by Eric March on July 3, 2009 at 12:29 pm
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I’ve probably mentioned somewhere along the line that I dig maze games.
They’re simple and fun. I’m sure we’ve all played the old 2D maze games with pencil and paper. When I got my first Atari 2600 I used to play Maze Craze, which was the digital version — and there have been many hundreds like it. (Let’s not bring up Pac Man; that’s not a proper maze game) Now, when you shove the person into a 3D maze environment in the first-person, things get a lot more interesting. You can no longer see the whole maze, only your immediate surroundings. When I got CBS Software’s Tunnel Runner for the Aari 2600, it spoiled me for traditional 2D maze games. Oh, the maze itself still existed on 2D plane, but the first-person perspective — especially being so well done on the 2600, hooked me hard and fast. Plus, 3D mazes appealed to the explorer in me, which is part of the reason such games were a gateway to first-person RPGs.
So now, more than 25 years after I played my first computerized maze game, I’m still playing them, and after seeing Starscene’s contribution to the genre on the iPhone, I knew I’d found the perfect portable maze game, so I bought it. And it is purely a maze game. There are no minotaurs or monsters following you around — though I think this would be a pretty cool option — and no time limits. Just you stuck in maze full of twisting corridors and claustrophobic dead ends. Oh, and ladders.
See, the the 3D part of its name isn’t just about the fact that it’s a first-person, OpenGL-ES-based maze game, but also the fact that the maze itself spans three dimensions, which increases the challenge exponentially — literally. Suddenly, that tiny old-school 10×10 maze ain’t so tiny anymore, not when there are 10 of ‘em stacked one atop another, all interconnected with only one way out. That’s just an example, though — in fact, RealMaze 3D offers 5 different maze sizes: Tiny (5×5x5, 125 cells), small (6×6x7, 252 cells), normal (7×7x9, 441 cells), large (9×9x12, 972 cells), and insane (10×10x17, 1700 cells). The mazes are randomly generated each time, so you needn’t worry about running out of mazes to solve. At the end of each maze you’re presented with a layered representation of the maze showing where you’ve visited (in green) and what you passed over, and you can scroll up and down through the layers. It’s a little confusing for some and it’s there mainly for curiosity’s sake. Personally, I think it would have been cooler if it were presented using a translucent cube that you could rotate and zoom in on, showing your route in real 3D.
The game controls primarily by on-screen buttons; forward and backward movement is on your left, while turning left and right, and looking up and down are on the right. Ladders are ascended and descended by looking up or down respectively and moving forward. You generally move one square at a time, but you can hold down the movement button to move continuously. There are also a pair of helpers available if you need them by tapping on the gear on the top right. This will bring up the pause menu and allow you to toggle breadcrumbs and a compass. The compass is self-explanatory; breadcrumbs leave a trail wherever you go, so you can always tell where you’ve been. Be warned though, enabling either of these makes your timer go more quickly, so you likely won’t make any high scores using them. You can also enable tilt to look, but I found this to be quite cumbersome to use.
In addition to the standard 5 maze sizes, this version also features a new daily challenge maze, which creates a randomly generated maze of arbitrary size (one that doesn’t necessarily conform to the standard maze sizes available) that everyone can compete in for a high score. The maze is the same for everyone and is updated each day at midnight (pacific). The catch here though is that while you can attempt the daily maze as many times as you like, only the time of your first attempt qualifies for the high score table.
What really sets RealMaze 3D head, shoulders, torso and naughty bits above any competition it might have though is its immersiveness. The graphic design here is just beautiful, and it’s deftly applied across three distinct themes: The dank, mossy dungeon; the brick-and-mortar basement; and the mansion, with its rich moulded wood panelling. Each have their own little bits of filligree that isn’t necessary but really puts the finishing touches on: Shackles and other such artifacts in the dungeon; pipes and grates in the basement; and medieval artifacts on the walls in the mansion. You’ll even come across areas where there are no lights, or where the lights have a cooler or warmer temperature, casting reddish, yellowed, or bluish tints as if different bulbs were used. Each theme has its own set of matching sounds, too, from the sound of your footfalls on the ground and climbing ladders to the ambient background noises that accompany you. All of it brings together a sense of immersion that few iPhone games are capable of doing. Themes are chosen randomly, but you can tell what theme will be chosen for your next level by looking at the maze overview in the backrgound of the main menu, as it’s wrapped in the theme you’ll be seeing when you start your next maze.
And if you’re a fan of maze games, you will be starting you next maze, and your next one — because, aside from the fact that any maze fan and iDevice owner worth even a pinch of salt should go and get this immediately, it also has quite an addictive quality that will have you continually trying to get through the mazes and best your scores. There is unfortunately no lite version available, which is a shame because while it’s completely possible to appreciate the beauty of this maze game through screenshots and video, it’s even better to experience it for yourself. Then again, it’s only $2, and if maze games are right in your wheelhouse, it’ll be two of the best dollars you’ll have spent.
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- Friday, January 9th, 2009 -- Red Sky
- Monday, November 17th, 2008 -- Adventure
Posted in Games: Logic & Puzzle, Paid Apps 
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by Eric March on July 2, 2009 at 12:59 pm
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In case you haven’t noticed, I tend to review rather lesser known games and apps — stuff that isn’t so much in the mainstream and frankly doesn’t really need the publicity because 90% of its audience will know it’s out and will have already bought it the second it hits the App Store anyway. Did you need me to tell you that Doom Resurrection came out? No, of course you didn’t, because the entire Applesphere has been talking, E-Mailing and tweeting about it since about half a second after it went live.
Did you need me to tell you about Taxiball? Odds are, a lot of you just said, “lol wut?”
For those that did, Taxiball falls into the category of hidden gems; games that aren’t that well known but should be, because they’re good, and they deserve to do better than they are doing, and you should really check it out because there’s a good chance you’ll like it too. I did — paid my own money for this one, too.
You control a yello ball wielding a taxi driver’s license. (Insert your own Robert DeNiro reference here; I’m still having my first coffee.) As you’d expect, your job is to pick up and drop off customers in a timely, and preferably comfortable fashion. (No one bothered to explain how being shuttled around on a giant snooker ball is comfortable to begin with, but this is a fantasy land, so your silly logic and reason can get stuffed.) The faster you do it, the more money you make and the more extra time you gain on your overall time limit — but try not to smash them into walls or dunk them in water, and especially don’t take too long or you’ll lose the fare entirely.
