Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP

I am, unfortunately, unable to properly communicate the worth of this game to you. Basically, it's perfect. If you trust me, don't even read the rest of this. Just buy it. And live it.

That sounds corny as crap and I really shouldn't be writing more than those five sentences, but hopefully my inadequacy points even stronger to the brilliance of this game.

Naturally, however, beneath everything beautiful, there is something sinister. (Okay, maybe that's a little overdramatic and pessimistic.) But Sword & Sworcery EP is not a game, exactly: It's amazingly fun, it's exciting, it's interactive, it's full of very apparent inspiration from The Legend of Zelda. But it functions more as a narrative than anything else. A magical, unspeakable narrative. And so the tragedy I'm alluding to here is marketing. iPhone is one of the worst imaginable platforms for well-crafted, artistic, sensitively-paced adventures. Which makes this game a very risky choice for Capybara Games to publish. It brings me deep sadness to know that most iPhone users will have neither the interest nor the patience to enjoy what I would consider to be the best game to ever grace the App Store (subjective, I know).

But I won't taint the experience by covering details about the quest or the characters or the spectacles. Just know that everything about Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP is about as good as it gets. The enchanting neo-retro visuals. The charming self-aware dialogue. The haunting electronic beats. If there is anything that will convince Roger Ebert that video games can be art, it's this.

Let zombies eat your vegetables!

Recently, the App Store began promoting select titles by knocking their prices off and naming them "App of the Week". Go to the Featured tab of the App Store to find this week's game: Plants vs. Zombies. So get it while it's hot. It's a must-play if you like zombies, or plants, or anything, really. There's even a snail. And don't forget to prepare yourself for next week's app, because nothing's cheaper than free!

Four Things You Should Be On iPhone

1. Smart

Surprisingly (for a question/answer network), Quora is full of coherence. Ask questions, answer questions, and modify your feed to match the topics you enjoy.

2. Electronic

Figure is the only paid app on this list, and that's because as soon as you start using it you'll forget about everything evil in the world. (Also, it's only 99 cents.) So many delicious instruments. Make some sick electronic loops and tweak them like you're a techno dance faerie.

3. Fictional

Interactive fiction is the retro fusion of textual narrative and adventure game, and it's pretty much just as awesome as it sounds. Frotz has hundreds of stories to choose from and it's all as portable as can be. But if you're feeling a little intimidated by this grand new way of life, check out a more beginner-centric IF app called The Dreamhold.

4. A, B, C, and all the rest of the letters of the alphabet

I know. If you're reading this you're probably old enough to read. But you're never too old to have something painfully adorable in your life. So get Endless Alphabet and spell things out anyway so you can watch the charming cuteness of each example animation.

OLO Game

Simplicity is one thing iPhone does best. No buttons, pure screen. I think perhaps all the most impressive and memorable iPhone experiences reflect that.

OLO is a familiar game. It's somewhere between shuffleboard and billiards, or maybe not. In any case, its concept isn't strange: You're given five OLOs (of varying sizes) at the start of the game. You and your opponent take turns flicking these across a two-sided board. You earn one point for each OLO that stops its path on your opponent's side, but only if it stays there. (Cue ricochets.) The game ends when all the OLOs have been played. Aside from stealing and replaying--which result, respectively, from overshooting and rebounding--that's the game.

Naturally though, OLO evolves into a strategic battle of angle and timing, rather than a challenge of who's the better flicker. It's a superb coffee table game, something you can just take out to pass a few minutes while you're sitting with a friend.

I did have some difficulties connecting to random opponents online, but when I did finally connect, the game was seamless, competitive, and enjoyable. Other developers should study games like these: Simple, graphically minimalistic, ad-free experiences are Apple. And they're a finger massage for iPhone users like me.

Temple Run 2

I'll mention first that I'm not entirely enthusiastic about endless runners. However, I had a recent surge of interest and decided to lay down my biases for a while.

So, Temple Run. It's maybe the most well-known name in the genre, at least for iPhone users. And the newest installment is solid, very solid. The graphics are greatly updated from the first adventure, along with the setting itself, which is entirely revamped, even giving way to new minecart gameplay. And although the color palette is much lighter now, there's a notably more vertical design than before, with ziplines and tons and tons of cliffs to fall off of. Plus the game has several additional characters to unlock.

However, the objectives that appear after you've finished a run (i.e. died) are far more integrated and bossy (if that's possible) than in the original Temple Run. In this case, more integration is a bad thing: When I play an endless game, I want to think about getting to the end. Not stopping somewhere in between to get a glass of lemonade and a pat on the back. And even though I'll never get to the end, I want to know that's what I was trying to do before I died.

