‘The Sandbox’ Review
Usually when we call a game a sandbox, we’re referring to some kind of open world game where you can wander, free of restraints, and do anything you can think of. The Sandbox [ Free ] isn’t quite that kind of game. Instead it straddles the border between game and art project, rewarding players for creativity while giving them near-infinite possibilities.
You don’t play a character in The Sandbox, you play a god. You can paint with pixels of stone, draw towers of earth and set them to grow. You can draw just about any non-living thing you can imagine, paint it into a scene, and then bring it to life with the forces at your command. You have electricity at your fingertips, steam and oil in your grasp, and much more. It’s less a sandbox than a blank canvas, waiting to be filled.
There are two ways to play (with) The Sandbox: Free Mode and Story Mode. Story Mode is misnamed; there is no story, just a complex, goal-driven training ground. The game walks you through each element so you can learn how it interacts with the others, teaching you tricks like how to use heat and electricity to boil water, or how to grow a forest using soil, seeds and rain.
A disproportionate amount of Story Mode is spent on working out the finer details of the freemium model, unfortunately. The elements can be unlocked via IAP or mana earned in game, but the latter option is complicated. The Sandbox doesn’t give out enough mana in Story Mode to unlock the elements when you need them, but if you switch over to Free Mode and earn some achievements you’ll be awarded more. It seems like it might be possible to unlock all the elements for free with enough careful planning and time. Otherwise you can purchase mana, or a launch pack with everything for $6.99. It’s an unnecessarily complicated system that draws attention to the man behind the curtain when you should be focused on learning the ropes.
However you do it, once you work through all 24 Story Mode levels you’ll have the full stable of elements and climate options at your command. That’s when things get really fun, when you move into Free Mode and start creating. You can essentially paint any sort of pixel environment you want, with a huge selection of unlockable backdrops and the freedom to combine elements to do just about anything. Players are only just starting to explore the potential of the game—if you want to be inspired you can paw through the gallery of shared worlds and play with any that you like.
All this freedom comes at a cost, though. The game has a few bugs, like level conditions that trigger incorrectly and Game Center achievements that don’t seem to work. But the part that counts, the ways the elements interact with one another, that part works beautifully. The elements may not always have the properties you might expect, but they can do quite a lot. It would be a dream come true to play a game with this complexity in worlds like those of Minecraft, where you could work some serious feats of 3D engineering.
The Sandbox isn’t that kind of sandbox, sadly, but it’s still fun to play in just two dimensions. Build a world, populate it with flowers and trees, then burn it to the ground. Experiment with the debilitating effects of acid rain. Or build complex Rube Goldberg machines that really work. The sky isn’t quite the limit, but The Sandbox is well on the way. And with a planned Universal update in the works, its canvas is set to grow. So go, make something amazing—then stop by our discussion thread to share your creation with the world.
TouchArcade Rating: 
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‘Wings of Valor’ Review
Wings of Valor [ $1.99 ], the “Wings of Fury” spiritual remake by Idea Spoon, is a rare gem in the app store – a game that might not sell you on its screenshots alone, but is an automatic purchase for gamers “in the know.” Based on a classic game for the Amiga/PC/Apple II, Wings of Valor has a familiar, nostalgic feel to it, with all the best parts of an arcade shooter and a surprisingly complex strategy sim.
The base gameplay is straightforward and simplistic, as illustrated by the image-only help file. Take off from your carrier, and destroy your targets. Targets range from islands, to other planes, to ships, and you’re given an entire (unlockable) arsenal for dealing with the threats. For people such as myself, who never played the original, it may take you a few tries to even get off the ground. For instance: mashing the engine button over and over to get it started (just like a real old plane!), or trying to fly off the right side of the carrier and taking a bath instead. Missions are relatively quick, and can easily be squeezed into a bus ride, a work break, or any spare 5-10 minute period of time.
Once you get in the air, the game plays like a dream. Lovingly handcrafted visuals and spot on controls make you wonder why the side-scrolling fighter pilot genre died off so long ago. Aerial combat is a joy, pure and simple: the banks, the arcs, the turns, it all manages to feel “simulationy” and “arcadey” at the same time. Touch controls suffer somewhat from the usual lack of physical feedback, but not as much as you would think with this sort of game.
Dogfighting lacks a bit of challenge, as the enemy AI seems all too easily confused when you turn around directly behind them and light up their tail. Strafing runs are exciting, and can prove to be a test on resources – are you more of a T-16 piloting, womp-rat bullseyeing sharpshooter, or a light-up-the-jungle, empty the plane sort of carpet-bomber? The game plays into both strategies, but the latter sort will have to get very used to landings/takeoffs while they return to their ships to replenish their arsenal.