Obviously, easier said than done; wouldn’t be much of a game if it wasn’t, right? The game is played Labyrinth-style, with the accelerometer controlling the ball. The controls have been tweaked quite significantly though so that while it feels more or less like it’s doing a good approximation of obeying the laws of physics, there are actually a number of helpers working behind the scenes to manage and control the movement that so that it feels natural, yet more importantly never lets you feel like you’re losing control. Speed is managed, but so is acceleration, banking and braking, so control is made much easier — but not too easy. It’s just enough so that you don’t feel like you’re fighting the controls, and instead can focus on navigating the levels. The accelerometer can be calibrated so you can play in whatever position is most comfortable for you.
The gameplay is simple enough; roll around, stop near someone waiting for a taxi, then follow where the arrow leads to deliver your fare to his or her destination before their timer runs out. Fares are typically surrounded by a coloured halo that gives you an idea of the length of the trip; green fares are short distance, yellow are medium, and red are long distance fares. Those fares have corresponding time limits you must deliver them within, and the faster you do it, the happier they’ll be; the time remaining on the fare’s delivery limit is added to the overall time limit you are given to complete the city, and while it’s not necessary to pick up everyone in the city before the time runs out, you make more money if you do. If you do deliver them with particular speed and accuracy, you’ll get a nice tip, too. You can bump them around a little bit and they won’t mind — apparently one of the accepted inconveniences of ball travel — but shake ‘em up too much and they’ll express their displeasure with frowny-face speech bubbles — or if you’re transporting a dog, a steaming pile of doo — and probably not bother with your tip. Hit a wall at high speed and your fare might take a tumble and you’ll have to pick him up again.
Besides smacking into buildings, you’ll also have to watch out for water and ice. Water will give you and your fare a nice dunking; your fare won’t like that, but you can pick them up again and continue your journey at the expense of your recovery time. Ice doesn’t pose an immediate threat, but as expectd it’s difficult to navigate on. You’ll also find moving platforms indicated by scrolling arrows; moving with the flow will give you a speed boost, and while you can travel against the grain, it’s slow going. Scattered around however you’ll likely find some ramps that will let you jump over obstacles and hazards — but not everywhere, so you’ll have to keep an eye out.
Taxiball features an achievement system with dozens of achievements to unlock. Some are earned easily — even just for playing normally, such as completing a city, but others you’ll really have to work for. There are also online global leaderboards so you can see the world’s best players, as well as a bit of a social network baked right in where you can add friends and see their scores and achievements — and then try to beat them.
Graphically, Taxiball matches the somewhat abstract game world with somewhat abstracted graphics. They’re hand-drawn, isometric 3D in a chunky block style — a bit like lego — that contrasts with your smooth curve. It’s all animated looking, but very clean and professional in a style that is whimsical yet hard not to like. The audio deserves special mention here, because most of the sound effects and all of the music were created vocally. The music is all acapella vocal, and even more interestingly is dynamic, seamlessly changing tempo and instrumentation slightly when you have a fare, and dropping back to a more casual tone while you’re looking for one. We’re not quite talking Bobby McFerrin or The Flying Pickets here, but it’s very well done all the same, and fits the general feel of the game perfectly. They’ve even posted an enlightening case study on Instructables about how it was done.
All in all, Taxiball is a thoroughly enjoyable game with a lot of unexpected little bits and notions all wrapped up in a polished package with enjoyable gameplay, well-tuned controls and loads of replay value. There are 7 different cities each with their own unique aspects to work through, and a forthcoming update will add a further two cities to the roster. If you’ve only got $3 to spend and don’t have it already, Taxiball should be on your shortlist of choices.
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- Sunday, October 19th, 2008 -- iBall3D
Posted in Games: Arcade, Paid Apps 1 Comment »
by Eric March on July 1, 2009 at 12:38 pm
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Last November, I reviewed KDR’s
lite version of 3D Fireworks, and deemed it good — for what I could see of it anyway, which wasn’t much because it was hobbled from every side with a 10 firework limit, only one firework at a time and so on. Most of it I was cool with for a lite version, but the effective time limit pushed me over the edge for some reason.
But that was a lifetime ago in App Store time, and things change, including 3D Fireworks, because KDR have now upgraded it to such a marked degree that it now deserves its own sequel designation as a new app. Completely rewritten from the ground up with Unity, 3D Fireworks 2 takes the original concept and improves upon the formula, now sitting you in the center of a grassy community square surrounded by landscaping, fences and a cityscape, with the moon and moving clouds overhead. 8 different types of fireworks explode overhead (yes, including the smiley face) and they all cast realtime lighting effects on your surroundings as they burst and sparkle. There’s supposed to be a full manual mode, but danged if I can find it, so the only thing I could do was set the autopilot fire rate to low, where it launches one firework at a time. You can, however, tap on the display to launch fireworks manually.
You also have full control over the display. You can swipe left and right to rotate around the scene, and pinch to zoom in and out to get closeups on the fun. Even cooler, there’s a pause button in the lower right so you can pause the action mid-burst. You can still manipulate your view while paused. Great for pretending you’re Neo, or, say, taking screenshots. The UI is quite simple; pause on the lower left, settings on the lower right, and if left alone, the buttons will very slowly fade as you let the scene play out, so you can watch without the UI cluttering the screen. But speaking of settings, there are some nice ones here: You can toggle each of the 8 different fireworks on and off, toggle the lights on the buildings on and off, toggle sound, and even toggle the moon — in case you want a very dark scene in which to appreciate the glowy sparkle of incendiary ordnance. There’s also a UFO you can toggle, which will show up periodically in an unpredictable fashion, hover about for a few moments, then take off. A final toggle lets you turn night into dusk, for a nice, brighter, late evening setting, should that tickle your fancy.
And yes, 3D Fireworks 2 is wishing everyone a happy Canada Day, but it’s just a tad misleading as this is a hidden feature of 1.1, which has been in the approval process for over the past week and a half and Apple haven’t even touched it yet, the slackers. (I had to grab the 1.1 Canada Day screenshot from KDR just so I could add it to the review in time for our holiday.) However, version 1.0 does celebrate two other international holidays with well-wishing and a flag on the title screen: Independence Day (USA, July 4th) and Bastille Day (France, July 14th), so while us Canadians get shafted thanks to Apple’s review backlog, you other two nations can enjoy your own private, nationally patriotic firework display in the palm of your hands on your day of celebration. Canadians who wish to see it in person when the 1.1 update is finally approved can set the date on their device to retroactively view the animated flag.
