Gemini Rue is one of my absolute favorite adventure games on iOS. If you’re old enough, it will remind you of the classic LucasArts games from the ’90s, like Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis or Day of the Tentacle. Oh what great games (and times) those were! And if you’re a fan of games with a gripping story and a dense atmosphere, look no further: Gemini Rue has a real Blade Runner vibe going on. The story offers quite a bit of mystery and room for speculation, you will always be guessing how the characters are related to each other and what might happen next. The difficulty is great, it’s demanding but doesn’t feel unfair and (for the most part) the puzzles are solvable by using your mind rather than trial and error. Like I said: I really like this game. If you’re a fan of old-school point-and-click adventures, you owe it to yourself to get Gemini Rue for your iPhone or iPad.

Describing Device 6, the Apple Design Award winning game by Simogo, is not an easy task. Which is funny, because the game itself relies heavily on the written word. If I had to describe Device 6 with as little words as possible, I’d call it a “modernized text adventure”. It’s a thrilling experience with a gripping narration that really asks for your attention to detail in order to progress. The game is available on the App Store for quite some time now, but since we haven’t yet talked about it here on TapArena, it was about time we introduce you to this “game”.

Compared to what one expects from classic video games, Device 6 is a real oddball. You don’t have direct control over a character and you won’t be doing much that resembles traditional gameplay. Instead, you’ll get tiny pictures which complement the various paragraphs of text you’ll be reading. I don’t want to spoil the story for you, but I can tell you that you will find out how a character progresses thorugh various rooms in order to piece together a bigger picture. With Device 6, Simogo continue their track record of releasing highly polished games with an incredible art style and a unique premise. It’s something new, it’s something great, it’s something you shouldn’t miss out on!

When it comes to Monument Valley, all I can think about are adjectives: Elegant. Polished. Beautiful.
There are many puzzle games on the App Store, but Monument Valley really is one of a kind. I can’t pinpoint its greatness down to a single feature, it’s more like a synergy effect that turns this game into so much more than the sum of its parts. The art direction is flawless and in combination with the sound and music it creates a very distinct atmosphere.

However, as much as I like Monument Valley, it is not without fault. Maybe it’s just me (I like my puzzle games to be challenging), but I thought the game was too easy. The game’s visuals might be mind-bending, but the diffculty is not. Rather than figuring out a path for the protagonist, it’s more like guiding her through the levels. Don’t get me wrong, this is in no way dealbreaking – some people might even prefer this kind of gameplay compared to a more challenging approach, especially if they play on their iPhone and iPad. It just pushes the game more towards the audiovisual experience genre. But what a great experience it is, so go and grab Monument Valley on the App Store as soon as you can!

If you’re into iPhone games, it’s reasonable to assume that you’re familiar with the name Simogo by now. But in case you’re not: Simogo is the swedish development team who released some of the most touchscreen-optimized and creative games on the App Store. To be more precise, those guys brought us Bumpy Road, Kosmo Spin and Beat Sneak Bandit. Despite its obvious qualities, Beat Sneak Bandit, they’re latest release, wasn’t really my cup of tea – which doesn’t mean that it isn’t a great game with the usual, incredible amount of Simogo-polish. It just didn’t appeal to me the way the previous games did.

So let’s come back to the present: Simogo is now working on their 4th game called Year Walk. And I was really glad to see they are heading into a new direction with it! It’s darker and seems to be a title that is very story-driven. Which I find to be a fantastic idea, because I always thought Simogo’s games were very atmospheric and confident in their art direction.

Year Walk is going to be a first person adventure in which you’ll spend you’re time unraveling a mystery in 19th century Sweden. To understand what’s going on, you’ll have “to bend the rules of the universe and open the rift that separates our world and what lies beyond it” according to Simogo. Sounds intriguing, right?! For me, Year Walk is one of the games I’m really looking forward to. Unfortunately, it’s not quite clear when Year Walk will be released. The trailer says 2013 whereas the website still says it’ll hit the App Store this winter. But enough talk for now, time to soak in the atmosphere that this trailer oozes of:

Godzi Lab makes you an offer you can’t refuse: iBlast Moki 2 HD is free for a limited time! Make sure to look for the iPad version which is a universal App, because that’s the one that’s for free, not the iPhone-only version. It’s a bit weird, but who cares! iBlast Moki 2 is a fantastic physics based puzzle game. In fact, it’s one of my favourites of the genre! You have to place bombs on strategic positions and time their explosions to blast the Mokis into freedom. Further down the campaign, you’ll also have to build various vehicles and bridges in order to succeed. It’ll really make you use that squishy matter between your ears! The graphics are sharp and cute, the sound design is unique and the controls are spot on.

It’s not clear how long iBlast Moki 2 will be offered for free, all it says is “for a very limited time”. So you better fire up the App Store immediately and get this game right now to make your weekend even better!

Godzilab has announced the successor to its great 2009 physics based puzzle game iBlast Moki will be coming this summer. That’s great news, iBlast Moki was an outstanding title when it was released on the App Store back in 2009 and still is one of the best physics based puzzle games for iOS.

Godzilab aims for a release in July or August and has mentioned that iBlast Moki 2 is already running at a steady 60 fps – that’s double of what iBlast Moki 1 was running at.

