Inspired by fantastic games like MegaMan, Kid Icarus, and Super Mario Galaxy and others, Ultra Kid will have players flying their rockets through space to land on different moons and planets, where they will find crazy creatures to fight and dark tunnels to explore.

With a mixture of both 2.5D and 3D platforming, you’ll collect weapons and suit upgrades as you progress through the game to help you complete your main mission of saving the galaxy from Dr. Ridalin, who we’ve been assured is quite evil. Ultra Kid is still in development, and while details are vague right now, we expect to learn quite a bit more about the game in the upcoming weeks.

The post Preview: Ultra Kid: Mystery of the Mutants appeared first on AppTrawler.

Taito impressed the hell out of us with its iPhone revamp of the original shmup in Space Invaders Infinity Gene, which also just made it onto our top ten list of 2009’s iPhone games.

To celebrate the New Year, Taito has just dropped us a line to announce that a major 2.0 update has gone live for Space Invaders Infinity Gene that, amongst other things, delivers OpenFeint connectivity to the awesome shmup.

This will bring global leaderboards to the three main categories (High Score, Number of Chains, Number of Nagoya Attacks) and separate rankings for the standard game and music stages. There are now also 50 achievements – five of which are secret – while high scores and unlocked awards can be uploaded to Facebook and Twitter in-app.

The Infinity Gene 2.0 update also delivers ten new stages which are unlocked as the Evolution Gauge is filled, and six of these new levels will feature alternate versions of the boss battles.

The superb music stages (one of the game’s best features) have also been expanded and improved. The alternate bosses from the new levels will appear (under certain conditions), song and title information is displayed at the beginning of the stage, and players can rate the music stages on a five star scale and can even share music stage recommendations via Facebook and Twitter.

This is the second title Taito has given OpenFeint support to, and is a great improvement on an already excellent game in Space Invaders Infinity Gene. Hit the App Store button below to go get it.

The post Space Invaders Infinity Gene gets extra levels & OpenFeint appeared first on AppTrawler.

Game Over really was Game Over.

While many games have lost this unforgiving nature, and given in to the less hardy gamers amongst us, developer eBattallion’s Nanoids returns to that harsh nature of old, and it’s something we’re quite glad about.

From the looks of things, Nanoids has the staple of bullet dodging, boss destroying and soul crushing gameplay we have grown to love. The graphics are crisp, and appear to keep up with all that’s going on with a good degree of style.

The various weapons look suitably impressive, and should you fancy a change there are upgrades and different weapons to keep you and your spaceship happy.

Perhaps most important to fans of the series are the boss battles, and eBattallion promises them in ample abundance and size. Factor in a ‘save’ function that means you can return to a point later on, and it all sounds rather positive.

Okay, so saving isn’t as hardcore as in ‘ye olden days’, but it means you can pick-up and play Nanoids in short bursts, and progress through the game. Rest assured, though – it wont be an easy ride.

Nanoids is out now on the App Store for £1.79/$2.99. Saving the future has never been so accessable.

The post Review: Nanoids appeared first on AppTrawler.

Indeed, there’s currently a small explosion when it comes to space-based games.

Multi-platform MMOG Outer Empires has just touched down on iPhone (alongside Facebook and browser versions), while Freeverse is working on its winter-scheduled Warpgate.

First into orbit, however, was Wisp Games’s Flatspace, an experience Damien McFerran said, ” transcends the usual limitations of short-burst iPhone gaming to deliver a captivating universe of possibilities,” in our Flatspace review.

We caught up with Wisp Games founder Bill Klein to find out more about how the game was developed and what future plans he has for it.

Pocket Gamer: What’s the background of Wisp Games?

Bill Klein: I got into the games industry in 2003 when I founded a company called Extreme AI. We developed a couple of nice games for the Tapwave Zodiac, but didn’t get too far before we ran out of money. We closed shop in 2005.

I revived our gaming group early this year as a division of my own software company, Klein Computing. I was lucky enough to rehire my lead programmer from Extreme AI, and now we’re making a second go of it.