3D Fireworks 2 is definitely a worthy successor to its progenitor. The fireworks are very well done and convincingly rendered, the sounds are appropriate and well implemented, and the shift to some cityscape scenery is a very welcome addition with the dynamic lighting, which just adds to the sense of immersion. In fact, I think it would be very cool if there were a small variety of scenes to choose from; just picture a lakefront display with reflections in the rippling water, or a nice park scenem or whathaveyou. That would be pretty cool, wouldn’t it? Just the same, 3D Fireworks 2 stands as the best fireworks display you can fit in your pocket, and it’s on sale right now from Canada Day and Independence Day for just $1, or half its regular price, so now would be the perfect time to grab it and have your own private fireworks display any time. There are two ways to enjoy a free lite version, too: You can download the lite version to your iDevice, or you can play with it on the web (Unity Web Player plugin required). Note that the lite version, as you’d expect, limits you to one firework at a time, no manual launching, and no settings to choose from. The web version has the benefit of being 1.1, so Canucks can see the flag on the title screen. You can still rotate the view around here, and use the mouse scroll wheel to zoom.
Note that, in case anyone else inadvertently discovers it, I did find a bug in version 1.0, which persists in 1.1, where your view will turn a kind of drunk portrait with the inability to look skyward if you continually swipe from the lower middle of the display to the top left or right. I’ve already informed KDR of this and they know what the problem is, so expect a 1.2 update to be submitted shortly. The bug can be reproduced in the web version, too. (It’s running the same code as the iPhone version after all.)
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by Eric March on June 30, 2009 at 11:36 am
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Sometimes it’s not entirely surprising that an app or game goes free for a limited time; sometimes they’re just not that good and don’t generate positive word of mouth, so they need that freebie exposure. And then sometimes, you’ll get an app turn free that’s shockingly good and that you need to tell
everybody to download because getting something
this good for free is one of those very rare events that you’d be stupid to miss out on.
This is one of those times.
Space Trader is not a new thing for HermitWorks. Space Trader first appeared for Mac, and was followed ujp with Space Trader: Merchant Marine for PC. Now they’ve brought some of that over to the iPhone with Space Trader: Moon Madness. Essentially, this mobile version is all about the trading around a limited area of space. There’s no combat or exploration, but instead you are asked to choose a time limit of so many days, and then make or exceed the target income by the end of that limit through trading commodities (and perhaps some less-than-legit goods) and accepting missions to make some extra cash. Yes, there are comparisons to be made here to the old classic Elite — but I’m not going to make them.
You start off on Earth’s moon with a limited amount of funds and a standard ship. From there you can wander around the moon station meeting and greeting the various characters there, discovering who everyone is and what they deal in. As you wander around the basis you’ll likely find rotating silver cargo containers carelessly left lying about; these can be picked up and sold (to the right people) for some extra cash, which is particularly useful early on. The first character you’ll meet is a robot who can offer you basic instructions and tips on trading, though it really just amounts to “buy low, sell high” which is just common sense. From there you’ll see characters hanging around with a dollar sign over their heads. These are the traders. Those with green dollar signs deal only in legit goods, while red dollar signs indicate those who deal in smuggled, black market goods. Most traders will happily deal with you, but there will be a few early on who won’t deal in small potatoes, so you’ll have to make some decent coin before they’ll give you the time of day.
Characters with an exclaimation point over their heads have missions for you, which generally take the form of one-shot delivery or fetch quests; bartenders will have a question mark over their heads and can sell you information, and mechanics have a wrench; these can upgrade your ship’s engines (less travel time between locations) and add additional cargo space — for a price, of course. Once you’ve made contact with a new chracter, they can thereafter be accessed through your contact list, which shows everyone available on the station you’re on and will transport you to that character instantly. On the whole — at least as far as the game in its current form goes — bartenders are useless gobs. They’ll sell you information in three tiers: $1,000, $5,000 and $10,000, with the information at each tier supposedly being of incrementally more use to you. Unfortunately I don’t think the information offered in this edition of the game was meant for this edition of the game, as it all seems to contain references to warring factions and corrupt officials you can do nothing about on planets you can’t travel to — but I’ll refer back to that in a bit.
There are only three stations you can trade between here: Earth, the Moon, and Convoy space station. Each has its own traders, each of which carry a particular assortment of goods to trade, but all will buy and sell goods at the same market values for the given commodities on the planet/station you’re on. Each station has only one person who will give you one mission, and after that it’s all abot the trading. Travel between stations takes a particular number of days depending on the current distance between you and the destination (orbital periods and all that) and whether you’ve upgraded your ship’s engines. Ideally, the shorter the distance and faster the ship, the less time it takes to travel and the more days you have to trade and make money with. In travelling to each station, you can gather information on each destination, and sometimes receive news items that can effect your trading, such as coffee shortages, fires making purified water scarce, fake jewels flooding the market making real ones cheap, and so on. You can use this information to your advantage in deciding what cargo to carry where, which is handy since you can’t see what commodities prices are on other stations until you travel there.
Graphically, Space Trader: Moon Madness is gorgeous. The UI is slick, and the station designs are beautiful — simple yet elegant with nice spot lighting effects, topiary and artwork or video screens dotting areas, and large bay windows with vistas to look out upon to break up the otherwise spartan look of plain white walls. It all has a very graceful yet functional look about it that’s convicing and immersive. The sounds are relatively sparse — there’s no in-game music or anything, just a variety of sound effects. The controls are spot on however; dual slider pads on the lower left and right (left for movement, right for looking) allow you to tap and slide to navigate around the stations, and it’s nicely tuned and works very well.
There are certain elements however that slightly cheap the overall effect though. Most characters remain rooted to one spot, and while they may shift poses occasionally, they don’t go anywhere. A few will pace back and forth along one straight path, but otherwise there’s no real “life” to the stations, no sense that anything else is going on, giving you the feeling that everyone is there solely to facilitate your overall mission. Naturally they are, but they’re not supposed to make it seem like it. It’s a small complaint but it does kind of shatter the suspension of disbelief a bit.
Of more importance however is the brevity and narrow scope of the game. On the whole, I completed the longest mission — 500 days — in about half an hour, about half of which was spent doing things the long way (walking and exploring), while the rest of it was mostly using the contact book to zap straight to the people I wanted to deal with. It was entirely too easy to pass the par income for the game on the 500-day mission, which tasks you with making $1.5 million. I retired with $46 million, and that wasn’t really trying. On the other hand, the shortest mission is much harder, so there’s an imbalance of difficulty here.
Furthermore, the limited number of missions (3), limited number of destinations (also 3), limited ship upgrades (one engine upgrade, 250 cargo holds max), limited number of commodities to trade, contacts to make, and things to do in general, eventually began to feel pretty small. Oh, yes, the game is graphically stunning and it’s fun to explore each of the stations in detail for the first while, but once that wears off and once you’ve made enough money that you’re maxing out your cargo holds with the most expensive commodities, it eventually becomes a little bit tedious. Gorgeous and very well-appointed, but tedious. Once you’ve finished you really feel like you want more — much more — out of the game. I can only hope that Hermitworks are planning on either expanding Moon Madness, or releasing a more fully fleshed out version closer to Merchant Marine and using Moon Madness as a kind of lite version, because I really would love to see much more of this game. It has massive potential to be a singularly fantastic game in all respects, but Moon Madness reigns it in considerably and turns it into a first-person trading game that’s boiled down almost to the level of a casual game.
