Friday Freebies
The “awesome free game” alert doesn’t get any louder than this! Dual-stick shooter fans should rush out and get Gamelion’s mega-popular Monster Shooter: The Lost Levels. If turn-based combat is more your style, then check out Battleloot Adventure‘s iPhone and iPad editions (Our Review).
Naturally, that’s just the tip of the iceberg of this week’s App Store freebies. Shortbreak Studios’ Sugar High and LuckySheep’s Darkness Rush should satisfy your sweet tooth if you’re into endless side-scrollers; Ravenous Games’ League of Evil looks like a platforming winner; and the Castlevania fan in you might just want to sink its fangs into CWA Games’ Avenger.
Sales Roundup
Polarbit’s Reckless Racing 2 promises “the ride of your life,” so if you’re a genre fan you’ll be happy to know you can strap in at one one-fifth the price! Gameloft’s Modern Combat 3 and Kairosoft’s Hot Springs Story also look like winners at similarly deep discounts.
NEOWIZ Unveils London 2012: The Official Mobile Game
Can’t make it to London for the 2012 Olympics? That doesn’t mean you have to sit them out — have your turn at the hurdles, pole vaults, archery grounds, and more for free courtesy of NEOWIZ, or you can go for a premium version that starts you off with some of the IAPs at bargain price.
Game Insight Opens the Flood Gates
There’s no question that certain benefits come with finding a good publisher, and the international team at Game Insight are making a creative jQuery-powered pitch for developers’ attention this week. The Game Insight team have plenty of resources to work with out of the gate and are “…looking forward to seeing a new wave of innovation and original IPs as development teams around the globe reach out to meet and demonstrate their creative vision.” Check out their full website for a look at the latest news out of this up-and-coming publishing house and their debut projects.
PlayHaven, GameSalad Join Forces
GameSalad devs and players alike will take interest in this one. “PlayHaven, the leading lifetime value (“LTV”) maximization platform for mobile games, and GameSalad, the popular iOS, Android and HTML5 game creation platform, announced a partnership to help game developers maximize the revenue of their mobile games. The partnership enables over 350,000 GameSalad developers to easily integrate PlayHaven’s monetization and engagement tools using GameSalad’s drag-and-drop game creation platform.
Initial results of the partnership have seen GameSalad developers generate eCPMs for their mobile games that are up to eight times higher than that of competing mobile services. The timing of the partnership is seen as a boon to indie developers as the mobile games industry increasingly moves toward a free-to-play model.”
Times, they are a’changing. Check out this post at the GameSalad blog for a more detailed lowdown on the reasoning behind the new partnership and its already-demonstrated effects on developers’ bottom line in the free-to-play arena.
Squids: Wild West to Release June 27
Whether you’re a calamari lover or just a fan of really great games, you’d better mark your calendar for this one. Squids: Wild West, sequel to the Game Bakers’ perfect-scoring Tactical Action RPG, will be hitting the App Store next week! We know you’re on pins and needles waiting to find out whether the extra guns and sea horses will live up to the original’s wonderfully flexible gameplay, so that’s why we’re bringing you a day-one review this week. The world is still awaiting an official preview trailer, so have a look at the character reveals on The Game Bakers’ blog in lieu of that.
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!