Fly With Me [99¢] from Electronic Arts may resemble a cute kids game about a flying bird, but it's not actually as simplistic as it seems. You tap the screen to make the little bird fly and try to collect three stars and reach the birdhouse at the end of the level. This may sound easy, but the catch is you have a limited number of wing-flaps available.

Each time you tap the screen to flap your wings, your flap-meter decreases slightly. Once that meter is depleted, you'll literally fall out of the sky with an amusing animation as you splat into the ground. So, you quickly learn to be more conservative with your flaps, and glide whenever possible. NOT flapping is a key part of this game. Your flap-meter must also be replenished by eating bees, otherwise you won't have enough flaps to reach the end.

At the top of the screen is a progress bar. This shows your position within the level, but also marks the location of three stars so you know when to watch out for them. These stars are used to unlock chapters. There's also one golden gear to collect per level. One you've found 45 golden gears a more powerful metallic robot bird is unlocked, or you can just buy it right away as an in-app purchase.

There's three chapters to play (fields, trees and tropical), offering 45 levels in total. You can play using four different birds, but first they'll need to be unlocked. There's also three challenge modes (one per chapter) which are unlocked once you gain enough stars. The challenge levels involve trying to fly as far as possible, and your score in that mode is measured in distance (meters).

Each level contains good winds to ride and bad brown air to avoid. These bad winds might do a loop-the-loop or carry you through an underground tunnel, which is interesting to watch but you can't control the bird while being blown along. While bee's are good to eat, the sick bugs should be avoided. As should predators, including big dangling bird-eating spiders, hungry fish and carnivorous plants.

Fly with Me has two disappointing features. First off, the frequent adverts for the games IAP offerings feel intrusive. After a couple of attempts at the same level, a full screen message appeared asking if I wanted to buy a robot bird (no thanks). Slightly later it asked if I was interested in paying to unlock all levels (Err, no thanks). Perhaps I want to purchase the easier kids mode? (No. Thank. You.) Then it starts over, trying to sell the IAP previously declined.

Secondly, the game reports back to EA, sending them data about game statistics, settings, incident or event data and feature preferences. I have no problem with this "usage sharing" functionality, except that it's enabled by default. If players don't check the "Info" screen, they may not realize their device is sending out data. I turned this setting off on principle.

Despite these drawbacks, Fly With Me is a solid title that's more challenging than it looks. The limited flapping mechanic sets it apart from the many similar simplistic arcade games on the App Store, and it's a good value for a dollar - assuming they don't eventually talk you into additional in-app purchases.

Like sweat and weights, the two men behind Riverman Media complement each other. Jake is an idea man and a talented art dude. Paul is a designer and a programmer who figures out how to translate Jake's off-the-wall ideas into familiar game structures. Together, these guys have released several games, but none as complex, trying, or as absolutely bent as their next.

In our interview complement to our regular show this week, we talked with Riverman about this project, which is called Pizza vs. Skeletons. One of the most fascinating things we discovered is just how well Jake and Paul Stevens mesh. They're brothers and business partners, and a tic to the other's toe. Audio just below:

iTunes Link: The TouchArcade Show
Zune Marketplace: TouchArcade.com Podcasts
RSS Feed: The TouchArcade Show
Direct Link: TouchArcadeShow-Bonus-031.mp3, 20MB

"Paul and I really have a back and forth," Jake told us. "I'm kinda like the crazy idea guy and I don't think very practically. Paul's always the rational one who tries to pick gameplay element out of the ideas I throw out."

Jake let us in on a great story. At the beginning of the development of Pizza, Jake had a flash of inspiration that spilled into an e-mail. He wanted players to be able to ski, scuba dive, and even rescue puppies as a 10-foot-tall pizza. Paul? Shocked and presumably overwhelmed by the strangeness, took awhile to respond.

Jake says he's more concerned about what sounds fun. He's not concerned about interesting decisions or anything else initially -- he just wants people to be intrigued by his scenarios.

"At the beginning, Jake had a bunch of ideas that were not really related to each other in anyway," Paul told us, chiming in. "They were just completely separate things you could be doing as a pizza. Most of them had nothing to do with skeletons -- in fact, only one or two of them did." This is where the fun begins.

Paul explained that he takes Jake's ideas and then brainstorms different angles. One of the first things that he had to do was remove the theme and ask what was fun about the idea of controlling a gigantic circular character. From there, he was able to lay out what could and couldn't work, what should and shouldn't be emphasized.

Objectives had to be molded, too. In the puppy saving levels, for example, the game's camera and its technology prohibited a lot of traditional systems and functionality. So, Paul devised levels with two different phases: the first is rolling to the right and absorbing puppies, and the second is rolling back to the left and taking them back home.

Solid game design hasn't been the only thing on Riverman's mind. Pizza's development has stretched over a year. Most of the duo's games take around a month. It's scary.

"By far the most work of any of our games went into this one," Jake said. The premise has been evolving for over a year, and a lot of prototyping work had to be done. This was a full-time project, but also a particularly challenging one, which is part of the reason why Riverman decided to do it.

