I love Halloween. As kids we anticipated the night we'd canvas the neighborhood in plastic costumes, visiting house after house. Especially that one crazy lady who dressed as a witch and tried her best to scare us. We had fun, but we didn't have iPhones. Today a slew of digital treats lurk inside the App Store. Here's a selection of our favorites. There are prerequisites to Halloween fun. You've got to choose a costume, carve a pumpkin and set a creepy mood. Here are some apps to get you started (all prices are USD). Costume Decider (Free) Can't decide on a costume? Let your iPhone help. This app from GS Design features two "wheels" for you to spin; one features adjectives such as "super" and "Vulcan" while the other offers nouns like "nurse" or "granny." Flip through the 625 possible combinations to find a winner. We'd like to see a Vulcan Read More

After a few conventions' worth of teasing and a last-minute name change, Halfbrick Studios' latest, Jetpack Joyride, is available as a universal app for iPhone and iPad. I'm ready to call it one of the best iOS games of the year. Of course, I'm a big Halfbrick fan, and I think the running title Monster Dash is their best game until this one (though Fruit Ninja obviously racks up some points for them as well), so this game ends up being particularly up my alley. But it's really a terrific game -- extremely well polished, with great mechanics, tons and tons of replayability, and pretty much everything you'd want in a pick-up-and-play iPhone title. The idea is that you're Halfbrick's main man Barry Steakfries yet again, this time strapping on a Machine Gun Jetpack to try and escape through a lab, and you need to get as far as possible without Read More

The collective hive mind of TouchArcade couldn't possibly be more excited for Machinegun Jetpack, unless of course Halfbrick succumbs to our demands of including their own Phil Larsen as a playable character. Anyway, it seems that the previous video released by the Australia-based development studio was just the first of a series slowly teasing the game before its release in the (hopefully) not too distant future. If this is the first you've heard of Machinegun Jetpack, it's a game we've been following for what feels like an eternity that continues the adventures of Barry Steakfries previously featured in Monster Dash [99¢] and Age of Zombies [$2.99]. Like those two games, Machinegun Jetpack takes a familiar game type (in this case, the cave flyer) and turns it up to 11, as evident by the previous video and made even more obvious by the latest surprisingly Phil-less developer diary: I'm loving all the Read More

We've had our eye on Halfbrick's Machine Gun Jetpack for quite a while now. We got a glimpse of the game back at GDC and last month found out that it'll likely be hitting the App Store this August. We've even had Halfbrick's own Phil Larsen on an episode of The TouchArcade Show to discuss all things Halfbrick, including Machine Gun Jetpack. Anyway, this latest video of the game entitled "Simple Awesomeness" does a marvelous job of exhibiting just how awesome Machine Gun Jetpack is going to be. It seems Halfbrick has just taken the cave flier formula, held it hostage in some kind of secret underground Australian bunker, and spent the last six months injecting various experimental performance boosting compounds into it. Lasers, energy beams, collectable coins that actually are used for things, oh baby. Also, I'm just going to throw this out there, but I don't think it's too Read More

Back in March, I felt luckier than a field of four leaf clovers when I was among the first to see Fruit Ninja [$.99 / HD] creator Halfbrick’s latest side-scrolling title, Machinegun Jetpack. It’s a mix of infinite runner and shooter like [$.99 / HD]. Heck, it even stars that game’s hero, Barry Streakfries. Where it departs is where it draws its namesake: during the entirety of the experience, you’ll be strapped to a jetpack that spews bullets. Back at the event in San Francisco that March, I was told that the game should have been out about... well, right now. I have an update on that: Halfbrick says that the target is now late August, and it’ll definitely hit within the next two months. The team inside Halfbrick on the game is doing a final critical pass, adding in features and tweaking the existing ones for the best possible experience. Read More

...#ipad #iphone Monster Dash - Halfbrick Studios http://goo.gl/fb/sYsMB #games... Read More

We're one day late on this one, but rather than brightly colored hidden eggs for Easter, in this case we're of course referring to "easter eggs," little secrets that programmers hide in their applications and code. Macworld has a great roundup of four easter eggs hidden in popular App Store apps, from a secret edition of the 1926 Kelly Blue Book in the official Kelly app to the funny result you get when searching for "tilt" in Mobile Safari. Off the top of my head, the only other app easter egg I know of is the fact that you can play with the various characters wandering around the title screen of Halfbrick's Monster Dash. Yelp's Monocle AR service was originally an easter egg, although it is now part of the full app. And it's not technically an easter egg, but some people may not know that you can access iTunes controls Read More