That said though, taken for what it is and not what I wished it was, Space Trader: Moon Madness is an exceptionally well-done game. It’s got a few minor quirks, but on the whole it’s easy to overlook those for the sheer polish and attention to detail that went into its design. Granted, Hermitworks largely just recyled some of the assets from the PC version, but that’s a good thing, as it’s ended up giving the iPhone version a level of graphical polish that rivals the top 3D games available on the platform. Combine that with gameplay that, while a little cramped, is still quite good with some enjoyable features, the potential for expansion, and of course the fact that this is presently (though temporarily) free, and you’ve got something that you really need to go and download. Like, now.
Go! Git! Download away!
What are you still doing here? Go!
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Posted in Games: RPG & Adventure No Comments »
by Eric March on June 29, 2009 at 12:57 pm
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(3 votes, average: 2.67 out of 5)
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Make no mistake, I loves me some Tapper.
It was one of my favourite arcade games from back in the day. I even got to play the original Budweiser-branded version of it in an arcade that managed to get one in. (Arcades weren’t supposed to be allowed such games, only bars, because it was construed as marketing alcohol to minors, since minors were largely who patronized arcades in those days, so Bally marketed an alternate root beer-themed version) I’d later get it on cartridge for the Atari 2600, where it was further rebranded with Mountain Dew.
It’s only natural then that I’d be interested in seeing it come out for the iPhone — even if it’s a clone, and even if it’s one Midway might eventually force a name change on because, let’s face it, the name “iTapper” is dead center of ground zero for a trademark infringement beef. But that’s neither here nor there right now, because you’re here to read about what the game is like.
For all intents and purposes, iTapper follows the basic concepts pretty closely: Fill the mugs, sling them at the customers (sometimes more than once if they just won’t leave), pick the empties that are slung back at you, plus tips for bonus points, and don’t fling beers if there’s no one there to catch them. Clear the bar of customers and move on to the next level. The controls are largely swipe based: Swipe right to fill the mug, wait ’til the fill meter tops out, swipe left to sling it at a customer, swipe up and down to dash between rows, tap and hold the left side of the screen to run and pick up empies or tips. I found those controls a bit unorthodox, but they were easy to get used to, even if they’re not ideal. (I’d still prefer a D-pad and button.) The graphics are pretty well done overall, and the sound is decent if not a stand-out feature.
There were three things outside of the concept and gameplay mechanic that made the original arcade Tapper compelling: The cute little intermissions between levels, the mini shell game played with shaken cans between stages, and the variety of scenes — from the country bar to the sports stadium, the punk bar to the alien space bar and back again. Without those, Tapper would still be entertaing, but to a much lesser degree, as there wouldn’t be nearly the same incentive to keep at playing — nothing new to see or do except grind the same levels over and over again, only harder each time.
Unfortunately, that’s where iTapper lives. One bar, no intermissions, no mini games, just the same thing level after level with more and faster customers demanding more and more beer. As always of course, iTapper isn’t supposed to be identical or else it’d be in even greater danger of being slapped with legal papers for being too much like the original in more than just name. Nevertheless though iTapper seems to take too minimalist an approach and ends up being a game that, while moderately entertaining for what it is, fails to capture your attention for more than a brief while.
It’s nice to have a Tapper style game on the iPhone, especally when it’s the only one there is, but the novelty wears off quickly and leaves you with a pretty weak distillation of the game that doesn’t really have any more to offer than what you see. What’s here is well done, it just lacks a degree of substance and content. I’m not suggesting Anygames just clone the reamining Tapper levels, but some change of scenery after so many levels would at the very least offer some visual reward for continued gameplay, and anything beyond that would be a welcome addition just to break up the monotony. Worth a dollar? Sure, I think I can safely say you’ll get about buck’s worth of entertainment out of it if all you’re looking for is the basic Tapper theme and play mechanic, and it’s always possible Anygames may expand the game later on. Me? I’m hoping Midway will bring some of their XBox Live love over Apple’s way.
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Posted in Games: Arcade, Paid Apps 2 Comments »
by Eric March on June 28, 2009 at 6:51 pm
Rate it: (3 votes, average: 4.67 out of 5)
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Terrible alliteration there, I know. No, this isn’t Tetris, or even a derivative of it — not really, anyway. Its resemblance is largely superficial. Instead, this is a deceptively simple puzzle game with more to it than meets the eye.
At basic level, Perplexed is about getting an assortment of shapes gathered into one larger shape. The play area is divided up into two halves, and each half typically contains different shapes. The object is to get the pieces assembled into identical larger shapes on both halves. Pieces can be rotated and flipped to get them into the necessary positions. Once you’ve done that, you move on to the next level. As you’d expect, things start off pretty easy; you assemble the pieces on the left using one set of shapes, and try to get the pieces on the right to agree using a different set of shapes.
Where it starts to mix things up is when you come across one of the three other modes of play the game starts to throw at you. The first few levels are the “Match It” mode. Next comes “Built It” mode, where you the shapes on the left are already assembled and you have to build it from the shapes on the right. Following that, you’ll come to “Mirror Match,” which is the same as Built It, but the shapes have to be assembled in mirror image. Finally — and most deviously — you’ll come to “Pick 2 Match.” This mode gives you several pieces on both sides, but only two of the given pieces on each side can fit into an identical matching shape, so you have to figure out which ones. There are currently 35 levels to get through, and they get pretty tricky as you advance.
The controls are decent, if not completely intuitive. Tapping and dragging to move pieces is as expected, and you can double-tap on a piece to flip it. Rotating it however is accomplished by tapping on the piece to select it, and then swiping below or above the piece to rotate it. It doesn’t sound bad on paper, but very often I’d find myself tapping to drag a piece only to have it stay put and rotate instead. I suggested to Frank that perhaps using Perfect Balance’s method of piece rotation might work a little better, as it’s multitouch-based, intuitive, and not prone to causing accidental rotations when you try to drag.
