A long time ago in a land far, far away, an evil witch turned an arrogant young prince into a frog. 

The frog prince, of course, wanted to become human again, but only a fairy could help him.  Unfortunately, the fairy resided high in the sky, far above the lily pad land of the prince, though it was rumored that she had sprinkled the sky with special stars that could be followed to find her.

The Frog Prince had a special ability.  Not only could he hop lilies, he could also hop the stars.  Or at least magical ones, anyway.  So it set out on a quest to find the good fairy.

Would he find her and become the human he once was?

Ok, so that’s not really the backstory to this game; I just made it up.  Doodle Frog, from Thetis Consulting, bills itself as an addictive game.  It does have that potential.  Here’s how it works:  At the start of each game, a fairy sprinkles stars into the sky and the game pans down a few seconds until it reaches the earth.  By using swiping motions at the bottom of the screen, the player controls the frog’s motions so that it can “hop” to a star.  If the frog touches a star, the frog is propelled up.  The frog’s flight can be managed by swiping right or left, but once a star is touched, it disappears and cannot be touched again.

Points are gained as the frog moves from star to star.  Some stars are worth more points than others.  And there are witches that periodically fly into the game to steal points.  If the frog misses a star and there are no other stars for it to hop onto (or a little flying bug buzzing by), it falls back to the ground.

On the plus side: Doodle Frog was easy to learn to play.  It took some time for me to get used to the swiping style of movement, but not too long.  It can be a challenging game in much the same way that a lot of the ‘Doodle’ games are.

On the minus side: the game got to be a little repetitive after a while; the pattern of stars never seemed to change all that much.  I believe it could benefit from some variance.  Maybe different kinds of stars that do different things, witches that hover and cast spells that affect the frog’s jumping, or other bad “guys” might help spice the game up a little.  I think the fairy sprinkling star scene at the beginning of every game could either be shortened or cut out entirely.  Also, the falling frog scene could be shortened as well.  Those two bits take up far too much time and really interrupt the flow of getting into the game and trying to go farther than you did the last time (via the ‘Try Again’ option).  When I was first starting to learn the game, it seemed as though I spent far more time falling or waiting for the fairy to do her thing than play.  And that quickly became annoying.

Although its playability could be improved a lot with just a few changes, this is- in my opinion- a good start.

iTunes Link – Doodle Frog

Version 1.0

Tested on an Ipod Touch 3.1.3 

Reiner Knizia’s Knights of Charlemagne is another great Dr. Reiner Knizia and Conlan Rios card game. Again, this is based off an actual card game that was published in 1995 to very favorable reviews. The game is themed after knights, estates and… round tables? Really, the theme is not so important because the game is pretty abstract like most of Dr. K’s games. I do love the period background music though. It’s a lute version of Scarborough Fair and it has me singing/mumbling subconsciously “parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme” all day. The newest update allows you to play your own music but I’ll be sticking to Simon and Garfunkel.

Knights of Charlemagne is a two player game that can either be played against several difficulties of AI or a second person on the same device. The basic idea is that you have ten estates in the playing field labeled 1 through 5 and colored blue, violet, green, red and orange. Each player is dealt a hand of eight knight cards, which have both numbers and colors, and plays one per turn. The knights can be played on estates with either the same number or color. The players take turns doing this until they run out of cards, at which point, the player with the most cards played to each estate, wins that estate. The different estates are worth different amounts and there are several bonuses to take into account, so all in all, Knights of Charlemagne is a pretty complex game. It definitely falls into the “easy to learn, hard to master” category.

The original card game plays with 2 to 4 players and from what I’ve read, a three person game is the sweet spot. I would love to see this implemented in the application. I guess we’ll just have to get the real life card game to experience the thrill of three player KoC. It would also be nice to play against people over the Internet, although the AI can still be pretty challenging.

Dr. K is really becoming one of my favorite game designers and not just in the iPhone and iPod Touch world. I challenge you to check out his games and not like them. Good luck. And don’t forget to throw Conlan some love as well for making these games possible on this platform.

