Yes, Physics Can Be Fun

Finger Physics is a game that requires you to bow down to the laws of gravity or be a victim of its frustrating ways. Whereas Galileo needed an apple to prove gravity existed, you only need a few seconds on this wonderful gaming app to confirm his discovery. Finger Physics, by Press OK Entertainment, has resisted  Oblivion’s gravitational pull and risen to a Top Ten Status in the iTunes Store. Here’s why.

Finger Physics is an increasingly challenging game that offers many different puzzles across numerous levels. I like games that not only give me hours of play, but also provides the kind of challenges you don’t mind revisiting.  Each stage has 9 challenges you need to complete before you unlock the next stage. The challenges are rated on a 3-Star system – Bronze, Silver, and Gold. The more Gold Stars you achieve the faster you unlock the next stage.

The game hosts multiple challenge modes, such as my personal favorite, Egg Mode. Egg Mode requires you to delete glass boxes in order to drop or make your egg roll to reach the final objective, which is an orange basket. This mode judges you on the time spent to reach the basket. In Lawn Mode, you must use all the blocks given to you to build a stable construction. The blocks are in all sorts of geometrical shapes, so you must really use the laws of physics on this one. If any blocks fall you must restart. Lunar Mode is similar to Lawn mode except you need only build a stable construction up to the bronze, silver, or gold line to complete the challenge.

The fun doesn’t stop there.

Magnet Mode will require you to link Red Magnets to Blue Magnets to build a stable construction. You need to be very careful and not touch similar magnets to each other or you will be upset blow them apart and upset your carefully created structure. Underwater Mode, which I find to be the most difficult mode for me, requires you to build a construction under water. Sounds simple? Here’s the twist. Brown blocks sink and the Blue blocks float so you must counter weight each other in order for them to stay still and sturdy.

More? As Sarah Palin says, “You betcha!”

Explosive-Blocks Mode is similar to the other construction modes, but added to the challenge are special Orange Blocks. When two of these touch each other, BAM!, there goes the neighborhood. Free Mode is where you must create a stable construction of a maximum height in a given time. Your highest achievement gets recorded, which makes it fun to come back and beat. Gravity Blocks are blocks that seem to have inherent gravitational pull. These clever little creations fall where their arrows point.  Geared Blocks are simple gears rotating clockwise or counterclockwise that make you think of motion and gravity. Ouch. And last, but not least, is Pinned Blocks that have you building on See-Saw typed foundations.  Very tricky stuff.

Phew! Are you getting all this?

This is why I love this game. Lots of variety. Brain teasing puzzles. Excellent graphics. Numerous levels. The only downer (pun intended) is the background music, which sounds like a sappy love tune from the movie Top Gun. I always keep it off; otherwise I want to swallow my iPhone sideways.

At the time of this writing, the game is offering a sweepstakes for users who want to create their own levels. Doodler, from the popular game Doodle Jump(possibly one of my favorite apps ever) has been added into a special bonus pack.  It will be very interesting to see how that one plays out. Finger Physics also allows you to buy more add-on stages for another $.99 each, which I highly recommend. This game is available for the sweet price of $.99.

Buy it. Play it, but don’t let it get you down.

App-A-Tight

Do The Jump

It took all of five minutes for this app to totally capture my heart. That is saying a lot since I come from a gaming background of battlefields and spy missions. Now, Doodle Jump from Lima Sky LLC, has literally jumped its way (pun intended) to the top of my app list. It’s a perfect game when you’ve got 5 or 10 minutes to kill. So give this review 5 minutes and you’ll see why.

Doodle Jump is a prime example of a perfect iPhone game. Right from the start its use of the accelerometer is near perfection, so much so, that the app even can calibrate your iPhone accelerometer for you. This is important since the slightest twist of your wrist can either ascend you to glory or plummet you to the depths of despair. (Hmmm, how poetic)

Doodle Jump is an extremely simple game to play and an equally difficult one to master. You play as a four-legged Doodler, which is either an anteater or a gum drop with legs, I’m not sure. The beauty is, he’s fun.  The objective to the game is to jump. That’s it. Jump straight up as high as you can go for as long as you can. Aren’t the best games always this simple? Where you jump is important. There are all sorts of platforms, some moving, some vanishing and some containing gadgets. There are Springs, Propeller Hats, and Jet Packs to help you get higher. There are probably more gadgets if you get really high, but those are the only ones I’ve reached so far.

