iPhone Hill

I just love a good word game.  So much so that I will effortlessly bypass an adventure, puzzle, or board game app that has great graphics and scores of 5 star ratings in favor of a word game that I believe to be original and offers a good challenge.  And if that word game has an online multiplayer element, then so much the better.

John Daniel Bagwell’s first foray into the world of app creation, Killbo, was a word game that took some time for me to warm up to.  Its premise is straightforward: There are 9 tiles that appear in the center of the screen and each tile- generally- has a letter written on it.  Surrounding the center tiles are 9 outer tiles, also- generally- with letters written on them.  The objective of the game is to form words using available tiles.  Each time a letter from a center tile is chosen, the letter on the outer tile closest to the chosen tile moves into its place.  For every word formed, points are awarded.  Longer words translate into more points and it is the player’s task to rack up as high a score as possible.

Sounds simple, right?  But there are twists and turns to this.  For starters, the game is timed.  After the letter on a tile is chosen, only the adjoining tiles are available; the others turn gray and cannot be chosen.  So if a gray tile contains a letter you were going to need to build a word, you’ll have to decide whether it’s possible to create a word based on the remaining available tiles or erase the word and start over again.  There also exists special point awards for forming predetermined words listed at the top of the screen or for using green or pink-colored tiles in your word formations.  There is the option to- when available- select a “wild” tile that can become any letter you wish.  And if you’re really struggling to come up with a word, you can shake your iPod or iPhone to get brand new letters.  Be careful, though, because doing so will deduct precious seconds from your remaining time.

Killbo will test your ability to think on your feet and adapt to constantly changing circumstances.  As I said earlier, it took some time for me to warm up to and get the hang of Killbo.  Now that I have, though, I can certainly appreciate its challenge.  If you crave word game apps and have a buck burning a hole in your pocket, Killbo is worth adding to your stockpile.

iTunes Link – Killbo

Version 1.2

Tested on an iPod Touch 3.1.3

I don’t consider myself a newshound, but I do like to be in the know.  I keep an eye on Wiki trends, Twitter trends and get weather and breaking news updates by SMS.   

Anytime a story about the iPhone or BlackBerry comes out, I want to know.  Plus, there are artists, authors, and actors I’m a little ashamed to say I know more about than I probably should. 

RSS feeds are a good way to stay on top of those tidbits and I have three such apps that I rotate among depending on the features included in their latest updates.  But as good as RSS is, it’s a pain to have to mine through 1000+ articles to find that small handful of gems worth my time to read.  

That’s where NewsAlert can be a handy app to have.

If an RSS app is a scalpel, cutting away extraneous stories of little interest to you, then NewsAlert is a high-powered laser allowing you to hone in on what truly matters. With it, you can specify by keyword (choose up to 10 keywords with the initial purchase cost, with the option to buy more) the news issues and topics you want to read about.  Once a keyword is chosen, whenever a story with that keyword is released on the web, you’ll receive a notification. 

The degree of customization is impressive.  You can specify the news sources you don’t want to hear from, the times you want to receive push notifications as well as the total number you wish to receive in a day.  

The app is simple to set up, does what it’s designed to do and quickly became a valuable resource.  It allowed me to keep tabs on issues that don’t often break through the typical news cycle.  

NewsAlert is currently on sale for $.99, so if you’re even slightly interested, snap it up now before the price returns to $2.99.

iTunes Link – NewsAlert

Version 1.3

Tested on an iPod Touch 3.1.3

A long time ago in a land far, far away, an evil witch turned an arrogant young prince into a frog. 

The frog prince, of course, wanted to become human again, but only a fairy could help him.  Unfortunately, the fairy resided high in the sky, far above the lily pad land of the prince, though it was rumored that she had sprinkled the sky with special stars that could be followed to find her.

The Frog Prince had a special ability.  Not only could he hop lilies, he could also hop the stars.  Or at least magical ones, anyway.  So it set out on a quest to find the good fairy.

