Five A Day (Llamasoft, iOS, 10th April '12 [out now])

[Icarus]

Looks like Minter's next game is a Time Pilot variant, with a bit of Gemini Wing and Chariot mixed in.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZCG2kXuAbA
More details as it comes.

[TheSoundofRed]

Llamasoft iOS releases are some of the best arcade games on the platform.

Plus... who doesn't love fruit?

[emphatic]

Wow, I love the music.

[Frederik]

I´ve never played a Minter game before the iOS games, but I always really enjoyed their dreamy, LSD-infused visuals, interesting sound design and general wacky design that makes them really stand out from the other cookiecutter "retro" titles.

It´s a shame they never really controlled that well, though. I would kill for Minotron that I don´t have to control with these shitty touch swipes.

[BrianC]

It´s a shame they never really controlled that well, though. I would kill for Minotron that I don´t have to control with these shitty touch swipes.

The original Llamatron is freeware, is available at http://www.llamasoft.co.uk, and runs in dos box.

[Elixir]

This actually looks pretty good, my reasons for wanting an iPad keep growing by the day.

[Icarus]

5AD has been submitted to Apple, according to Minter's latest blog post, and should be out within the next few days. Wooo! Futari iOS and 5AD within a week of each other!
http://s349909351.websitehome.co.uk/blog/?p=225

[KidQuaalude]

Stoked for this. Gridrunner is my favourite shmup on iOS.

[Icarus]

5AD is out!
It's good!
Just bought it a few minutes ago and gave it a quick go, going to give it the once over now, and examine its ins-and-outs.

[Icarus]

Had a bit of time to play it, currently #4 with 760k to 5-5 (https://twitpic.com/987vs3) (top score is a shade under a mil at present).

Some notes:
- This is a pure survival and distance game. Unlike Gridrunner, and many of the other Llamasoft iOS shooters, lives are few and far between, so conserving them for as long as possible is of utmost importance.
- Stages are set as days, and are split into five segments, relevant to a time of day (morning, lunch, teatime etc), so we can number them as 1-1, 1-2, 1-3 etc. Each segment increases in difficulty, while each day has different graphical designs and enemy behavior. It appears that as you get closer to the fifth segment in each day, scoring potential via fruit/veg and minotaurs increases.
- The only way to get lives here is to get "five a day" - quite simply, ensuring you have at least one piece of fruit/veg at the end of all segments in a day.
- Scoring is fairly simple - enemies have a base value that is multiplied by a value relative to the amount of shield energy your ship has - max energy means a potential max enemy value of 3,200pts or so from chain-killing the fruit/veg carriers. You'll get points for each fruit/veg in the chain at the end of each segment, while you'll get over 3,000pts for each minotaur in the chain. I don't know if there's a way to make minotaur-carrying enemies appear just yet. One thing to note is that enemies will carry fruit/veg and minotaurs on an ever-shrinking tether - a timer basically - and once that tether is gone, the enemy absorbs it, meaning you lose the chance to pick up bonus points at the end of the stage.
- You can use the fruit/veg/minotaur chain that follows you as a weapon against medium enemies and segment bosses. It won't block bullets, mines or small flying enemies, however.
- Whenever you pick up a minotaur, your ship will fire a circle of bullets outward - this is not only a good defensive weapon (the number of bullets fired increases, and the movement speed of bullets decreases as you pick up more fruit), but it also serves to point out the direction of the segment boss, as the bullets closest to the boss are colored red. A fun way to kill a segment boss is to get a very slow moving circle of bullets, and then move the screen in such a way that every single bullet in the circle hits the boss.
- You pinball quite hard when you're hit by enemies and bullets/mines, though it seems you take more damage flying into an enemy. It seems that when you're in the middle of dying, you pinball around the screen - I wonder if you can do a fruit-save in a similar vein to Gridrunner Revolution's sheep-save?

I like 5AD. It's not as long as Gridrunner, but it poses its own set of challenges that are fun to deal with. Currently looking to get over 1mil in the game.

EDIT: Done it, with a bit of a fight. 1.09mil, Day 6-4. #1 overall at time of writing. https://twitpic.com/98arbg
Virtually everything medium-sized you see in previous stages appears in Day 6, but the scoring opportunities are quite nice.

[Drum]

Nice scoring, 'grats.

I love that they have the llamasoft oldies up on the site, gratis. Jeff Minter is delightful - I don't even care that he's a Brony.

[bcass]

I´ve never played a Minter game before the iOS games, but I always really enjoyed their dreamy, LSD-infused visuals, interesting sound design and general wacky design that makes them really stand out from the other cookiecutter "retro" titles.

It´s a shame they never really controlled that well, though. I would kill for Minotron that I don´t have to control with these shitty touch swipes.

All these iOS games are going to be released on PC (eventually).

[Vexorg]

I'm actually quite impressed with this one, even though it does tend to be occasionally cheap. I'd say some of the stuff is a bit weird, but that's pretty much par for the course in a Llamasoft game.

[JBC]

It's cute. My girlfriend is going to school for environmental sociology and as a side effect she's become obsessed with healthy, natural foods. This is like a combination of both our worlds here. I'm gonna gift it to her.