a tortuous experience, finds itself in the shadowy limbo of being merely above average.

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I-play has officially announced that its popular (5 million players and counting) PC casual puzzler Paradise Quest is on its way to iPhone.

As you might expect given the title and publisher, Paradise Quest plays a lot like Jewel Quest, with some familiar gentle match-three gameplay mixed into a loose adventure story. However, there are a few notable twists on display that mark it out as one to watch.

For one thing, play isn’t constrained to a single screen. Each level is a sprawling field of flowers and materials that must be scrolled across (by matching blocks in the appropriate direction) in order to complete each task.

There’ll also be a string of gesture-activated bonus moves, such as the shake-induced earthquake, as well as a strong focus on social play. Besides Facebook high-score connectivity the game will feature a number of multiplayer challenges, playable over wi-fi and Bluetooth.

We spent some time with the game recently, so keep an eye out for our initial impressions. Paradise Quest is set to be released some time in January, though we’ll let you know as soon as we hear anything more specific.

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Following his resignation from Square, Sakaguchi founded Mistwalker and since has released games on both the XBOX 360 and Nintendo DS, most notably Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey. Currently he is working on a mysterious “large scale project” that very little is known about, and per a Happy New Year blog post, Mistwalker is also working on a project for the iPhone.

We don’t know anything about this iPhone project yet, and with the secrecy surrounding Mistwalker, it’s hard to say when we will. Regardless, you only need to head over to Hironobu Sakaguchi’s Wikipedia entry to see the full scope of his influence on the history of video games. Needless to say, anything he has his hands on will be a welcome addition to the App Store.

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Inotia 2 isn’t really bringing anything new to the table, even in terms of the app store. Games like Dungeon Hunter and (more similarly) Zenonia have already pioneered the action-RPG genre on the platform, but Inotia 2 makes up for that by being more polished, more accessible, and arguably deeper than any that came before it.

Progress is made through the completion of main-story quests and the leveling up of your character, a concept that should be familiar to many gamers. All of the regular trimmings like a skill tree that you can use to customize your character as he/she levels or collectible loot is there, but it’s the mercenaries system that really sets Inotia 2 apart. Over the course of the game, players will be able to hire up to two mercenaries, which they can then take with them on all their quests, level up and customize as they grow, and actually manually control while in battle.

This allows for experimentation with each of the five character classes in a single playthrough, regardless of which character you chose at the beginning of the game to be your main. Item customization is another feature that adds to the depth of Inotia 2, as it allows players to attach enchantments (or upgrades) to their weapons and equipment via scrolls found through various methods in the game.

If plot is your main concern when delving into action-RPGs, Inotia 2 is going to disappoint you. The story is cliche-filled and poorly written, with bad dialogue making the already uninteresting conversations between characters only bearable because of the ability to quickly tap your way through them. It does not matter if you choose to play as a male or female character in this game, because everyone in the game will refer to you as though you are male, regardless of actual gender. This is all probably due to the fact that the developers, Com2uS, are from Korea and it seems like quite a bit may have been lost in translation.

Non-Player Characters (NPCs) are scattered about environments and towns with quests to give and generic lines to spew, as is par for the course in games of this genre, but they all seem dead due to their complete lack of animation. Since the NES era, NPCs have always had small movement animations, just to make it clear to the player that they’re alive. This is not the case in Inotia 2; NPCs are so still that they could sometimes be mistaken as parts of the environment.

Addressing a common problem with both its predecessor and other games in its genre (I’m looking at you, Zenonia), Inotia 2 has a fantastic menu/inventory system. While the game does limit the number of items that players can carry along with them on the field, it also offers plenty of room for expansion, potentially to quadruple the number of inventory slots available at the start of the game. Touch navigation of the menus makes accessing all of the options, information, and character customization methods easy to get to.

The actual battles in Inotia 2 are extremely well-designed, and there’s a lot of fun and satisfaction to be had by taking part in them, especially later in the game, when you’ll be managing three characters at once, each with their own complete skill sets. Movement is controlled either by touch or virtual D-pad, the latter of which I found to be much more responsive.

There is a large attack button on the right-hand side of the screen, and tapping this button once while in attacking distance of an enemy will simultaneously auto-turn your character in the right direction and initiate a series of constant attacks until either your character or the enemy is dead. This sounds rather brutish and indelicate, but strategy comes into play when you take advantage of your (up to) four special attacks on your quick menu and the combined skills of your unique party members.

For the first part of the game, I controlled a mage (my main character) and a templar, the latter of whom served as both my healer and frontline. I controlled the templar and led the way into battle, creating a safe environment for my mage to attack from a distance behind me. At first, the only skill that my templar had access to was a basic healing spell, but with a broadsword and careful attention to the health bars of my party members, I was able to make it through most situations with ease. Later, I added a knight to my party, which added even more strategic options due to the fact that my templar was now freed for full time healing duty while my knight charged headfirst into enemies. The combination of class types in my party gave me a lot of wiggle room for experimentation with strategy, making the game much more than a simple hack-and-slasher.

