Updated: Diversion
Diversion, a side-scrolling 2.5D platformer by Ezone, was just updated for MFi controller support. It joins their other recently updated games Crazy Snowboard and Snow Spin in supporting game controllers.
Diversion is a side-scrolling platformer with a similar graphical presentation and level design to the classic Pandemonium series. In practice, it plays more like one of the iOS Rayman games or Pitfall – your character automatically runs from the beginning of the course to the end, and your control consists of telling the character when to jump and when to use special abilities. It actually plays really well in practice – despite the simplification in control, the levels can get challenging. Collecting all 3 stars in each level isn’t always easy, and requires technique and timing.
Diversion is free to play with ads, combined with somewhat unnecessary “Extra life” tokens right out of an arcade machine, and supplemented with “Gem” currency that can be used to unlock alternate costumes. Any purchase of anything disables the ads. In practice, this is one of the least offensive examples of the “freemium” model that i’ve seen. You can play everything without paying a dime, you’ll probably want to replay a level rather than use a continue token anyways if you’re going for score, and you get plenty of gems just by playing.
In addition to MFi controller support, Diversion features iCloud saves, Game Center achievements, video sharing, universal iPhone and iPad compatibility, over 200 levels across 7 worlds, and over 700 characters – certainly an impressive list of features.
This game is an easy recommendation to fans of auto-runners and side-scrolling platformers. It’s free to play, and If you like the game, you can purchase something to remove the ads – thanks to a fair payment model, that’ll probably be the last purchase you have to make.