Would he find her and become the human he once was?

Ok, so that’s not really the backstory to this game; I just made it up.  Doodle Frog, from Thetis Consulting, bills itself as an addictive game.  It does have that potential.  Here’s how it works:  At the start of each game, a fairy sprinkles stars into the sky and the game pans down a few seconds until it reaches the earth.  By using swiping motions at the bottom of the screen, the player controls the frog’s motions so that it can “hop” to a star.  If the frog touches a star, the frog is propelled up.  The frog’s flight can be managed by swiping right or left, but once a star is touched, it disappears and cannot be touched again.

Points are gained as the frog moves from star to star.  Some stars are worth more points than others.  And there are witches that periodically fly into the game to steal points.  If the frog misses a star and there are no other stars for it to hop onto (or a little flying bug buzzing by), it falls back to the ground.

On the plus side: Doodle Frog was easy to learn to play.  It took some time for me to get used to the swiping style of movement, but not too long.  It can be a challenging game in much the same way that a lot of the ‘Doodle’ games are.

On the minus side: the game got to be a little repetitive after a while; the pattern of stars never seemed to change all that much.  I believe it could benefit from some variance.  Maybe different kinds of stars that do different things, witches that hover and cast spells that affect the frog’s jumping, or other bad “guys” might help spice the game up a little.  I think the fairy sprinkling star scene at the beginning of every game could either be shortened or cut out entirely.  Also, the falling frog scene could be shortened as well.  Those two bits take up far too much time and really interrupt the flow of getting into the game and trying to go farther than you did the last time (via the ‘Try Again’ option).  When I was first starting to learn the game, it seemed as though I spent far more time falling or waiting for the fairy to do her thing than play.  And that quickly became annoying.

Although its playability could be improved a lot with just a few changes, this is- in my opinion- a good start.

iTunes Link – Doodle Frog

Version 1.0

Tested on an Ipod Touch 3.1.3 

Reiner Knizia and Conlan Rios are at it again with Robot Master. Unlike Reiner Knizia’s Monumental, Robot Master was actually based on a real life card game. Basically, that means the card game was good enough to port over to the iPhone and iPod Touch. I’m here to back that up and to even suggest that this version is superior to it’s predecessor. How could that be? Read on, my friends.

Robot Master is a puzzle/card game with several twists. You start out with a deck of cards numbered 0 to 5. You have six of each number and you proceed to lay these cards down one by one on a 5×5 grid. The totals for each row and column are added up as you go and are always displayed in their respective location. The first twist is that when you have two of the same number in the same row or column, the score of that number is doubled for that row or column. And when you have three of the same number, the score is increased by 100 points for that row or column. As you play, these individual scores seem to increase like crazy. This is where the final twist comes into play. Your final score is the row or column with the lowest score. Inevitably, one or two rows or columns will be neglected throughout the game so even if you have amazing scores for 9 of your rows and columns, your lowest score is what matters. This can be frustrating as well as addicting. Seeing some of the high scores for other people made me want to vomit. My highest score so far is a mere 41 points!

There are a few more game modes that give Robot Master loads more replayability. Easy mode allows you to skip one card per turn, giving you another chance for that perfect row. You are not able to post your scores online in this mode, though. Tournament mode is pretty much your standard game and you could end up on the high score table if you’re freaking awesome. Versus mode puts you up against either a friend or the computer. You take turns placing cards the same way you normally would except that one player is the rows and one player is columns. The lowest score on any of these loses the game. Pretty cool idea and drastically changes the game.

