CAVE CO.,LTD.

Bullet hell experts Cave have today announced their next forthcoming iOS shooter Dodonpachi Blissful Death. Known as Dodonpachi Dai Ou Jou in Japan, it's the fourth game in the Donpachi series and was followed up with Dodonpachi Dai Fukkatsu several years later, which we know as [$7.99/Lite] here on the US App Store. There aren't any details just yet for Dodonpachi Blissful Death, but based on Cave's previous iOS releases I think it's pretty safe to assume a few things. It will likely include an arcade mode that stays faithful to the original release as well as a special Smartphone mode that has been retooled for touch screens and given some additional features. While most of Cave's iOS releases follow this formula, they bucked that trend with their last release [$4.99/Lite], which was more or less just a direct port of the arcade version. This wasn't exactly a bad thing, as the arcade game was (and is) amazingly fun, but I've grown to really like the special Smartphone modes that Cave puts so much thought into. Hopefully we'll see this in Dodonpachi Blissful Death. Beyond that, you can expect multiple ship types, weapon augmenters called Element Dolls, insane combo scoring, and hidden loops and bosses. So basically, tons of Cave shmup goodness. Really great news too, considering Cave has been contemplating focusing more on less hardcore, more social games. Glad to see them still bringing great titles to iOS. As soon as we have more information on Dodonpachi Blissful Death's arrival on the App Store, like pricing and release date, we'll be sure to let you know. For now though, it's probably safe to hit up our forums and start drooling. Dear game lovers, We are very excited to announce the release of “Tiny Escape”, our new game for iPhone this week end Tiny Escape is an addictive adventurous game, with loads of features and extremely addictive gameplay. Gameplay - You take the form of the saviors(Super heroes) in this game to help Tiny (The adventurous bee) to escape from the dangerous world of enemies. The game gets additively interesting with many power-ups and bonuses to acquire as you proceed further. Interesting features of the game : Ten Challenging game world : Check out the Official Trailer of the game : Youtube link |   #3   Yesterday, 01:47 PM Senior Member iPad 2, OS 4.x Join Date: Jul 2010 Location: Read More

Here's some unfortunate news. Eurogamer reports that Japanese developer CAVE is switching up its strategy following some disappointing earnings from the first half of their fiscal year, which for them starts on the first of June. As a result, they've downgraded their forecasts for the rest of the year, which runs until the end of May, and have reportedly put some of their current titles on hold to allocate more resources into "social games", according to the company's recently released earnings report summarized in English by Andriasang. Now, us iOS gamers associate CAVE with their awesome App Store shooters like [$4.99/Lite], [$7.99/Lite], and [$11.99/Lite]. I don't really like thinking about the developer of some of the most hardcore games around suddenly switching gears to the surging social/casual games space. However, CAVE has a separate division focused on their mobile titles and I would imagine they are reasonably pleased with the performance of their games on iOS and Android. I think the problem lies more in getting people to buy a somewhat niche product like a bullet hell shooter on the home consoles for $60 or more. Their earnings report indicates that in the face of a stagnant retail gaming market, retailers are more hesitant to buy and stock as many games as CAVE had projected them to. It's not indicated which projects are being put on hold, and hopefully we'll see CAVE continuing to bring their fantastic library of shooters to iOS, as well as more original titles like [$6.99/Lite]. It will be interesting to see what direction CAVE moves in both the mobile and console space in 2012, and we'll definitely be keeping our eye out for any new developments.   #12   Yesterday, 09:09 PM Member iPhone 4, OS 4.x Join Date: Sep 2011 Location: Russia, Moscow Posts: 35 Wow, really nice game . It reminded me Chainreaxion for Symbian (owned Nokia 5800 before iPhone) but this game isn't based only on so called random factor. Rules are very simple but gameplay is challenging - it takes many tries to get good and not die on first 10 levels. Plus it's free. Too bad it doesn's support custom music or maybe just iPod music and internet radio apps. And of course you could add some tracks from 8-bit era or listen to Russian Dancing Men game's final song - it's just amazing! As a fan of Crystal War, I Read More

