App Review: BioSub by Origin8

I have long been a fan of the Sentinel games by Origin8.  These tower defense games are some of my favorites.  In creating BioSub, Origin8 explores a very different type of game.  BioSub combines physics and problem solving into one very challenging and unique game.  You are a mini sub and your goal is to destroy the canisters in the water around you.  This is done by bumping into the canisters to propel them into one another.  A canister is destroyed when you make it bump into another canister of the same color.  If you make two canisters of different colors bump into each other, instead of being destroyed, they will cause a third container of a different color to be formed.  The hardest part of the game is that you only have 30 seconds to destroy all of the canisters on the screen in each level.

There are two types of controls available to use.  I recommend trying both to see which one is more intuitive and easy for you.  The first is tilt controls that take advantage of the accelerometer.  Using these controls, you tilt your device to tell the sub which direction to move in.  The farther you tilt it, the faster the sub will move.  Controlling the sub by tilting alone is extremely difficult.  However, by touching the screen you can apply the brakes.   Thankfully, these brakes work very well and can be very helpful in controlling the sub.  You can calibrate the tilt controls as well as adjust the sensitivity of the controls in the options menu.  The second type of controls are touch controls.  Using these controls you tap and drag on the screen to direct your sub.  An arrow will appear on the screen in front of the sub indicating the direction that you have told it to go.  The length of the arrow indicates the speed that the sub will move at.

BioSub is a clever game.  As you move through the levels, the challenge gets harder and harder as obstacles are placed in your way or canisters are tethered together with different types of materials.  It takes some thinking to figure out some of the levels.  My only complaint with the game would be that I found the controls hard to master.  At first, I had a hard time controlling the sub.  With the two types of controls and the ability to calibrate them, you can find the controls that work best for you.

Tips and Tricks:

• Remember that if your sub or the canisters go off the screen on one side, they will appear again on the other side of the screen.  Everything wraps around.
• Moving your sub too quickly and hitting canisters too hard can often slow you down instead of making things faster.  Use your brakes if you have to.
• You may have to create another canister of another color in order to get rid of all the canisters on the screen.

Developer’s Website: http://www.origin8.com/

App Review: Bear on a Wire by Dreamsocket, Inc.

Bear on a Wire is a very entertaining app featuring a bear riding a bike on telephone wires.  The picture of that huge bear on a bike is quite comical and is enough to bring a smile to your face.  The object of the game is to complete each course in the time allotted.  There is not much time to spare, so you will have to move quickly.  Just getting through the levels is not all that exciting, though.  For extra points, you can make the bear perform lots of different tricks on his bike.  Be careful not to let him hit the wire, though.  If he hits the wire, you lose a life.

The controls for the game are relatively simple.  There is a paw on the lower right corner of the screen.  Touch and hold this button to make the bear go forward.  On the left side of the screen there are three buttons; a square, a triangle, and a square.  These buttons are used to make the bear do tricks.  Each button by itself  or in combination with others makes the bear do something.  There are so many different possibilities that it took me quite a while to figure out which buttons did what and when they could safely be used without making the bear crash.

To keep the bear’s bike on its wheels, you can tip your iPhone or iPod left and right to balance him.  You can also use this tipping motion to make the bear perform flips when he is airborne.  Just make sure you have him right side up again by the time he lands on the wire again.  Bear on a Wire is entertaining and funny.  It is a fun, low-stress way to kill some time and have a good laugh.

Developer’s Website: http://bearonawire.com/

App Review: MonsterKill by Origin8

With Halloween approaching at the end of October, we are bound to see more apps with ghouls, ghosts, and mummies.  MonsterKill, the newest game by Origin8, is a great new app in this genre.  MonsterKill is not a traditional tower defense game like the earlier Sentinel games also by Origin8, but it does borrow some elements from them.  Your job is to defend your gates against the waves of attacking monsters.  Don’t let them break them down. or the game is over.

There are three modes of game play.   Each one presents a different challenge.  In normal mode you have to last 20 rounds against the monsters.  You start with one spell to defend your gates.  Other spells are unlocked as you progress.  In endless mode, you must last as long as you can.  There are unlimited rounds of attacking monsters.  See how long you can last.  In onslaught mode, you have no gates to defend yourself.  You are given 20 tokens to buy upgrades.  Then, you have to defend yourself against 101 monsters.  See if you can get them all.

In order to cast spells on the monsters, you have to have magic available in your magic meter at the top of the screen.  Use the magic that is there wisely.  It is easy to run out.  At the end of each level, you are given the chance to buy upgrades using the money and tokens that you have earned.  Money is used to repair or upgrade your gates.  It is wise to save your money when you can.  Once it is spent, you cannot get it back.  Tokens are used to upgrade spells and the speed that your magic replenishes.  Unlike your money, you can get your tokens back if you change your mind and use them for something else.