You probably still want to know why I think this version would be better than the original card game. Well, it’s because there would be way too much math in this game for my tastes. I like all my math behind the scenes where it belongs. Alright, so that’s kind of a lame reason but it’s all I’ve got. Reiner Knizia’s Robot Master has earned a permanent place on my phone and I suggest you check it out.

iTunes Link – Reiner Knizia’s Robot Master
Version 1.2
Reviewed on iPhone 3GS OS 3.1.3

Sometimes the easy decisions are the hardest to make. Sometimes the hard decisions are even harder to make. That’s why sometimes, you need dice.  Complete and utter randomness can make a daunting task into a relatively simple one. That’s right, there is no need for you to worry your pretty little head over these things. Let the dice decide for you.  The problem is that nobody, with very few exceptions, carries dice around in their pocket at all times. If you’re looking at this site though, you probably carry around an iPhone or iPod touch at all times. The developer hnm has created an excellent, simple application that will make the rest of your decisions for you.

Kidding aside, this application really does have a ton of uses. It allows you to bust out a set of dice at any time. Did you lose the dice for your favorite board game? Of course you did, everybody has. Well, pull out this handy app and you’re set. You can choose between black, white and wooden six sided dice.  The dice are easy to add to the board as well as take away. Give the device a shake and the dice tumble about the screen using realistic physics. If you get tired of shaking the device, you can just press a button instead.  My only real gripe would be that you can only roll three dice at a time.  At this point, I can’t think of a reason to roll more, but I’d like to think that I could.  The background table that the dice roll around on can change colors or be set to a picture from your photo album. They even make little clattering noises as they roll around like real dice but you can turn this off if you want. Make Dice is very customizable.

The biggest customization would be the ability to “make” your own dice. You can literally type whatever you want onto the sides of a die, save it and then roll to your heart’s content. This process is simple and fun. This feature makes it easy for us to decide who will go pick up the dry cleaning, what we’re having for dinner or what movie we’re going to watch.  The best part is, nobody can really be upset by the result, because it’s random. Well, I suppose they could still be upset, but they’re just sore losers.

It is a simple app, but it works great.  Make those old broken board games work again. Make better (or at least more fun) decisions. Make randomness a part of your life.  Make Dice.

iTunes Link – Make Dice
Version 1.0
Reviewed on iPhone 3GS OS 3.1.3

I once read that in the lobby of Google’s Corporate Headquarters (the so-called Googleplex) are a series of projector screens that show real time aggregated data on active Google searches around the world.  That struck me as an interesting concept, one I thought- for the briefest of moments- would be kind of cool to see in person.

Although the average person may never set eyes on the Googleplex (beyond those exaggerated pics we’ve all gotten via email), we do have resources available that will allow us to see what people all over the world are reading and searching for on the web.

That’s where WikiTrend, from Oooo Software, comes in.  WikiTrend is an app that will allow you to track trend information on Wikipedia.  It will provide a listing of the top recent Wiki hits as well as the top recent Wiki movers. 

If you’re the kind of person who finds him- or herself constantly checking your trend page on Twitter to see what people are talking about, this is the app for you.  If you’re someone who likes to follow the news or wants to go deeper and explore the details behind the headlines, this is the app for you. WikiTrend updates every hour, so you can be reasonably sure that the information you have before you is current and not yesterday’s trends.  And if there’s a topic that you want to gather more information about or explore in more depth, simply click the arrow beside the topic and the app will open the Wikipedia page that addresses the topic in question. 

I was intrigued by this app, if only for the fact that I do try to stay connected with the news of the day via text messages and email from a variety of news agencies.  

I think there are a few things that might be added to further enhance this app.    There aren’t a lot of layers to WikiTrend, meaning that it’s pretty much a what you see is what you get kind of app.  That’s ok, but it does leave a lot to the user to determine and conclude without a lot of data.  For example, this weekend, most of the trending topics have to do with the Olympics or Valentine’s Day.  But determining exactly why can be a challenge.  It would be good to incorporate a brief summary statement for each listed topic so that the user wouldn’t have to guess why an item is trending.  In addition, it would be nice to see this app incorporate trend information from other social networking or bookmarking sites.  Trend information from Twitter, Google, or Yahoo, for example, would be great.  It would be interesting to see the degree to which trends across sites are in agreement. 