The camera work is spot on, zooming in as you approach the ground, adding to the feeling of speed. The music is old-timey, “Welcome to the world of tomorrow!” radio static fanfare, and adds to the retro feel. Sound effects are sufficiently explodey and ratatatty, and the particle effects are excellent, whether it’s planes smoking and plummeting to the earth or water kicking up as you bring death to dozens of unseen ocean critters. It is incredibly difficult to believe that the entire game was put together by a single person.
With plenty of challenges, unlockables, an upcoming iPad version, and promised updates to the visuals and AI, Wings of Valor makes for a very attractive package at $1.99. For people who have boldly proclaimed the death of classic gaming at the hands of iOS, I can only gesture wildly in this direction – here is a game with no IAP, no freemium model, just classic, old-school gameplay at its finest. Whether you’re a fan of the genre or completely new to this style of game, here is a something that is very worth your time.
The first time you have a bogey on your six, you tear off straight upward at top speed, and see the stars for just a second before stalling out, turning back towards your prey, spitting hot death, you’ll get it. Get it?
TouchArcade Rating: 
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‘Rocket Fox’ Review – A Puzzle
I love the App Store. On a single platform, I can draw from a well of my favorite classics like Doom [ $4.99 ], and try out thousands games like N.O.V.A. 3 [ $6.99 ] that take their inspiration from popular console and PC games but offer an experience tailor-made for tablets and smartphones. But what I enjoy most about the App Store is the chance to drop a buck or two on quirky titles you don’t see on any other platform. Take Rocket Fox [ Free ], for example, a new puzzle/platformer game starring a fox named Guy who loves fireworks. He loves them so much that he’s not content to admire them from afar like your average Fourth-of-July party-goer. No, Guy likes to hop aboard rockets before they blast off and ride them skyward. Of course, what goes up must come down, and that’s where you come in.
Each level begins with Guy slipping inside a large flower while a counter ticks down from three. Once the clock strikes zero, the camera flips to an overhead view, the flower bursts open, and Guy, mounted on a rocket, shoots up to the clouds. Seconds later, his rocket blows apart in a torrent of colors, and Guy begins to freefall. From here, you tilt your iPhone to guide Guy away from the hard earth and watery depths, and toward trampoline-like flower pads. Flower pads come in different colors and designs that denote their functions. Red flowers give you a slight boost, blue ones throw you up even higher, and yellow pads give a breathtaking view of surrounding topography. Flowers can only be used once before withering away, leaving you to find the next one by the time Guy starts hurtling back down once again.
Because flower pads sit on lands of different heights and distances, you have to choose which flower pads to land on and in which order. Do you use a yellow pad first, which will send you soaring high and afford a breathtaking view of the sprawling topography? Or should you leave it and bop around the red pads first, since those ones won’t lend enough momentum to cross the water to the other isle where more flowers await? Other levels ask you to fly high enough to drop through flower rings, find and land on a level-winning finale flower, use flower rockets that fire off explosives on impact, and more.
The appearance of rocket flowers brought about a distinct and pleasant shift in Rocket Fox‘s pace. Rocket flowers don’t shoot arbitrarily; an arrow blinking in one corner reveals which direction the rocket will fly when you land. Rockets destroy the first flower they come into contact with, but they also cause closed flowers to blossom into new launching pads. Figuring out which flowers to clear away so rockets wouldn’t blast them into charred petals en route to closed pads I needed to crack open, coupled with making split-second decisions during brief airborne periods and the addition of new elements like rockets that send you shooting forward, shifted the game’s pace from soporific to an intense brainteaser that rewards quick thinking and skill.
Upping the tension and satisfaction of a good plan coming to fruition are a few risk-reward factors thrown into the mix on each level. Players are graded according to factors such as the time they took to finish a level. As you grow in skill, you’ll find yourself tempted to make use of the dive button in the lower-right corner of the screen. With a touch, Guy stiffens like an arrow and streaks toward the ground headfirst, giving you no further chance to alter his direction but shaving several seconds off your record once you grow comfortable enough to use it from great heights. That, and it just reeks of style.
Another temptation comes in the form of Fox Fire, colored flames that spit out of flower pads each time you collide with one, swirling around Guy like leaves caught up in a gust of wind. You can tap flames to collect them, then use them to buy items that slow your descent, increase your buoyancy, and grant you a second chance should you accidentally take a nosedive into earth or sea. But, each item lasts only a single turn. Whether you win on your next turn or slip up and have to try again, you lose your power-ups. More importantly, collecting flames means tearing your eyes away from pressing concerns like landing on flowers instead of carving fox-shaped holes in the ground.
