Android – Iphone – Applications

It’s genuinely hard to find new ideas in the world of puzzle games these days, which is what makes apps like Rogo really stand out. While the title may borrow some ideas from other puzzle genres, it combines them all together to make something which is truly new and different. This clever little puzzler is definitely an app worth looking into if you’re a fan of teasing your brain in whole new ways.

Rogo is a sort of odd mash-up of Sudoku, mazes and word finds, all rolled into a delightful little ball. Each stage has a variety of numbers sprinkled around the screen, and players must draw a loop through the numbers which they think will yield the highest score. The trick is there is a very specific limitation on how many squares you can connect, and players aren’t allowed to come in above or below this number. The result is come clever lateral thinking which requires you to approach each stage in unique ways in the hopes of victory. It’s a lot of trial and error, but it’s still very fun.

The game tries its best to be helpful to players, but sometimes this results in some annoying screen clutter and general ugliness. Every loop you draw stays onscreen in a sort of ghosted form, ostensibly so you can see what combinations you’ve already tried. The problem is, if you constantly start in the same part of the game board or use some of the same numbers multiple times it starts to get ugly. Users can shake to clear the screen, but then you lose all your reference points and have to start over. It’s a sort of “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” mechanic, but it would be nice to see a more elegant solution in a future update if such a think exists.

Aside from these minor issues Rogo is a fun new puzzle experience that will surely be a hit with both math nuts and those who just genuinely enjoy trying new genres. The sheer number of levels and depth of challenge will keep you busy for quite a while, and we fully expect to see more stages added down the line. The game also features a very nice, mellow soundtrack that does a great job of setting the perfect mood. Despite the fact that this may not be the most polished game ever, it’s still pretty darn good.

[ Rogo Review is a post from 148Apps ]

written by lpirozzolo \\ tags: device-reviewed, Game, Games, heuristics, maze, numbers, overall-rating, rating, rogo, word find

I don’t know any other languages besides English. It’s slightly embarrassing really. While I used to know some German, it all left my head somewhere over the years and now I’m stuck with just the one language. I’d love to learn another language but it’s finding the time and a form of studying that works for me. Spanish Touch Trainer helps hugely with this and it teaches you the correct manner of forming sentences.

It’s an app that, most of all, teaches you verb conjugation. Anyone who’s tried learning a language will know that verb conjugation is a huge problem when you’re just starting out. Spanish Touch Trainer teaches you how to figure this out via the context of real sentences. There’s no sign of silly phrases like ‘my monkey has a hat’ which you’ll never actually use. Instead there are useful phrases like ‘my name is…’ and ‘where do you live?’ The advanced side of the app offers more complex sentences such as ‘although they were very excited, they did not know how to get there,’ which can then be used to formulate your own complex sentences.

Once you’ve completed figuring out what Spanish word matches which English word, you can then listen to a recording of the sentence from a Spanish speaker. This is then handy for you to learn how to say things correctly. Besides the ‘game’ part of the app, there’s also a conjugation section which acts as a very handy reference tool while you’re learning.

Spanish Touch Trainer is a handy learning tool indeed. While it won’t teach you everything you need to know, it helps you out hugely with those pesky verb conjugations and even better, you can do it anywhere you like thanks to the portable nature of the iOS devices. Much more fun than being stuck slaving in front of textbooks.

[ Spanish Touch Trainer Review is a post from 148Apps ]

written by ahmed \\ tags: Application, appocado, device-reviewed, german, Iphone, iphone apps and games, price, rating, review, touch, trainer-review

Sometimes I really wish I could have been alive during the Dark Ages. Sure, there was sort of a plague thing going around and the average life expectancy was something like 12, but if the world was anything like what’s depicted in Braveheart then you got to spend all day twirling in a circle swinging a mace at anyone who got within 10 feet of you. I don’t know about you, but that’s a life I can get behind. Though the game is the farthest thing in the world from mentally taxing, Braveheart can still be an entertaining lesson in rampant skull bashing.

Gameplay in Braveheart is simplicity personified, with players making circular motions to send their hero spinning like a top as he wipes out baddies. Moving around the field is as simple as tapping where you want to go, and there are even a few multitouch commands for things like firing off a volley of arrows. This is definitely one of those games just about anyone can pick up and play instantly.