Visually, Perplexed is simple, yet bright and colourful, and you can choose from the settings from four different backgrounds, and one of cour colours to represent both the left and right pieces, so you can customize the game’s visuals to some degree depending on your mood or whim. The sound is nice and light, and there’s a peppy little tune as you play, which can also be toggled from the settings menu. Overall, Perplexed offers a bit of a different sort of puzzle game that’s deceptively simple and challenging. It could use a bit of tweaking in the controls, and more levels would never be turned down, either. It would be interesting if Frank could spin out the different play modes into their own selectable modes off the play menu, each with their own puzzle sets and high score (best time) tables. A random level generator would also be very welcome, too, as fixed-solution puzzle games have limited longevity, as once you’ve solved them there’s little incentive to go back and do it again. I’ve suggested all of this to Frank, so there’s the possibility the next update(s) will feature some enhanced gameplay and better controls. However, it’s worth checking out even so, especially if you’re into spatial acuity puzzles.
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- Friday, June 12th, 2009 -- Perfect Balance: Inferno
- Thursday, May 7th, 2009 -- Perfect Balance: Harmony
- Thursday, March 19th, 2009 -- PDAMill’s Free Spree: 26 Games in 9 Titles
- Saturday, March 14th, 2009 -- Pixelmania
- Tuesday, March 10th, 2009 -- Zentomino
Posted in Games: Logic & Puzzle, Paid Apps No Comments »
by Eric March on June 27, 2009 at 12:37 pm
Rate it: (3 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)
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Mine wasn’t the only new AmbiScience app to be released. Two other new apps just saw the light of day featuring other talented musical artists.
Both of them follow the usual AmbiScience format, featuring a number of tracks, accompanied by a selection of entrainment effects (both isochronic and binaural, indicated by HP for headphone-only (binaural), or HP/SP for headphones or speakers (isochronic)), a sleep timer, and independently-controlled volumes.
Pure Meditation
Pure Meditation’s theme is just what its name suggests: A collection of tunes designed to be simple and entrancing, conducive to slipping into a state of solitary meditation. This one featuring 9 tracks by Neil Goldstein, whose contributions are deceptively simple single-notes and harmonic accompaniments. A prominent feature of these tracks is the way Neil likes to play with slowly evolving phased chords — two notes played at very close to the same frequency, creating an entwining effect as the notes feed back on each other, alternately complementing and cancelling each other out in a sine wave pattern. It’s difficult to describe in words, but it’s the sort of thing you know when you hear, and it does a very good job of assisting you in attaining a meditative state. Like the phasing, the songs themselves are abstract and slowly evolve; there are no sharp corners or abrupt interjections here to distract you from sinking into a deeply relaxed state. All of his songs follow pretty much the same format with different instruments, giving the overall sense of a predictable, shifting palette of sound, but for an app designed around meditation, you tend to want consistency, so it works very well here. In addition to the 9 tracks by Neil, you also get bonus tracks taken each from Pure Sleep, Brain Power, and Android’s Odyssey, along with 14 entrainment effects (7 isochronic beats duplicated in binaural).
Relax Trax
The award-winning Humble Brothers bring their extensive musical experience to the table in this one, and it shows. Relax Trax features eminently relaxing background soundscapes overlaid with gorgeous, lush pads, smooth, muted jazz trumpet, acoustic guitar, and distant, ineffable flutes to create beautifully rendered audio experiences. Each track is lovingly crafted and distinct unto itself. It is more like my Galactic Chill, and in its own way the antithesis of Pure Meditation in that it tries to present a variety of songs that have clear delineations and unique personalities, yet all sharing the same goal of helping you mentally decompress and unwind. The Humble Brothers however have married common, relaxing, organic elements such as the sounds of rainfall, crickets, and wind chimes, with their own complimentary instrumentation to create relaxing, distinct songs that are simply beautiful, and beautiful in their simplicity. Relax Trax features 7 tracks from the Humble Brothers, along with 3 bonus tracks from Pure Sleep and Brain Power, plus 12 entrainment effects (6 isochronic beats duplicated in binaural).
All three of the latest AmbiScience apps are distinct in their personalities and offer their own unique experiences even as they aim for similar goals, which provides a great variety with a little something that just about everyone can put their feet up and rest their head on. Of course, I’m biased towards my own contribution to the series, but why not grab all three? There’s enough variety here to keep you chillaxing as long as you need.
AmbiScience: Pure Meditation |
AmbiScience: Relax Trax |
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Posted in Health & Fitness, Paid Apps No Comments »
by Eric March on June 27, 2009 at 2:24 am
Rate it: (2 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)
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Yes it is! Right there in the App Store it sits, and my name right there in the credits, and now I can give you a direct link to it.
As I talked about in my sneak peek, this is a relaxation aid featuring 8 original ambient and chillout electronica tracks by me, plus 3 others imported from previous AmbiScience apps just to fill it in, along with 10 isochronic and binaural beats to assist in relaxation and sleep, plus a sleep timer, independent volume controls for music and entrainment frequencies, and entrainment presets for commonly desired mindsets. There isn’t much more to say about it that I didn’t already cover in the sneak peek, so let’s just get down to what you really want: Promo codes!
Yes, I’ve got 10 of them to give away here on Frapstr, and I’m going to give them away on Twitter! See that link on the sidebar there? The one inviting you to follow Frapstr on Twitter? Click it. Or just click here instead. No, not yet! When you’re done reading. Follow me and you’ll have a chance to get you some interstellar chillout love for your iDevice. I’m going to be handing out the codes codes randomly throughout the day on Saturday, June 27th, starting at roughly noonish and going through the evening. I’m going to try to do it on the hour for 10 hours, but I can’t promise I’ll be right on the dot due to that little personal life thing I try and keep breathing.
All I ask if you get a code is to leave an honest review on the App Store, and to tweet back if you snagged a code so others don’t keep trying in vain to snarf a code that’s already taken. Remember, these codes only work on the US iTunes store. Sorry, not my rules, so blame Apple if you must. Given my druthers I’d let the whole world take a crack at it, but you must have a US iTunes account if you want to redeem these codes. Good luck to everyone, and for those that grab a code, please enjoy!
Thanks to everyone who participated in the Twitter giveaway! I hope everyone who snagged a code enjoys the app.
And now, why don’t we take another look at that lovely trailer and those screenshots again? Awesome idea.
Related Posts:
- Sunday, June 21st, 2009 -- Sneak Peek: AmbiScience: Galactic Chill
- Wednesday, February 18th, 2009 -- The AmbiScience Series
- Saturday, April 18th, 2009 -- Ambiscience: Android’s Odyssey
- Saturday, June 27th, 2009 -- AmbiScience: Pure Meditation and Relax Trax
- Friday, November 14th, 2008 -- Affirmations - Weight Loss
Posted in Health & Fitness, Paid Apps No Comments »
by Eric March on June 26, 2009 at 11:35 am
Rate it: (2 votes, average: 4.50 out of 5)
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Ever come across one of those things that’s difficult to classify, impossible to quantify, frustratingly hard to describe, and yet remains oddly compelling, and the reasons that it is are tantalizingly elusive? That’s about as close as I can come up summing up Emergence, despite the fact that this says absolutely nothing about it.