Overall, MonsterKill is a great game that is fun and has great graphics.  However, I did run into one frustration in trying to cast the lightning spell.  To cast it, you have to draw a lightning bolt on the screen.  Although, the game provides a tutorial on each spell, showing you how to cast it, I could never seem to get it right.  After much practice, though, I finally got the hang of it and was able to enjoy the game.  Despite that flaw, I still highly recommend the game.

Developer’s Website: http://www.origin8.com/

App Review: Cooking Dash by PlayFirst, Inc.

Time management apps seem to be making quite a mark on the iPhone app market.  There have been several popular and very successful ones to hit the iTunes App Store.  Cooking Dash by PlayFirst, Inc., now one of the top ten best selling apps, is another great game in this genre.  It is fun to play and highly addictive.  In this game, you become the head cook for a diner, filling in for another chef.  Cooking food and keeping customers happy is sure to keep you on your toes.  Serve your customers as quickly as possible.  Fast, accurate service equals happy customers, and happy customers equal more money for you.  Customers that get too upset will leave.  Lose too many customers in one day and there is no way that you will meet your quota for the day and win the level.

As in many other time management apps, the controls are simple.  When a customer enters the diner, touch and drag them to a seat.  Match the color of the customer to the color of the seat for a bonus.  The more times in a row that you match the color, the bigger the bonus gets.

After you have seated a customer at the counter, they will look at the menu and decide what they want.  The food that they decide to order appears in a thought bubble.  You must find the corresponding items in the kitchen.  Many of the items have to be prepared or cooked.  To cook an item, grab it and place it in the proper appliance.  When the food is done cooking, the timer turns green.  You must then grab the food before it starts to burn.  You get a bonus for serving food that is perfectly cooked.  When you have the correct food items on a plate, the thought balloon for the customer will light up.  This function serves to help you find the right customer to deliver the food too, as well as reassuring you that you got the order correct.  If the bubble does not light up like you think it should, you may have messed up the order.  Wrong orders can be disposed of in the trash bin.  However, you will be penalized for wasted food.

When the customer has finished eating, tap on them to cash them out.  Then, collect their dirty dishes and deposit them in the bin.  You cannot sit another customer in their spot at the counter until the dishes have been cleared.  If you don’t move fast enough in your service, customers will begin to stack up.  It is important to prioritize tasks and perform them in an efficient order to keep customers moving.  A good way to rack up points is to perform the same task more than one time in a row.  This will earn you chain bonuses.

At the end of each level, you can use the money that you have earned to upgrade the look or functionality of your kitchen.  I would highly recommend first buying those upgrades that will help you serve customers more quickly, as that is the name of the game.  There are many unique types of customers and they all want something different.  Some are more patient and tolerant of noise.  Others want peace and quiet while they eat.  The more you can be aware of that, the better you will do.

The only difficulty I ran into with Cooking Dash was that when I moved onto the second stage, things got a lot more difficult.  Yet, because I was working in a new diner, I lost all the upgrades that I had previously bought for the first diner.  Without these upgrades, winning levels proved a lot more difficult than before.  It would be nice to be able to carry a few things forward to help you with the more difficult tasks.  Overall, Cooking Dash is a great game.  It is sure to be a hit with a wide audience.

Developer’s Website: http://www.playfirst.com/game/cookingdash/iPhone

App Review: Aqua Globs by Qwiboo

Aqua Globs is a fun game that challenges your ability to keep an eye on a thousand things at once.  The game consists of orange, blue and green globs that float around the screen.  Your job is to combine same colored globs to make them disappear, while keeping the orange and blue globs from running into each other.  Orange and glue globs do not like each other.  If they do collide, it will cost you one of your three lives.

Globs are steered by drawing out a path for them to follow.  Each time you combine two orange globs or two blue globs, you make one larger glob and earn a point.  These larger globs can then be combined with larger globs of the same color to remove them from the screen.  The wild card in the game are the green globs.  These globs can be combined with either the orange or the blue globs.  They will also combine with any size glob.  When you combine a green glob with another glob, you also get 2 points instead of just one.

As the game progresses, there are more and more globs on the screen at a time.  With such a crowded screen, it is hard to keep the orange and blue globs from crashing.  When two globs get dangerously close to one another, they are surrounded by a red circle to warn you of the collision.  For $0.99, Aqua Globs is a fun game that you can play over and over again.  Unlock goals and try to beat your own high score.

Developer’s Website: http://www.qwiboo.com/aquaglobs/

App Review: Blots by Tau Games

Blots is a simple game that can be a great time killer.  The goal of the game is to remove groups of three or more blots of the same color from the board.  There is a palette at the bottom of the screen that shows the next three blots that you have to place on the board.  Simply tap a square on the board to place the blot.  If placing a blot on the board makes a group of three or more of the same color, the group will disappear and you will be awarded points.  If the new blot does not complete a group, more colored blots will be placed randomly on the board.

