iPhone App Review: WordCrasher

Written By: Kevin Ng
Category: Games
Price: $0.99 [itunes link="http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/wordcrasher/id346537793?mt=8&uo=4" title="WordCrasher"] | Free: [itunes link="http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/wordcrasher-free/id353764862?mt=8&uo=4" title="WordCrasher Free"]

Size: 9.1 MB
Requirements: iPhone / iPod Touch
Version: 1.2
Rate: 5 out of 5 Stars

WordCrasher is one of the most addictive word games in the iTunes App store. Whether you love word games or not, you’ll fall in love with this one instantly.

The gameplay is quite simple. Colorful button-like game pieces with letters on them will fall into view. Simply tap on the game pieces to make words. If you make a mistake, tap on the orange X to clear the word or swipe to the left to clear one letter. If you make a word, tap on the green checkmark. You can also swipe downward to make letters fall faster. There are also two types of powerup — Time Freeze and Bomb. The “time freeze” powerup is helpful when you need a little more time to think about the words you’re creating and the “Bomb” is helpful when you need to clear the screen. You can create words using UK, International and US English spellings. Score big by making longer words or words with rare letters like “z” and “q.” Make as many words as you can before the screen fills up!

What’s magical about this game are the beautiful and colorful graphics as well as the realistic way the pieces fall and move in the game. Tilt the iPhone / iPod Touch and game pieces will fall and move around.

Two game modes are available in the full version — marathon and flood panic. In marathon mode, you make words with the game pieces falling down. When the screen fills up, the game is over. In flood panic, water and buoyancy are added to the equation. Game pieces are still falling down, but will float in water. The objective is to make longer words to lower the water level. Once the game pieces reach the top of the screen, the game is over.

WordCrasher uses the OpenFeint social gaming network to keep track of your scores and the leaderboard. Earn achievements and compete with your friends as well as gamers worldwide! Scoring categories include Flood Panic, Vocabulary, Marathon, and Word Score. You can even brag about your scores on Twitter and Facebook.

Overall, WordCrasher is very easy to play, fun, and can be quite addictive. The well-polished graphics and physics in the game also makes it really stand out. The best part is, Kevin Ng, the game developer, has already started working on an iPad version of his game. With the faster processor and higher resolution of the iPad, he can use more realistic and detailed graphics without cluttering the game. Read his blog for more details.

For more information about WordCrasher, see their official website. The full version is on sale for only 99 cents. A lite version is also available which allows you to play four levels of marathon mode. Happy word-crashing!

This article was originally published in Beatweek Magazine.

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The Guild Season 3 and more!

I’m very happy to see my favorite web series, The Guild, just everywhere! The Guild: Season 3 DVD was recently released and comes with so much bonus material! It’s an Amazon exclusive! Bonus material includes Tips for Making a Web Video, Do You Want to Date My Avatar music video, The Making of “Do You Want to Date My Avatar”, Halloween Video, Guild Applicant Rejects, How to Build Vork’s Sword, Interviews with the Axis of Anarchy, Gag Reels, and so much more! My copy arrived earlier this week and I can’t wait to watch Season 3 all over again this weekend!

The amazing DVD cover photo was taken by The Bui Brothers. Catch their behind-the-scenes video of the Guild photoshoot! I love their work.
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Tip: How to Create Gmail Filters

With the introduction of Google Buzz last week and the many emails it introduced, I’ve been actively creating more and more filters to keep my inbox clean. I thought it’d make a nice tip in case your inbox is flooded as well.

If you’re like me and signed up for newsletters, store ads, or other mailing lists, you may want to separate these emails from your more important ones. I personally think important emails should be sent to the inbox and maybe added to an additional label.

Other things from mailing lists can skip the inbox and be added under their own folder, or “label” as Google calls it.
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GameSalad – Create Games without Coding!

I attended MacWorld Expo 2010 recently and one of my favorite booths was GameSalad. They promised that I could make a game without any coding or programming at all. So yes, I was interested! I sat in for the beginner session to see how GameSalad works.

Photo by Albertech.net/@dragonal; Taken at MacWorld Expo 2010; I’m in the lower right!

GameSalad is the world’s most advanced game creation tool for non-programmers. With GameSalad, game makers of all levels can bring their ideas to life without programming a single line of code. Build games visually using a drag-and-drop interface along with a robust behavior system. Publish your games quickly and easy to the iPhone, iPod Touch, Mac Desktop, and the Web.

