Is it just me or does there seem to be a significant lack of creativity in the games this year compared to years past which have seen such masterpieces as Helsing's Fire, Space Invaders Infinity Gene, Eliss, Edge, and Dungeon Raid. In contrast, most recent games seem to be following the tried and true designs in formulaic ways - shooters, runners, platformers, sligshots, etc. What are some of the most recent exceedingly creative and ingenuous games that you have encountered this year?
I've got one in the works that I think is pretty creative. It will be a while before it is done though. I'm a one man development team so things take a while. The card game I released this year, although nothing creative in the programming of it, it is a whole new type of solitaire game that I created myself, so that part of it was creative.
Time Ducks, Scribblenauts Remix (though technically the original DS game came out a long time ago), and AAAAaaaaaAAAAAaaaaAAAAA!!!! F=ma (I just guessed the number of "a"s, and also the original came out a long time ago too). Also every Indy game ever made ever. Done.
All excellent and creative games chimpman. In my original post I certainly forgot to mention Sword & Sworcery and World of Goo, some of the best to have appeared on the Platform. My predicament is simply that it seems following last December the featured releases each week have gotten less and less interesting, almost as though many developers have started to run out of creative energy, to the extent that I have started looking further back through old lists to purchase new games for myself. With very few exceptions it seems like there is not much on the horizon either. Of course, I would like more than anything to be proved wrong as I would love to see some good recommendations of new and forthcoming games that are striking in their creativity, ingenuity, and/or narrative.
Now, if Steph Therion would finally release Faraway, I think that would just about make my year ... http://www.playfaraway.com/
Didn't waking mars come out this year? Think it's a great game. I'm still buying 2 or 3 games a week. So far been a great 5 months of ios gaming this year
I haven't played Waking Mars yet - would you say that it is a fairly unique affair or just a different take on the cave flyer/exploration formula?
It's still early in the year *checks phone* it's May already :O I think you might be right. Summer should have some great games. And I agree that free-to-play is ruining some great games, but is also making some games more accessible and cheap that use the IAP non obtrusively.
Let's see, there's Waking Mars, Smash Cops, The Hacker, Amoebattle, Crow, Polymer, On the Wind, and Incoboto just off the top of my head. I'd say it's looking like a good year in terms of creativity.
Pizza vs. Skeletons (came out in February). If that's not 'creative' enough for you I don't know what could ever be.
It depends on how you count (totally "new" idea or just a great game which is released this year). There already a few good games listed here. Some amazing games launched for ios this year e.g. Ghost Phantom (I know, it's a port but honestly, I never heard of it before) or crow or waking mars etc.