While Halloween may have come and gone, that doesn’t mean people aren’t looking for a good scare. Which brings me to Til Mornings Light, a spooky game from WayForward Technologies for iOS, Amazon Fire Phone, and Amazon Fire Tablets. Though in talking to WayForward’s Adam Tierney — the game’s director, designer, and writer — it seems the idea behind the game isn’t just to freak you out. Well, maybe a little.
Considering that zombies have invaded nearly every kind of game, save for racing games, it’s shouldn’t surprise anyone that they’re now chewing their way through an MMO called World Zombination Though what might surprise you is that World Zombination could actually be called a MMMO: Massively Multiplayer & Mobile Online game. With the game coming to Android after already being available on iOS, I spoke to Seth Sivak, the CEO of Proletariat — “though my actual role on the game is more like Executive Producer or Creative Director,” he says — about how there’s more to World Zombination than just eating other people online.
When Star Wars Rebels started airing on Disney XD last October, there were two things that were rather obvious: One, that this wasn’t any more of a kids show than its predecessor, Star Wars: The Clone Wars, had been; and two, that Zen Studios would be making a Star Wars Rebels pinball table for Zen Pinball 2 (PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3, Vita, Mac, WiiU), Pinball FX 2 (Xbox One, Xbox 360, PC), Zen Pinball (iOS), and Zen Pinball HD (Android, Amazon). And wouldn’t you know it…
As we all know from the movies, gunpowder is a volatile and unstable explosive. So, of course, it makes perfect sense that someone made Gunpowder (iOS) a physics-based puzzle game in which you use the stuff to blow things up, what could possibly go wrong? Though in talking to the game’s co-creators — Rogue Rocket Games’ co-founders Richard Sun and Nicky Bruty — it’s clear these guys thought more about making their game fun than the safety of the people in it.
Some things are just inevitable. It’s inevitable that I will die with a stack of unread books near me, it is inevitable that Rush will stop making new music at some point, and it is inevitable that humanity’s reign on Earth will come to an end at the hands on intelligent apes, zombies, or intelligent zombie apes, and that none of them will read or listen to Rush. But not all inevitabilities are so dire. Take this one: With Marvel releasing the movie Avengers Age Of Ultron on May 1st, it was inevitable that Zen Studios would make a Avengers Age Of Ultron table for Zen Pinball 2 (PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3, Vita, Mac), Pinball FX 2 (Xbox One, Xbox 360, PC), Zen Pinball (iOS), Zen Pinball HD (Android, Amazon), and, at some point soon, Zen Pinball 2 on the WiiU.
Like 2013’s Halo Spartan Assault, the arcadey, top-down, twin-stick shooter Halo Spartan Strike (iOS, PC, Windows Phones) features the music of Tom Salta. Who, not coincidentally, has also worked on Halo: Combat Evolved: Anniversary and the Halo 2 Anniversary part of Halo: The Master Chief Collection. But while this makes it seem like the people behind the Halo games like Salta, in talking to him about his work on Strike, it seems the feeling is mutual.
Usually, the scariest thing people see on their phones is a text about how their mother-in-law is coming for a visit…and she’s staying for two weeks! But in talking to Human Head Studio’s Chris Rhinehart, the project director on the scary mobile game Lost Within (iOS, Amazon), it’s clear they looked well beyond their phones when designing this fright-fest.
When the zombie apocalypse comes — and yes, it is a matter of “when” not “if” — it will not just be the strong who survive, or the smart, but the swift. Don’t believe me? Then maybe you should play Must Deliver, a zombie-themed endless runner game for iOS, Android, and Amazon tablets. Though in talking to Cherrypick Games’ Michael Sroczynski, the game director on Must Deliver, he revealed that there’s another “S” that will help you survive as well: Super Moves.
As someone who actually saw numerous R-rated ’80s action flicks on their opening weekends, it’s funny to now see them influencing video games that are enjoyed by people who not only weren’t old enough to see this movies in theaters back then, but neither were there parents. The latest of these is Gunslugs II, a side-scrolling shooter from Orangepixel that’s available for PCs, Mac, iOS, Android, and Ouya. Though in talking to Pascal Bestebroer, the one-man mastermind behind Orangepixel, it’s clear this game isn’t just a trip down memory lane.