For those who like grappling hooks and swinging games, I recommend Gravity Hook. It's a simple quest for altitude with the twist that your hook pulls you using gravity (as in, it gets stronger as you get closer to the object you're grappling.) This gets tricky considering you must grapple onto things that will kill you on contact, offering a nice risk/reward for swinging in close to get the best slingshot effect.

Here's my desert island games. None of them are new, but I still play them a lot.

Defender Chronicles:
Mixes tower defence with RPG. Level up heroes to provide an advantage on the field. Unlock new defender types, items, stages. This game has a lot of replay value and the production is high quality.

The Quest:
A nice turn based RPG similar to Eye of the Beholder. The graphics are quite reminiscent of Daggerfall (Elder Scrolls 2). What more is there to say? Walk around, do quests, level up.

iNethack:
A cool port of Nethack. Tries to keep the controls fairly simple and does it pretty well. Free.

Alive 4 Ever:
The title is an absolutely terrible play on left 4 dead, but the game itself is really neat. It's a top down, dual stick shooter. Control one of four different characters shooting their way through zombie hordes. There's a set of storyline quests with some different objectives to add variety, a survival mode and a multiplayer mode. You can level up your characters with new abilities, attribute points and buying new equipment.

Like it or not, it's spelled 'iPhone'. That's its trademark. It's meant to be spelled that way. Just like it's 'McDonald's' not 'MacDonalds', or 'Xbox', not 'X-Box' or 'xBox' or 'XBOX' or any variation thereof. It's how companies distinguish their brand. Deal with it.

newwiseman:

DeadlyYellow:
I keep getting told I should make iPhone games (like the horde of other developers,) but it is rather difficult to build for an item you don't possess.

Still, seeing some of these titles is rather heartening.

It is remarkably easy, gamemaker can do it if you don't want to code, and if you know how to program the SDK and XCode tools dev kit are easy, with decent help files, but you need a Mac running 10.6, or a hackintosh running 10.6

I've never had a hackintosh run stable for more than a month or so - generally some small update got installed somehow and bricked everything. I don't really like using OSX, but I'd absolutely recommend picking up a Mac Mini at least if you want to program for iPhone. You don't need a current generation one to do iOS stuff anyway, and if you do want one then the developer discount you get at least starts to make them more affordable.

Snork Maiden:

newwiseman:

DeadlyYellow:
I keep getting told I should make iPhone games (like the horde of other developers,) but it is rather difficult to build for an item you don't possess.

Still, seeing some of these titles is rather heartening.

It is remarkably easy, gamemaker can do it if you don't want to code, and if you know how to program the SDK and XCode tools dev kit are easy, with decent help files, but you need a Mac running 10.6, or a hackintosh running 10.6

I've never had a hackintosh run stable for more than a month or so - generally some small update got installed somehow and bricked everything. I don't really like using OSX, but I'd absolutely recommend picking up a Mac Mini at least if you want to program for iPhone. You don't need a current generation one to do iOS stuff anyway, and if you do want one then the developer discount you get at least starts to make them more affordable.

Ya, that happened my first go at the hachintosh. I forgot to update my driver hacks before I installed a system update, fortunately I was triple booting with win7, unbuntu, and 10.6. I was able to install the hacked drivers and the mac side booted back up no problem.

For Xcode to run and use the iOS 4.2 SDK you just need a machine capable of running 10.6.4. I haven't tried but I could probably get a 2GB iBook to take the OS... any Intel chip mac takes it without issue.

I just can't bring myself to recommend buying a Mac to anyone. It comes down to a price / performance ratio and all apple computers have a minimum 30% markup for the logo over competition. Other than needing the Mac OS for Xcode to work I've never seen an actual selling point. My job supplying me a new mac every year probably doesn't help my skepticism of them being 'worth it'.

Why not make Fun Space Game: The Game on iphone? From what I've heard about it so far it could work well using iphone's accelerometer and touch screen.

newwiseman:

Snork Maiden:

newwiseman:

It is remarkably easy, gamemaker can do it if you don't want to code, and if you know how to program the SDK and XCode tools dev kit are easy, with decent help files, but you need a Mac running 10.6, or a hackintosh running 10.6

I've never had a hackintosh run stable for more than a month or so - generally some small update got installed somehow and bricked everything. I don't really like using OSX, but I'd absolutely recommend picking up a Mac Mini at least if you want to program for iPhone. You don't need a current generation one to do iOS stuff anyway, and if you do want one then the developer discount you get at least starts to make them more affordable.

Ya, that happened my first go at the hachintosh. I forgot to update my driver hacks before I installed a system update, fortunately I was triple booting with win7, unbuntu, and 10.6. I was able to install the hacked drivers and the mac side booted back up no problem.

For Xcode to run and use the iOS 4.2 SDK you just need a machine capable of running 10.6.4. I haven't tried but I could probably get a 2GB iBook to take the OS... any Intel chip mac takes it without issue.

I just can't bring myself to recommend buying a Mac to anyone. It comes down to a price / performance ratio and all apple computers have a minimum 30% markup for the logo over competition. Other than needing the Mac OS for Xcode to work I've never seen an actual selling point. My job supplying me a new mac every year probably doesn't help my skepticism of them being 'worth it'.

Nah neither could I - they're very well put together, but absolutely not worth the price. It's a shame OSX doesn't easily run on other stuff - licenses are only like £25 or so, which would make it an excellent alternative to Windows if you didn't want to go down the Linux route.