Throughout the game you will be faced will obstacles, such as Black Holes in the screen, which you must avoid or otherwise fall into the dark abyss. There are scary monsters and UFOs you must avoid or shoot out of your way by simply tapping the screen.

The cartoony graphics in this game are awesome. I really enjoyed all the original creatures as well. The game now comes with additional themes in which you can play, such as a Halloween and a Christmas theme. The Halloween theme is really spooky, but can be extremely difficult due to the darkness of the level and the difficulty in seeing faulty platforms. The Christmas theme is also very well done. The Jet Packs, Springs, and Propeller Hat are wrapped in presents.

This has also been the best game for posting scores to my Facebook and Twitter accounts. Now you will find the Doodler appearing in all sorts of games. He’s more fun than a bouncing baby. Overall, Doodle Jump is quite possibly the best arcade-style game in the App Store today. There are very few other games that keep you jumping as long as Doodle Jump.

A definite 5 Stars. Download it today! It’s only 99 pennies!

Stay hungry,

App A Tight

The ‘A’ Word

Are you tired of all the app reviewers saying, “This game is so addictive!”? “This is addictingly fun.” “I am addicted to this game!”  I am.  Let’s be real, except for the occasional Doodle Jump or Sudoku game, most game apps have about a 3-hour play-time life cycle. That’s it. Not much of an addiction when you really think about it.  Three hours is playing ten-minute sessions 18 times. Be honest, are you playing that many app games more than 18 times?

Well, I promise not to use the ‘A’ word in this review, even if this game is extremely A…….g, and, irony of ironies, this game begins with an A. Welcome to the a….ting world of Addicus from Get Set Games.

If I was to show you a 4  5  2  8  7  1  9   and  6 in three different colors (red, blue and yellow) then asked you to remove as many of those numbers whose sum is 17, and make those numbers are the same color, and do this in six seconds, you’d probably say, “Go home, Rain Man and count some matches.” Face it, most of us are not wired to do math in public. Well, Addicus can change all that.

Addicus is a numbers game. The object is to combine numbers whose sum equals a number presented. The game presents a 7. You must combine numbers that add up to 7. Sounds pretty simple. This is where we leave the trail of reality and head into the magical Wonderland of Addicus and their colorful, popping Mushrooms and wiggling Evergreens. We may find Alice here.

As a cartoonist by profession, I like Addicus’s  Sugarland design. It’s colorful, simple and not distracting. It should prove very attractive to kids who are the one who should be playing this game. The user interface is well done. You just tap the mushrooms to select and/or deselect.

The clock keeps your fingers popping and brain thinking quickly. Bottom line, this exercises your brain and keeps you sharp so the next time that cashier doesn’t know how much change your twenty gets you on a $12.63 purchase, you quickly say, $7.37. If they look at you stunned, just tell them you play Addicus.

The price is fair, dropping from $2.99 down to $1.99. There is a free, lite version, but I never waste time or space on my iPhone with those. Addicus is part of the open Feint community, so you should find a lot of like-minded folks who can dazzle you with numbers. Quick tip: That white 37 is a 8  6  7  4  3  and 9. Hope that helped.

Buy it. Play it. It adds up to fun. Maybe your new A word will become, Addicus.

4.5 Spots

Appspotter

Drop It In The Box

Ever been in a situation where you created a document on one computer then wanted to open it up on another computer? Happens to me ALL the time. Choices: You could either network your computers if you know how and automate it; or you could go searching for one of those easy to misplace thumb drives and load it up and transfer; or you could do the smart and simple solution, get the app DropBox.

Why is DropBox is the easiest solution? DropBox is a universal application from Evenflow, Inc that offers a free service to anyone with multiple computers and mobile devices. It is a very simple program that works on Macs, PCs, Linux, as well as the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad. The idea is for this one program to disseminate files from any one of the connected devices to any of the other connected devices using the same account.