So with that updated objectives system, some new complications of gameplay (like powerups), and the distracting upgrade system--which is satisfying for the first hour or so, but otherwise pretty uninspiring--Temple Run now becomes a game of constant leveling, slowly rising progress bars, and tedium. The joy of an endless pursuit of failure is gone. Rather than keeping friends at odds, always forcing them to sweat for the longest stride, Temple Run 2 diminishes that satisfaction and replaces it with a dull and (nearly) superfluous system of levels and accomplishments.

If you're looking for a game that keeps it simple, even beautiful, and (in my opinion) stays much truer to the genre--a game that never fails to discourage players with the unrelenting pain of re-death--try out Canabalt.

Duolingo

                                                     

Foreign languages are kind of a requirement for school. And real life too, I guess. But unless you have a ton of really sociable friends who already speak the language you're trying to learn, learning foreign languages is pretty awful. In my case, the tedium of trying to incorporate a long list of same-subject words into my vocabulary is exhausting, boring, and just not much fun at all. Anyway, if you're interested in a faithful mobile companion (that comes in the shape of a slightly adorable and slightly disturbing green owl) Duolingo might be your thing.

Not only is it free, but it supports impressively comprehensive learning for Spanish, French, German, Portuguese, and Italian (plus English, if that's what you need). Don't expect anything too crazy, though. It's not a game, exactly. More of a clean, interactive workbook. But don't let that disappoint you, either.

Duolingo contains chapters, more or less, and within each of those chapters is a series of lessons with a variety of exercises that gradually introduce new nouns, verbs, and grammar. Lessons function as a test of sorts, with words to choose from or a phrase that needs to be translated. But it's never intimidating. In many of the exercises there's an option to tap on a word to see its translation; not to mention lessons take only about five minutes to complete. After you complete enough lessons in a chapter, you "learn" it. But after that you can continue to review the chapter with more lessons and take on addition challenges until you "master" it. And while the chapters are arranged in a fixed flowchart, you always have the option to "test out" and move on to something more challenging. Plus, there's an overarching leveling system for a very obvious way to track your progress.

Duolingo doesn't try to be your professor, it just gives you a studious gymnasium where you can work out your language all day long. That being said, I'd personally recommend it as a supplement for language learning, rather than a primary resource. But it's up to you.

Letterpress

If you’re a digital logophile, you’re probably in the middle of at least one game of Words with Friends right now. It’s free, all your friends are there, and you know the game. But you’ve got an iPhone, too, and that App Store’s a big place. There are so many iterations of the same word games that it’s hardly worth trying out new ones anymore.

Then there’s Letterpress. You might have heard of it, as it was Runner-Up for the App Store’s Game of the Year for 2012. And with more than enough to back that ranking: it’s sleek, it’s free, and there isn’t an ad in sight. Plus, you’ve never played it before.

It starts as a 5x5 grid of white letter tiles, randomized each game, for two players. When it’s your turn, you pick the letters you need to make your word, and you tap “Submit”. But every time you do, the tiles you use turn from white to whatever color you are. Let’s say you’re blue. If you use a tile (turning it blue) and also use nearby tiles (turning them blue as well), the surrounded tile turns a darker shade. In other words, it’s secured. Now your opponent--let’s say red--can’t change the color of that tile unless he or she uses at least one of the (blue) surrounding tiles and turns it red. Players take turns making words and battling between tiles to secure their color. When all twenty-five of the white tiles have been played (and thereby turned either red or blue) the game ends and the player with the most tiles of their color wins.

You can guess, without much trouble, that a game of Letterpress can be quite a bit shorter than a game of Words with Friends. But the tiles don’t run through as quickly as you’d think. When there are multiple X’s to secure and a deep framework of conquest-style strategy, it becomes much less a game of discovering obscure words and crossing fingers for a hand that isn’t seven vowels, and more a game of holding onto the letters you secure and working as efficiently as you can to sweep the grid with your color.

Gameplay aside, Letterpress is unbelievable clean, slick, and easy to play. It really is beautiful. Even if you somehow lose interest in the game (you won’t), you’ll never stop wanting to watch the crisp, ad-free letters glide across the screen or hear the soft clicks of the tiles as you form your next word.

And even though it costs absolutely nothing to download the game and play it in full, there’s an in-app upgrade for a buck that gives you access to a number of equally minimalist themes (colors besides red and blue) and the ability to play more than two games at a time. Letterpress is yet another brilliant game from a very generous and dedicated indie dev.