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Innsbruck & The Alps offers a no frills but detailed guide to the area of the same name.
iPhone Integration Rating: 3.75 out of 5 stars
User Interface Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
Re-use Value Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
Overall Rating: 3.58 out of 5 stars
Both Waltzing Through Vienna and London’s Backyard, Earl Steinbicker’s previous iOS projects, have been pretty useful for those travelling around. Now it’s the turn of Innsbruck and the Alps with the app of the same name.
Innsbruck & the Alps offers 14 one day tour guides covering in and around Innsbruck as well as the neighbouring Alps in Austria and Germany. Each tour has been aimed for users wanting to use public transportation with car driving also suitable. It’s a pretty wordy app but it’s also very informative. Throughout each tour is a thorough explanation of directions as well as passing attractions. Prices for anything like that are clearly explained with details of the average meal in local restaurants also offered. Website links and phone numbers are also bundled along with a Google map image and a way of seeking directions. It’s all geared in a way that makes it easy to avoid getting lost while exploring the area.
For the user who wants to share information with others, there’s even a commenting feature to share the ever so useful insider knowledge that can be gained from exploring a new place. A selection of photos is also viewable which is a great way of discovering Innsbruck and the Alps before actually visiting the area.
Innsbruck & the Alps has a dual purpose, providing an ideal tour guide while away and also as a great research tool when contemplating a visit. It is a little wordy in places, providing plenty of detail but less flashy bits and pieces we’ve come to expect from recent travel apps. There’s also no way of scrolling to the top of a page at the tap of a button. Despite these shortcomings however, Innsbruck & the Alps is comprehensive and detailed and covers a slice of travel I’ve not seen in many other apps.
It’s not everyday that we write about hardware on 148Apps. So when we do, you know it’s about something awesome.
Today, Sonos, one our favorite iOS friendly audio hardware makers have released a new, smaller device, the Play3. It’s the little brother to the fantastic S5, now called the Play5 that we reviewed last year. This smaller version has 3 speakers instead of the 5 found in the Play5. It still maintains the features of the Play5 in that it connects with your home network to stream music from iTunes and a huge variety of online services like Spotify, Rdio, Pandora, etc.
I had a chance to test out the new Play3 for a few minutes earlier this week. And I’m impressed. It does a great job, in a smaller package, of still sounding great. You can use this in addition to a Play5, on it’s own, or create a stereo pair between two like devices. The Play5 is a great machine that I’ve grown to love. The Play3 will be a great first device for new Sonos users considering it’s retail price of $299. It will also make a good second device to extend your Sonos range into another room.
We hope to be able to bring you a full review of the Play3 in the next couple weeks.
Adventure gaming aimed at teenagers with a plethora of secrets and high school conflict, from a women-centric development studio.
Graphics / Sound Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Game Controls Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Gameplay Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
Replay Value Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
Overall Rating: 3.63 out of 5 stars
In an industry undoubtedly focused on the interests of teenage boys and men, it’s not often that a game unashamedly aimed at teenage girls appears. That’s exactly what happened when School 26 came out earlier this year offering a storyline focused on a teenage girl trying to make her way in a new high school. Now, improving upon the earlier game’s success comes School 26: Summer of Secrets – a game that follows the mantra of ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’.
Socializing is the most important element within School 26: Summer of Secrets with players controlling Kate as she gets to know more about her school friends as they team up to compete in the local music festival’s Battle of the Bands competition. Echoing real life teenage relationships, things go far from smoothly with secrets scattered throughout. It’s down to the player to coerce secrets out of others while also using tact to share the relevant secret with the relevant person. It’s a dilemma that will be familiar to anyone who’s been a teenage girl and it’s a refreshingly realistic portrayal. Understandable considering School 26: Summer of Secrets is developed by the first female owned and run games studio in Canada: Silicon Sisters.
Dealing with such issues is done through a few different gaming tropes. Listening is an important task. Players can read through the problems described by other classmates and then choose how to react via a series of emoticons. No teenage issue is spared here with teenagers’ lives, warts and all, bared here. Frequently after a conversation, a card based mini game appears too. This involves matching numbers on tarot cards, either by gaining the highest/lowest score or by cementing relationships between two characters by having the same numbers. It’s a simple affair but that’s because School 26: Summer of Secrets is aimed at those after an interesting story rather than in-depth gameplay. Twitch gamers need not apply. This is much more of an adventure game with gossip.
School 26: Summer of Secrets, much like its predecessor, is a pretty special idea compared to anything else on the App Store. For this very reason, it’s an acquired taste aimed at a specific audience. For the pre-teen and teen audience however, this is ideal. Bringing up difficult issues just makes it all the more appropriate.
There are so many ways to express ourselves creatively with iOS apps. There are apps to paint with, apps to help animators, video editors, apps for playwrights and musicians, and iPhononography has become an art form unto itself.
But, what's equally wonderful about apps is that there are amazing ones out there that allow people with not all that much talent to get creative, and end up with impressive results too. In this week's Favorite Four, we look at our favorites apps to help bring out anyone's inner artist.
TypeDrawing
This is a simple app that produces spectacular typography and word art. Users simply input text, choose a style and professional art that’s fit to be shared follows. Educators report this is a terrific tool for making "word splashes" – creative usage of words and art to help kids express themselves. All that’s required is typing in a sentence and drawing with a finger: ta-da! – typographical art. There are 15 fonts and as many ways to get creative as there are words in a multi-lingual dictionary, emojis included.