Halfbrick Studios is one of my favorite developers on iOS. While they've released games on other platforms before (including the PS3 and the Nintendo DS), here at GDC 2011, they told me that "iOS development is always our focus." They've found a huge hit with Fruit Ninja, but they're not resting on their laurels. Fresh off Monster Dash (my favorite Canabalt-alike on the App Store) Halfbrick is going to return to the running genre with a new game called Machine Gun Jetpack. If you've played Monster Dash, you'll know that's one of the special weapons from the game -- a machine gun pointed down that allows you to hover in the air. And the Machine Gun Jetpack game lets you do just that. As hero Barry Steakfries runs along, he has to jump up and hover past obstacles and enemies, adding a vertical component to the Canabalt setup. Just like Monster Read More

Halfbrick, the studio behind the enormously popular fruit homicide game, Fruit Ninja [.99 / Lite], are about three months away from debuting a brand new title on the App Store. And there’s a twist: it stars a familiar face, Monster Dash’s [.99] Barry Steakfries. Actually, Steakfries and Monster Dash are great starting points when describing this upcoming title, Machinegun Jetpack. It looks and works a lot like Monster Dash. It’s a traditional runner, so it has a lone, endless level and randomly generated content. Where it differs, it really differs. Instead of controlling a protagonist who can merely run, you control an avatar that’s hooked into a jetpack. Tapping on the screen keeps Barry afloat, and you’ll need to do that to avoid all the vertical obstacles such as electricity or rockets or lasers. Ratcheting up the intensity of the experience is a goal of Halfbrick’s. Perhaps the best example of Read More

Here's another day-and-date release for you -- Volcano Escape is brand new on the App Store today, and it's an interesting take on the Canabalt-style genre. It asks you to run up a series of platforms inside a volcano rather than across rooftops like usual. The controls are a little floaty, unfortunately, but I think it's designed that way, as you can basically double and wall jump your way up the various stages. There's a button for shooting, and shooting various enemies will turn them into stone that you can then jump off of on your way up. Aiming is pretty tough, though, so sometimes it's easier to just dodge the baddies and move on. You can also get access to power-ups as you run, and your progress is constantly marked in the game, so you're often just trying to beat your last record. There's Game Center integration for leaderboards and Read More

The popularity of Canabalt seems to have spawned a whole genre of games on the App Store. I remain a fan of Monster Dash, and Tomena Sanner is another fascinating spin on the very basic one-button gameplay. Now here comes I Must Run, another running-style game that has you as a character running on a 2D field, trying to avoid gaps and obstacles by jumping and punching your way through. Despite the fact that this borrows a lot (if not actually everything) from Canabalt and its followers, there's no denying that "IMR" (as developer Gamelion Studios calls it in a teasing FAQ on the app's description) has its own verve as well. The style is very well done. You play a prisoner running from a prison, and there's a little more story here (some of it in the form of a motion comic) than the other games that tend to go Read More

Apple has compiled a list called their 2010 Rewind. In it, they have named the top Apps of the year, and gathered them all up into one page so that they can easily be found. Let’s take a look at their top Apps in each category. On this list, you will find Apple’s best apps of 2010. Everything from best iPhone games of 2010 to best educational apps of 2010. Note that these are not our picks (though many of our favorites did make the list) but it’s a compilation of Apple’s favorite Apps of the 2010. Let’s take a look at Apple’s iTunes 2010 rewind: Shoot, Edit, Share – Best of iPhone Camera Utility Apps of 2010 1) Hipstamatic – 99 cents      2) Path – Free 3) Instagram – Free 4) Pocketbooth – 99 cents 5) iMovie – $4.99      6) Splice – Video Editor – 99 cents 7) Read More

Monster Dash es uno de esos juegos en los que tenemos que avanzar todo lo que podamos, al estilo del exitoso Canabalt. La diferencia, es que además de saltar para esquivar obstáculos y llegar de un edificio a otro, aquí también tendremos que elminar a los enemigos que nos aparecen. Para  ello, contaremos con una escopeta, y a lo largo del camino iremos encontrando cajas con nuevas armas (entre otras cosas) que nos darán mayor capacidad de ataque, como un lanzamisiles o una metralleta. El juego dispone de diferentes escenarios, a los que nos teletrasnportaremos automáticamente cada 1000 metros recorridos y, además de cambiar la ambientación, cambiarán los enemigos. Sin duda, tanto por la calidad como por el precio, es un juego recomendado, que hará que lo juguemos y rejuguemos intentando superar nuestra puntuación y la de nuestros amigos, ya que es compatible con Game Center. Disponible: App Store Precio: 0,79€ Read More