But that might be too far outside the scope of an app called WikiTrend that focuses on Wikipedia data. 

Also, it would be good to have fresher trend information.  Hourly updates aren’t a bad start, but a lot can change over the course of an hour.  Stock data is generally down to a 20 minute delay and I think that 20 or 30 minute updates in trend info would be great. 

The bottom line is that if you’re interested in following Wikipedia trends and being aware of what everyone’s talking about, WikiTrend is the app for you.  At .99 cents, it’s not a bad investment at all. 

iTunes Link-  WikiTrend

Version 1.0.0 

Tested on iPod Touch 3.1.2 

History is made one moment at a time, day by day.  And for every person born, there is a unique history surrounding their birthdate.  I believe that we are all curious to learn more about our birthdates.  We want to see how many other cool people were born the same day we were and whether anything notable happened that day.  Ruslan Morozov’s The Day I Was Born answers that question by unlocking and allowing us to remember that history.

Here’s how it works: the application requests a birthdate: day, month, and year.  Once it has that information, The Day I Was Born generates even more information associated with the supplied date of birth.

What kind of information?  How about Western Zodiac, Chinese Zodiac, Earth elements and stones associated with your birthdate?  Not enough, you say?  Add in numerological elements including life path and destiny, historical accounts of your birthdate across time, births and deaths, and any holidays coinciding with the supplied date.  That’s a lot of stuff, right?

I thought so.

The Day I Was Born also allows you to share the information with friend via SMS (iPhone users only), email, or Twitter. 

The Day I Was Born is an entertaining app, but once you’ve read through everything associated with your date of birth, it’s usefulness to you is probably going to be fairly limited.  But you can use it to look up your friends’ dates of birth, your boy- or girlfriend’s, as well as other family members’ info, too. 

It will keep you entertained for a while and probably tell you some things you may not have known about yourself and others.  It’ll definitely increase your awareness of history.  And if you’re into astrology or numerology, there’s a lot of stuff that you’ll probably appreciate knowing about yourself and others.

There’s not much I could suggest to add to this app, but I think it would be cool see or link to the front page of a major newspaper on a given birthdate.  I once went tooling around in my university library’s microfiche and -film section because I wanted the see the front page of the New York Times on my birthdate.  I do, however, recognize that the Times certainly wouldn’t be the best paper for everyone depending on their homeland.

iTunes Link- The Day I Was Born

Version 2.1

Tested on iPod Touch 3.1.3

 

 

Edit: Angry Birds is on sale for $0.99, normally $1.99.

Private Snowball: Commander, these birds are angry.

Commander Napoleon: What? Why?

Private Snowball: It could possibly be because we stole their eggs to make Sunday Brunch.

Commander Napoleon: No, that can’t be it. We reimbursed them by giving them DDT-infused worms. What’s the worst these angry birds can do?

Private Snowball: Sir, it appears they are launching themselves at our headquarters using a giant slingshot.

The Good: Angry Birds is a gorgeous, cartoony ‘crush the castle’ style game that involves flinging birds of various colors at pigs enclosed in haphazard wooden buildings. It’s like the three little pigs, if the wolf was replaced by a slingshot and homicidal birds. And if clickgamer.com wrote fairy tales, and not games.

The game starts off tame, but eventually new birds and harder levels are introduced. More difficult levels require some intense strategy and some creative solutions. The sheer amount of high-quality and inspired levels offered will keep you hooked for quite a while.

A recent update introduced an impressive 42 extra levels, which makes for one long, long game addition. For the casual gamer or a bird-catapult enthusiast (I know you’re out there), Angry Birds is an absolute must.

The Bad: I can’t say anything bad about this game, except that it’s very addictive.

The Ugly: After downloading this, don’t expect to sleep for a while. Like I said, this game is addicting.