I do agree Iphone games are going to help games into the mainstream, but why is he loving the fun and innovation that a touch screen brings to those games but then openly hate motion sensitive controls that do the same thing for the consoles?

Please continue to review games on whatever platform interest you. As pocket computers become more powerful and innovative I want to know about what is in development. In my work, I often have long hours of nothing to do between frantic stints to get things done and my one saving grace are my phone games.

Nowadays, I am beginning to finally see the line being blurred between hand-held gaming systems and popular consumer electronic devices which really is exciting. Money is being funneled into game development and as much as hardcore gamers and Apple detractors are dismayed, this is nothing but positive.

Now developers have one more option to decide which platform to release their games on and there are more people who are interested in purchasing these games. More platforms, more gamers, and more games: this is win all over.

Vzzdak:

Yahtzee Croshaw:
Yahtzee refuses to correctly spell it, but these Iphone games are his favorite.

Somewhat obtuse to nitpick over the spelling of a brand name. Shall we rebrand your videos as "zERO pUNCTUATION" in order to likewise sound hip and non-conformist, daddio?

Regardless, good review of some iPhone games that are no doubt available for iPad as well.

You know, insisting on putting the capital letter at the beginning of a word is about as non-hip and conformist as it gets.

Can't wait to check out cHairs Infinity Blade. He liked fruit ninja, I'm convinced he should give it a try.

Edit: Haters gonna hate.

While I refuse to spell Iphone

iPhone games, as well as budget Steam and XBLA releases

You fail

I love to play Pocket Tanks on my itouch all the time. It's basically an updated version of Scorch Earth, if anyone understands what I'm talking about.

"If you don't hurry the fuck up, you get eaten by a giant floating skull. That's the kind of motivation I like to see."

Oh mercy me. :D

So he's talking about more iphone games. I don't see the appeal really. Why not just get a ds and a normal phone are people's pockets really that small? I always carry a little backpack filled with all my games and other things cause carrying them in my pockets is my best way to lose them.

The name Hyrdozone brought back memories, and managed to dust off my box of cover disks (untouched for around 14 years or there abouts), and find it - it was the third cover disc (of three) with Amiga Action Magazine for November 1994 - one of three games on the disc made by some people evidently called the Assassins. Incidentally, the disc's in that issue were green, for some reason

GonvilleBromhead:
The name Hyrdozone brought back memories, and managed to dust off my box of cover disks (untouched for around 14 years or there abouts), and find it - it was the third cover disc (of three) with Amiga Action Magazine for November 1994 - one of three games on the disc made by some people evidently called the Assassins. Incidentally, the disc's in that issue were green, for some reason

I hope you sent a copy to Yahtzee after you found it. :)

Electrogecko:

ewhac:

Electrogecko:
Please be done with the iPhone stuff Yahtzee. I don't own any Apple device but I understand that this had to be done and agree that it was a good idea, but I really hope you abandon this topic and get back to the mainstream.

And what, in your mind, constitutes mainstream?

Wikipedia asserts that Apple have sold over 73 million iPhones. (This figure apparently does not include iPod Touches.) Microsoft has sold 44.6 million Xbox 360s, and has taken almost twice as long to do it. Now, kindly consider that Android-based smartphones are starting to overtake iPhone.

You may need to re-evaluate your definition of, "Mainstream."

I'm going to assume you're playing devil's advocate....wow I don't think I've ever typed that expression. We're talking about mainstream gaming. You can't compare the sales of a home gaming console to that of an all in one smart phone that has an Apple logo on it. This is a mistake I constantly see being made in arguments that Apple poses a threat to the big 3. They're just 2 different markets. If you consider yourself a gamer, (which most everyone here does) you represent the "hardcore" market. You've bought yourself a dedicated gaming machine/ made a steam account because you wouldn't be content with only the Apple store.

I'm not trying to be overly detail oriented in regards to a post from several weeks ago, but there is a fairly fundamental issue with common usage of the English language, that I hope you won't mind if I address.

The extent to which something is "mainstream" is defined, in common usage, by the extent to which it has bypassed a sub-culture/sub-genre/niche to tap into a broader market. In other words, the more mainstream something is, the fewer barriers to entry there are (or to phrase it differently, the more accessible it is).

"Hardcore" has been used to define a something that makes fewer compromises to accessibility or appealing to a wider audience. If you say something is "hardcore" you are often saying that it is either fairly extreme (in either difficulty or extent) or that is (to go back to the last sentence) uncompromising.

In other words, the gaming market that has the most players from the most walks of life, etc., is the most mainstream. Since more people used to play some variant of solitaire or Tetris than Half-Life ten years ago, the gaming market for those two was also more "mainstream".

So whac's post seems entirely consistent with your original intent. You don't want Yahtzee to cover the mainstream casual games market, you want him to cover the "core" or "hardcore" gaming market that has been the topic of so many of his previous videos and writing.

For what it's worth, I tend to find the hardcore gaming market a more interesting topic as well. So let's discourage Yahtzee from getting to focused on the "mainstream". :)

You don't spell iPhone "right" for the whole article, making it look like Lphone in this sans serif font from escapistmagazine.com but then you worry about getting " Mr. AahH!!" right? DOH!

Hope this wasn't repeated above, didn't read any comments.