Unfortunately, mercenaries do not have the same potential as your main character. Players are limited to the use of only half of their mercenaries’ skills trees, the other half of both passive and active abilities are locked. I suppose that the developers’ intentions when designing this system was to increase replayability and encourage second playthroughs as a different character class, but since the game is easily 40+ hours anyway, this is more of an annoyance than anything else. I strongly urge the developers to create some way to open up access to the second half of the mercenaries’ skill trees; it’s something that everyone who buys the game will want.

Inotia 2 is not lacking in online features, with a ranking system that shows your worldwide rank as measured by either player level or the highest level enchantment on one of your weapons. Players are also given the ability to take their party online in a versus-style environment called “Match Up Mode.”

I would generally advise against participating in this mode until you have a full three person party, as you’re likely to get totally owned, otherwise. This mode is really nothing more than a fun diversion to take part in after completing the main storyline in the game, but it will add to the overall value to the really hardcore players who pour in the dozens of hours required to fully level their characters.

Visually, Inotia 2 is a real treat, with large, high-quality character portraits that appear during dialogue and an all around clean, top down 2D graphical style that looks several leaps ahead of what was possible on the Super Nintendo, but while still keeping that same sort of feel. The actual animation of characters aren’t quite up to par  with the art and retro graphics in the game, but they do just well enough to not really be noticable.

The audio is a bit forgettable, with a score that seems uninspired and generic when compared to the approximately 12 million other games that use a fantasy setting, but the option to turn off individual aspects of the sound are allowed via the in-game menu, and music from your iPod itself can be activated in its place.

So is Inotia 2 worth a purchase? With the absolutely enormous story mode, numerous possibilities for customization (whether that be through party configurations, skill sets, or weapon/armor choices), and the online play options, this is by all means a complete package. The level of visual detail and overall fun factor provided by the game is only slightly diminished by weak writing, a problem that most games in the action-RPG genre share.

Casual gamers who are unfamiliar with games of this sort will most likely be turned off by the complexity of the game’s inner workings, but those who know what they’re getting into and enjoy similar games will probably agree with me when I say that Inotia 2 is one of the best action-RPG’s on the App Store.

App Store Link: Inotia: A Wanderer of Luone, .99

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Square Enix appears to be dipping its toes into the App Store once again, releasing another title with little fanfare, Hills and Rivers Remain [App Store]. Square Enix has released a light strategy game that is best be described as a Galcon-a-like. Fortunately, it does do enough different that it can be distinguished on its own merits, though it continues to disappoint that a developer of Square Enix’s calibre could not bring something to the table that really redefines the platform.

Hills and Rivers Remain wraps the traditional Galcon model in a typical Japanese RPG wrapper, with grandiose story telling, an abundance of dialogue and the typically overly dramatic anime characters that have been a hallmark of Square Enix’s franchises. Unfortunately the story in Hills and Rivers Remain isn’t its shining point, being loaded to the brim with clichés, uninspired characters, and banter that will likely make one wince more often than not.

The gameplay itself sees you directing your forces around a grid of linked bases, reinforcing the troops at each base and sending them on their way to overwhelm and capture the enemies’ bases. Your troop numbers are replenished only when the constantly circulating green frame around the screen depletes, and only at a HQ that you can designate by pressing on an existing base. This summarizes much of the gameplay; frantically selecting the appropriate base to reinforce depending on the enemies’ moves and your own strategy, a fact that is compounded when you are faced with more than one enemy.

Where Square Enix has departed from the Galcon mold is in its inclusion of ‘special bases’ and consumable items. Special bases come in the form of stables, castles, ports, cannons, mines and forts; each providing a specific tactical advantage such as faster movement, being able to travel over sea or increased combat effectiveness, to name a few. This feature is its saving grace; providing interesting strategic choke-points that grant bonus’ that essentially determine each match. Additionally, upon seizing a base you are sometimes awarded with an item, which can be consumed at any time to boost a particular aspect of your entire army, such as speed, combat effectiveness or defense. Both these elements help Hills and Rivers Remain from becoming an overly monotonous experience.

Fortunately, the artwork and sound in Hills and Rivers Remain is of the high standard expected of Square Enix. The game itself is presented in the form of detailed 2D sprites of sufficient resolution that they can be zoomed in on without looking ugly. The animations themselves are a little basic, but ultimately they get the job done. The in-game dialogue between the game’s characters is where the artwork comes into its own; each character splendidly created in typical Square Enix fashion. The music follows suit with Square Enix’s penchant for fanfare, symphony and drum-rolls.