Instant Poetry HD
Remember that fridge magnet game with a bunch of words, largely poetic or descriptive, cut into little strips that could be arranged to create a short insta-poems? Well, Instant Poetry HD ports the concept exactly to iOS except instead of a fridge, would-be poets need an iDevice. This is a lot of fun to play with, and the results can be anything from “mad-libs” hysterical, to some decent, if lexically limited, descriptive imagery. Don’t be put off by the HD, the app is universal and for those who write real poetry, but are shy on inspiration, it can double as a brainstorming device.
Songify
We've all heard of apps that can help the tone-deaf make music without any training, but what about an app that turns spoken words into autotune-like songs that, while even less original that a Rebecca Black hit, are in tune, and often yield hilarious audio clips that can be shared with social media. Songify can really do that, quickly and seamlessly, and best of all, the app is completely free, although additional songs and song packs are available as in-app purchases. This app is so funny, we went with saying the strangest things we could think of and having them, well, songified. That said, you can find what seem to be serious attempts at songifying, but we don’t think this app is going to make you the next YouTube sensation. Try it on an unsuspecting friend instead – just ask about about their date last night and let the musical hilarity begin.
Flowpaper
Oh how wonderful it would be to buy a high-end painting app, a world-class stylus and use all the complex features to create original masterpieces. There are a bunch of apps for that, but what about the rest of us who can't draw our way out of a paper bag, but want to make pretty pictures nonetheless? Flowpaper allows a user to draw with a finger and physics instead of virtual paint. Just pick a "brush," place a finger on the screen and drag. Behind the appendage will be a trail of stunning results that can look like anything from a computer-generated trail of intricately entwined light to a detailed black and white sketch with absolutely no talent required.
If there is one thing on this planet that is about as un-gamelike as it gets, it would have to be books. The pages and pages of written word, while immensely entertaining for some, bore others (like yours truly) to absolute tears. So how could you take this potential entertainment kryptonite and turn it into something that could be fun for everyone? Why not try turning it into a game?
Cuing on this logic, a developer has actually gone out and made an action game that uses pages of words as a tapestry for gaming amusement. As improbable as it may seem, WordMan is a free title that offers players numerous chapters of page turning challenges, all of which can be played through on three different difficulty levels. To top things off, players will have the option to choose from three different super-heroes, complete with their own unique word-traversing super-powers.
Check out the trailer for the game below and let us know if you pick it up in the comments. I am curious to see if it lives up to the excitement!
Console-centric Frontier Developments have made Kinectimals for the Xbox 360, The Curse of the Were-Rabbit game for PS2 and Xbox, and two LostWinds games for the Wii. Boss David Braben told Eurogamer that LostWinds, an enchanting little platformer for the Wii download service, is slated to come to the iPhone and iPad (as well as Android) later this year.
On the Wii platform, players use the motion controllers to flick, spin, and remove obstacles for Toku, the star of the piece. The whimsical visual design and emotional soundtrack make LostWinds on the Wii a go-to title in this household. It seems a no-brainer to translate the controls to a touch screen:
“It works very well with the Wii controller motions," Braben told Eurogamer, "but it also works on a touch interface in a very similar fashion." He continued on to say that plans are to port both LostWinds games to the mobile platforms, “to start.”
[via PocketGamer]
The Dungeon Saga takes players by the hand and guides them, yet again, through a fantasy world where everything is resolved with puzzles.
Overall Rating: 4.13 out of 5 stars
Puzzle/RPG hybrids have become somewhat of a popular genre. Of course, it seems like almost every category of game is trying to shoehorn some kind of RPG elements into their mechanics these days, but the level-building and loot-grinding really goes well with shape-matching and block-clearing. Sort of like peanut butter and chocolate. Riding this delicious, delicious wave is The Dungeon Saga: a similar kind of hybrid that does scratch the itch, but doesn’t make it go away completely.
It’s impossible to play or even look at The Dungeon Saga without thinking about Dungeon Raid, so I won’t try to skirt the issue. The two games are indeed very similar, but The Dungeon Saga offers up a simpler and more streamlined experience. Whether or not “simpler” also means “better” depends on the player, but I think there’s more than enough room on the App Store for both so I won’t waste any more time talking about which trumps which.
One thing that really impressed me about The Dungeon Saga was the intro. The wordless, cartoony video conveyed just enough story, along with plenty of humor, to draw me right in. Choosing a class (Warrior or Wizard) and a difficulty (Easy, Normal or a skull) took mere seconds and then it was time to start dungeoneering. Both classes have access to their own individual skill sets, along with other more obvious differences, which make them feel distinct. Playing through as each character at least once is pretty much a given. Each of the monster hang-outs is depicted as a winding (but still linear) map, with encounters and other obstacles (and treasures) shown along the preset path. Running into an enemy will trigger a fight, and from there it’s all about dragging a finger across groupings of the same icon in order to smite, heal and defend.
As smooth as the experience is, The Dungeon Saga still runs into one pitfall: accuracy. The icons on the puzzle board are rather small, which makes for more than a few occasions where I didn’t hit all the icons I’d wanted to. Another issue, or rather nagging complaint, is that the existence of levels (as in stages) seems pointless. There is no control whatsoever over the movement of the character, save that they move forward when the screen is tapped. They can’t go in any other direction but straight ahead, and there are never any branching paths. This linearity to the pacing is fine, but creating the illusion of choice seems like a waste.
The Dungeon Saga is, for the most part, the definitive puzzle RPG for the casual gamer. It eschews conventions like multiple complex classes and large amounts of weapons and instead boils just about everything down to simple upgrades. Players searching for a Roguelike with puzzle combat won’t find what they’re looking for here, but that doesn’t mean they won’t still have fun.
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