Why did you think it would be a good idea to bring an ambitious PC game like Flatspace to iPhone?

Back at Extreme AI, we were strong on programming talent but light on the art side. Our strategy was to find existing PC games that we thought would make good mobile games, and then port the games that we could get licences and source code for.

Our first port was a game called Firefly, written by Cornutopia. After learning more about Cornutopia, we set our sights on another of its games, Flatspace. We didn’t get a chance to do the game then, but came back to it when we started Wisp.

How much of the PC code could you re-use or was it a case of starting from scratch?

We reused a significant portion of the PC code for the iPhone port. Our goal is usually to minimise the changes necessary to do a port, and to localise the impact of any changes.

For Flatspace, we had a lot of work to do for audio and for the user interface and controls, but not much related to in-game graphics, game logic, or speed optimisation.

We found it very challenging to take a complex keyboard-driven control setup and make it work on a device with no keyboard and no mouse. We’re still working to tweak the control scheme and get it just right.

Why did you think this sort of large scale space game would appeal to the iPhone audience?

After really digging into the games available for iPhone, I was fairly surprised (and a little disappointed) at the general mini-game feel of most of them.

I had played much deeper games on older Palm OS devices and even the Tapwave Zodiac than what I saw on iPhone. We wanted to do a game that would deliver a bigger experience.

What were the most difficult things to get working on the iPhone and how far did you push the graphics?

Modifying the user interface to fit on the iPhone screen was difficult. Most of the Flatspace UI was designed for a larger, higher resolution PC screen. We didn’t want to spend the time/money to totally rework the UI setup, but we ended up spending a lot of time reorganising and moving around UI elements to fit on the iPhone.

We also had a hard time coming up with a simple, reasonable control setup that captured the myriad functions available in the PC game.

Graphics weren’t really an issue for us. Mark Sheeky from Cornutopia did a great job with the original graphics, and we were able to use his setup without major changes.

What about the most difficult gameplay features, and how much balancing work did you have to do in terms the economic system?

The economic system was built using an economic simulator and had been well balanced before we got our hands on it. We were careful not to change it any more than necessary.

We did make a few minor changes in an effort to speed the game up a bit and help people move through the early game faster.

What’s the reaction of players been, as you drop them into the deep end at the start of the game?

Our biggest frustration so far, which we are very aware is shared by many of our players, is that we haven’t been able to put together an in-game tutorial or instruction system.

Our current plan is to make a set of video tutorials available which explain the UI and control setup and give new players a better foundation. The video tutorials will be released as part of our first update (coming soon.)

For players that have taken the time to learn the game, the reaction has been overwhelmingly positive.

How much did you think about pricing?

Pricing is a pretty tricky subject. We felt that the current price ($2.99/£1.79) was appropriate given the scope of the game and amount of playing time most players would get from it. I hope most of the people who have purchased the game think that it is a bargain.

What should we expect next from Wisp Games?

We’re already working on improvements to Flatspace, both in terms of in-game upgrades and in our support for our players. We expect to finish up our first update within a couple of weeks, which will include the video tutorials, an alternate control setup, and some additional options for custom games.

We’re also planning to release a free combat training version (essentially the arcade mode) as a standalone app, plus a new derivative arcade game for those wanting a more complete battle mode experience.

We’re also looking into versions of Flatspace for Android and possibly Palm Pre.

Thanks to Bill for his time.

Flatspace is available now priced $2.99, €2.39, £1.79. Hit the .Buy It!. button to go directly to the App Store.

The post Preview: space trader/shooter Flatspace appeared first on AppTrawler.

Towards the end of July this year touch arcade previewed a massive multiplayer online game set in space called Outer Empires [App Store] by Ironwill Studios. Aside from its new iPhone client, Outer Empires also works by pointing any modern browser to the game’s web site at outer-empires.com.

