Welcome to the inaugural installment of Fresh iPhone Games of the Week. We bring you some of the highlights of some of the more interesting games released so you can catch up over the weekend.
Doodle Jump update (iPhone) $0.99
Doodle Jump is considered by many to be among the best games on the iPhone, but while it is simple and addictive, it has lacked a lot of the standard features that show up in other games. Until now, that is.
Doodle Jump’s new update adds leaderboard features care of Apple’s Game Center service, so you can now at least track your scores against your friends, as well as all your scores over the history of playing Doodle Jump. The update also adds leaderboards for each of the game’s various themes, and you can download the Game Center app to track overall leaderboards for the game as well. There’s no multiplayer yet, but developer Lima Sky has mentioned that possibility, so we’ll keep an eye out for it in the future.
Fruit Ninja update (iPhone, iPad) $0.99
Lots of people really enjoy Fruit Ninja, which has players using a finger swipe to cut through fruit as it goes flying through the air. It gets hectic but still falls into that five-minute pick-up-and-play category.
Developer Halfbrick has announced a free update to the game that adds an entire new Arcade mode to the game, which has the player slicing as much fruit as possible for 60 seconds. Halfbrick has also changed the gameplay a little bit for Arcade mode, throwing in bonus bananas that add boost your score. Also, you can now use Frenzy mode to increase the amount of fruit on the screen, or Freeze mode to slow the action down.
Lil’ Pirates (iPhone) Free
It seems like Lil’ Pirates combines elements of strategy and role-playing games to give you ship-to-ship naval battles. Sounds awesome.
When you’re not strafing enemy galleons, you’re tasked with hiring pirates with various skillsets to crew your skiff. There’s a ton of customization to be had, with more than 100 items to outfit your crew and ship, and you can even go so far as to bury treasure to increase its value, in between bouts of plundering and sinking other ships.
Tower Breaker 3D (iPhone, iPad) $0.99
If you’ve ever seen the game Jenga played at a party, you have an idea of Tower Breaker 3D, which is basically the same game but virtual, not physical. You’re presented with a tower constructed of bricks that you must remove, one at a time, without making the whole tower fall over.
It’s pretty nifty, mostly because Tower Breaker 3D, as its name suggests, is played in 3D. You can rotate around the outside of the tower to pick the brick you want to go after, and then carefully remove it with the iPhone’s touch controls. The game dishes out points based on which bricks you take and how high the risk is for each section removed.
Alchemedes! (iPhone) $0.99
You might remember the premise of this puzzler from old games back in the early days of computer games — or from Die Hard 3. Alchemedes! asks you to move liquids from beakers of various sizes, with the goal being to change the liquids around in order to get the amount of liquid required by the puzzle.
The puzzles get progressively harder as more and more beakers are added, requiring you to think steps ahead to get the right liquid amounts. You get 150 levels for just a buck, which makes it seem like you won’t be running out of puzzles containing alchemy anytime soon.
