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The App Stork: Introducing Zwirn, Battle of Puppets, Tumbles, and...

...the thousandth reinvention of the wheel

The App Stork: Introducing Zwirn, Battle of Puppets, Tumbles, and...
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The App Store truly is proof that inventing the wheel, far from being a one off feat, is almost infinitely repeatable provided you have the imagination to make it roll.

This week’s featured games are all testament to the boundless creativity and never-say-die attitude evident in the iPhone development community.

Sound like an inspiring bunch? Then why not get on down to our forums and hang out with them? The iPhone and iPod touch developer news section of our forums is squirming with activity, with all of the best new developers of tomorrow (as well as plenty from today and yesterday) dropping in regularly to give a heads up on their latest wares.

If you're an iPhone games developer (or indeed an iPad developer), then you should know that posting about your new game in our forum is a guarantee that we'll repost it at least once in this feature.

Even if it doesn’t make it into the featured three, it'll still always earn a place in the list at the bottom.

If getting into the featured three is what you want, however, links to YouTube, your site, and iTunes do nothing to harm your chances. And so, on with this weeks pickings...

Zwirn - Luridmorn

Owing a sizable and obvious debt to a very successful game is no bad thing, especially when you have the style and intrigue of Zwirn.

Comparisons to Zen Bound may be more superficial than you might think, however, with Zwirn’s control scheme seeming to employ some clever backwards orientation, giving it a spatial element that should present a real challenge.

The title comes from the German word for twine, and as main characters go Zwirn’s stringy central element is beautifully animated and sits comfortably against a range of amazing looking textures.

The music isn’t half bad either, and we can’t wait to tie ourself up with this one for a few hours. Zwirn is out now priced £1.19.

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Battle of Puppets - Small Wonder Sporting LittleBigPlanet levels of polish is not a pre-requisite to garnering gushing praise, but it certainly doesn’t harm your chances. Battle of Puppets is a defiantly pretty and polished looking title with characters that are hard not to fall in love with.

The gameplay is essentially real-time strategy but staged in a more castle defence style setting. In fact, each level takes place in one of 22 American theaters, each with custom backdrops and iconic landmarks. The conceit is that you're the puppeteer, manipulating your cute hordes.

There are loads of different level-specific unit options, unique powers to learn, and weather conditions that affect the way the game plays. This one could be a biggie and it costs just £1.19.

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Tumbles - drahtwerk Matching match-em-up mechanics with clever physics, Tumbles lives up to its name with pieces that ceaselessly bumble their way downward, bumping, rolling and indeed tumbling into all the surrounding pieces.

It looks pleasing, such is its emphasis on constant reward and feedback, but the matching of same-coloured balls could be too simple a task. At the moment, it seems all you need to do is touch one of any adjoining sets to make them disappear, often causing huge chain reactions.

Still, with Plus+ support and several different modes, there’s a good chance that Tumbles has a clever scoring mechanic in place to counter its slightly rudimentary looking gameplay.

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