A few seriously impressive games on this week's Mobile Monday, with Zombieville USA and Rolando delivering some high-quality visuals to brighten up that tiny touch screen. And just for contrast, we have Falling Balls... But who says black on white graphics aren't fun to look at?
Remember: each week on Mobile Monday we offer you the chance to win an iTunes gift certificate that will cover the cost of every game featured in the article. All you have to do is sign-in with a Casual Gameplay account, leave a comment giving feedback about one of the games, then check back the week after to see if you've won. Simple! Congratulations to last week's winner, Allegra!!
Zombieville USA - Remember the tough side-scrolling shooters of yesterday? Zombieville USA aims to recapture some of that blissful Contra-style magic with an iPhone/iPod Touch game featuring zombies, guns, more zombies, and more guns. Use the arrows at the bottom of the screen to move and tap anywhere between them to fire your weapon. Mangle the zombies that appear before they attack you, and jump into houses for ammo/health/cash bonuses. Buy new upgradeable weapons between stages and see how long you can survive! A free lite version is also available.
Rolando - A deliciously cute platform-style game where you tilt and turn your iPhone/iPod Touch to solve physics-based puzzles. Need to move up to a higher ledge? Try weighing the seesaw and rolling your way up there. You'll also bounce on trampolines, push blocks, bombs, and wake sleeping Rolandos! A free lite version is also available.
Falling Balls - Seriously, folks, it couldn't get any simpler than this. All you have to do is stay out of the way of the falling boulders. Two-color vector graphics (well, technically three, if you count the blood when you get squished), tilt-based control scheme, and circles of various sizes assaulting a stickman. Note the Wilhelm scream when you die.
Ghost Buddy - The kind of technical achievement I like to see on a platform of this nature, Ghost Buddy casts you in a first-person role where you hunt ghosts and return them to the properly-named grave, zapping evil ghosts in the process. The fun catch is that the world moves along with your iPhone/iPod Touch, creating a virtual world of sorts where your point of view is, well, your point of view. A free lite version is also available.
NOTE: Games listed may not be available outside of North America. Prices are subject to change and are therefore unlisted. Please see the individual game pages for purchasing info.
you gotta love the simplicity of games like falling balls. who needs fancy graphics? and i love the sound effects, its almost fun when the little man goes splat!
Rolando is a pretty good game. I absolutely agree with all the high praise it's been given.
my iPod is quickly becoming my go-to gadget for gaming. Rolando is great: believe the hype. What gave me a lot of trouble at first was using two fingers for zooming in and out. A good tip for that is to use the pads of your fingers and not the tips. It seems to work better that way. Falling balls is pretty entertaining, too. It's simple, it's funny, but best of all, it's free.
Some recommendations if anyone at JayIsGames is interested:
[Edit: Thanks for all the great recommendations! We have featured almost every one of those in previous editions of Mobile Monday...
https://jayisgames.com/tag/mobile-monday -Jay]
Rolando Lite drove me to buy Rolando yesterday. Really fun.
I didn't like Falling Balls, controls-wise and mainly because it felt too similar to Tangerine Panic, unless, of course, if it was made by the same people!
Rolando lite was fun, and I plan to move on to the full version soon
By the way, Rolando is updated with new levels soon, and Rolando 2 (a separate app that you will have to pay for again) is also in the process of being made, but I don't believe they have announced a date for that yet.
Tell us how much games cost. That's an important piece of information - even if it can change. Just add "At press time, the prices was..." It even sounds all newsy to give yourself that wiggle room.
Rolando lite was fun, but not enough to get me to buy the full version. I agree with twinotter. You should put the price of the games after the name so I don't have to go search for it. Thanks.
I like falling balls, I really do, it is just that the tilting, I feel I have to really over due the tilting to get it to really run. I wish the controls were simper.
Sorry, but like the note says at the bottom of every Mobile Monday, we don't publish the prices because the developers change them so frequently.
Besides, no searching necessary. Just click on a link and iTunes shows you all the info + price for each game. If that's too much effort on your behalf, well then you're just LAZY. :p
But hey, let me google that for you...
(At the time of this comment)
Zombieville USA......$2.99
Rolando.................$4.99
Rolando Lite...........$0.00
Falling Balls............$0.00
Ghost Buddy...........$0.99
I love Rolando lite. However, I've been reluctant to buy games recently. After buying Bejeweled 2, I only played it about 2 days, and now it's rotting on my homescreen. Same thing with Edge, which I beat in 1 hour, and I paid 6 dollars for. (Also, Edge only has half the levels advertised in the description. WTH?) Is the full Rolando worth my money?
I think that's a difficult question to answer, Fuzzyevil.
Case in point: Bejeweled 2 is hands-down the single most played app in my household of 3 iPod Touches. It's unbelievably addictive and gets a lot of play because of it.
So, whether a game is "worth it" to you is a question only you can answer. If you liked the lite version, then go for it. :)
I personally make sure to buy only apps I am sure to reuse, either for entertainment or productivity.
This being said, Rolando does not quite interest me enough to buy. It is nevertheless a well made game.
Ghost Buddy.
I have lost all patience with this game.
Constant searching for 'Mel' REALLY annoyed me on level 4. Her grave was non-existant.
Enjoying Rolando, but there is a little bit of deja vu for anyone who has played Loco Roco on the PSP. Still, very cute and fun.
And there's something refreshingly honest about Falling Balls. I'd like to think there might be a but more depth to it, but if I just take them at face value then they do exactly what they say they are going to...
Rolando Lite is fun. Thanks for letting us know about the free version! I'd been interested in buying it, but wasn't sure it was worth the money. Now I can see how much I like it.
I wish I had known about the Rolando demo... I dunno, it seems like the game should be fun, but it just ... never happens. I stopped playing halfway through.
I would recommend swerving the hype and getting the demo FIRST.
"Besides, no searching necessary. Just click on a link and iTunes shows you all the info + price for each game. If that's too much effort on your behalf, well then you're just LAZY. :p"
Dunno if anyone will see this, since it's a couple of months old, but this isn't an option for everyone. Since I run Linux, I don't have iTunes installed on any of my computers,and the only way to find out the prices for the games featured is to search for every single one in the iPhone app store, using that tiny little keyboard.
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