"We were pretty scared about it at first, and we still are," Paul said. "It was a year-long investment and our previous games were closer to a month or a month-and-a-half with the thinking that we could make small titles with high quality -- you know, there's some luck in which ones get seen and which ones don't -- they did pretty well for the time it took to make them."

"But to invest twelve times that amount on one game was really scary to us, and still is and probably will still be until the day it actually comes out and see if anyone likes it."

Pizza is due out later this month on February 16, and we'll have some hands-on coverage later this week. To avoid anything other than modest scrutiny, we've held back on what we've seen, but it does look good. We're thinking the risk paid off. And we're also of a mind that this is a studio-changing product. Riverman is evolving alongside the work.

"When you're a small studio, you have an inclination to do things that are safe," Jake said. "You want to do things that you think will appeal to a lot of people, that will impress a lot of people."

"We've been doing this for seven years now and I would say slowly we're peeling away that inclination and getting more and more towards the game we really want to make and the games we really want to play. Even if they are a little more risky, even if the audience is smaller, they're more close to what we want to look at and enjoy," Jake said.

Our audio interview includes a lot more from these two dudes, so feel free to give it a listen. Topics other than these include pizza customization, Riverman's desire to break out and possibly do titles on other platforms, and Eli's battle with bread.

We'll be back with you next week in another "bonus" podcast.

Last week we talked about the massive update to last summer's quirky platformer Bean's Quest [99¢/Lite] that added a ton of brand new levels and fleshed out the storyline with appropriate intro and ending sequences. Basically, Bean's Quest was originally an incredibly short game, featuring just 8 levels. That was the chief complaint in our original review, though we did enjoy the game a lot while it lasted. In about 6 months time, Bean's Quest has expanded to 50 levels and is finally the full and complete game it was always intended to be.

For today only, you can grab the full version of Bean's Quest for just 99¢. If you've always admired Bean's Quest from afar, but weren't sure if its "constantly bouncing" gameplay was the right fit for you, then a recently released lite version can help you make up your mind. I would urge all platformer fans to give the lite version a spin, and if you're into it, then definitely grab the full Bean's Quest while it's just a dollar.

The Corpse Party series of video games have been loitering around my "I really should play these some day" game list since I first heard about them a few years ago. The games have some crazy roots behind them, as the first title was made in RPG Maker, a point and click game studio that was responsible for countless terrible ultra-indie RPG games. My personal favorite of these RPG Maker games was Chef Boyardee's Barkley, Shut Up & Jam: Gaiden, Chapter 1 of the Hoopz Barkley SaGa. (Yes, that's a real game, watch the trailer. No really, watch it.) Anyway, Corpse Party has had two different remakes since then, the most recent of which landed as a downloadable title for the PSP in late 2010. A sequel arrived around a year later, and there have even been two manga adaptations. One was even published by Square Enix.

If this is the first time you've heard of Corpse Party, Joystiq's JC Fletcher put together an awesome description of what the game is all about. In essence, it's your typical 16 bit JRPG that jumps the rails in a big way. You quickly find yourself in a nightmare dimension where no one can see each other, doors don't work, windows are blocked by human hair, and evidence of countless child murders are everywhere. (Making you wonder how this is getting by the App Store approval department, eh?) There's a cast of characters who are subjected to the torture of this environment, and you sit by and watch what unfolds.

What interested me about this crazy game is that there's tons of "bad endings," like a Choose Your Own Adventure book. I've always really liked games that divert from a linear roller coaster ride to letting you screw up, and then showing you the consequences. The PSP version is even constructed with selectable chapters to allow you to go back and explore all these different outcomes.

According to Andriasang, Corpse Party will be hitting the Japanese App Store this week for ¥2,200 which in US App Store pricing would be $29.99. No word yet on a localized English release, but I figure if the game will be available for iOS devices with Japanese text, an English adaptation can't be that far off, since presumably the translation already exists from the PSP game.

Fingers crossed, anyway.

[Famitsu via Andriasang via Joystiq]

Remember League of Evil [$1.99]? It came out early last year, and the best way to describe it is the title of our review: "The closest thing to Super Meat Boy on iOS." League of Evil controlled great, making difficult Super Meat Boy-style platforming surprisingly fun. They even eventually added iCade and Joypad [Free] support, giving two more awesome control options.

Check out the recently released trailer for the sequel:

I'm digging the new art style. February 15th can't come quick enough.

Depending on how you look at it, my weekend was either a complete success or a disastrous waste. Asides from my daily ablutions, I've done nothing but sit on my derriere and play Capcom's Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective [Free]. It's true. I'm not ashamed.

I would be ashamed if this was a cheap rip-off stemming from some copycat's attempt to cash in on a popular indie title somewhere but Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective isn't that sort of game. If you had to liken it to a gender-unspecific trophy spouse, Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective would be a 6'2" Scandinavian model with a degree in rocket science and a part-time job as a professional