I wasn’t entirely sure how I felt about Halfbrick Studios’ new game, so I decided to split my regular Thomas self into “Tom” and “Ash” and held an awkward Q&A between the two halves to find out what I really thought: Tom: What’s the name of that game that features Barry Steakfries jumping from rooftop to rooftop and emptying buckshot into demons, vampires, and mummies?Ash: That’d be Monster Dash. Tom: Having played other similar titles like Canabalt and Chop Chop Runner, how does Monster Dash compare?Ash: Well, despite the different look and style, Monster Dash is still that “running platformer” that we’re all pretty familiar with. One slight twist is that you have a bit of HP now. Sheer drops off the level will still kill you, but you can bump into monsters or obstacles up to three times before you die. Otherwise Barry is always running from left to right, Read More

Developers seem to love scheduling their release dates for Thursday, causing their games to slowly leak out over the world over the course of the day on Wednesday and we're in for another onslaught of releases tonight. These games should all appear for download in the US App Store at 11:00 PM EST unless you download your games from the various European or Asian App Stores, in which case they will be available much earlier (possibly even as you're reading this). R-Type, $1.99 - We've covered R-Type a number of times in the past, including getting a sneak peek at it at the recent EA pre-holiday event. R-Type is a sidescrolling shooter that hardly need an introduction filled with huge bosses, tons of power-ups, and everything else that makes a shooter awesome. For more information, and impressions as the game trickles out over the world, check out the thread in our Read More

It was all the way back in October of last year that we were intrigued by a gorgeous animated trailer for the upcoming game A Skeleton Story. Then, months and months passed by with nothing more about the game, until last month when A Skeleton Story reappeared with some new in-game screenshots. We even had some hands-on time with a preview version of the game, which revealed itself to be a Canabalt-esque run and jump affair. After a turbulent journey, A Skeleton Story [99¢] has finally arrived in the App Store. While it contains some interesting ideas that attempt to set it apart from similar games in the genre, unresponsive controls and slow, repetitive gameplay keep it from being anything special. The most notable drawback in the game are the lackluster controls. The directional stick that controls your character's movement is often unresponsive, and for a game that demands quick reactions Read More

...#Top Monster Dash - Halfbrick Studios http://bit.ly/9ypksg #iPad #iPhone... Read More

Browsing the App Store this weekend?  Here are fifteen new or updated apps for the iPhone and iPad worth taking a closer look at if you are: This is a choose your own adventure book, where you’re provided with a series of options at a particular point, and your decision affects the outcome of the story.  $3.99.  US-Only. Access 20,000 music videos from Vevo’s own catalogue from 7000 different artists, watch them on your iPhone and share them over Facebook or Twitter.  Discover new material, create playlists and read trivia too!  Free. US-Only. Another line drawing game, but here you must help swimmers out of the water in order to avoid become a snack for Jaws!  There are 10 levels and since this is an official app, the famous theme tune too!  $2.99/£1.79. A new variation on the tower defense game, this time with viruses instead of aliens/vikings/grandfather clocks.  You’ve got Read More

Halfbrick Studios really made a splash with their iPhone debut, Fruit Ninja, and now they've followed it up with a little game called Monster Dash. It's a running game in the vein of Canabalt, but rather than dodging skyscraper jumps and bombs, you're fighting through pixelated monsters while sprinting along. The main addition to the game is a "shoot" button, so in addition to jumping obstacles and gaps as they come up, you can mow down enemies with various weapons, such as the (default) flameburster, uzis, and even a machine gun jetpack (that comes in handy when jumping). It's a lot of fun (as you'd probably expect if you've played either Canabalt or Fruit Ninja), and the game comes with Halfbrick's requisite polish, including excellent lush graphics and full OpenFeint compatibility. If there's a downside, it's too bad that Halfbrick decided to just stick with the usual arcade formula. It'd be Read More

...#iTunes Monster Dash - Halfbrick Studios http://bit.ly/agIqu8... Read More

...Dash http://bit.ly/bIt9MO = Canabalt + Metal Slug awesomeness and statistics crazy... Read More

The wild popularity of Fruit Ninja [99¢ / HD] is a hard act to follow, but I think Halfbrick's next game is more than up to snuff. In Monster Dash {99¢], you play as Barry Steakfries, a man who loves two things in life: Running and killing monsters. Of course I don't know him personally, but I've been able to discern as much from spending the past week playing Monster Dash in almost every second of spare time I can find. Monster Dash is a randomly generated survival platformer where you run to the right as long as you can, much like Canabalt [$2.99]. This is where the Canabalt similarities end, as between Barry Steakfries and wherever he's running to is an array of monsters which all must be either avoided or slain. Barry's default weapon is a shotgun, which has limited range, but along the way you will find weapon Read More