Emergence defies any one specific description except to say that it’s kind of a toy, kind of a music composition tool, kind of an interactive art generator, kind of a mood enhancer/complementer, kind of … a bunch of things. The top-level idea here — and this is as far as I can condense it — is that you can pick a “mood” that combines a preset assortment of musical instruments with a preset dynamic visual style based on the mood it represents and it will play the music and draw dynamic, moving, slowly evolving artful shapes.
The problem is, reducing the description to a single sentence like that almost completely leeches away all of the flavour this app has, because Emergence is really about what’s under the skin. Take the artworks it creates. It’s hard to tell specifically what it’s doing, but it appears to be some type of hybrid procedural fractal generation thing going on. Depending on the mood, images are generated from a selection of algorithmically generated shapes — boxes, circles, lines, scribbles, spirals, radials, figures and more. Each shape used in that mood has a certain probability of occurring. Furthermore, each mood has certain parameters, such as which musical instruments are attached to it (I’ll get to the music in a bit), its background gradient (tons available), the colour palette to use for the shapes (again, tons available), whether shapes cast a shadow, their transparency, the blend mode they use (multiply, screen, overlay, etc.) and more.
That in itself allows for an infinite amount of possible visual moods it creates — although by default Emergence comes with only 20. But the real kicker here is that you can use any one of them as a base and modify every single parameter to come up with your own completely customized mood. There are an almost overwhelming number of options to choose from here to allow you to tailor the visuals just so, and your custom moods can be saved and named and edited as much as you want until they’re just the way you want them. When the mood is running you can scroll and zoom around, call up the menu with a tap-and-hold, mutate the shapes, and more. If a particularly pleasant shape comes up and you don’t want to lose it, you can even “bookmark” it and then come back to it at any time; or you can save the image of the shape to your camera roll or E-Mail it to someone. The images it saves are larger than the screen, by the by, so it’s more than just snapping a screenshot.
Now, about the music. First and foremost, the music is generated algorithmically in real-time using the anhemitonic pentatonic scale. In English: That’s a 5-note musical scale that doesn’t contain any semitones. This particular scale is ideally suited to algorithmically generated music because each note sounds good with each other note; there are no semitones that can come in randomly and out of context to make it sound like a child mashing randomly on a piano. That means a simple algorithm can be built to generate random but still pleasantly sonorous music that sounds kind of like an improvisational expressionist jazz piece or something — and being algorithmic, no “song” is ever the same twice. As with the visual portion of Emergence, the music, too, can be customized from twelve available instruments, from jazz bass, cello and guitar to “Izmir Ambience”, “Goria Atmosphere,” and thunder, to name a few. Instruiments can be recoded along a kind of fred board/piano (though no keys are visible), either your own compositions that can be saved and played back at any time, or you can start a one-session composition going and have it evolve the composition (or not — evolution is a toggle) as it goes, even with the ability to specify the volume, and the lowest and highest notes each instrument should explore when evolving the music.
Come on, even though it’s difficult to conceptualize from mere words, this sounds pretty cool, right? I mean, just based on all of the parameters and things you can play with, it’s pretty impressive — and I haven’t even covered everything. Did I mention that you can enable an on-screen clock to use it as a nightstand clock? Set a sleep timer for the music? Toggle music generation on and off? Disable screen dim? Toggle whether to play audio when locked? Combine audio effects with your iPod music, or just play your iPod music? Set the shape mutation rate? The on-board help? There’s really a wealth of options and configurations and posibilities here.
This is really an app for tweakers — people who want a kind of zen relaxation tool and want to be able to explore the infinite possibilities it has to offer. My only real complaint I suppose is that it needs to offer a bit more interactivity. When a mood is playing there isn’t really a whole lot you can do outside of the customization. Panning, zooming, and mutating the shapes are about your only interactivity options. Otherwise the shapes simply zoom in and slowly rotate all by themselves, periodically swapping out for newly mutated shapes. Riada are aware of this though and are exploring ways in which they can add more interactivity. However, even without that this could best be considered a pleasantly interactive art and music creation app with boatloads of configuration options the tweaking and exploring of which in itself has its own zen-like qualities — there really are infinite possibilities and discovering new combinations of parameters to create new and beautiful abstract works of art combined with either custom or dynamically generated music, and stringing them all together in moody, motion art with sound is surprisingly calming.
Its real problem lies in its defiance of description — it truly is the sort of thing you really have to play with and experience to fully comprehend. Mere words and screenshots can’t do it justice, and I’d have done a video except I just didn’t have the time to do one up that would have done any justice to what this is all about — and if I were to explore everything in a video it would probably take more time than YouTube allows a video to be. Besides that though, part of Emergence’s artfulness is in its subtlety that itself wouldn’t necessarily communicate well through a highly pressed YouTube video, even if deigned to encode my video in HD. Mind you, there are those who might even get the app who still don’t “get” it in spite of everything. I mean, just have a look this in-depth review left on the App Store by some Zen master:
1. Blaaaa (v1.1)
(1 star) by Blue spice on 12-Apr-2009
Looks like mold
Brilliant assessment there, Spicy Smurf. We should all have such acute powers of observation and communicativeness. You are a credit to your species, whatever that happens to be.
But I suppose when you do something that’s off the beaten path and a little avant garde you’ll inevitably attract useless commentary from the beer hat-wearing philistines in the peanut gallery. For the rest of us who can appreciate an artful touch, Emergence is a subtle yet well-concieved app, and while it isn’t for everyone, those who can dig this sort of thing should really enjoy exploring those myriad nuances and features it has to offer. Like I said. It’s subtle, and it’s really the sort of thing you need to try yourself to fully grok. There is no lite version yet, but Riada are also working on that too, so you will soon be able to properly experience a taste of what Emergence is all about before taking the plunge to the full thing. In the mean time, words and a bunch of screenshots below (which themselves don’t even cover half the app) will have to do.
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Posted in Entertainment, Paid Apps No Comments »
by Eric March on June 25, 2009 at 1:42 pm
Rate it: (2 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)
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It’s been a while since I’ve had a good solid shmup to review, so I was glad when Sumiguchi gave me a ping to review this; I needed some cathartic blow-the-hell-out-of-everything action.