The game is quite similar to a 2D version of EVE Online, and the game concept has remained the same since our preview:

Outer Empires takes place in a persistent galaxy where players can choose from a variety of different activities as you play in the intergalactic sandbox. There are tons of quests (or “Missions” as they’re called in game) to complete that range from simple transport jobs to exploring and bounty hunting. Once you establish yourself in the world, you can set up colonies as well as run or join a guild (or “Factions” in Outer Empires).

There’s a whole array of upgrades, ships, and other things to buy as you rank up in game. While the iPhone client costs .99, you can play the web version for free and neither version of the game has mandatory subscriptions. If you do choose to subscribe, you will get double the experience and space bucks of free users for completing the same missions. Subscription prices range from .99 a month with options for 3, 6, or 12 month discounts along with a .99 lifetime subscription.

Outer Empires is a cool concept, but like any online game how much fun you have with it will likely depend on the community inside of the game. I’d definitely at least give the free browser version of the game a try if the idea of a mobile space MMO interests you, and if you find yourself captivated by the Outer Empires universe, pick up the iPhone client.

The post Cross-Platform MMO – Outer Empires released appeared first on AppTrawler.

Riptide managed to slam the brakes on just moments before submitting the game, when it heard that Apple was now allowing micro-transactions and in-app purchases on free games.

In light of this exciting development, Gravity Sling will now be going free, offering a couple levels of space faring, orbital action to entice you in, and an option to purchase level packs from within the game.

Riptide Games needed to make a few adjustments to Gravity Sling for it to make use of micro-transactions, but it’s hoping this will only delay submission to Apple by a couple of days.

Ngmoco has already announced something similar with its highly anticipated online shooter Eliminate, and considering this unique revenue model has the potential to keep on giving back to the developer while simultaneously reducing piracy, we can probably expect a lot more games to follow suit.

The post Gravity Sling Now Free appeared first on AppTrawler.

**UPDATED: Release date announced for 21st October!**

We’ve been eagerly awaiting the opportunity to re-launch those cows into orbit ever since we heard Gameloft was bringing the iconic, dirt eating, chewy length of worm flesh – Earthworm Jim – to iPhone and iPod touch back in August.

For those of you’ve been asleep on Mars since 1994, Earthworm Jim follows the exploits of an ordinary garden worm that becomes the recipient of a super powered super suit, which a galaxy full of desperately nefarious evil-doers want to get their hands on.

Jim quickly became a cult icon thanks to the gorgeous looking and immensely humorous platform games in which he starred, and even got his own TV cartoon series (which is well worth a watch, if you’re as infantile as I am).

I must admit to having some concerns over how well the high octane gameplay of Earthworm Jim will fare using virtual buttons on the iPhone’s touchscreen, but judging by the newly released gameplay video below it looks as though Jim is back and in full swing.

Groovy!

The post Preview: Earthworm Jim appeared first on AppTrawler.

Newly formed Riptide Games – founded by IGDA board member Brian Robbins – has a similar story, though it was born when Fuel Games Denver (creator of Vans SK8 and Lifeboat, among others) was shut down in late August.

Anyway, at this year’s 360i|Dev conference, Brian and Riptide teamed up with old colleagues Jonathan Hartstein of Pyro Monkey Productions, Seth Howard of Spatial Reasoning, Eric Lannan from Crucial Games and Ben Long of Noise Buffet to enter the iPhone Game Jam contest.

In 12 hours they put together the core gameplay of Gravity Sling – an inertia-based puzzle game in which your astronaut slingshots his way around stellar bodies to get back safely to his ship.

Riptide has since been refining the graphics and gameplay, and constructed 35 levels with full OpenFeint integration for online high scores and achievements. Riptide is also planning to add a level editor further down the line.

Gravity Sling is due to be submitted to Apple any time now, and a Palm Pre version has also gone into production, so the game should be with us soon. We’ll get you some more coverage of this fascinating developer shortly, and in the meantime, check out the gameplay video below and register your interest in the comments section.

The post Gravity Sling spinning towards the iPhone appeared first on AppTrawler.