Princess Pajama presents itself as something much like a tower defense in the same vein as Cartoon Wars, where you fight off hordes of monsters trying to get to the other side to take down their base while trying to defend your own. Not really what you would think the game to be right?

In Pajama Princess, you are a brave knight in which you traveled far to find the princess that was kidnapped. You get her and seem to try to fight your way back to the castle stage by stage. In a battle, you play as the knight and you can attack the enemies with your sword, and pull off more powerful moves or combos that cost MP and have a cool-down. When you have the princess, you can have her give you a power up, such as a boost in speed, defense, or attack. If you or the princess lose all of your health, the game is lost and you are sent back to the level screen. What makes this much like a tower defense is that you can call your own monsters out to attack the opposing forces. You can upgrade the abilities of all of these monsters and buy new ones as you only start out with one kind at first.

Pajama princess is a pretty fun game, although a bit grindy at times. Each level is generally playable within two to three minutes unless you don’t have enough strength or health potions and bombs to back you up. You can play a couple levels in one sitting and still feel a little bit more accomplished as you move from stage to stage and gain strength. Each stage actually comes in three different flavors. Admittedly, the game is repetitive. The visual style of the game is pretty adorable and it seems like a bit of love was put into all of the sprites and animations. You’ll see Princess Pajama running around and tripping every once in a while. Sometimes it’s a little annoying to see her stand in the middle of enemy fire, but it isn’t too bad. As you advance in stages, you see all different types of enemies, you see a few recolors, but they are pretty cute and they have a large amount of sprites as well. In addition, the music in the game is pretty good. In the menus, the music is like a eurobeat dance type of music. During the battles, the music is fitting for what you would think the stage would be like, if you weren’t fighting. For example, in the grasslands you would hear calm nice music in the grasslands. The music is nice, but a bit out of place at times. Overall, the game is quite well put together and feels like the developers really enjoyed making it!

Now then, something I didn’t talk about last week was story in mobile games. I honestly think that they can handle some sort of story. Or at least, they should. In this new market of video games, it brings video games to many more people than it would otherwise. They could do so much more than what they do now. If they gave more meaning than what they do now, then they would be able to A: convey a message to a lot more people and B: have many more people know that games can convey as much as a message as other mediums. When video games were first made, do you think that people could conceive that video games would be able to tell the stories that they tell now?

What are the reasons that someone might think that a mobile game couldn’t tell a story? Maybe it’s because most of them don’t. You don’t see many iPhone or Android games with any story at all. They are mostly bite-sized games that are meant to be played in short bursts, purely for entertainment. That’s how games started out. Just as stupid little entertainment getaways that had no real depth in them. If you look around, you’ll find that there are a few that do have a decent story. We’re not quite there yet, but the potential is definitely visible.

Sweet Games! Some more iPhone games. Pick out one that you like and comment!

Zenonia 4

This is a pretty good game. It has a neat little story, too. It follows someone who is dead, and goes back in time to prevent things from happening. It’s the latest in a line of Zenonia games, so you might not be able to pick up a little bit of the story, but that’s okay.

The game is also pretty neat because it is an top down action RPG. This means that all of your attacks are in real time and it’s a view from above. There’s many cool strategies you can use just because it’s in real time.

The World Of Magic

An attempt at an MMORPG on the iPhone. It’s pretty good and it is also real time. The game takes place with two kingdoms at war. Standard MMORPG stuff. But it’s a good attempt at a large MMO feel with the same elements of alliance you might find in a WoW clone.

Doodle Jump

I know, it’s a classic game. Even pretty old. The game is the epitome of the standard iPhone game though. You try to get to a highscore, added with simple power-ups and several other features make this an addicting game.