Seekee Review

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Seekee Review

By Jason Wadsworth on June 8th, 2011
Our Rating: :: NOT STICKY ENOUGH
Universal App - Designed for iPhone and iPad

This gooey puzzler has some interesting quirks, but lacks the staying power to keep players coming back time after time.

 

Developer: Bossmonster

Price: $2.99
Version Reviewed: 1.0.0
Device Reviewed On: iPhone 3GS

Graphics / Sound Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
Game Controls Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
Gameplay Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
Replay Value Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars

Overall Rating: 3.13 out of 5 stars

This interesting little puzzle game begins, well, at the beginning. Seekee is the uncharacteristically cutesy name of the spirit of the young world’s primordial ooze. This multi-eyed blob of goo is in love with the beautiful Heaven, but is woefully overlooked when Heaven creates five elemental spirits to fill her world. The jilted and jealous Seekee then traps these five new elemental spirits and locks them behind doors that can only be unlocked by correctly arranging Seekee’s oozing minions in the correct formation.

The game is split up into five sections themed after each of the five trapped elemental spirits. Each section includes 20 “doors” which must be unlocked by arranging goo blobs of various sizes and shapes into grooved sections. The process is very reminiscent of tangram puzzles. Once all the doors in one section have been unlocked, that particular elemental spirit will be released and the next section will be opened.

To make the puzzles more difficult, some goo blobs have characteristics that make them harder to place in the correct place of the puzzle. There are blobs that move around randomly and blobs that change shape randomly. To deal with these more troublesome blobs, players will unlock different tools as they progress through the game; one new tool in each section. These tools are cleverly themed according to which section they came from; like the rooted plant from the wood spirit that helps anchor moving goo blobs or a rock from the stone spirit that helps fill in gaps in some puzzles.

The puzzles are entertaining enough, but there doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to how the difficulty varies from puzzle to puzzle. The difficulty will often fluctuate wildly from one puzzle to the next.

While playing Seekee, players will notice some simple design elements that add a great deal to the game’s charm like the eyes in the goo ball puzzle pieces that follow the movements of the player’s finger on screen, and the unique character designs. Still, these little additions only do so much to extend the life of the game. The puzzles tend to be very similar to each other, and not much changes from section to section other than the color of the goo and the puzzle backgrounds. With such similarity, the puzzles suffer from a monotony which too often outweighs the games more positive points.

Seekee

Universal App - Designed for iPhone and iPad
Buy Now: $2.99

Our Rating: :: NOT STICKY ENOUGH
Read Our Full Review >>

Released: 2011-05-17 :: Category: Games

Apps mentioned in this post: Seekee


About: Seekee Review is a post from 148Apps

Jason Wadsworth 08 Jun, 2011

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Source: http://www.148apps.com/reviews/seekee-review/
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Add Cartoon Effects To Video With Cartoonatic

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Video editing is a fun task indeed when doing so on an iOS device. It’s amazing the results you can come up with depending on the subject matter. I should know thanks to having an iPhone positively overflowing with videos of my cousins as they grow up. It’s nice to be able to add some funky effects easily though which is precisely where Cartoonatic from MacPhun comes into the equation.

MacPhun has provided increasingly useful Photography and Video editing related apps ranging from FX Photo Studio to, more recently, Silent Film Director. The pedigree for a great app is there and Cartoonatic looks set to do exactly that.

Users will be able to create their own cartoon style videos with the ability to use one of nine video effects, each created by cartoon artists, as well as add music from 5 built-in soundtracks or from the user’s iPod collection. Users can also speed up the videos for more humorous results. There’s real-time previewing for all effects ensuring it’s easy to see exactly what works and when.

As the app proudly announces, it’s able to make its users feel like leading stars of A-Ha’s Take on Me music video, which will hopefully ring a bell with many readers.

Cartoonatic is a free app for all iOS devices but users can opt to purchase Cartoonatic Premium which unlocks another 3 video effects as well as the possibility to take pictures with cartoon effects.

As is customary with apps of this kind, all results can be shared either via YouTube, Facebook, Twitter or e-mail, as well as saved back to the device’s camera roll.

Cartoonatic looks set to be a great app to make funny videos of pretty much everything imaginable.

Check out the demonstration video below to see exactly how Cartoonatic works.

Cartoonatic is out now for all iOS devices and it’s a free download with an in-app purchase available.

Cartoonatic

iPhone App - Designed for the iPhone, compatible with the iPad
Buy Now: FREE
Released: 2011-04-06 :: Category: Entertainment

Apps mentioned in this post: Cartoonatic


About: Add Cartoon Effects To Video With Cartoonatic is a post from 148Apps

Jennifer Allen 08 Jun, 2011

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Source: http://www.148apps.com/news/add-cartoon-effects-video-cartoonatic/
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Backflip Studios Release New Puzzle Game: Shape Shift

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Backflip Studios, makers of popular casual hits such as Ninjump Deluxe, Paper Toss and the Ragdoll Blaster series, anounces Shape Shift, a puzzle game that promises to be colorful and addictive.