Fortunately, flames don’t disappear, so you can wait until you have more airtime than usual (say, after hitting a yellow pad) to frantically claw at your screen then give your attention back to Guy’s disagreements with gravity. And, although items do help, I never once felt like I needed one, even on the more trying stages. The only significant mark against Rocket Fox is that most levels must be solved in a particular way. Perform one move out of order and you’ll likely run out of flower pads and end up back at the retry screen. That wouldn’t be so bad, but the game takes several seconds to load between attempts, then makes you sit through Guy’s three-second launch countdown, totaling to almost ten seconds of downtime between each gaffe. You’re bound to play later levels many, many times before completing them, so keeping relevant data loaded in memory to expedite attempts would have been welcome.
Don’t think twice about tagging along with Guy as he journeys to and from the stars in a journey crafted from charming storybook graphics and a unique twist on puzzle games that only a platform as diverse as the App Store can provide. Rocket Fox is free with a single $1.99 unlock, but by the time you hit that pay wall you’ll know for sure whether or want you go the rest of the way. I think you will.
TouchArcade Rating: 
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Tags: Touch Arcade
Freebie Alert: Chillingo’s Physics Puzzler ‘Feed Me Oil’
Chillingo’s Feed Me Oil [Free / Free (HD)] hit the App Store around a year ago, and our review shows, we had a great time with it. In essence, the game is a physics puzzler only this time around, the physics gimmick you’re forced to harness hinges on fluid dynamics.
Every level features two things: A spigot where oil shoots from, and an area (usually designed as a mouth of a strange creature) where you’ve got to get the oil to. Completing each level involves getting the oil from the spigot to the goal area utilizing widgets you can drag into the game area. For instance, oil flows off simple platforms, it can be curved by magnets, and even blown in a different direction by fans.
Feed Me Oil was shockingly popular when it first hit last summer, so there’s a decent chance you already have it. If this is the first you’ve heard of it though, make sure you don’t miss this freebie.
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Tags: Touch Arcade
‘Duke Nukem 3D’ Gets a Broken Update, Goes Free
If there was a list of things that I never expected to be talking about today, Duke Nukem 3D [ Free ] getting an update would probably be right near the top. But that’s just what has happened as MachineWorks has issued a new update for 3D Realms’ classic first-person shooter that looks to address the long-derided virtual controls in the game.
For a quick backstory, Duke Nukem 3D launched in the App Store way back in August of 2009. Id Software’s Wolfenstein 3D [$1.99 / Free ] had hit iOS several months earlier and received critical acclaim, mostly centered around how well their controls worked. With a Doom [ $4.99 ] iOS port also on the horizon, having Duke Nukem on my iPhone seemed like the greatest news in history for a long-time FPS fan like me.
However, the initial version of Duke had possibly the worst controls I’ve ever encountered. I mean downright unplayable. To the developer’s credit they quickly issued an update about a month later with a bunch of new control options, but sadly it did little to help. Sure, some people could find a scheme that was workable for them with some heavy tweaking of options, but the controls still felt pretty bad and have remained that way ever since.
Until today that is, closing in on 3 years after the last update to Duke Nukem. Surprising to say the least, but unfortunately it’s also a good news/bad news situation. The good news is that the controls are actually quite decent now, offering an improved (but still lackluster) dual-stick option as well as a very good “drag anywhere to aim” scheme which really nails it. It may have taken a long time (that’s an understatement) but I can finally enjoy Duke Nukem 3D on my iPhone. Also, it appears that the visuals have been cleaned up considerably, and actually look quite good for a 16 year old game.
Now for the bad news. The update is full of bugs, one of which can render your controls unusable. You can avoid causing this by going into the control options before loading or starting a new game and selecting and then deselecting the dual-stick controls, but that will erase whatever custom scheme you might have previously created by dragging the virtual buttons around the screen. Basically, it’s not much of a solution.
In addition, there’s also a bug that silences the sounds from the game which I’ve only been able to fix by saving my game and killing it from the multi-tasking screen and then starting it up again. Also, for some reason the end-level stats screen is upside down and they’ve disabled the mirror reflection effect in the game. Finally, advertisements have been inserted into Duke Nukem 3D which will pop down when you first start the game and when wake your device from sleep with the game running. Lame.
As delighted as I was to see a surprise update to one of my all-time favorite games, unfortunately this latest update for Duke Nukem 3D is a complete mess. If they can sort out the bugs then I really believe the new controls are a huge improvement, and bring the game more in line with the newer FPS games on the App Store. However, given the lack of attention paid to the game the past few years that seems like a pretty big “if”, especially since the iPad version Duke Nukem 3D SE [ $0.99 (HD)] hasn’t been updated at all. Also, I’m not crazy about ads being put into a game that I previously paid for.
At any rate, Duke Nukem 3D is currently free right now, so if you didn’t have it already you might as well grab it just in case they do sort out the bugs. If you could manage just fine with the controls the way they were before, then you’ll probably want to hold out on this update altogether until (and if) they can fix this situation.
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Tags: Touch Arcade