So, is it possible to fit another worthy line-drawing game into an already crowded market? Backflip Studios thinks so with their new game Harbor Havoc 3D [.99].

Like Flight Control, the objective of the game is to route your ships to their proper docks. Simply draw a line from the ship to the dock and you’re on your way. Harbor Havoc 3D’s claim to fame, however, is the incorporation of multiple layers of vessels that you must properly navigate. Depending on the map, this can include submarines, boats and helicopters or even submarines and ground rovers in the underwater map. Each type of ship can only collide with like ships, so keeping this in mind is critical for success.

The game comes with 4 maps: Far East, Atlantis, Arctic, and Lighthouse. Each offers a variant in gameplay. Far East is your straightforward Flight Control setup where you are docking different ships to their ports. Ships, however, don’t have to be undocked as in Harbor Master. The game also adds an anchoring mechanism by tapping on a ship that will keep them in place. The Far East map is going to feel boring to anyone who has put in much time in any of the existing line-drawing games, but Atlantis and especially Arctic are where things get interesting.

The developer’s gameplay video shows how crazy things can get and even shows the locked Lighthouse level which gives you a partially obscured view of the play area.

For advanced players who have gotten bored of Flight Control and are looking for more of a challenge, Harbor Havoc 3D manages to provide added layers of challenge without necessarily being different just for the sake of being different.

App Store Link: Harbor Havoc 3D, .99

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We’re sure there are plenty of ways the line-drawing genre can expand in future.

The latest game – 33rd Division – brings an interesting twist into play. It’s set in WWII, but your role is non-aggressive, as you have to escort Allied soldiers through various enemy patrols and defensive positions to safety.

There are three different units – soldier, medic or sergeant – each of which moves at a different speed and provides you with a different quantity of reward points.

Options include collecting power-ups along the way, such as double-speed, enemy freeze and score bonus, while the enemy will power up too with mortar and sudden death attacks.

In total, there are four missions to work your way through, and you can compare your progress with the rest of the world via the OpenFeint social network.

33rd Divsion is out now, priced 99c, €0.79, 59p. Hit the ‘Buy It!’ button to be deployed overseas.

The post WWII Line drawer – 33rd Division 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.

The idea is to trace lines on the screen for Peter to follow, concentrating on paths that scare the assorted sheep towards the bottom right corner and into the barn. Typically, it’s not that simple, and while most farmers have to contend with foxes and fly tippers Peter’s nemesis is his brother Vlad and his weather machine.

Vlad has unwittingly created an airborne weather machine that feeds on wool, which it seeks out on Peter’s fields. The game is split into waves: any sheep that Vlad’s machine manages to liberate from the playing field reduces the maximum score that you can achieve for that wave.

Along the way, you can run across power-ups in the form of various fungi that give you speed boosts. Some of them are poisonous, however, so you need to pay close attention.

Joining the Normal mode, which features both local and global leaderboard options, there’s a Zen mode in which you can practise your herding skills without worrying about any bothersome weather machines.

Peter und Vlad is perhaps one of the most polished line-drawing games to arrive on the iPhone yet and the combined weather effects, slick menus and animated title screen make for a very attractive offering. The music and ambient effects are great, too, featuring an impressive breadth of sheep noises.

It might seem like a facile criticism, but the sound effect for successfully herding a sheep into the barn is piercing to the point of painful, especially if you’re racking up an impressive high score.

Otherwise, Peter und Vlad is a great line-drawing title that rarely puts a foot, or wellington, wrong.

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