The trouble with such a simple scheme is that it also erodes any lasting appeal the game may have. Braveheart tries to keep players interested with a weapon and skill upgrade system as well as mid-level perks that grant temporary status boosts, but these are little more than distractions which try and make you forget that what you’re actually doing isn’t all that fun. The only objective in each stage is to kill all the enemies who come running toward you, so there’s very little call for skill or strategy. Simplicity can be refreshing, but overly-simplistic games just aren’t that much fun.

Though the gameplay’s nothing to write home about, Braveheart’s presentation manages to be top-notch, with crisp visuals and nicely detailed environments. Though the frame rate may chug every once in a while, overall the app does a nice job of keeping up with all the onscreen action, as mass murder is always a bit more palatable when it looks this nice.

Braveheart manages to entertain for a short while but then it quickly starts to wear thin. Though there are a number of nice bells and whistles, the core mechanics just don’t quite hold up over the long haul. Feel free to check out the lite version and get a taste, but there’s a good chance that a taste is all you will need.

[ Braveheart Review is a post from 148Apps ]

written by jkpra999 \\ tags: appeal-the-game, device-reviewed, Game, gameplay, Games, iphone apps and games, nicely-detailed, overall-rating, overall-the-app, price, review, simple

MobileMonet manages to be both useful and fun to mess around with. Not bad at all for an inexpensive photography app. Unlike other photography apps, MobileMonet doesn’t try to do everything – it focuses on just one thing and does it extremely well.

Load a photo into the app by either picking it out from your photo album or taking a snap directly, and get to work. MobileMonet generates a black and white sketch of your image thus allowing you to restore color whether you wish. This can make for some fantastic effects as you can see in the screenshots. You can bring color to the focus of the photo such as your child or pet for example, or bring out the red of a car and leave the rest of the photo black and white. It really does look good, and it’s very easy to do.

It’s a simple matter of moving your finger across where you want the color to appear, just like a brush. The more you brush an area, the more depth is added to that area and its coloring. You can adjust how vibrant and bright the color is as well as the line intensity and how grey and black you want the image to look. If you change your mind about something, an undo button is always on hand making things easier to experiment with.

Facebook, email and SMS support is included so you can directly send your photos from within the app. It would have been nice if Twitter integration had been included also though.

MobileMonet is a very simple app but one that produces fantastic results for very little effort. I was truly impressed by some of the results I garnered and I’ve got a real urge to put the 500 or so photos in my album through the system, just to see how it looks. Give this app a shot, you won’t be disappointed.

[ MobileMonet Review is a post from 148Apps ]

written by [email protected] \\ tags: $0.99, child, device-reviewed, iphone apps and games, mobilemonet, photography, review, sketching

If you’ve ever gotten stuck somewhere, unable to locate your car in a crowded, nondescript parking lot, then you know $0.99 is a small price to pay for peace of mind. .Parking (yes, the “.” before the title is intentional) is a simple, but elegant and effective way of tracking your parking place so you won’t wind up in a bind again.

The basic interface of .Parking is incredibly easy to navigate. Once you’ve parked, just tap on the app’s icon and you are immediately located via the GPS in the iPhone. From there, you simply have to save your location. You can even take a photo (if you need some visual cue as to your location) or make a note (say, “Goofy 75″) so you can remember exactly where you left your vehicle. When you are ready to find your car again, just open the app and choose from two options. The first option pulls up a map with directions highlighted (a la the built-in Google Maps function) that adjusts based on your body’s position. The second option is more interesting, however, as it turns on your iPhone’s camera and uses enhanced reality to superimpose an arrow on your screen that will direct you straight to your car. It was a little difficult to figure out how to turn on the enhanced reality mode (tapping the compass icon twice did the trick, but I only figured that out through trial and error) but once it was on it worked quite well.

There are certain situations .Parking cannot help you with, such as parking in a parking deck (where, I will admit, I am far more likely to get lost like in that famous Seinfeld episode). .Parking does not know what to do with a multi-level parking lot, so you might want to use the app’s notes function to help you remember where you parked.

That said, .Parking is a comprehensive parking solution for most situations. It even includes a timer so you can know if your parking meter is about to run out. If you are given to losing your way in today’s parking monstrosities, .Parking can help you.

[ .Parking Review is a post from 148Apps ]

written by pietro842 \\ tags: device-reviewed, figure-out-how, incredibly-easy, Iphone, nuage, parking, price