Developer CAVE is looking to make it a bullet hell holiday for its fans by getting in on the year end sale bandwagon. CAVE just recently dropped Bug Princess [$4.99/Lite] into the App Store, a game which we liked a whole bunchwhen it released, and thought was quite reasonably priced to boot. Now, you can pick up all of their previous major iOS titles at a discounted rate from now until January 10th. (iPad 2 Only) If you aren't sure about a purchase, each and every one of these games has a lite version you can check out, and there are even versions of Espgaluda II that are split into separate "Arcade" and "iPhone" standalone apps that are available for a cheaper price. Also, make sure you're equipped with at least 3rd generation hardware or above, and in the case of Espgaluda II HD, you'll need an iPad 2 specifically to run that bad boy. At any rate, all of CAVE's games are high quality offerings worthy of your dollar, so be sure to hit up this sale while it lasts. Hey Guys, Here is the trailer: Here are few codes up for grap: Jelly Fusion (iPhone) PTHHRTFJRWJM KHXFA47AJ6PJ RJFHXPY77PJF FYA37FMTERPA If you grap a code, please review the game on iTunes and reply to the thread. We have also released the iPad version of the game Jelly Fusion HD Let me know what you think....   #1   12-12-2011, 12:37 AM Junior Member Join Date: Dec 2011 Posts: 8 What's New in Version 2.0 1. Improved better graphics for winning; 2. Added vibration when being "sprayed" by beer! The famous Beer Roulette drinking game is now on iPhone. Shake up your beer and see who gets to enjoy the beer and who gets sprayed! Obviously, for a drinking game you need at least two players, but the game does support up to six players. You can, certainly, play on your own, provided that you're fairly far gone to begin with. To play it you pick one can of beer for each round and shake it up vigorously, then return it to the others and spin the six cans so that they are shuffled until nobody knows which is the shaken-up one. Now the fun part, each player then chooses one can of beer and opens it, in reality, the players should hold it so that the one who got the Read More

It's no secret that iOS game developers enjoy a good holiday sale, and this week they've pulled out all the stops, dropping the prices on hundreds of titles. We've sifted through the sales and highlighted the best games below (and it's ). If you've had your eye on any of these, this is a great time to pull the trigger. Free Call of Mini: Zombies - Review - 3/4 - Free (was $0.99) - Open in iTunes Hero of Sparta II - Review - 4/4 - Free (was $4.99) - Open in iTunes iStunt 2 - Snowboard - Review - 4/4 - Free (was $0.99) - Open in iTunes Jetpack Joyride - Review - 3/4 - Free (was $0.99) - Open in iTunes MinoMonsters - Review - 3/4 - Free (was $0.99) - Open in iTunes Ninja Fishing - Review - 3/4 - Free (was $0.99) - Open in iTunes Sentinel 3: Homeworld - Review - 4/4 - Free (was $2.99) - Open in iTunes Stenches: A Zombie Tale of Trenches - Review - 3/4 - Free (was $0.99) - Open in iTunes Sales The Adventures of Tintin - Review - 4/4 - $4.99 (was $6.99) - Open in iTunes Amazing Breaker - Review - 4/4 - $0.99 (was $1.99) - Open in iTunes Amazon - Hidden Expedition - Review - 4/4 - $0.99 (was $3.99) - Open in iTunes Aralon: Sword and Shadow HD - Review - 4/4 - $0.99 (was $6.99) - Open in iTunes Backstab - Review - 3/4 - $0.99 (was $6.99) - Open in iTunes Battlefield: Bad Company 2 - Review - 4/4 - $0.99 (was $2.99) - Buy It Broken Sword - The Smoking Mirror: Remastered - Review - 3/4 - $0.99 (was $5.99) - Buy It Chaos Rings - Review - 4/4 - $6.99 (was $12.99) - Open in iTunes Chaos Rings Ω - Review - 4/4 - $5.99 (was $11.99) - Open in iTunes Civilization Revolution - Review - 4/4 - $0.99 (was $6.99) - Open in iTunes Dead Space - Review - 4/4 - $0.99 (was $6.99) - Buy It Deathsmiles - Review - 3/4 - $6.99 (was $11.99) - Buy It Desert Zombie Last Stand - Review - 3/4 - $0.99 (was $5.99) - Buy It Driver - Review - 3/4 - $0.99 (was $2.99) - Open in iTunes Edge Extended - Review - 4/4 - $0.99 (was $2.99) - Buy Read More

