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Culture
Snacktaku Special Report: Hostess Struck Down, Fate of the Twinkie Uncertain
Stop reading this and go to the store. Buy all the Twinkies, Ho-Ho’s, Ding Dongs, Fruit Pies and chocolate cup cakes with the swirly line of “frosting” on top that you can afford. Take out a loan if you must. Hostess Brands, Inc., a national snacking institution for more than 80 years, is closing its…
By Mike Fahey -
Animal Legends Lets Me Control a Rogue Raccoon. That’s All I Ever Wanted.
Cute and colorful free-to-play social RPG Animal Legends from Appy Entertainment was released on iOS this week. It features a raccoon that stabs giant pink rabbits. There’s a rhino warrior and an owl wizard as well, but let’s focus on what’s important here—raccoon rogue. Raccoons are, hands down, my favorite animal. They are fluffy. They…
By Mike Fahey -
Now Facebook Games Can Create User Groups to Fill With ‘Add Me’ Posts
The second Zynga posts a message on the app page for a game like FarmVille 2 it fills with posts from people seeking friends to help them in-game. Now there’s a new feature in beta for Facebook developers that will allow for apps and games to create their own groups, giving players another place to…
By Mike Fahey -
The Odd Gentlemen Return With a Distinctively Different Music Puzzle Game
Way back in the golden days of 2010, small developer The Odd Gentlemen released a pie-collecting platform puzzler on Xbox Live Arcade and Steam called The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom. It was genius. Then The Odd Gentlemen disappeared into the mists, never to be seen again. Well, they did do a thing for PlayStation Home…
By Mike Fahey -
There’s an Official Pokemon Pokedex in the Japanese iTunes App Store
The North American iTunes store is chock full of amateur Pocket Monster catalogs, assembling data from the popular Nintendo creature collecting series. They might soon be obsolete, should the official Pokedex for iOS released today in Japan make its way stateside. From what I can gather from the app’s official page, the iOS Pokedex is…
By Mike Fahey -
This Striking Motion-Controlled iOS Boxing Game is Completely Unreal
Powered by Unreal Engine 3, Vivid Games’ Real Boxing is not just another pretty face waiting to be beaten into submission. It also uses your iPad, iPhone or iPad Touch’s camera to deliver surprisingly responsive motion-controlled boxing. If you don’t want to look completely silly throwing punches at your iDevice, Real Boxing is still an…
By Mike Fahey -
Stan Lee’s Latest Superhero Creation Has the Power to Fall From the Sky. Hey, Me Too!
Stan Lee has created (or “co-created”) countless superheroes over his long and illustrious career in the comics industry. Some of them have been fallen heroes. Pretty sure Verticus is his first falling hero. The evil alien Obliterators (so very Stan Lee) have breached the Earth’s core and planted a bomb that threatens the existence of…
By Mike Fahey -
Zynga Brings Ruby Blast to iPhone Today, Bubble Safari Coming Soon
I guess today is the day for popular Facebook games to come to iOS. First King.com’s Candy Crush Saga, and now Zynga’s increasingly popular gem tapper Ruby Blast arrives, tied-into but lacking the more recent features of its Facebook counterpart. Ruby Blast on Facebook is enjoying a period of increased popularity due to the recent…
By Mike Fahey -
This Week’s Windows Phone Charts: Windows Phone 8 Defeats Angry Birds Star Wars
Angry Birds Star Wars has topped the iPad charts, the Android charts and the iPhone charts since its release last week, but it doesn’t dominate the Windows Phone charts, thanks to Windows Phone 8. Or rather thanks to the game requiring Windows Phone 8, shiny new technology that isn’t exactly sending Windows Phone 7 owners…
By Mike Fahey -
Candy Crush Saga Triumphantly Travels to iOS
Earlier this year King.com brought its smash hit Facebook game Bubble Witch Saga to iOS, and there was much rejoicing, as well as a little gnashing of free time. Now it’s Candy Crush Saga‘s turn. Regularly showing up on the most played Facebook games list along with its older siblings, Candy Crush Saga is a…
By Mike Fahey -
Kixeye Thinks Zynga is After Its Trade Secrets, Files Cross-Complaint Against Social Gaming’s Minivan
Look at that face. It’s the face of Kixeye chairman and CEO Will Harbin. That is a face that means business. Now imagine it saying “Claiming that (Zynga’s) failed business practices could inform ours further establishes their complete lack of understanding of the gaming business.” And then he orders their execution. Last month Zynga filed…
By Mike Fahey -
Love Minimalist Pop Culture Iconography? Here is Your Free iPhone Game
If you look at a red and black square with two white dots and immediately think “Mickey Mouse”, then Icon Pop Quiz is for you. Reducing beloved pop culture characters, television shows and movies into simple colored squares is officially a thing, and where there’s an official thing there’s a game. In this case it’s…
By Mike Fahey -
ReviewsAverMedia Live Gamer HD: The Kotaku Review
Video capture devices confuse the hell out of me. For years I’ve wanted a hardware solution for PC video capture, perhaps something I could also hook a game console up to, but after a string of ill-informed purchases and a box full of cards that didn’t do what I wanted them to do, I settled…
By Mike Fahey -
The Unity Platform Gets Even More Impressive With Version 4.0
Version 4.0 of the Unity platform is available for purchase and download today. This is important, because eventually every game not made with the Unreal Engine will be made with Unity. I am only exaggerating a little bit. Unity is a cross-platform development engine that allows for developers to develop a game on one platform…
By Mike Fahey -
In the Intergalactic War Between Apple and Android, There Can Be Only One Victor
The smartphone wars rage across the universe, the warring factions locked in an endless battle to settle once and for all which is better, iPhone or Android. But wait… there is another. From YouTube’s Warialasky, creators of Tetris: The Movie, comes a fairly accurate representation of the current state of the smartphone market, with lasers.
By Mike Fahey -
TNNS is an Amazing Game, Right Down to Its iTunes Description
Over the past couple of days I’ve been playing the balls off of TNNS, Action Button Entertainment’s new paddle-ball game for iOS devices. It’s colorful, challenging and infinitely entertaining, and that has nothing to do with the involvement of frequent Kotaku contributor Tim Rogers Wait, that came out wrong. What I meant to say is…
By Mike Fahey -
This Week’s Android Charts: The Angry Birds Star Wars Escalate
At this point I am running out of Angry Birds Star Wars images, so I’ve started using Photoshop filters I normally wouldn’t touch. Hey look, it’s Water Paper. Kids love Water Paper. I knew Rovio’s latest bird-flinger would dominate the charts this week, but I didn’t take into consideration Android having both a paid and…
By Mike Fahey -
My Little Pony Progress Report: It’s Been One Week
Gameloft released the My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic game last Thursday. I started playing last Wednesday. One week later I am king of the ponies. It’s undisputed. Mostly undisputed. Level 40 is king, right? I’d like to keep the comments for this post mature and civil, so let me preface this post by mentioning…
By Mike Fahey
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