The App Stork: Introducing Air Assault, BoboBua, Catch Me! If You Can...

It’s time once more to swoop majestically down, our beak stinking not of half eaten fish but of freshly minted apps, plucked straight from the Pocket Gamer forum.

This week we’re dealing in the sort of titles that have brought the iPhone to prominence. We’re not talking about console remakes and genre me-toos. We’re talking about forward thinking, quirky little games that seem simple but can swallow hours.

Not that we're averse to any sort of game on the App Stork. Indeed, if you've developed a game and want to net some guaranteed exposure for it, the best thing to do is to post about it in the iPhone and iPod Touch developer news section of our forum.

Make sure to include as many relevant links as you can muster - iTunes store, company websites and YouTube video links are our favorites.

The same goes for any budding PSP Minis and DSiWare developers, too, so if you want to talk about what your making, you know where to go.

And so, on with this week’s new arrivals...

Air Assault - SnakeHead Software

We love the smell of games about unleashing napalm death from above in the morning. Actually, perhaps that’s not the best tack to take seeing as this game has chosen the real world Afghanistan conflict for its setting.

The timeline works to its own curious click as the game casts you as an American soldier fending of both Russian and Afghan aggressors. It’s certainly precarious, but it’s hard to deny that the option to shoot out enemy parachutes and watch as their attached soldiers plummet is a guilty pleasure.

The gameplay does look potentially samey, but the sound-effects are truly gut-wrenching and this looks like an entertaining, if possibly controversial, shooting gallery style blaster.

You get OpenFeint support and the stirring Flight of the Valkyries thrown in, too.

Full version
Company website

BoboBua - Tripod Games Borrowing heavily from the Rolando menagerie of circular critters, this action puzzler is unabashed in its liberal borrowing from other games. The action itself involves pinging on of said circular character by use of an elastic band, which is not dissimilar to the recently released Konami effort, Wire Way.

That’s not to say that this game can’t stand on it’s own two feet - or rest solidly on its curved underneath, rather. The food themed backdrop for the game’s pleasantly blended gameplay styles holds its own and, overall, the presentation is enticing.

Could be a quiet hit, so long as you can stomach the Eurotrash soundtrack. BoboBua is out now, priced just 59p.

Company site
Full version

Catch Me! If You Can - Odd1 This game looks like a collect-'em-up that even the most obsessive of completists will take forever to claim. The aim of the game is to grab the gold and avoid the guards before doing a switcheroo and playing as the guards for a stretch, so you can chase down the thief. It’s reminiscent of Pac-Man in a thoroughly modernised sort of way, but one of the game’s most intriguing features is that friends can pool their scores collaboratively, in order to raise enough points to unlock free content.

It’s certainly a novel way of playing and could be the beginnings of a whole new breed of multiplayer interaction. Catch Me! If You Can is out now, priced £1.19.

Full version
Lite version
Company website Flip TacTic
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