As the game progresses, more colors are added to the palette, making the game more and more challenging.  The game ends when all the squares on the board fill up and there are no more moves.  Try to see how long you can keep the game going, and compete to get the new highest score.  Blots combines a little bit of luck and a little bit of skill into a game that is sure to be entertaining.

Developer’s Website: http://www.taugames.com/

App Review: Polyhedra by Binary Hammer

When I downloaded Polyhedra, I wasn’t really sure what to expect.  I was surprised to find a such a simple shape game to be unique and enjoyable to play.  The object of the game is to fill more than 66% of the screen with shapes.  Sounds easy.  There are several features that add to the challenge and complexity of the game.

First, there are a limited number of shapes that you can use to fill the screen on each level.  Second, there are enemies in the form of smaller shapes bouncing around the screen that you must avoid.  Third, the shapes that you place on the screen react to gravity.  Once you place a shape on the screen, it falls to the bottom.  The cool part is that you can change the direction of gravity by rotating your iPhone or iPod.  This feature can really come in handy.

To create a shape on the screen, just touch the screen.  The longer you hold your finger on the screen, the larger your shape will grow.  When you release your finger, the shape will drop to the bottom of the screen.  Don’t hang on too long, though.  If one of the enemies collides with your shape before you release your finger, the shape will be destroyed.  Worse, the destroyed shape will still count against the number that you have to complete the level.  You can’t afford to lose too many.  The level is over when you fill over 66% of the screen or run out of shapes, whichever comes first.

There are several different zones of levels to play.  Each one features its own shape.  All but the first zone are locked in the beginning.  Successfully completely 9 levels in the first zone will unlock the next zone and so on.  There is also a Toy Box zone.  This zone allows you to simply play around with all the shapes.  There are no enemies to worry about here.

The only problem that I ran into in playing Polyhedra was pausing the game.  The instructions say to double tap the screen to pause the game.  I found this just created more shapes.  To pause the game, you must double tap on a shape that you have created on the screen.  Once, I figured that out, it was no big deal.  Overall, Polyhedra is a great game, sure to be a hit with all ages.

Developer’s Website: http://www.binaryhammer.com/

App Review: Ricky by Nabil Chatbi

Super Mario Brothers was an amazing hit when it was released for Nintendo.  The characters have since been used in several other games and are still very popular with kids today.  Ricky by Nabil Chatbi has certainly borrowed much of its design from the Mario Brothers, although in my opinion pales by comparison.

The game starts by introducing you to the story behind the game. Unfortunately, the story is not well written.  I could not figure out exactly what was going on.  What I did learn from it is that Ricky is on a quest to find his long lost older brother Parry.  Good enough.  The controls for the game are fairly simple and easy to use.  The left and right buttons in the lower left of the screen control your direction.  The up button on the right makes you jump.

Next, you are brought to the map of the levels.  At first, only the first level is unlocked.  To play a level, double tap on the blue mushroom.  (A single tap will not do it.)  The goal of each level is simply to make your way to the door at the end of the level.  You can kill enemies in your way by jumping on them.  There are a few that will kill you no matter what you do.  These are best avoided.  There are also stars for you to collect along the way.  As in the Super Mario Brothers games, there are often multiple paths that you can take.  There are tubes that you can go through.  You do not have a down button that you can use to go down.  Instead, those tubes that you can go down will let you fall through as soon as you land on them.  So, watch out.  Sometimes they catch you off your guard.

My biggest complaint with this game is that you can only get hit once by an enemy before you die and have to go back to the beginning of the level.  It would be nice to have a life bar that lets you take a few hits before you die or have check points that you can return to when you get hit.  Overall, Ricky is a decent game for $0.99.  However, because it is so similar to the Mario Brothers Games, it is naturally compared with them and unfortunately falls short.

Developer’s Website: http://www.fbssoftware.it

App Review: Puzzlings by Sonic BOOM, Inc.

Puzzlings is an intriguing game that combines fashion and creativity with puzzles.  The app takes you to a world called Wardrobia.  In Wardrobia, everything is the same.  The world is covered in clouds and everything is gray.  The Puzzlings who live in Wardrobia don’t see much point in getting dressed or leaving the house, so they sit around all day on their computers.  (A little jab at our society?)  Then one night, one of the Puzzlings had a strange dream in which he saw 8 enchanted talismans hidden across a strange land full of color and sunlight.  For the first time ever, your Puzzling desires to get dressed and go exploring.  He wants to be unique and different.  Your job, after you name this brave Puzzling, is to take him or her on a journey to find the talismans that he saw in his dream.  On the way, you can collect new clothes, accessories, or even skins for your Puzzling to wear.