Anomaly follows in the ass-kicking footsteps of greats like Robotron 2084, Smash TV, Gauntlet, and in particular, Alien Syndrome. It takes the form of an overhead shooter and places you in the hot seat of a fighter craft sent to investigate and clear out spatial anomalies through which nasty aliens are pouring. Said anomalies seem to take the form of maze-like structures that are full of a variety of alien ships, traps, obstacles, generators, and score-boosting cargo pods and powerups. Ultimately you must destroy the generators on each level, and obviously, the aliens aren’t going to want you to do that, so they’re going to send their best and their brightest after you. They’re also going to send their dumbest and most accident prone, too, just on the principle that if they throw enough crap at you they’ll eventually hit something.
But don’t for a minute think that’ll make it any easier. Even their weakest fighers can shoot back, and when they’re swarming you as you try and deke through intermittent laser fences, avoid wall-mounted turrets and avoid proximity mines while shooting wildly behind you to destroy your pursuers as you run headlong into a pack of amoeba-like enemies that can grow and splt into 4 copies of themselves even as those copies can grow and split into 4 of their own — well, you can begin to see how you can begin to regret signing up for this suicide mission. Oh, and when you’ve cleared the immediate area of enemies, don’t dawdle. Sit for too long in one spot and you’ll get targeted by distant missile bases that’ll shoot your ass down if given half a chance.
But you are not without your own formidable resources. You’re given an independently operated cannon with which to fight back, and shields to cushion the may blows you’ll end up taking. Powerups along the way can give you rapid fire, spread fire, and others, as well as replenish health or just give you a score boost. You also have what amounts to a smart bomb, which you can activate by shaking your device. It will destroy or seriously damage anything within acertain radius of your ship. Mind you, not everything can be destroyed. Wall spikes can only be avoided, proximity mines have to be triggered with a close approach-and-retreat move so they go off while you’re not within range of their blast radius, and intermittent laser gates have to be passed through while they’re off, to name but a few. You’ll also come across doors that have to be destroyed with repeated shots in order to advance further into the level. Fortunately, they don’t shoot back, but you do have to remember to keep moving to avoid being targeted by that annoying missile sniper.
The controls for the game are very simple, and it uses independent virtual D-Pads, the left for movement and the right for shooting, Robotron-style. As mentioned, there’s also the shake-activated smart bomb. The gameplay stars you off at a comfortable pace, with a four-level tutorial that doesn’t give you any textual instructions but eases the introduction of key gameplay elements gradually, letting you come to grips with everything before assaulting you with it in the proper game. The action can get pretty hot and heavy, with more and tougher enemies, and more devious traps awaiting you with each passing anomaly. There are 11 anomalies to visit, each with 4 or more levels per, for a total of 50 levels to blast your way through, each tougher than the last, and they’ll really test your ability to pay attention to (and deal with) your surroundings. There’s also an awards (achievement) aspect to the game, too, which is nice.
Visually, Anomaly aims for a kind of vintage, sort of Tron-like environment, with vector style graphics and translucent bits combined with solid sprites for an unexpected yet compelling merger of retro worlds. All of the action is silky smooth, and while the effects — all prerendered sprite-based — aren’t awe-inspiring, they’re well-done, and the lack of more modern effects actually suits its 90s retro styling very well. The sounds are very well done, and contribute well to the adrenaline-pumping action, and the title music is cool, too, though it strikes me as a little more downtempo than this sort of game calls for.
One notable feature of this game I should mention is that it’s one of, if not the only shmup that I’m aware of that will let you toggle between landscape and portrait play modes. A circular arrow on the title screen executes the toggle, and the game will reconfigure itself to work in that mode. I much prefer the landscape mode as you have a better grip with less cramping — which is important when you’re manipulating two (virtual) analog sticks, but there may be some who prefer the portrait mode. (The game was originally presented in portrait, but I guess he got a lot of requests for landscape play, which I totally understand.) Oh, and there’s a little feature that seems like it was hidden, or at least never explicitly mentioned: On the map screen at the bottom, there’s a little twinkling star type thing off to the leftbetween anomalies 1 and 3, but away from the anomaly orbit paths. If you tap and hold on it you’ll get the “data center” which lists your gameplay stats, as seen in this screenshot. It’s a small thing, but neat.
All things considered, Anomaly features some pretty intense shmup action in a very attractive package and doesn’t bother you with frivolous details like a deep plot or long-winded cut scenes that kill the flow and put annoying distance between you and the trails of alien carnage you leave behind. The controls work very well, the game plays smoothly, and in the end this is a mighty fine shooter that any shmup fan would be nuts to pass on at its current sale of one paltry little dollar. If you need any more convincing than my recommendation and the video/screenshots below provide though, go grab the free lite version and see for yourself. Then come back here so I can say “told ya so.”
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by Eric March on June 24, 2009 at 9:45 am
Rate it: (2 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)
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Now that they’ve brought their existing catalog up to date on the iPhone, SplashData seems be set to expand their lineup now, and the first of these new additions is SplashTravel.
Yeah, we’ve seen all-in-one utilities before, usually in the form of calculators and converters. They’ve been good, of course, but this particular all-in-one app is aimed squarely at air travelers, and it seems to cover just about all of the possible bases you could want in a trip planner. Just have a look at this lovely and voluminous bullet point list:
- Automatic location detection with optional manual setting
- World time for two zones on the main page
- World map showing time zones and day/night zones
- Currency converter with live updating and optional manual setting
- Time and day calculators
- Unit converters for all major units
- Basic tip calculator with post/pre-tax toggle and party size
- Clothing size comparison charts for all common items of apparel between the USA, Europe, UK and Japan
- Trip planner (see below)
- Extensible packing list allowing you to check off things you need to pack, and allowing for the addition of new items and new categories to put them in
- Expense list to allow you to keep track of your spending — great for keeping to a budget or for those of you getting corporate to pick up the tab
- A list of the world’s country codes and top-level internet domains, plus a list of US area codes and state abbreviations
- A massive list of company contact information broken down by airlines, car rental outfits, hotels, and travel services, which includes phone numbers, reservation numbers (where applicable) and tappable web addresses
The trip planner alone needs its own couple of paragraphs. Here, you can create all of the planned details of your trip (internet access required for this part): You can configure your flight(s), which lets you set the travel date, departure city and arrival city (by city or airport code). From there it will retrieve a live list of available flights for the chosen date across all airlines that go between the two cities, and display them in order of departure time from the airport so you can pick which flight on that date you want to take. Once a flight is chosen it will even give you the available details of that flight, including flight number, arrival time, gate (if available), live schedule notices (known delays, cancellations, etc.), baggage claim details (if available), and even what kind of craft you’ll be flying in.
In addition to flight planning, you can also note rental car reservations (company, location, start date/time and end date/time, confirmation number), train and bus tickets (departure/arrival locations, date/time, confirmation number), hotel reservations, restaurant reservations (name, date/time, and the restaurant’s phone number), and general events. And any all of these things can be added to a trip as needed, and you can have any number of the same things added to a given trip.