A user needs only to download the app to their iPhone and client software to their computer(s), each taking all of one minute; sign them all into the same email account, and voila, you’re done! From that moment forward you easily drop any file into the DropBox folder on your computer and it automatically whisks its way upstream to the DropBox server and instantly back down to the other computers on your account AND to your iPhone. You can instantly share PDFs, text documents, spreadsheets, pictures, videos, and even music with all your devices. What could be better than doing something once and having it appear everywhere you need it?

Sharing files with others cannot get any easier. DropBox allows you to invite friends, family, co-workers, etc. to have access to your public folders and thereby the files you drop in there. It also allows you to access their files over the web, which is great when you are not at your own computer. I use DropBox very frequently on my desktop, laptop, and iPhone and yet to have any problems.   The quickness in which you see files shared is truly amazing.

Again, DropBox app and desktop software is free for all users, that is, of course, if they choose to max out their storage at 2GB. For those of you looking for more memory, you can purchase 99GB for $9.99/month or $99.00/year. There is also 199GB for $19.99/month or $199.00/year. I don’t need that much space, but some businesses do and it’s a deal.

That’s my take on DropBox. Now had you been signed into DropBox on my account, I could have delivered you this blog in a hands-free fashion through my DropBox folder.

Download it. Use it. Get organized.

Stay hungry,

App A Tight

The Swiss Army Knife of Apps

There are those moments in life when you wish you had a little screwdriver to fix that certain something or a pair of scissors to cut away an annoying thread, but, alas, the toolbox is usually nowhere to be found. That is why the Swiss crammed all those gadgets into a single pocketknife, to give you a miniature toolbox to carry with you.

Would this Swiss theory work for our iPhones and iPod Touches, too?

Welcome to AppBox Pro, the Swiss Army Knife of IPhone apps. No, we are not turning your iPhone into a toothpick or have it uncork a bottle of wine, but what the makers at AllAboutApps have managed to do is cram twenty utilities into one app along with some other cool features. And they’ve managed to do this at a price point of $.99. Now that’s the kind of miniaturization we can live with.

I’ll repeat myself. This app has twenty apps built in to one! To begin with, AppBox Pro alone can replace 5 to 20 apps you may already have on your device. Talk about economy of space. I wouldn’t be surprised to find users who have download this app deleting other apps off their phone to save some screen space, not to mention have quick access at the tap of oneicon.

One of my favorite features of AppBox Pro is the Battery Life application. Battery Life covers 7 categories: Talk 2g, Talk 3g, Internet on 3g, Internet on Wi-Fi, Video/Game/App play time, Audio, and Standby. For some, the battery app may not interest you, but getting a grasp of your iPhones battery life could really help you out on conserving your battery. The app displays both % of overall Life and hours/minutes remaining on each category.

Another great feature in AppBox Pro is Translator. There are 52 languages to select from and you can translate from any one of these languages to another. Kind of handy when you want to transate that Estonian phrase into Turkish. Try to do that Swiss Army Knife. Okay, maybe 52 languages is more than enough for most people needing to convert text to another language, but hey, there are other people in the world using iPhones. Tommy O yra labia isvaizdus vyras.  Better get this app is you’re rusty on your Lithuanian.

Some of the other apps include; Clinometer (leveler), Currency, Date Calculator, Days Until…, Flashlight, Holidays, Loan Calculator, Menstrual Period Calendar, Price Grab, Random, Ruler, Sale Price, System info, Tip Calculator, Unit Convertor, Google Books and Collapse ( 31 math games for kids). It’s almost too many apps. Personally the best feature in this app is the fact that they allow you to remove any of the apps of theirs you find useless. You can also download free Apple web apps and use them as well.

Does this sound like a deal too good to be true? YES it does, but it is true. I believe this is the biggest treasure of an app inside the App Store, 20 apps for $.99 cents, which, let me use the Calculator app…comes out to 4.95 Pennies per app, not including the bonus stuff they give you.

I very strongly recommend AppBox Pro to anyone. It saves space. It saves money. It can greatly assist you in your day-to-day tasks. And like that Army Knife, it fits right into your pocket.