When playing a game, the goal is to win, but it is the goal that is important, not the winning. -Dr. Reiner Knizia

iTunes Link – Reiner Knizia’s Knights of Charlemagne
Version 1.1
Reviewed on iPhone 3GS OS 3.1.3

Square Enix has brought its most prized possession and critically acclaimed classic RPG game, FINAL FANTASY to the iPhone and iPod touch. Sit back, relax and have some fun with your iPhone playing Final Fantasy. The game was already released for NES and other handhelds such as the Nintendo DS and Gameboy Advance and [...]

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Internet Alert, from Modern Digital Media AB, is about as straightforward an app as you can imagine. Its purpose is amazingly simple: to notify you whenever a web page is updated. 

If you’re in need of some inspiration or wisdom–or maybe just a couple chuckles–then Jedrzej Jakubowski’s Quote Portal is perfect for you. With 13 categories to choose from, there will definitely be a quote for nearly every occasion; they range from Wisdom to Travel to Art. Choose a category on the main menu, [...]

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Wondering which of your favorite shows have been posted on Hulu but can’t login to check? Now you can with HQueue. Released by a third party developer named “a good company,” HQueue is the first Hulu Queue Viewer released for the iPhone. It lists the shows in your queue and selecting an [...]

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yofrog – Private group chat rooms for friends is a great app for talking with your friends on your iPhone without needing to use text messages, and now the app also supports push notifications. Going out with your friends? Coordinating lunch with buddies? Or just socializing? Stay in touch with your group without texting [...]

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Compression is on sale for free – normally .99
Compression is a snazzy, Dr. Mario – style tetris game that I reviewed a few months back.

It’s casual, fun and pretty easy to pick up and play. There’s also a new {content}.99 in-app purchase that unlocks another addictive game mode. A recent update fixed some of the issues with the first version, giving you another reason why you should definitely pick up this game while it’s on sale.

iTunes Link – Compression

Version 1.1

Mole – Quest for the Terracore Gem! by Roo Games is a digging game. You play as Mark the mole and unsurprisingly, he digs. That’s pretty much all we know about Mark, as the game is pretty light on story. He’s a mole that owns a mining operation and has an unquenchable urge to find the Terracore Gem. Think “Indiana Jones and the Quest for the Terracore Gem”, but with moles. It belongs in a museum! Actually, don’t think that…

Like I was saying, Mark digs deep down into the earth or “mole planet” and finds literally tons of jewels, gems and metals. The jewels and gems pump up your score but the metals are the real treat. With these metals, Mark can upgrade his equipment. He can upgrade his pickaxe, metal and gem detector, bombs and most importantly, his airtank. The pickaxe allows him to dig faster, the detector obviously lets him see further, the bombs can blow more rocks more quickly and the airtank lets him stay underground longer. If he runs out of air down there, he has to be rescued and everything he found on that dig is lost. Yes, at the beginning, Mark is a fragile backyard digging enthusiast but as you upgrade his equipment and dig down deeper, Mark becomes a professional one mole mining operational maniac.

You find large drills at certain points during your spelunking that allow you to ride them back up to the surface instantly. This is especially helpful, because you can then use these drills to get back down to where you found them. They are basically unlockable shortcuts. There are also several different layers of soil underground and each has it’s own properties. Properties like not being able to use bombs, detector not seeing as far, or just really slows down your digging speed. These layers add some extra flavor to the world and make it exciting to keep digging.

Did I like this game? Yes. Did I beat this game? Yes. Did I play the crap out of this game? Yes. You can take it from me that Mole is fun to play. It has a great art style and very nice graphics. The digs are quick enough that you can easily sneak a few in here and there. Also, I’m a total sucker for equipment upgrades. It’s all around a very well polished game and I cannot wait to see what Roo Games does next.

iTunes Link – Mole – Quest for the Terracore gem!
Version 1.1
Reviewed on iPhone 3GS OS 3.1.3

It’s hard to resist the excitement surrounding the Winter Olympics and if just watching athletes rush down a snowy incline isn’t enough to get your adrenaline going, you may be looking for other mediums for vicarious living. With that probably in mind, Vivid Games has recently released their mobile game Ski Jumping 2010 for [...]

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