The only thing that might confuse is the world map on the home page: It instructs you to rotate to expand the map to full screen. What it doesn’t tell you is that it only works if you rotate clockwise. Not a big deal, but since the first time I tried I rotated counter-clockwise, I initially deemed it non-functional. Ideally, the world map should work in either landscape orientation. A small complaint, but worth mentioning so you don’t end up rotating counter-clockwise and wondering as I did why it refused to cooperate, and if there was something wrong with your accelerometer — because it’s a known bug that the accelerometer can sometimes go senile if initially calibrated while lying flat.
Besides that small complaint though, SplashTravel is a surprisingly comprehensive and feature-rich all-in-one travel companion that goes beyond simple conversion, calculation and list-making by doing a lot of the work for you, retrieving flights and schedules and giving you instant access to contact information for all of the primary trip-related elements of your journey. You don’t even have to dial any of them, either. Just find the company you’re looking for tap on the desired phone number. I’m not a jet-setter, mind you — matter of fact, I’ve never flown, unless you count that time I fell out of the wood fort during recess in grade 2, but that was more plummeting than flying — or if you prefer, I aimed at the ground but failed to miss. Either way, for those of you who do travel, this is an essential companion to streamline and simplify your planning, and it doesn’t even need to be stuffed in your carry-on amongst your mid-flight toiletries and that thing which looks embarrassingly like a “personal toy” on the X-ray monitor but really, really isn’t.
Related Posts:
- Monday, May 11th, 2009 -- 9-Toolbox (Limited Time Freebie)
- Tuesday, May 19th, 2009 -- SplashPhoto
- Friday, May 15th, 2009 -- SplashNotes Outliner
- Wednesday, March 25th, 2009 -- File Magic
- Saturday, November 8th, 2008 -- Converters
Posted in Paid Apps, Travel, Utilities No Comments »
by Eric March on June 23, 2009 at 12:12 pm
Rate it: (2 votes, average: 4.00 out of 5)
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You’ll be glad to know that wasn’t a euphemism.
Monkey Sling is another entry in the stable of distance games that seems to take the approach that if you can’t beat ‘em with bling, bury ‘em with bonuses. Not that Monkey Sling isn’t pretty, mind you, it just isn’t really any prettier than its peers — subjectively speaking, that is. It is well designed though, but let’s look at what it is before talk about its attractiveness.
In the main, of course, Monkey Sling does a pretty good Kitten Cannon type deal, except you physically pull back the sling the monkey is nervously waiting in and let go to send him soaring. Along the way you’ll be helped along by bouncy mushrooms and frogs, slippery bananas, and exploding sticks of dynamite carelessly left suspended in mid-air by helium balloons. You’ll also be hoping to avoid the hungry maws of hippos, snakes and bear traps, as well as the business ends of pointy spears, also left carelessly jutting from the ground. No, you definitely don’t want to puncture your monkey. You’re scored purely on distance.
So far, so standard. Unlike more recent variants of the genre on the iPhone platform, you have no direct control over your monkey. You sling, it flies, you pray, lather, rinse, repeat until you score big. But iPatch have worked to bring you a bit more variety than your standard distance game by including two other games: Barrel and Height. Barrel is … well, pretty simplistic. You try and sling monkeys into flying barrels overhead. It’s interesting for the first few minutes, but it becomes repetative rather quickly. Height, however, is fun. It’s the same idea as distance except your only obstacle is gravity itself, and the only helper is an endless stream of dynamite-toting helium balloons. Your job here is to aim at the dynamite to send him soaring ever upward, tilting your device to aim him at the next balloon to see how high you can get him before you miss and fall back down to Earth in a pile of quivering gibs. (Okay, there are no gibs, it just ends the game mid-fall. Did you really want to see the monkey splatter? Sicko.)
Visually it’s well-appointed with hand drawn jungle visuals that remind you of most Flash games — very clean and professional if not inspiring of oohs and aahs. The sound is good — fitting, appropriately exaggerated for comedic effect. And as I mentioned, gameplay is pretty standard for the type of game, so there’s nothing worthy of singling out for complaint or praise. The variety is welcome though, so no that front it has an edge over its competition. However, having gotten used to having an additional helper within the game that I directly control (rotation in Hot Dog Down a Hallway, or your rump jet in UKA), the old fire-and-forget method just kind of leaves me wanting. It’s not Monkey Sling’s fault, of course. It’s just the natural evolution of concepts that leave their predecessors feeling a little flat. iPatch Studios are aware that more direct control is desirable in a modern distance game though, so they will probably be investigating ways to impliment that — just as soon as they finish their grog and go for a quick plunder.
Related Posts:
- Friday, June 19th, 2009 -- Sneak Peek: Urban Kick Academy 1.1
- Tuesday, May 5th, 2009 -- Ow My Balls!
- Wednesday, April 29th, 2009 -- Hot Dog Down a Hallway + Contest
- Monday, March 16th, 2009 -- Cat Toss
- Sunday, September 28th, 2008 -- Soccer Kickoff Free
Posted in Games: Casual, Paid Apps No Comments »
I’ve probably mentioned somewhere along the line that I dig maze games.
See, the the 3D part of its name isn’t just about the fact that it’s a first-person, OpenGL-ES-based maze game, but also the fact that the maze itself spans three dimensions, which increases the challenge exponentially — literally. Suddenly, that tiny old-school 10×10 maze ain’t so tiny anymore, not when there are 10 of ‘em stacked one atop another, all interconnected with only one way out. That’s just an example, though — in fact, RealMaze 3D offers 5 different maze sizes: Tiny (5×5x5, 125 cells), small (6×6x7, 252 cells), normal (7×7x9, 441 cells), large (9×9x12, 972 cells), and insane (10×10x17, 1700 cells). The mazes are randomly generated each time, so you needn’t worry about running out of mazes to solve. At the end of each maze you’re presented with a layered representation of the maze showing where you’ve visited (in green) and what you passed over, and you can scroll up and down through the layers. It’s a little confusing for some and it’s there mainly for curiosity’s sake. Personally, I think it would have been cooler if it were presented using a translucent cube that you could rotate and zoom in on, showing your route in real 3D.
In addition to the standard 5 maze sizes, this version also features a new daily challenge maze, which creates a randomly generated maze of arbitrary size (one that doesn’t necessarily conform to the standard maze sizes available) that everyone can compete in for a high score. The maze is the same for everyone and is updated each day at midnight (pacific). The catch here though is that while you can attempt the daily maze as many times as you like, only the time of your first attempt qualifies for the high score table.
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