As surely as fall gives way to winter and winter gives way to spring, spring gives way to standardized tests, whether placement or college entry.  One of the biggest, most important standardized tests of all is the Scholastic Aptitude Test, or SAT, with its math, critical reading, and writing sections.  I always felt that if math was a strength for you, the chances were fairly good that you could work your way from problem to a reasonable estimation of the correct solution.  Or at least enough to where the odds of guessing the right answer were significantly higher.

The verbal section- as it was known back in my day- was a bit trickier, though.  Especially analogies and vocabulary.  Either you knew the meaning of the word or you didn’t and no amount of staring at it would change that painful fact.  I remember studying vocabulary words as though my life depended on it because I was so terrified I was going to encounter a word I’d never seen or even heard of before.  And in spite of all my studying, I did.  Although it’s been a while since I took the GRE and even longer since I took the SAT, I wish I had Flash of Genius: SAT Vocab back then.  Unfortunately, all I had was a few stacks of well-worn index cards. 

Here’s how Flash of Genius: SAT Vocab works: in addition to a database of over three hundred fifty words, Flash of Genius: SAT Vocab also incorporates word roots, mini-lessons, sample sentences, and even audio pronunciations.  The objective of the app is to help the user learn not only the definitions of various words, but also the connections between words.  If you know the definition of one word and understand its Latin or Greek roots, when you encounter other words with similar roots, you can reasonably deduce its meaning even if you’ve never seen the word before.  For example, if you know that the root “bene/ben” means “good”, then you’re that much closer to knowing the definition of words like benefactor, beneficiary, benign, or benevolent.  In essence, learning word roots can help you to increase the odds of choosing correct answers.

And with the SAT, every little edge matters.

I do think this application could benefit from an expanded word database.  359 words is certainly nothing to sneeze at, but a few hundred more would be awesome.

Still, there are so many reasons why this is a great app to own if the SAT is in your immediate future, chief of which is the fact that it just works.  Flash of Genius: SAT Vocab is well-designed, easy to use and understand, and adapts to your needs.  The value of the word roots is simply inestimable and the ways in which the app could be used go far beyond the SAT.  Anyone studying vocabulary words for a standardized test or simply seeking to expand their personal vocabulary could also benefit from it.

iTunes Link- Flash of Genius: SAT Vocab

Version 2.2

Tested on iPod Touch 3.1.3

What do you do when your chapel is overrun with ghosts, zombies, vampires, demons and rats. Well you call on Father Smith the shotgun wielding holy man, that’s what you do. TipCat Mobile brings us this shooter that had me at the opening sequence.

The game play is simple, you tilt the phone left or right to move Father Smith and tap/shoot all the baddies that come on the screen. When you kill something gems fall to the ground, when you walk over them you get more ammo. Better gems giving more ammo drop when you kill multiple monsters with a single shot. Gems also raise your special meter that grant you the big guns. If you get hit by a monster  you loose ammo and when the ammo is gone Game Over so you better make each shot count because a single shot is six bullets.

There are three different modes.

Tutorial: Here is where you learn the ropes. It consists of four stages with simple tasks that teach you all the mechanics of the game.

Story Mode: Consisting of nine levels that you can unlock by completing the previous level. Each level has six timed battles that you have to get through. To pass a battle you need to kill a certain number of monsters that come your way. As you progress through the game you are gradually introduced to different game mechanics. Monsters that are faster and more difficult to kill, different environment elements like ice on the floor. I like the way this is implemented because each level has something new that you must master.

Survival Mode: With six different levels to unlock. This is where you do like the name implies and try to survive.

I was impressed with everything in this game. The graphics are top notch, the game play keeps me coming back for more and the soundtrack is spooky. At a $.99 release sale I would highly recommend you get this game.

This game uses open feint for achievements and leader boards.

iTunes Link – Ghosts’n Zombies

Version 1.1

Reviewed on iPhone 3G OS 3.1.3