The iFriday Roundup, No. 24

Street Fighter IV: Volt Gets Online Tournaments

Okay, so we’re actually a month late on this one, but CAPCOM were in touch over the holidays to remind us that Street Fighter IV: Volt now sports an online Tournament Mode! Players can “…climb up an in-game ‘tournament pyramid’ alone, or with friends, through repeated victories in match play over Wi-Fi. The robust game-linked online community includes information on tournament events, individual player and team pages, current rankings, and detailed post-match analysis that lets players share recorded matches and Hall of Fame data for high ranking players. The all-new Tournament Mode amps up the Street Fighter IV: Volt experience as players fight their way to the top!” You can check the game’s dedicated site for more details.

“Hey, Where’d They Go?” Kale in Dinoland Edition

We went hands-on with, or at least got a good first look at, several titles that readers would do well to keep in mind as we enter the new year. One of them is Kale in Dinoland, which we’re looking very forward to for two reasons: it captures the sense of game design adventurism that some of the most interesting bygone classics had, and it’s got a darn good virtual D-pad (yes, for real). Rather than try to make the holiday rush, secretive developers The Rotting Cartridge opted to get some well-deserved rest after beta testing. They’re also working on a souped-up preview and a Gameboy-style manual in their quest to capture early 1990s nostalgia, though details on this are still scant. We’ll bring you the long-awaited release date announcement in a future news roundup, but for now you can keep an eye on The Rotting Cartridge’s website and Twitter account for the latest tidbits.

“Hey, Where’d They Go?” Zombie Panic in Wonderland Plus Edition

Also strategically re-grouping for the holidays were Akaoni Studio, as they needed a time-out to prepare their marketing effort and find their office’s resident gecko. If you’re an indie developer, you know just how critical both of these things are! Thankfully, it appears work on each front is going smoothly, and we’re looking forward to a preview video and a juicy gallery shooter release in the near future. Check out our first look, studio interview, and hands-on preview for more background if this is the first you’ve heard of it!

“Hey, Where’d They Go?” The Secret Castle Edition

Also marching toward the finish line are Platronic Games, who are doing a downright good job of keeping fans of The Secret Castle updated via their dev blog. Mark our words, this one will have fans of casual puzzle, Find the Hidden Object, and generally cool games in a tizzy once it releases; just check out our First Look and developer interview to see why!

“Hey, Where’d They Go?” Detective Grimoire Edition

It’s easy to over-estimate just how close Armor Games and The Super Flash Bros. are to completing Detective Grimoire: Secret of the Swamp. Just look at the preview video embedded in our First Look article or an incredibly slick seven-minute stretch of footage in the video gallery below: this is one that casual adventure fans will be salivating over for sure, but it wins so many points for style that it’s difficult to not appreciate regardless of your gaming background. Truth is, however, that the developers are still hard at work on production and polishing according to their latest Facebook updates. As they say, good things are worth the wait!

Honey Tribe Studios Storm into Unity Asset Store With Musical Talent

We’ve exhausted all news we could glean out of Honey Tribe Studios about their upcoming title Ashley Ao, but the latest news tidbit on their studio website gives us enough cause to include it in this week’s video gallery showing the games we’re looking forward to in 2012. Turns out that these devs’ musical talent extends well beyond the clip used in the Ashley Ao teaser, and they’ve released several tracks in the Unity Asset Store. Unity has to be one of the most widely used game engines on iOS, so we’ll keep an ear out for them this year!

Since we’ve discovered the magic of embedded YouTube playlists, we’ll no doubt bring you a whole bevy of previews that catch our attention each week — hit the gallery pop-up button to the left of the YouTube icon on the task bar to skip around:

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!