Zelda + a puzzle game = Dungeoned

I loved Zelda as a kid. Loved it. When my precious gold cartridge finally stopped saving my progress, it was a sad, sad, day. Of course it also served as a decent excuse for why I never beat the game. I have yet to come up with an excuse for not beating Dungeoned, the iOS game that combines elements of Zelda with portions of different puzzlers.

Make your way through tunnels and dungeons, gathering gold to not only move on to other levels, but to buy goodies between levels. At times, you also need to race against computer knights, all while avoiding some familiar-looking enemies. I've never been a big fan of role-playing games, but Dungeoned combines enough elements of different types of games, to be worth a second look.

Dungeoned in the App Store.

Reba McEntire will love Death Worm for the iPhone

Nothing takes me back to a more innocent time than the ridiculous movie, Tremors, starring Kevin Bacon and Reba McEntire. For those unfamiliar, the desert town that they call home is under attack from giant worms underneath the ground that will stop at nothing to eat/kill the humans. Today's game, Death Worm, has a similar scenario, except you take on the role of the worm, set on eating people, camels, airplanes, etc.

There are some apps that come across my e-desk for review that I can't help but roll my eyes, and this was one of them, initially. I have to say, the rapid gameplay, ridiculous premise, and fun power-ups will have you playing far longer than you intended, and probably far longer than you would ever admit. 

When one round ends, the next one begins: no time for cut scenes here... there are people and things to be eaten!

Here's a look:

Death Worm in the App Store.

Dawn of the Dead brings tons and tons of zombies to the iPhone

Forget the campiness of the original Dawn of the Dead movie. In the Dawn of the Dead iOS game, it is all about wiping out as many zombies as you need to, to complete each round's mission. Some games start slow, but not this one. Almost immediately you have to start fending off enemies using a baseball bat or gun (with more weapons to be found along the way) and make your way to a designated goal. 

The graphics and sound effects are fine, and the action keeps you from getting bored with what amounts to the same type of gameplay throughout the game. And no, you don't need to know anything about the movie franchise to enjoy the game. Just know that the zombies are bad, and you should kill them (again, I suppose) and you'll be just fine.

Here's a look:

Dawn of the Dead in the App Store.

Clay 'n' Rain brings an artistic touch to iPhone gaming

Roger Ebert took some heat when he said he didn't think video games count as an art form. Maybe he would concede though, that sometimes art forms are part of creating video games. Case in point: Clay 'n' Rain.

Clay 'n' Rain, is a fairly simple, straight-forward, accelerometer-based game: you angle the phone back and forth to place water droplets into pots, and growing the plants in the pots. Look a little closer though... Notice anything unusual about the elements of the game? The developers made all of the elements in the game out of clay first, then photographed them to be part of the game.

The amount of time and effort that went into this, is impressive. Here's hoping they can use some of those clay creations, in other, more daring iOS games.

Clay 'n' Rain in the App Store.

Color Swatches could use some more... colors

A quick perusal of the color chip samples at the local hardware store can be daunting, let alone all the colors in the Pantone library.

I had hoped Color Swatches would help make sense of all those different shades of gray, and every other color.

The heart of the app is a color matching game. You are given a name, and four colors from which to choose the one matching the name. Unfortunately the exercise is made laughably easy by the color options given. For example, you might get "Forest Green" as  the color name, and of your four choices, only one will be any shade of green. Hint: that's the forest green.

It feels more like an exercise in discovering there are more names for colors than you realized than a learning tool, and I doubt the iPhone screen is color-accurate enough to use it to accurately match colors you find everyday.

Here's a look:

Color Swatches in the App Store.