This week on The TouchArcade Show, we power through topics like Jack LaLanne's juicer to bring you the latest, hottest, and radicalest in iOS gaming. At the top, we discuss the upcoming iTunes Connect freeze. Later, we dig into new games such as Sin or Win, Sonic CD, and Kinectimals, and much later, we give a few lucky fan e-mailers their moment in the spotlight. Overall, this was a wicked show to do, so we hope you love it. If you'd like to give us a listen, do so via the handy-dandy links below. If you like what you heard, consider subscribing to us -- The TouchArcade Show is on iTunes and the Zune Marketplace for your convenience. Want our shows the second they hit the net? This is how to go about that, folks. Here's your show notes: GAMES JARED'S KITTY KORNER FRONT PAGE Christmas ain't going to stop this train, by the way. Look forward to another TouchArcade Show next week AND a bonus episode earlier in the week. Have fun this weekend, guys. I agree that this is a very nice game. I’ve played it for a while now, and they still haven’t even asked me for any money yet. Their freebie section is very generous. Nobody who doesn’t love this game will have to pay anything, which, I think, makes for the best possible business model. You’re right QuickWit, that the time and the number of moves isn’t tracked. I see this as a plus, though. I see this as a design decision, rather than an omission. It lends itself to a more relaxing game, a more zen-like experience. I can see the value in adding a scoring system like you’ve suggested, but I hope that it’s implemented as an option. This is a game that I’d rather not play competitively. As for the “hiding the dot” element, I agree that it’s nothing spectacular. It does add a little something, though. And this added gameplay element makes apparent another nice little design decision in the game. When you’ve “solved” a certain level, it’s not necessarily over. If you don’t hit the “Next” button right away, you can continue playing. You can “unsolve” it and find a different solution, or you can move around the other blocks to try and uncover the missing dot. In every other game that I’ve played that has a “find this thing” element, if Read More

In April of last year, iOS gamers scored big when longtime Japanese developer CAVE decided to task their mobile division with bringing some of their classic shooter titles to the Apple App Store. All of these games – , , and – received critical acclaim from media and gamers alike, and set the benchmark for what we should expect from our bullet hell shmups on the App Store. In between two of those releases, CAVE decided to branch out into something different, and brought out an iOS exclusive game called . It was a departure from their typical offerings as it was a dual-stick action game, but it retained the frantic nature of their bullet hell games extremely well and was equally adored amongst critics and fans. Now we have CAVE’s latest release, which kind of brings things full circle. Mushihimesama is a vertical shmup released in Japanese arcades back in 2004. It’s seen a sequel with Mushihimesama Futari, and a spinoff title called Puzzle! Mushihimetama. Bug Panic on iOS is actually based in the Mushihimesama universe, featuring the same female main character and insect-based enemies. Now the original Mushihimesama title is available on the App Store as Bug Princess [$4.99]. Typically with CAVE’s iOS ports, there will be the full original arcade version of the game along with an enhanced Smartphone Mode which contains additional things like scoring tweaks, different enemies or ships, and alternate ways to play the game. Bug Princess bucks this trend and doesn’t have a reworked Smartphone Mode, but the original game had three different modes anyway so there are still different ways to play through the game. The three modes in Bug Princess are Original, Maniac, and Ultra. Sadly, the special Arranged mode from the PlayStation 2 port didn’t make it to the iOS version. Gameplay across each of the 3 modes is similar. You can pick from 3 different ships to play as, each offering a different firing style. One sends a concentrated spray of bullets in a straight stream, one fires less powerful shots but in an incredibly wide stream, and the third ship fires both straight ahead and diagonally at the same time giving a balance between shot coverage and power. You’ll play through 5 stages absolutely filled to the brim with enemies and bullets flying everywhere, along with crazy mid and end of level boss fights. In every mode, you can Read More