Despite all this however, one can not help but feel that you are still playing Galcon albeit in a different setting and without the multiplayer experience that made Galcon a hit. Longevity in Hills and Rivers Remain comes in the form of Free Mode, where a range of different armies unlocked in Story Mode, each with their own strengths and weaknesses, can be pitted against each other in the various story missions.

For those who are fans of troop management games, Hills and Rivers Remain may just provide enough additional gameplay elements and depth to really pique your interest. For those expecting a more comprehensive experience or those who did not enjoy games such as Galcon, the gameplay can get quickly tiresome and stale. The story is unfortunately forgettable, and raises the question of why Square Enix did not tap into its sizable library of popular licences to provide something more of substance. A lite version is available with exclusive content not found in the full version, so is worth a download regardless of your plans to buy the full.

App Store Link: Hills and Rivers Remain, .99, Hills and Rivers Remain Lite, Free.

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Hybrid is an adventure roleplaying game with an extensive skill system all wrapped around a brawler-style fighting game. You play as Grey, a kid with a mysterious past protected by an equally mysterious guardian named Fairy through a quest that will take you numerous hours to complete that touches on a number of RPG cliches along the way.

With every enemy you kill, you gain experience points and in-game currency which can be spent on an impressively deep character customization and upgrade system. The combat is the star of the show in Hybrid, and as you fight through each level you eventually gain more moves, techniques, and magical attacks to dispatch your enemies. These attacks can be chained together to form massive combos, and fighting entire gangs of baddies at once can be fairly satisfying.

Like Zenonia, there are a lot of people who love Hybrid, there’s a thread on our forums filled with fans of the game. I do appreciate all the work Gamevil has put in to the game, and as you level up and gain more abilities, watching Grey fly around the screen killing enemies is fairly spectacular.

Where the game fell short for me, however, was in the seemingly endless amount of button mashing and thumb swiping required to kill all the enemies on a level only to watch a cut scene with tons of dialog, then get back to mashing the attack button. Regardless, I still recommend trying the free version, because opinions on this game seem divided, and you could find yourself amongst those who can’t get enough of Hybrid.

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Namco has unveiled new details about their upcoming action adventure game Garters & Ghouls.

Unearth the strange and undying world of Garters & Ghouls! Control and command the newly-dead Marie Dupois as she battles the minions of The Thrum and horrors beyond description! With over 25 levels, randomized level generation and downloadable content, the action never dies!

Based on the screenshots released, the game appears to be a dual-stick survival shooter the likes of which we’ve seen before, but wrapped in a pretty extensive story and with a progressive level design. There also appears to be a wide variety of locations presented in the game.

This teaser video just shows some of the artwork, but no actual gameplay:
Namco is slowly releasing the background story to the game as well as character art.

The following screenshots show more details of the actual gameplay:

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The one potential hurdle that we (and our readers) saw in early builds of the game, however, was the adoption of a seemingly awkward control system. We discussed in our recent podcast that it seems clear the major developers had already settled on a somewhat standardized “swipe to look” control mechanism for these 3D games.

Fortunately, Crescent Moon has modified their game to adopt a similar control scheme that they detail in this new gameplay video:

The developer also demonstrates other features including auto targeting and the various scaling options provided to boost performance on previous generation devices. Ravensword is in the final stages of development and should be submitted in a matter of days to weeks.

The post Ravensword’s Controls: Video appeared first on AppTrawler.

The developer describes the game:

Undercroft is a dazzling, epic adventure set in a fantasy world full of magic and monsters. It combines the atmosphere of classic role playing games with plenty of new features, and brings it all together with cool graphics and sophisticated level design.

The game features multiple environments, hundreds of items, and over 20 hours of gameplay. The developers have provided a lite version to try which will give you a feel for the game before committing to the full version.

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Dungeon Hunter is the premiere hack’n’slash rpg release by Gameloft. Those players who are longtime fans of the Diablo series or familiar with the look of games like Dungeon Siege, this game will seem very similar. The game plays a little like Pixel Mine’s Underworlds with it’s upgradeable characters and various items that can be collected and utilized.

Right from the beginning of the game you are given a choice between three different classes of characters to play. You can pick from the standard classes of Warrior, Rogue, or Mage. Each class has it’s benefits that are special to it personally and it really comes down to what style of play you enjoy the most. Getting into the game, you start out with almost nothing and have to fight your way through a dungeon to escape. As you progress, you will collect different weapons and gain levels as you fight. The controls in the game are smooth with each style of attack being assigned to a button and the virtual joystick.

For fans of this style of game, it is definitely a solid release. It could quite possibly be the best of its kind on the iPhone. The game is priced at Gamestops new pricepoint so you’ll be paying a medium price for the game. After distributing my experience points into the abilities that I wanted I can definitely say it would be worth the purchase. Check it out.

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