Looking at the screenshots, Shape Shift will look very familiar to many puzzle fans, certainly bring about memories of the Bejewelled series, but no doubt Backflip Studios will use their addictive magic to ensure it’s a classic. Players are set the task of swapping tiles in order to clear the board. To mix things up a bit, players have to eliminate bombs along the way and create huge chains to accrue more points.

Shape Shift might be familiar but it looks set to be addictive nonetheless. Even better, it’s a free download with both iPhone and Ipad varieties available! The only price is that of ad support but players can always pay $0.99 through an in-app purchase to remove these.

Check out the gameplay video and screenshots below for more details.

Shape Shift

iPhone App - Designed for the iPhone, compatible with the iPad
Buy Now: FREE
Released: 2011-06-07 :: Category: Games

Shape Shift HD

iPad Only App - Designed for the iPad
Buy Now: FREE
Released: 2011-06-07 :: Category: Games

Apps mentioned in this post: Paper Toss, Shape Shift, Shape Shift HD


About: Backflip Studios Release New Puzzle Game: Shape Shift is a post from 148Apps

Jennifer Allen 08 Jun, 2011

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Source: http://www.148apps.com/news/backflip-studios-release-puzzle-game-shape-shift/
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Manga Art Academy Review

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Manga Art Academy Review

By Timothy Smith on June 8th, 2011
Our Rating: :: HANDY
iPhone App - Designed for the iPhone, compatible with the iPad

Manga Art Academy is a nice resource for budding artists, but don’t expect to be an expert without some real practice.

 

Developer: Brandon Gray

Price: $0.99
Version: 1.4
App Reviewed on: iPad

iPhone Integration Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
User Interface Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
Re-use / Replay Value Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

Overall Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

I’m a big fan of most visual art. I’ve always wished I could draw or paint, but for some reason my artistic talent only ever amounts to stick figures and smiley faces. Every once in a while I get the urge to sketch out something, but it usually results in broken pencils and something akin to teenage angst. It’s okay though because I have come to terms with my abilities, and now I’m usually content just admiring the works of others. For those who don’t want to sit by with idle hands while all the other artists bask in the glory, there’s a nifty little app by Brandon Gray called Manga Art Academy.

Manga Art Academy features several written tutorials on how to draw characters that would feel right at home in any popular anime. There are a variety of lessons to choose from (facial features, hair, clothing, the human form), and all of them have helpful pictorial examples. The writing in the tutorials is easy to follow, but there were an over abundance of emoticons featured in each paragraph. I also noticed that the tutorials seemed to be more focused on drawing female characters, as some of the reference material is directly from a website called idrawgirls.com. There’s a video portion to augment all of the written tutorials, but all of the content featured is readily available on Youtube. The video section of the app is simply a portal to various Youtube channels. Mark Crilley’s Youtube channel is very helpful and professionally done, but I was expecting something more exclusive. Fortunately, the content featured in Manga Academy can be expanded via in app purchases that cover specific manga characters and advanced techniques.

The app is easy to navigate, and it has a fair amount of content for the price. It’s a shame that the video portion of the app isn’t more refined, but it does collect some nice resources that are easily accessed. Manga Art Academy does a decent job explaining the style of art and it gives some great examples, but it probably won’t turn any random schmuck into Akira Toriyama. It seems to be a quick and easy reference point for artists who want to learn the basics of drawing manga characters, but I think knowing how to draw is a prerequisite to fully enjoying this app.

Manga Art Academy - How to draw manga & anime

iPhone App - Designed for the iPhone, compatible with the iPad
Buy Now: $1.99

Our Rating: :: HANDY
Read Our Full Review >>

Released: 2010-08-06 :: Category: Books

Apps mentioned in this post: Manga Art Academy - How to draw manga & anime


About: Manga Art Academy Review is a post from 148Apps

Jennifer Allen 08 Jun, 2011

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Source: http://www.148apps.com/reviews/manga-art-academy-review/
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Know when your bus is late with live transit updates in Google Maps

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(Cross-posted on the Official Google Blog)

Often when I'm taking public transit, I arrive at my stop on time only to anxiously check my watch and look down the street for my bus, which is running late once again. Those extra minutes I'm forced to wait seem like an eternity, and the only information I can access on my phone is when the bus was supposed to arrive.

Starting now, Google Maps for mobile and desktop can tell you when your ride is actually going to arrive with new live transit updates. We partnered with transit agencies to integrate live transit data in four U.S. cities and two European cities: Boston, Portland, Ore., San Diego, San Francisco, Madrid and Turin.



When you click on a transit station or plan a transit route with Google Maps and there are delays or alerts related to your trip, you'll now see "live departure times" (indicated with a special icon) and service alerts.

Live transit departure times after tapping on a station

Live service alerts when receiving transit directions

Live departures and alerts on desktop

We're working with our public transit partners to help them provide live data to more people in more cities. You can get live transit updates in the latest version of Google Maps for mobile (requires Android 1.6+), as well as Google Maps on all supported desktop and mobile browsers.

Posted by Sasha Gontmakher, Software Engineer

Brian Hendricks 08 Jun, 2011

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Source: http://googlemobile.blogspot.com/2011/06/know-when-your-bus-is-late-with-live.html
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