Back in 2004, CAVE released the manic shooter Mushihimesama (Bug Princess translated) into arcades to a warm reception from shmup fans, and two years later released a sequel called Mushihimesama Futari, which was also ported to Xbox 360 in 2009. Then, as most of you probably know, an iOS spinoff based on the Mushihimesama series called [$6.99/Lite] was released late last year to critical acclaim. It wasn't the typical CAVE scrolling shooter, and instead was more of a dual-stick action game with similar bullet hell craziness and over-the-top enemies. Today, CAVE has released a teaser video for their new forthcoming iOS game, and it looks like they're going back to that original title from 2004 Mushihimesama and bringing it to the App Store as Bug Princess this winter. We don't have many solid details on Bug Princess just yet, but based on CAVE's previous iOS efforts you can bet that there will be all sorts of additional functionality over the original game, like the retooled "smartphone" modes in their other shooters. What we do know is that the game will require at least 3rd generation hardware, which is expected by now from a CAVE release, and that the game is scheduled to launch "winter 2011". While winter is a vague timeframe, the good news is that there's really only about a month and a half left in 2011, so as long as they stay on schedule we should be playing Bug Princess on our iPhones and iPod touches in the next several weeks. iTunes Link: Astro Bang HD is a very cool 3d game. Fly your spaceship around different planets. Destroy asteroids. Terminate different enemies using guns, bombs and missiles. Collect upgrades, bonuses and tokens. - awesome 3d graphics - 18 levels - 6 different planets - different enemies and bosses - campaign and arcade modes - Game Center support - leaderboards and achievements Enjoy Astro Bang HD! A few replies to other comments before I make any comments of my own... Quote: Originally Posted by The game tries to add a little extra element by hiding a "dot" somewhere on the screen, but this is really not that great. After the first few rounds you move pretty much every piece anyway so finding the dot is not a big deal. Quote: Originally Posted by The game could use a time element or possibly a "number of moves" scoring system to Read More

iPad Only App $13.99 Our Review By Jacob Siegal on November 2nd, 2011 Rating: :: BULLET HEAVEN The most balanced, polished, attractive top-down shooter on the App Store makes its way into high definition without missing a beat. Developer: Price: $13.99 Version: 1.0.0 App Reviewed on: iPad 2 Graphics / Sound Rating: User Interface Rating: Gameplay Rating: Re-use / Replay Value Rating: The key to any good bullet hell, top-down shooter such as ESPGALUDA II HD is balance. CAVE has proven in the past that they are capable of providing incredible, polished, unique shooters, and this re-release of the iPhone classic proves that this company can perfect the 2D shooter genre on any platform. For all the nitty gritty details of the original release, our review of ESPGALUDA II should suffice, but it is important to point out some of the updates that have occurred since the game has been translated to the bigger screen. The most important change is the splitting of the game. ESPGALUDA II HD can be purchased piecemeal in either an Arcade or Smartphone mode standalone. The full game costs $13.99 on the iPad 2, but each of the individual mode versions only cost $6.99, giving curious gamers a way in without spending the full amount. Each of these versions only contains one of the modes, while the full game contains both. The two modes, Smartphone and Arcade, are very similar to the previous iPhone and Arcade modes. Smartphone mode does now contain the brand new HD graphics along with an updated soundtrack – quite a stellar electronica soundtrack, in fact. Other than that, the package is pretty much identical. In terms of the actual game, there is no question CAVE has created the undisputed king of iOS bullet-hell shooters with its flawless translation of ESPGALUDA II. The action is constant but not overwhelming. Enemies crowd the screen from all angles across five substantial levels, each capped off by a boss more impressive than the last. There are three characters to choose from, each with a unique shooting pattern and different ending cutscenes. The special attacks allow for the use of a shield or to slow down time to to destroy bullets, gathering more diamonds to be used for special attacks. This is not a very long game. Completing all five levels will take most gamers less than an hour. That being said, this game is all Read More

