Though an entire essay could be written on the subject of Phil Hassey’s Galcon, one of the earliest really good games for the iPhone and iPod touch, we’re not going to do that today. Instead, we’re going to point to just a few things that are really interesting about where Galcon sits today at version 1.7, priced at $3, versus where it was when we reviewed it back in August of 2008 when it debuted for $10.

Galcon retains the simple but very effective planet-conquering gameplay that really showed off the value of a touchscreen back a year ago, with some additional enhancements.
It added a multiplayer online mode in version 1.2.
It received music in version 1.3.
And now it has received a substantial graphic redesign, including everything from the logo to the backgrounds and fonts.

The first pair of screenshots is Galcon from August, 2008. The next are from the new version of Galcon, which is in the App Store now. If you didn’t check it out last year, now’s the time, for sure. Due to the past updates, which have kept on making the title better, it’s one of only a handful of iPhone OS releases that we have kept permanently in our iTunes Library awaiting updates over the past year.

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A bold and noble move. I hope their substantial investment in preparing this overhaul this pays off for them, considering the necessarily-free upgrades for all current owners.

I wouldn’t mind seeing Apple allowing developers to charge for upgrades sooner rather than later (I’m sure it’s on their list of improvements). This would provide incentive for developers to continue improving quality in substantial amounts.

By Jerrod H. on 08.14.09 at 01:54 PM

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