Freemium Articles on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog

Daily iPhone App: Chip Chain is a great, free matching game

by Mike Schramm (Nov 13th, 2012)

Chip Chain is a great game, and considering that it's free (there are in-app purchases, but I didn't find them overly invasive at all), it's probably well worth a download no matter what. As much as the game is polished and professional, it hasn't yet caught me up in its mechanics, and I'm ...

Neil Young leaves Ngmoco

by Mike Schramm (Oct 26th, 2012)

Well it's the end of an era for one of iOS' first big companies. It was just about four years ago that I posted here in this very space that former EA executive Neil Young (no relation) was going to start up a company called ng:moco, and it was soon after that he published the breakout hit ...

Daily iPhone App: Eyelord has your fill of squishy orb matching

by Mike Schramm (Oct 24th, 2012)

Eyelord is the latest title from the folks at Secret Exit, whose game Zen Bound and its sequel you probably know well. Zen Bound was a well-produced game with a really excellent design, and Eyelord follows that trend, with a simple mechanic held up by triple-A quality production. The game is ...

Daily iPhone App: Ocarina 2 makes for more virtual tunes

by Mike Schramm (Jun 25th, 2012)

I'll be honest -- since the first Ocarina app came out, I've become a fan of Smule, the company behind it. Its mix of creative energy and technical know-how is a great match for Apple and a good example of software made well. But I have never really been a fan of Ocarina the app, just because I ...

Pocket Planes gets a trailer, looks great

by Mike Schramm (May 23rd, 2012)

I first saw Pocket Planes, Nimblebit's next freemium title, running at GDC earlier this year. Being a huge fan of both Pocket Frogs and Tiny Tower, I can't wait to see it in action on my iPhone and iPad. Unfortunately, the game's not out yet (it's still "coming soon"), but Nimblebit has ...

Dear Aunt TUAW: Help me remote-control my Mac mini from my iPad

by Erica Sadun (Apr 17th, 2012)

Dear Aunt TUAW, So, I bought the new iPad hoping it would replace my need for a Mac. It's great, but just not quite there. I am wanting to set up a high end Mac mini at home to run OSX on my iPad via remote access. There seems to be a lot of remote access apps. What do you think is the ...

Daily iPhone App: Ion Racer crashes through for SGN

by Mike Schramm (Mar 30th, 2012)

Ion Racer is the latest title from SGN, which is a collection companies assembled by MySpace founder Chris DeWolfe. I recently met with DeWolfe, who shared his thoughts on social networking. While it propelled MySpace and music in the beginning (around 2008), DeWolfe had suspicions about where ...

Handcircus set to return to iOS with free game based on Okabu

by Mike Schramm (Mar 29th, 2012)

Simon Oliver's Handcircus studio was one of the biggest winners in the early days of the App Store. His game Rolando was originally published by Ngmoco back before the company went completely bonkers with social and free-to-play casual games. After Rolando 2 sort of sputtered out into the ...

Daily iPad App: Kingdoms of Camelot: Battle for the North is a freemium gem

by Mike Schramm (Mar 15th, 2012)

Many of my fellow gamers look down on the "set-it-and-forget-it" style of social freemium games, but I have a soft spot in my heart for them. For me, the genre's appeal started with We Rule a few years ago, and continued with Battle Nations and Dragonvale. There's a definite addictiveness and ...

Shadow Government tries to combine real-world policy with casual gameplay

by Mike Schramm (Mar 14th, 2012)

Shadow Government was probably the most fascinating game I saw at GDC. I should probably clarify that: I didn't see much of the game in action, but what I did see showed off an excellently designed UI and some good looking (if a little complicated) Farmville-style game mechanics. The most ...

Daily iPhone App: Ultimate Battle Zombies is a freemium zombie throwdown

by Mike Schramm (Mar 12th, 2012)

I unfortunately made the mistake of overbooking myself for interviews last week at GDC, so I didn't get to see developer Brian Robbins' panel on how to put together money for making iPhone games. But I did get to meet up with him later in the week, and he showed me what's going on with his ...

EA previews titles from Chillingo and Firemint: New Flight Control, Burnout Crash, more

by Mike Schramm (Mar 11th, 2012)

EA had a large suite set up at GDC last week to show off its various new and recent offerings. Here's a quick roundup of what the company is working on for iOS, including among all of its recent acquisitions: PopCap, Firemint, and Chillingo. PopCap was up first -- the popular casual games ...

Imangi finds success, and more choices, with Temple Run

by Mike Schramm (Mar 10th, 2012)

Imangi Studios' Keith Shepherd and Natalia Luckyanova have been making solid games on iOS for years now, from their original hit Harbor Master and their charming dual-stick shooter Max Adventure. But it wasn't until Temple Run this past year (which I first saw in an off-the-record prototype form ...

Halfbrick working on new iOS game, 1.3 update for Jetpack Joyride

by Mike Schramm (Mar 6th, 2012)

Halfbrick Studios' Phil Larsen is a happy guy. Not only has his company scored a huge hit with Fruit Ninja (with over a million copies sold on Xbox Kinect alone), but the studio's Jetpack Joyride is a hit as well, garnering over 19 million across various free and paid incarnations. Halfbrick, says ...

Twitter app, Cut the Rope, SpellTower, SpellCraft School of Magic all updated

by Mike Schramm (Feb 21st, 2012)

We don't usually cover every single update that arrives on the App Store, simply because there are so many apps out there and so many developers working hard all the time. But a number of very popular apps have updated recently, so here's a few big apps with lots of new content to see. The ...