By Rob Rich on August 5th, 2011 Cave's awesome new shooter is about to get even more awesome. Oh, and they've also announced a couple of games. This morning I got to sit-in on a streaming presentation by Cave World as they announced the particulars of their pending DEATHSMILES update. Options have been added, settings have been tweaked and lots of extra content has been tossed in that should keep the fans quite happy for a while. And they announced another game or something. The update will include two new special features: First, players can unlock new costumes for Princess Tiara in iPhone Mode (eight plus her default, it looks like) by fulfilling “special conditions” such as clearing Normal Mode. The second addition is a jigsaw puzzle, similar to the one found in . Players can unlock pieces as they play and pick up equipment in-game and eventually put the whole thing together. What this accomplishes, aside from looking spiffy, wasn’t talked about, but it’s yet another carrot to keep players interested so it’s hardly a bad thing. As is the “hidden” BGM that can be unlocked by using some “special technique.” In addition, special DLC weapons will be available for purchase. One of the DLC weapons, the “Golden Horn,” was shown off and looked to be somewhat of a screen-clearing powerhouse. None of these weapons (ranging in price from $2.99 – $3.99) will be required for achievements or unlocking content, but Cave fans probably won’t be able to resist using guns from in their game. Last on the list of additions is a number of unspecified bug fixes and screen adjustment options. Now players will be able to shift the screen to the left or right in order to keep finger obscuring to a minimum, and the display can be reoriented (FINALLY) to accommodate those of us who hate holding our iPhones the wrong way. Oh come on, it’s totally awkward with the Home button on the left. Admit it. But updates to their newest shooter aren’t the only thing they had in store. Cave World producer Masa King, clad in a French maid uniform (seriously), showed off a trailer for their upcoming social sim game: Castle Creator. Castle Creator lets players create their own castle town in feudal Japan, register their location and “skirmish” with other players when their town is big enough. There’s no specific date yet, but Read More

Our Review By Rob Rich on July 26th, 2011 Rating: :: POSITIVELY RADIANT Cave releases great shooters. Cave released DEATHSMILES. The chain remains unbroken. Developer: Price: $11.99 Version: 1.0.0 App Reviewed on: iPhone 3GS Graphics / Sound User Interface Gameplay Re-use / Replay Value Given their track record, it’s almost impossible to imagine Cave providing iOS users with an experience that’s anything less than phenomenal. So it shouldn’t come as a surprise when I say that DEATHSMILES does absolutely nothing to break that hot-streak. In other words it’s yet another utterly fantastic 2D shooter. For the unfamiliar, DEATHSMILES is a 2D arcade shooter following the exploits of four monster-slaying angels as they cut a swath of destruction through the land of Gilverado. The game is broken up into multiple themed stages with three tiers of difficulty for each (in Arcade Mode), which should keep leaderboard fanatics busy. Each of the angels is playable, although aside from aesthetics and some minor differences in projectile patterns they all function the same. However, a fifth “angel” has been introduced specifically for the iOS version: Princess Tiara, who wields her own unique magic (i.e. her shots look different) and is the sole playable character in the also-new “iPhone Mode.” As much as I love to mindlessly blast stuff, I have to say the iPhone Mode is where I’ve been spending the bulk of my time. The controls and levels are the same as they are in Arcade Mode, but the inclusion of loot drops and purchasable equipment that can change Tiara’s stats make it feel like a much more full-bodied experience. That’s not to say that Arcade Mode isn’t worth playing, as it’s every bit as fun and hectic as the new mode, it just doesn’t have the same (albeit simple) depth. As for the overall game, Cave fans know exactly what to expect here: a high-quality shooter with lots of glowing bullets, explosions, points, particle effects and skulls (used to boost scores) everywhere. The controls are as tight and responsive as any iOS shooter could hope for, with movement fine-tuned to that indefinable sweet spot between speedy and accurate. And the horizontal scrolling combined with a button used for facing left and right breaks up what little monotony there could be with stages tossing enemies around from all sides. It’s every bit as chaotic and thrilling as it sounds. However, everything is not perfect Read More