You start in the Puzzling’s home.  There are several objects that you can tap on to bring up information or things to do.  Tapping on the help button in the lower left will give you more information about each option.  The wardrobe allows you to access all of the clothes and accessories that you have picked up.  Here you can change your Puzzling’s appearance.  You can sift through items and even change their color.  The computer allows you to browse your game play stats.  The camera lets you take pictures of your Puzzling all dressed up.  Tap on your Puzzling to make him assume different poses for the picture.  You can also flip through multiple different backgrounds until you find one that you like.  Pictures that you take are saved to your camera roll.  They can be emailed or uploaded to Facebook or Flickr.   The door leads to Wardrobia.  Exit the door to explore the world and search for talismans.

When you enter Wardrobia, you will find most of it shrouded in clouds.  Tap on a star to go to a level or tap on the Puzzling’s house to go back home.  The rules and goals of each level are simple.  Match 3 or more blocks of the same color to remove them from the board, as you do in games such as Bejeweled.  The difference is that you have more ways to move pieces in this app.  You can move blocks more than one space at a time, and you can move them even if the move does not result in an immediate match.  To flip blocks, drag your finger along the line that you wish to switch the blocks in.  Rotate blocks by selecting a square of four blocks.  The blocks will then begin to rotate around the center.  Tap on the set when they are where you want them to be.  If you change your mind and want to cancel your selection, tap the screen with two fingers.

Removing blocks fills up the constantly falling combometer at the top of the screen.  If the combometer ever gets to zero, you lose.  If you fill it fast enough, you get a speed bonus at the end of the level.  When the combometer is full, pieces of a special item block will appear.  During the time that these special item pieces are on the board, the combometer will fall faster.  You want to get them matched up and removed as quickly as possible.  Each special item block you remove gives you an item for your Puzzlings wardrobe.  Remove 2 of these special item blocks to complete the level.  As you progress through the levels, more levels are uncovered and more block colors are added.

Every so often, you will run into a level that is a little different from the others.  These levels are called puzzle house levels.  The goal on these levels is to remove all the blocks in as few moves as possible.  The number of total moves allowed is represented on the combometer at the top.  Each time you make a move, the combometer drops.  If you run out of moves, you must try the level again.  If you complete the level without running out of moves, you will be given a bronze, silver, or gold medal depending on how many moves you did use.  Gold and silver awards earn you items and bonus points.   Bronze medals earn only points.

Puzzlings is a fun combination of game play and creative fashion.  It is sure to provide hours of fun as you earn items and customize your Puzzling.  It was a little too easy for me, but would be great for the younger crowd.

Developer’s Website: http://www.sonicboomgames.com/index.php/games/puzzlings

App Review: Spy Bot Chronicles by IUGO Mobile Entertainment Inc.

For those who enjoyed the Toy Bot Diaries, IUGO Modile Entertainment has released another game that let’s you join in the adventures of Toy Bot.  This time, Toy Bot has been kidnapped by the evil Thief Bot.  Spy Bot is the only one that can save him.  Your job is to help Spy Bot navigate levels to find Thief Bot’s hideout and save him.

There are four zones in the app that contain several levels each.  To conquer a level you must find your way to the green check mark at the end of the level.  Along the way you run into enemies that try to push you off of ledges and difficult feats to perform.  I found the hardest part of the levels was not getting past the enemies, although that did prove challenging at times.  Rather, the hardest part for me was being able to complete jumps and navigate the obstacles in the level.

The controls work well but require some coordination to get Spy Bot to do what you want him to do.  There are two arrow buttons in the lower left corner of the screen that move Spy Bot left and right.  In the lower right corner is a jump button.  Press once to jump, press and hold to jump higher, and press a second time while Spy Bot is in the air to double jump.  Double jumping is often the only way to get where you need to go.  I also found that sometimes it was easier to complete a difficult jmp if I pressed the jump button first and then steered Spy Bot left or right.  Your only weapon is a laser that shoots from the top of your helmet.  To shoot the laser, you simply tap on the screen.  The place that you tap is the direction in which the laser will shoot, even if you are facing the other direction.

Along your way, there are check points to which you can return if you lose your three lives.  There are also items that you can collect and yellow and green plus signs that help refill your life.  There are also many objects that are labeled as hackable.  At first, this term was very confusing to me.  However, it quickly became clear that these hackable objects merely change some physical feature on the screen when you tap on them.  For example, they may open a door or rotate platform so that you can move forward.  These hackable objects are all marked with an orange lightning bolt.  It is not always apparent what will happen when you tap it.  Some of them were quite a surprise.

Spy Bot Chronicles is a challenging game that is fun to play.  That graphics are great and the game play is smooth.

Developer’s Website: http://www.iugome.com/

Next Page »