Vanessa Saint-Pierre Delacroix & Her Nightmare
Winner,of the Best Design award at the indiePub’s 3rd Independent Game Developers Contest, Vanessa Saint-Pierre Delacroix & Her Nightmare is a 2D platform game mapped to a 3D cube. Players control Vanessa, a young girl with a penchant for puzzles that was recently booted to iOS devices from Publisher Replay Games..
Vanessa Saint-Pierre Delacroix & Her Nightmare is a unique 2D puzzle-platformer takes place entirely on the surface of a large 3D cube, that Vanessa had but fell and broke and pulled Vanessa’s entire city inside it, and now she needs to solve the puzzles or lose everyone she loves.
You have to twist, turn, and rotate the cube in order to help protagonist Vanessa collect items and find her way back home. You’ll move around, jump over obstacles, exit through the doors and if the edges of you plane are open you can walk to the edge and move to the next plane on the cube, always looking for the door out to complete the level. The game follows standard platform mechanics (moving blocks, finding keys, etc.); however, there’s a twist – Vanessa can rotate any face of the cube she occupies.
You can grab Vanessa Saint-Pierre Delacroix & Her Nightmare from the App Store for your iPhone for $0,99 and for your iPad for $1.99.
Lili
Lili is a quirky adventure RPG hybrid developed for Apple’s devices. The game takes place on the mysterious island of Geos, where Lili will meet a number of crazy folk, explore beautiful environments and even challenge an oppressive regime or two along her way.
The game uses an amusing “non-combat” system for dealing with enemies, and, in her introspective way, sorts out a few personal issues for good measure. Powered by the Unreal Engine 3 Lili has some of the best graphics you’ll see in a current iOS title.
In terms of gameplay what you will basically do is to search of flowers. You’ll have a range of quests to complete, from finding flowers to finding other items requested by the robotic townspeople, who are on a mission to get rid of the unkind spirits. Lili is a non-combat game, but you will encounter spirits that are less than kind. Some of the best flowers grow on spirits, though, so you can chase them down, leap on them, and grab those rare specimens. Stealing flowers is an experience in itself. When you leap onto a spirit, you’ll need to act quickly, plucking up the flowers (by pulling, aka sliding your finger). Different color flowers grow on the spirit, and you’ll need to pluck the ones that you need.
The game’s controls are among the finest a 3D game, where players tap once or twice to instruct her to walk and run, respectively, then maneuver the camera to guide Lili throughout the world. At $4.99, Lili might be a bit more than what iOS gamers expect to pay for on the go titles but this little gem will be worth every penny spend.
Wizorb
Wizorb is a brick breaking game similar to Arkanoid with the main difference being that Wizorb incorporates RPG elements. In the game you play as Cyrus, a wizard who masters a secret magic art called “Wizorb”, and must save the once peaceful Kingdom of Gorudo from an evil presencever.The game features gorgeous 8-bit graphics and a pleasant chiptune soundtrack to go along with it. If you grew up with the NES, then this game will give you a sense of nostalgia right away.
Wizorb features 60 levels in 5 different worlds in the game and plays by more conventional rules in its core approach, with a horizontally scrolling paddle and a ball that decimates tiny bricks, but does so under the guise of a role-playing adventure. The actual levels feature moving enemies and things like health potions and magic, as well as large bosses to topple.
The RPG elements of Wizorb come not only in the shape of the traditional upgrades you should expect from that type of game, such as balls that stick to the bat on contact, and also the ability to gain magical powers which allow you to shoot destructive magic at those tricky-to-reach blocks, or throw a cyclone of wind at your ball to keep it from bouncing away from what’s left of the block-smashing action.
For the time being controls in the iOS port seem to be a bit weak but the blend of genres, the lovely retro artwork and the kind of chip-tunes make this flaw seem like a minor issue. The game is available on the App Store for $2.99.
The Last Express
Upon release in 1997, The Last Express received rave reviews and won numerous awardson dozens of game websites, including a gold medal from GamesDomain. Dubbed “exquisite” and “thrilling” by Newsweek, the game appears on many critics’ lists of the best adventure games of all time. It was also included in Tony Mott’s book “1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die”
Designed by Jordan Mechner, best known as the creator of the Prince of Persia franchise and martial-arts classic Karateka, The Last Express is an intrigue-filled adventure set aboard the luxurious Orient Express. In July 1914, on the eve of World War I, as the train departs on its final journey from Paris to Constantinople, the player steps into the shoes of Robert Cath, an American doctor with a mysterious past. A fugitive from French police, Cath, boards the train in answer to an urgent telegram from his best friend – and plunges into a maelstrom of conspiracy, romance and murder.
The DotEmu release is a faithful iOS port of the original game. The Last Express allows players to interact in real time with 30 characters representing a cross-section of pre-WWI Europe, including Serbian freedom fighters, a German arms dealer, a Russian anarchist, a beautiful Austrian concert violinist, a eunuch guarding a Turkish harem, and a mysterious art collector travelling in his own private car.
As the train races east, the player must stay alive while eavesdropping on conversations, sneaking into compartments, battling deadly opponents and defusing a bomb. The story is non-linear; characters act independently, conversing and moving about the train even when the player is not there to witness them, so that every play-through of the game is different. The Last Express retails for $4,99.
Conclusion
With over 500,000 apps now available for download in the iTunes app store, the gaming options are nearly limitless. In the sea of games for the iPhone, as there are over 70 thousand games on the App Store in total, and over 100 new titles are released every single day, some are worth your cents (or download time) and others are not.
However we firmly believe that, those looking for stylised atmosphere will be pleasantly surprised by The Last Express, an intrigue-filled adventure set aboard the luxurious Orient Express. If you are looking for some retro action then Cthulhu saves the World from the excellent minds at Zeboyd, a high quality, amusing retro RPG is the game for you.
If you want a frantic shooter/platformer look no further than Super Crate Box a game where you must lead your character on a quest to collect as many crates as possible. However every time you pick up a new crate your weapons are randomly switched. So you might go from wielding a massively powerful bazooka to the hated dual-wielding pistols or the other way around.
In Super Hexagon the core gameplay is simple but challenging and quite addictive, it sounds easy to control a little triangle and rotate it through a maze that is constantly converging toward the center of your iPhone or iPad screen, but 50000 others will tell you that nothing is as easy as it seems. Lili on the other hand might be a game with zero battles in it obviously aimed at the kids, but it is also one of the most graphically beautiful titles on iOS devices in recent memory, and this is the best reason for someone to give it a try.
In Vanessa Saint-Pierre Delacroix & Her Nightmare, a unique 2D puzzle-platformer takes place entirely on the surface of a large 3D cube, You have to twist, turn, and rotate the cube in order to help protagonist Vanessa collect items and find her way back home. The game follows standard platform mechanics (moving blocks, finding keys, etc.); however, there’s a twist – Vanessa can rotate any face of the cube she occupies.
Last but not least Wizorb, the brick breaking game inspired by Arkanoid but also incorporates RPG elements is an excellent puzzle title which might be simple but it’s one of those games where the sum is greater than its parts. Last but not least
We’ve done a lot of research through the indie games that are currently n the iTunes App Store, and have settled on these 7 titles to enthusiastically recommend. Some may be more than six months old, some are brand new, but one thing is certain, all are worth both your time and money.
