Normally I don’t feature free-to-play games in this column, but with this game I’m making an exception since you don’t need to spend any real world money to experience everything it has to offer. Pixel People is an 8-bit version of what the 2005 film The Island would look like if instead of being murdered and having their organs harvested, the clones actually were being sent to an island, and this island was in space. You are in control of a colony of clones on an island in space. After they come to an arrival center, you assign them jobs by splicing two genes which represent professions. There are over 200 to unlock, and there are small animals and other items to find and unlock as well. Your island is constantly expanding, so you’ll need to purchase more land for buildings and houses. There are two main resources: gold and utopium. Gold is harvested on a regular basis, while utopium is a bit more scarce. You can buy utopium at a premium price, but if you’re patient, you can wait until you save up for whatever you need. A recent update added the ability to add facebook friends so you can trade commodities with them, leave gifts, and visit their towns. If you got an iPad, and a few minutes a day to kill, grab this from the app shop. It’s free-to-play, but thankfully it’s not pay-to-win.

10000000 is a mash up of match-3 puzzle gameplay and dungeon crawling. It doesn’t look like much, but it’s very addictive and it’s a perfect time killer for mobile devices. Your goal is to escape from a dungeon by scoring 10000000 points – however it all has to be done in one session. Each time you are defeated, you are sent back to your room. However, you can use the wood, gold, and stone gathered during each run to upgrade shops, unlock new features, and gain new abilities which will make it easier and easier to make it through the game. Although there isn’t much to do after gaining the 10000000, it’s still a fun and simple game that’s best suited for mobile devices.

Dungeon Hearts is a puzzle/RPG hybrid. Playing as a group of heroes, you set out to defeat an evil entity. Instead of traditional turn-based combat however, you attack by matching 3 tiles. By matching up colors, you create gems which you use to attack enemies. Different types of tiles come into play as you make your way through each battle. While the game is easy enough in the first few levels, it gets harder as more types of tiles are introduced, and the playing field gets increasingly hectic. There isn’t much in the way of replay value if you can finish the game, but the battles are randomly generated, and there are 4 different soundtracks to unlock. If you have an iPad, you’ll definitely want to play that version, as it’s touch-screen controls will be easier on your hands than a mouse. While Dungeon Hearts is a bit on the short side, at $3, the price is right.

Releasing in late 2010, Infinity Blade was a very significant game for the mobile market, especially the iPad. It was the first mobile game that made use of the Unreal Engine 3. With a serious graphical powerhouse engine behind it, tablet systems would be on their way to being taken seriously as gaming devices. The game itself isn’t too shabby either. It provides an experience that is best suited towards mobile devices, although it tends to get a bit repetitious.
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Okay, what’s the most important part of any RPG, western or Japanese? Okay, yeah, the storyline, characters, and the battle system, but besides that? THE VILLAGE! Where else are your heroes going to go to get quests, restock items, hear the latest gossip, and lay their heads at night? Weather it’s Whiterun in Skyrim, The Town of Baron in Final Fantasy 4, Tristram in Diablo, Vizima in the Witcher, or even the Citadel in Mass Effect, the city/town/village is the glue the keeps the entire game together. Kairosoft’s downloadable title is one of the few games that simulates what goes on inside that village. You build a village from the ground up, building shops and houses for your residents. Your goal is to attract adventurers. These adventurers then go on quest that you give them, earn money, and (hopefully) spend it on your shops, thereby generating income for your village. You can hold special events, expand your town, and unlock new types of buildings. The only major issue with this is the one common to most business/city simulator games: once you begin to generate lots of income, the challenge disappears. Also you’re only in this for a high score. Even so, the game gets incredibly addictive, and you’ll love the 16-bit style retro graphics. If you got an iPhone or an Android, download this game and you’ll experience firsthand one of the most important, yet unappreciated parts of the role-playing-game genre.

I know how the world is going to end, and it ain’t pretty. It starts with one small bug known as…Hope. And not the Barack Obama kind either. You see, some unlucky schmuck in Indonesia gets infected by it after eating some bad cattle. Other than some mild insomnia and some nausea, the guy doesn’t think much of it. However, the virus is able to spread via insects and tainted livestock, and other people in his village catch it. Of course some tourists from Britain come over, and after mingling with a few ‘working girls’, they inadvertently take the bug with them back to the United Kingdom. Before the summer, the bug has evolved quite a bit, as now that nausea turns to vomiting, those coughs turn to pneumonia, and anemia begins to develop within the blood streams of those effected. This gains the attention of the international community, but the virus continues to develop new strains, making it harder and harder for scientists to keep up with it. Making matters worse, now Hope is being spread through air and water. As infections start showing up in first world countries like the U.S and Japan, it gets increasingly harder to keep a lid on the virus, as even our antibiotics are no longer enough to fight it. Affected citizens degenerate into outright insanity as whole governments are being shutdown to deal with the threat. By the end of the following year, there is no place on Earth that hasn’t been affected by Hope. The lucky ones are already dead. The ones left become living corpses as their bodies slowly degrade. Advanced dysentery shuts down their digestive systems as their stomach immediately reject any thing they try to eat. Humanity is left to die a slow, agonizing death within 2 years after the first infection.

That nightmarish scenario isn’t real thankfully. However, if it happens in Ndemic Creations/Miniclip’s Plague Inc, then you will have won the game. That’s right, your goal is to develop and evolve a super virus so that it will kill off all of humanity.
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We here at the Powet Municipal Court accuse the defendant, one 1337 Game Design of providing a fun and engaging 80s sitcom-style turn-based strategy experience, and we present this intro video as evidence.
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Vinnk interviews an Angel about this digitally-based collectible card game… without any actual cards!

http://www.moonga.com