If you want to learn how to make games for the iPhone (or Mac), try out GameSalad. They had training sessions on the expo floor, which I thought was a lot of fun. Sessions ranged from beginner to advanced, and didn’t require any programming knowledge at all.. just a bit of creativity.

Basically, you can import your graphics (let’s called these actors) into the GameSalad software. Then you can place your actors onto the canvas (like the background) and add in other pieces in layers. Add behaviors to these ‘actors’ and you got yourself a game!

For the beginner session, we made a pinball game. We added the game’s background, along with the flippers, pegs, and pinballs. The flippers behaviors were control by the Left and Right Arrows. When clicked, the flippers would move up in an angle. If the ball touched a peg, points would be added up in a scoreboard.

The creation you create with GameSalad is all yours. This also means if you are creating an iPhone version of the game, an Apple Developer’s license is also require since you are publishing it under your account.

If you’re a graphic designer with an eye for games, definitely consider GameSalad. The software starts at $99 a year. I was able to create a simple pinball game in under 30 minutes… just imagine what you can do with just a little more time.

For more information, see GameSalad.com and follow them on Twitter.

Popularity: 5% [?]

iPhone App Review: Toy Story Mania

Name: Toy Story Mania
Written By: Walt Disney
Category: Games
Price: $4.99

Size: 50.5 MB
Requirements: iPhone / iPod Touch
Version: 1.0.0
Rate: 4 out of 5 Stars

Come one, come all. Step right up and play the Disney-inspired game called Toy Story Mania! If you’re an avid Disney fan, you have probably already been on the Toy Story Mania ride at Disney’s California Adventure (Anaheim) or Disney’s Hollywood Studios (Orlando). Now imagine all that fun packed right in the palm of your hands.

Just like the theme park ride, you’re taken to mini-games that are represented by their respective characters. Instead of pulling a string on a cannon, you swipe, shoot, flick, pop, and toss things at targets and gain points. Altogether, there are five mini games which include: Hammin’ Eggs, Buzz Lightyears’ Flying Tossers, Bo Pee’s Baaa-loon Pop, Green Army Men Shoot Camp, and Woody’s Rootin’ Tootin’ Shootin’ Gallery.

Choose a mini game by clicking on a toy. Each mini game has 12 stages. The stages are broken into levels of difficulty — easy, normal, and hard. Play each difficulty level in Challenge mode to unlock the next level up. There are two modes of gameplay — Challenge and Free Play. However, only levels you unlocked in Challenge Mode will be playable. Each difficulty level has 5 stages, where one is a bonus stage which unlocks a special item that you can purchase with tickets afterward. Each of these stages have their own unique challenge that you must complete to move onto the next stage.

Here is how the mini-games are played:

- Hammin’ Eggs: slingshot green eggs to hit moving targets on the farm.
- Buzz Lightyears’ Flying Tossers: flick rings to capture rockets and aliens!
- Bo Pee’s Baaa-loon Pop: tap and pop balloons. You have 5 darts, when you’re out of amo, shake to reload.
- Green Army Men Shoot Camp – position the cross-hair target on the plates, and tap to fire.
- Woody’s Rootin’ Tootin’ Shootin’ Gallery – tap on targets to fire suction-cup arrows at them. You’ll need to reload once you fire all 6 arrows.

You also collect tickets while playing the mini games. Trade them in for extra boosts in the mini games. For example, for the Hammin’ Eggs mini-game, you can get a slingshot that fires 3 eggs at one time.

As an added bonus, if you visit the Toy Story Mania attraction at Disney’s California Adventure or Hollywood Studios, the Toy Story wallpapers will unlock and you can save them to your device. This is the only part that would not work well with an iPod Touch since there is no wifi connection available.

The graphics and animation are excellent and will sure bring you back to those Disney memories. The controls on some of the mini games are a bit difficult, especially aiming for the much smaller targets. But then again, those are the ones that are worth the most points.

Overall, this game is well-worth the higher price tag. It packs a lot of games, fun, and action into a nice little app. I highly recommend it if you enjoy carnival games.

Toy Story Mania is available in the iTunes app store for $4.99.

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Popularity: 2% [?]

MacWorld Expo 2010: Abvio Fitness iPhone Apps

I thought Abvio’s Runmeter, Cyclemeter, and Walkmeter iPhone apps deserved Beatweek’s Best of Show Award at MacWorld Expo 2010 for their innovative way of motivating individuals to exercise. I simply loved the features they integrated in the 2.0 versions.

