Retro Gamer won a GMA last night (‘Best Games Magazine’), which is rather nice. Since it’s the only games magazine I write for, I’m going to take all the credit.

Meanwhile, if you’re a fan of Infocom, Steve Meretzky, leather goddesses, Phobos, or Leather Goddesses of Phobos, buying the latest issue of the mag (complete with flying Mario advent calendar cover—I kid you not) would be a good idea, since it includes The Making of… Leather Goddesses of Phobos (by yours truly).

Sometimes you have a secret you’re bursting to tell everyone about, but you can’t, otherwise an editor will hunt you down and kill you to death, using only a spoon, a slightly sharpened CD jewel case and a surprising amount of ingenuity and imagination.

Today, however, one of the most exciting magazine projects I’ve been party to was finally revealed: Tap! The iPhone and iPad Magazine. From the guys behind MacFormat (which I regularly contribute to), the 132-page iPad-sized mag will arrive for a fiver at the end of November, and it’ll have a suitably chunky games section that I’ll be overseeing. (Tap’s also on Twitter, if you want to follow it: @tapmaguk.)

It’s great to see Future taking the plunge on what’s the most exciting platform that I can remember, and I’m hugely looking forward to being involved.

Two articles from me on the fragrant TechRadar website, detailing the very best games (according to me, at least) for the iPhone and iPod touch:

• 20 best free iPhone games on the planet
• 20 best iPhone games – paid apps

The paid-games piece was particularly interesting to write, given that I had a shortlist of over 60 games that I had to brutally and mercilessly hack down. Needless to say that some of those games will make ‘the list’ when these articles are expanded over the coming months.

Last week, I bitched about iOS games, notably the general poor quality. Now I’m going to moan about websites. If you’ve created an app, I’ll visit your website in one of two capacities: as a consumer or as a journalist. Often, I’ll be a consumer and a journalist, just to confuse you.

As a consumer, here’s what I want to know:

1. What does your product do? Describe it to me in under 50 words. Don’t say you can’t do that; and if you genuinely can’t write those words, hire a copywriter. They’ll likely bash out 50 words for a tin of beans. (And, yes, I know you want to say more than 50 words, but you can do that elsewhere. Think of your intro like a book jacket: publishers don’t print the entire story of a novel on the cover.)
2. How much does your product cost? Don’t make me guess! Don’t make me launch iTunes. I hate iTunes. Just put a very obvious price sticker on the web page, even if it’s just in US dollars and you’re pretending the Euro and other currencies don’t exist.
3. What does your app look like? Don’t compress your images to tiny thumbnails—it’s not 1995. If you’re not showing full-size iPhone grabs, you’re an idiot. iPad grabs should be at least half size. And don’t bung all kinds of junk over the grabs—ensure your app or game shines through, not your marketing drivel.
4. Why do you hate me? This is specifically aimed at you if you’re using video instead of a screen grab. I don’t have time for that. I don’t have time for your dissolves and your ‘funny’ edits. Don’t fob me off with a video from YouTube that will take ages to load or boot an instance of Flash that will subsequently kick Safari in the nuts, or I will have to come round there and smack you.
5. Where can I buy it? Provide a link to your App Store page, in case I want to buy your app. Don’t make me go to iTunes and type this in myself. I am lazy, and so is everyone else. Also, do you really want me to go to the App Store with the full intention of buying your product and then bump into NanoStudio or Dark Nebula 2 on the home page? That’s a battle you cannot win. Also, make your direct link big. Don’t hide it at the bottom of the page, in dark grey on a slightly darker grey background. You’re not a web-design agency from 1998.
6. Where can I moan to you about your app? Yeah, you’re just a team of three and you don’t have time to deal with loads of email. Tough. If I’ve bought your product and it’s not working, I want to tell you. ‘Get Satisfaction’ does not count, because it doesn’t enable you to get satisfaction—you just get annoyed about the vague replies to a billion existing topics. A forum does not count, unless you are on there every day and answer every question (which you won’t), and, besides, I might not want to put my comment out there for everyone to see. So just put a form online or an email address—and when that message comes in, respond to it.

As a journalist, here’s what I want to know:

1. All of the above six points. Seriously. If you don’t provide that information right from the start, the chances of me wanting to review your product drop by about eleven billion percent.
2. Where can I download full-quality and full-size PNG images of your app that aren’t covered in garbage? I don’t care how you do this. A ZIP of PNG files is fine. 36 bonus points if you bundle them with a quick review guide. Just don’t make me beg. And if you’re a games dev, don’t tell me to take the grabs myself. For the record, I do try to do this for every review I write, but when you’re already using two thumbs to hurl your virtual car around a virtual corner at a virtual 100 miles per hour, it’s not exactly simple to also hit ‘home’ plus ‘lock’.
3. How do I get in touch with you? No, ‘Get Sodding Satisfaction’ still doesn’t count. Give me an email address, such as press@coolandfunkyiosstuff.com. Or give me a contact form—I don’t care. But here’s the thing: answer my email. Really. By not answering emails from frazzled, stressed-out journos, you’re reducing your chances of coverage by so many percent that a number doesn’t even exist to say how big the reduction actually is. It’s that big.

Usefully, if you’re not an iOS developer, these rules all still apply, so don’t think you’re off the hook, Mac- or Windows-dev person.

Next in this stunning series: helpful hints about why your iTunes App Store page sucks, and what you can do about it.

After a longer gestation than that of a blue whale, Podgamer finally emerged blinking into the daylight today.

It’s a co-production between yours truly, Stu Campbell and J Nash. The content: game reviews and features for iPhone, iPod touch and iPad, except not rubbish. The idea: a fun, irreverent games mag (like the old days, when Amiga Power, Crash and Your Sinclair reigned supreme) that helps you find games that aren’t rubbish on the App Store. Or helps you find rubbish stuff, so you can point and laugh at it. Anyway, podgamer.com—bookmark it.

UPDATE: And, in case anyone pops across this article and wonders what’s going on, Stuart Campbell ragequit Podgamer and has now disabled (possibly deleted) the entire site without warning and locked Nash and myself out of the FTP, despite stating via email on April 7:

I’ve temporarily disabled PG until the proper morning

Maybe ‘the proper morning’ meant the dawn of 2051 or something.