If you haven’t played through the original iBlast Moki, then you’ve missed out on a great game and you should definitely change that! Your task is to guide the Mokis in each level to the exit by placing and timing a limited supply of bombs that then blow the Mokis towards the exit. It’s like a carefully crafted orchestra. With bombs. And if that didn’t sound awesome enough (yeah, right…) check out the gameplay video below.

If you’re a fan of puzzle games, then you’re probably also a fan of the App Store – it has brought us an incredible amount of great puzzle games. And Burn it All, one of the newest entries of the genre, keeps the fun going with a simple idea that was translated into a charming iPhone and iPad game.

And the idea really is simple: You will have to burn down ropes, pieces of wood and bats (mean, isn’t it?), by dragging a flaming lava rock onto them. If done in the right order, all the ropes will have burned down within the levels’ time limit. That’s it. But the task will get more complicated as the game gradually introduces new types of ropes, obstacles and lava rocks. Later on in the game you will have to evade water drops that instantly cool down your flame and you will have to deal with with ropes that burn slower or faster than the usual one.

Depending on how fast you can clear the level, you will be rewarded with up to 3 diamonds. And getting all of them can be quite tricky, because you will not only have to figure out the right order to light the ropes up, but you will also need to be navigate the lava rock super fast and precise around the screen. But despite that, the levels never become really difficult. The game does offer a pretty clever twist in world 3, but while it’s a clever idea, it isn’t all that challenging. The most difficult levels are the ones where you need to avoid water drops, so more of them would have been welcome. It’s not necessarily a bad thing though, but with the levels being completed that fast, it would have been nice to see some more content. However, new levels are already announced via future updates, something I’m definitely looking forward to.

Despite these little shortcomings, Burn it All is a very fun and polished game and comes as universal app for $0.99.

Max and the Magic Marker combines classic platforming with physics based puzzles. But unlike your usual platform game, you wont be looking for keys and buttons to get through the levels. Instead, you are given a Magic Marker to draw your way around the various obstacles. The drawing is implemented very well and really gives you the ability to come up with your own solutions for the puzzles.

But before you can start drawing, you will first have to collect ink for the Magic Marker. That means in each level there’s only a certain amount of ink available to limit the size of your drawings. You can always erase what you have drawn before to refill the Marker, but the limit is necessary so you can’t just build one huge bridge from the start of the level to the end. It was fun to figure out the puzzles, but I would have like to see some more difficult ones later on in the game – the solutions are always rather obvious.

Unfortunately, the platforming controls aren’t as precise as you’d want them in a platforming game. And that’s not because of the touch interface, plenty of titles on the App Store can do it better than Max and the Magic Marker (League of Evil and Pizza Boy for example). There is some sort of input lag and a general unresponsiveness that can make it hard to pull off some of the trickier platforming which can be frustrating from time to time.

The presentation is a mixed bag. While the graphics do get the job done, there’s nothing really special or unique about the art style and I found myself turning off the music just after a few minutes into the game. What’s positive and motivating is the solid amount of achievements and the challenge to finish each level with all 3 collectibles within a certain amount of time to get the best rating. This adds quite a bit of replay value to Max and the Magic Marker and it was not only once that I came back to a level to finally get the best rating.

All in all Max and the Magic Marker is built around a creative concept and comes with plenty of levels, but suffers a bit from controls that don’t do it justice and a somewhat weak presentation. However, despite the set-backs I still had a good amount of fun with it. If you are into platforming and like to get creative, you’ll most likely enjoy what Max and the Magic Marker has to offer. And as I am writing this review, there’s currently a 50% sale on the iPhone version [$0.99] and a 40% sale on the iPad version [$2.99] – so you’d better be quick!

World of Goo is a physics based puzzle game. The goal is to rescue as many goo balls as possible buy utilizing their stickiness to build structures towards a pipe that sucks the unused goo balls out of the level. So your success depends on how effective you place the limited amount of goo balls available in each level to maximize the number you can rescue. There are different types of goo balls with different attributes such as stickiness so that each level will always require a specific type or mix of these goo balls. This results in a great deal of variety that’s put into the level design – you will have to construct floating bridges with the help of helium balloons and build towers and other crazy structures to navigate the goo balls around various difficulties that, if the goo balls touch them, will most likely destroy your structure. If you recover more goo balls than actually needed to complete the level, those will be available for you in a sandbox like game mode where you compete with players from all over the world to build the tallest tower.

World of Goo is an incredibly polished experienced from start to finish. The art design is very unique and nice to look at with some great animations. From the way your structure moves you always get the idea where you will face a structural weakness if you misplace the next few goo balls. It’s impressive that even if you fail quite a few times in a certain level, you will still be motivated to keep on trying yet another time. World of Goo always gives you the feeling that the outcome is 100% up to your actions – and if something goes wrong, you can almost always tell where the problem was and how to make it better next time.

World of Goo is available in two versions; The iPhone version requires at least an iPhone 3GS or 3rd Gen iPod Touch and will only run on those devices for a price tag of $2.99. The slightly more expensive iPad version will set you back $4.99 but comes as a universal app. As we have already pointed out, while World of Goo works great on iPhone and iPod Touch, it definitely benefits from the larger screen of an iPad. World of Goo is one of these games that you really shouldn’t miss out, so if you haven’t played it yet, go and grab it!