Are you a fitness enthusiast? If you enjoy running, cycling, or going for a walk, try out Abvio’s new line of fitness apps — Runmeter, Cyclemeter, and Walkmeter. These exercise apps use the iPhone’s GPS to track and visualize exercise activities as well as help improve athletic performance and health. Each of these apps are similar to one another except for the fact that they come pre-customized to suit the needs of its user — the walker, runner, or cyclist.

Some of the great features of Runmeter, Cyclemeter, and Walkmeter are:

• An iPhone-centric approach, no Web site accounts, passwords, or ads required.
• Ghost racing against previous runs, walks, and rides along a route.
• On-device calendar of all runs, rides, and walks.
• On-device graphs of pace and elevation.
• On-device manual entry of runs, walks, and rides.
• Exceptional battery conservation.

Some of the new features that were demonstrated to me at MacWorld were pretty innovative! The features in the 2.0 versions include:

• The first apps to support use of the iPhone’s earphone remote to start and stop the stopwatch.
• The first apps on the iPhone to speak Twitter replies using text-to-speech technology.
• The first GPS apps to include a Twitter client for reading and composing tweets.
• The first GPS apps to share runs, walks, and rides using Google Maps, with links as simple as http://j.mp/5ouyIC
• The first GPS apps to use fuzzy logic to filter GPS locations for more accurate GPS location reporting.
• The only apps among our competition to allow full export of all your data.

If you would like more information about Runmeter, Cyclemeter, and Walkmeter, see their official website at Abvio.com

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Valentine iPhone Apps

Valentine’s Day is just around the corner. What better way to celebrate with your sweetheart than with iPhone apps? ;) Here is my top 5 Valentine iPhone App list:

Makeout Mania – fun game where you play a mischievous cupid and fire arrows at high school kids to make them kiss and fall in love with one another. There’s also a yearbook that you can read to figure out who likes who (for more points). It’s quite a funny game and is such a bargain at 99 cents. (iTunes)

Sweethearts – send your sweet a special treat, a special virtual treat that is. Necco is promoting their new sweetheart candy flavors, and what better way to do it than in a very adorable app? Create a box of 5 candies that you can tweet to your sweet. The app is free but requires a Twitter account to share your boxes of candy. (Full Review | iTunes)

Valentine’s Daymation (Special Edition Daymation Lite) — is a special day-to-day calendar with a countdown to Valentine’s day. You can leave little sticky notes in an assortment of colors. You can even put notes in the desk. This app is free in the iTunes App Store. (iTunes)
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StickerJam Hearts – add cute hearts and valentine stickers to your photos. The user interface can be improved, but it’s a nice app to use to decorate your photos. (iTunes)
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Love Poem Generator – Are you having writer’s block? Do you want to write a love poem, but just don’t know where to start? No worries, the Love Poem Generator can help you get started. Put together a love poem and email it to your sweet within a few minutes. (iTunes)

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iPhone App Review: Sweethearts

Want to send a special treat to your sweet? Do it right from your iPhone or iPod Touch with the Sweethearts app. Sweethearts are the traditional conversation heart candies from Necco. Now they a fun app that promotes their new candy flavors and their new “Tweet Me” heart.

You start by customizing up to 5 candy hearts to give away. Tap on the candy to edit the text. Add another by tapping on the plus sign. Remove it by dropping it on the trash icon. When you’re happy with your box of candy, you can tweet it, DM (direct message) it to someone, or email them. You must login into Twitter before sharing the box of candy though. Your friend(s) will then get a unique link to the box of candy you made for them. It’s simple and is a fun way to say you care.

There is also an option to browse and view other boxes of candy created worldwide, boxes created by people you are following on Twitter, as well as a retweet option.

What I would like added to this app is the ability to add more than candy hearts in a box as well as pick a song for the candies. Other than that, it’s a simple app to bring a smile to anyone’s face.

Here is an example of what the link will take you to. The box of candy will open up for your friend and the candies will be displayed for them to play with.

You can read more about the Sweethearts app on their official website: MySweethearts.com and follow their Twitter account: @my_sweethearts. The app is free and available for download in iTunes App Store.

Popularity: 2% [?]

Notes from iPhone/iPod Touch Development Seminar

I attended the Software Development for iPhone and iPod Touch Seminar yesterday, presented by Steve Hayman.

He briefly talked about development for the iPad (which is very similar to iPhone / iPod Touch development), as well as how to create web apps and native apps during the presentation. These are my notes from the session.
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