It’s our first day back in the New Year, and we’ve got a pretty diverse offering of games to get you started in 2011. Leading the pack is Joan Jade, a point-and-click/puzzler that seems more than capable of keeping players busy for a while. There’s also a pretty solid side-scrolling running game called I Must Run!, which is totally free right now, and a puzzle game that’s all about ninja cats. Take a look below.
Joan Jade & The Gates of Xibalba (iPhone) $2.99
Joan Jade mixes a few different types of gameplay to become a pretty diverse game. At its base, it’s a point-and-click adventure that has you tapping objects and locations on a static screen in order to find points of interest and clues to move forward. Here you play Joan as she searches for her children, who’ve disappeared in the jungle near some ancient Mayan ruins. But the game also includes some light puzzle-solving and aspects of I Spy as you scour its environments for clues to what happened to the kids.
The game packs in a lot of content — you’ll find yourself clicking through 30 different locations and searching them for 240 different objects. The story is pretty involved, with 12 cutscenes, and Joan Jade also features 82 puzzles; there’s no lack of things to do, especially if you like the story-driven nature of point-and-click games.
I Must Run! (iPhone) Free
Not only is I Must Run! new to the App Store, it’s on sale for a limited time and definitely worth checking out. It’s a side-scrolling running game of the normally endless variety — except I Must Run! is divided up into five different levels of jail-breaking action, and there’s an ending to be found when you’ve beaten them all.
You’ll be punching through and jumping over obstacles, sliding under low-hanging walls, and diving over gaps to avoid falling to your doom. I Must Run! features some pretty high production values and an interesting story of escaping prison to save the main character’s wife — but you only have 24 game hours to do so, making getting through levels quickly and skillfully your paramount concern.
Ninja Tabby (iPhone) $0.99
This puzzler looks to be kind of like the classic game Lemmings, in which you control several characters as they work together to solve a puzzle. Your job is to help your team of ninja cats infiltrate each level, steal catnip and utilize scratching posts to earn points, and then escape through a portal for even more points.
Ninja Tabby might be better suited to younger children, but it still packs 20 levels and a lot of masked cats. The game also maintains your progress throughout, so you can put Ninja Tabby down and pick it right back up when you’re ready to play again.
