I am the Earl of Zombwich

Somewhere in my voluminous cellar full of board games, I’ve got a version of this that I bought from Past Times many years ago and which is simply called The Viking Game. Presumably this was because the original name, Hnefatafl, wouldn’t have attracted many customers in a posh UK knick-knack chain, and Centurion Games have taken that thought process to its logical conclusion, giving their iPod version the altogether snappier – and more informative – moniker of Zombwich.

The core of the temporarily-free game (which in the iOS incarnation has been simplified from the orifinal lineup of 24-vs-12 down to a punchy 8-vs-5) is capturing opposing pieces. Each side controls pieces which move like a castle in chess – covering as many squares as they like either horizontally or vertically – and capture an opposing piece by sandwiching it between two of their own side in immediately adjacent squares. But here, some of the pieces are ZOMBIES!!!!!!

(Super) Marble (Roll) madness

It’s surprising that on a format with both tilt and (depending on generation) gyroscope controls, we haven’t seen more Marble Madness knockoffs. There are plenty of 2D tilting-and-rolling games but remarkably few utilising the third dimension to channel Atari’s 1984 cult classic, and that may be at least partly because Super Marble Roll pretty much nailed it first try.

An App Store veteran with over 18 months service under its belt, Super Marble Roll recently went free for the first time ever. What we’re saying here is that you should go and download it now, yeah?

Fruit Nonja

Even if we hadn’t been going to cover blatant Fruit-Ninja-but-not knockoff Cut Cut Boom Pro (which is temporarily available for free) just so we could make the awesome pun above that you’re chuckling over even as we speak, we might have had to do it just for the irresistible update info:

“What’s New In Version 1.2

Retina MAX
Incredible bang”

Heck, for that we’ll even let them off with a marketing-department screenshot. It’s a fun little game, whose main point of difference from Fruit Ninja is the presence of preset patterns, whereby groups of animals helpfully fly in formation to enable you to slash the feathers/fur off lots of them in one swipe for tasty bonus points. (If you’re one of the four people outside Japan who ever played Juggler DS – it’s right at the end of the feature in that link – you might even get a little bonus extra deja vu.)

There’s an endless mode and a 90-second score attack, and it’s all very well done for a clone, with bags of character and fancy-face Retina graphics. Just like Fruit Ninja it’s a three-misses-or-one-bomb affair to end your game, so even when you’re cruising comfortably you’d better be giving it your full attention or your hubris will become your nemesis. And nobody wants that.

Games We Would Have Written

…About Properly If Their Developers Hadn’t Provided Such Piss-Poor Excuses For Screenshots, But Which Are Very Good And You Should Download Anyway While They’re Free (ie Now) So The Stupid Idiots Don’t Make Any Money, Alongside A Picture Of Something Somehow Thematically Related Which Is Less Likely To Hideously Disfigure Our Nice Website Than Their Butt-Ugly Marketing Shots.

#5: Train Conductor

Podgamer would like to apologise to sensitive viewers for the completely unnecessary repetition of the phrase “shit-fuck” in the above image, and also in this sentence.

NB: Not "chess on speed"

This is a real favourite of mine. I used to play chess when I was a wee laddie back home in Scotchland, but in this fast-moving modern world I don’t know anyone who has the attention span/mental discipline for it any more. Speed Chess (or Chess – The Speedgame, as it appears to have clumsily renamed itself), currently selling for the bargain price of 0p ($0.00/€0,00) is the perfect solution.

The picture tells the story, really. The rules are the same as normal chess, but you only have five pawns and one of everything else. You can play against another human or three levels of CPU opponent, and it took me about 40 games to beat it even at “Student” (the lowest). The move clock can be set to 20 seconds (the default), 60 seconds or off, which somewhat defeats the point. Apart from the fact that it says “Times up” if you let the clock run out, it’s excellently presented and generally lovely.

I can think of literally nothing else to tell you about Speed Chess. Bye!

Games We Would Have Written

…About Properly If Their Developers Hadn’t Provided Such Piss-Poor Excuses For Screenshots, But Which Are Very Good And You Should Download Anyway While They’re Free (ie Now) So The Stupid Idiots Don’t Make Any Money, Alongside A Picture Of Something Completely Unrelated That’s Less Likely To Hideously Disfigure Our Nice Website Than Their Crap-Ugly Marketing Shots.

#4: Fare City

Woah! Those funky little taxis look like Pac-Man crying!

Fun For Free, Crap For Cash

It’s another exciting new series! This time we’ll be highlighting games which are hopelessly flawed, but still entertaining in a slightly rubbish sort of way as long as you didn’t have to fork out any money on them. Today’s temporarily-acceptable title: Chop Chop Soccer.

It’s a daft, fast-moving four-a-side football game, beautifully presented (Retina graphics, multiple venues and camera orientations, quick games and tournaments, action replays) but hamstrung by the absurd randomness of the controls, which reduce you to swiping wildly all over the screen in the hope of getting a lucky bounce before you’re instantly slide-tackled. You’d be justifiably miffed if you’d bought it at its previous prices of [£1.79] or [£1.19], but when you’re getting it for nothing you can just enjoy its silly playground kickabout antics. It’s FFF, CFC! (Pronounced “fiffcuff” – the last ‘c’ is silent.)

World Series Of Poker Hold'Em Legend: Liquor in the rear

Speaking as someone who’s tried pretty much all of them, World Series Of Poker Hold’Em Legend is the best poker game on the App Store* by roughly the width of the Atlantic. It plays a very decent game of poker, with an excellent career mode and some terrific local and internet multiplayer, but the real standout feature is the speed. You can skip past almost anything with a quick tap of the screen, so if you’ve folded your hand you can be playing the next one inside three seconds, rather than sitting around forever waiting for the CPU players to finish it. (You can, of course, watch the hand play out in full if you want to.)

You can take down an entire tournament this way in about eight minutes, making it the perfect portable poker pal. The only way it could be MORE perfect, in fact, is if it was free. Which, by fortunate chance, it currently (and temporarily) is. You know what to do with an open door, don’t you?

(Almost) cashless racing

If you liked the sound of EA’s overhead-view hillbilly dirt-ride Reckless Racing when we reviewed it a few days ago, but were put off by the small amount of content available for the [£1.79] asking price, then we’ve totally got some good news for you.

Sadly it’s not that it’s had another half-dozen tracks added to it, but that the price has been brutally hacked down to a mere [59p]. For that it’s practically worth having just to show off the sparkly teeny-tiny graphics to people. If you’re, y’know, really shallow. And you have a 4th-gen machine. And don’t mind playing every track several times on really easy settings before you can have a go at the hard opponents. But frankly we’d give them that much just to encourage the excellent control options. 59p!

Eat my (Far)goal

I always wanted to get into a Rogue game, but every one I ever tried was so hideously, impenetrably complex that I gave up within minutes. Then I tried Sword Of Fargoal, and was so impressed with its lemony whiteness that I bought the company. (By which I mean I bought a Twix. Mm, Twix.)

Anyway, the only thing I don’t like about Sword Of Fargoal is that it’s a teeny bit cramped on the iPhone screen, which makes moving around the dungeon slightly more strenuous than it would be in a perfect world where men lived alongside men in peace and harmony and Twixes grew on every tree.

So it’s exceptionally good news that the enhanced iPad version, Sword Of Fargoal Legends, has just had its price all slashed – presumably with said sword – from a fearsome [£3.99] all the way down to an absurdly bargulous [59p]. If you bought it now, you’d have enough money left for a whole bag of Twix Treatsizes at the supermarket tomorrow. Mm, Twix.