Tommy O

Sim City Wasn’t Built in a Day

For all you Emperors-in-waiting, who are itching to build yourself a kingdom,  from Electronic Arts has come to your aid. In a matter of hours you will be building spectacular cities. Friends will be saying “Hail, (insert your name). Veni Vidi Vici will now be Tetigi Lusi Confeci (I Touch, I Play, I Build)*. Okay, so we never will hear Caesar say that when marching into the App Store, but you get the point.

Too historic of a reference? Then maybe you can be a city planner and make New Jersey look all nice and pretty. Now, you could go to Columbia University and take up architecture, or save $200,000 by getting the Sim City app. I recommend the latter. Either way, you will get to plan, build and, best of all, run a city. If you’re familiar with the PC version of Sim City (and many are since over 25 million copies have sold since 2000), the iPhone and iPod Touch version will not disappoint. The only difference is your screen size makes you feel like you are building a city for Munchkins.

This game allows you to do many things, whether it’s balancing a city budget, building a power grid, placing a sewage treatment plant next to someone you don’t like, or starting a natural disaster on your city! Dang, just as my Tower was dwarfing Trump Plaza, that tornado de-floored me! No problem, I can rebuild a bigger one.

Be prepared. The games controls can be a little frustrating at times, but when you nail it down, this game becomes addicting. What makes this game really stand out for me is the level of detail. The miniaturization is barely an issue when you consider this app is patterned after Sim City 3000. That game had really good graphics for the PC, but when on the iPhone, the graphics are outstanding. Zooming into your city to watch it grow can be a little tedious, but the results are worth it. Zoomed into your city, you can watch your residential zone flourish and your commercial zone boom, and all this without any stimulus monies from President Barry O.

Before I even downloaded Sim City, I checked out their ratings and reviews on the App Store. (BTW, this is a practice I recommend more of you do before buying an app) Lots of people were complaining about the game crashing. Not so for me. I own an iPhone 3g with 8gb and I have yet to have this game crash on me, and I have dozens of hours and hundreds of city blocks under my belt. I will admit it does take some time to render, but hey, Rome, Texas wasn’t built in a day either.

This app gets my strongest recommendation and for the mere price of $2.99, you’ll find your fascination and enjoyment of the app will last longer than Pompeii, look cooler than Babylon, and have better transportation than Boston.

Buy it. Play it. Build it.

Tommy O

The 24 That Stumped Jack Bauer

Appsters,

Did you know 24 was a nonagonal number? A nonagonal numberis a polygonal number that represents a nonagon, which in geometry is a nine-sided polygon. It is the smallest number with exactly eight divisors: 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 12, 24. Also, the product of any four consecutive numbers is divisible by 24. (Try it, Einstein) Twenty-four is also the number of hours in a day, carats in pure gold, points on a backgammon board, cycles in a Chinese Solar Year, frames per second in movies, and on the back of Willie Mays’ jersey.

24 is a freaky number.

Of late, the number has been dominated by Jack Bauer and his ‘daily’ exploits. If I could manage to get done just half of what Bauer does in a day, I could spend way more time on my golf game. But for iPhone and iPod Touch users, 24 may well become the number one game for mathematical tomfoolery.

TwentyFour is a first-time offering from Lucid Logic LLC and has quickly become a favorite. As a closet mathematician, I find numbers very intriguing. Did you know 111,111,111 x 111,111,111 = 12345678987654321? Sorry, always liked that fact. TwentyFourgame will satiate any need you have to solve math puzzles without requiring a $200,000 degree from MIT.

Game play is simple. For each puzzle you get 4 numbers, either numbered from 1 to 10 or 1 to 13. You are given four Operators, that is, the plus, minus, division and multiplier symbols. You must play each number once and use the Operators in such a way to result in the sum of 24 after all four numbers are played.

The layout is crisp, the user interface is well done and they have managed to put the focus on the game and not the glitz.

You can buy it for $1.99. Had they made the price $46.99, you could have taken 9 divided by 9, times it by 6, then times it by 4 and have gotten 24. But then none of us would be playing it now, would we?

Expect this one to creep into the top 50 and stay there for awhile, if they are lucky. Of course,24 is considered an unlucky number in Cantonese culture because its pronunciation is similar to that of “easy to die”. For this reason, many buildings skip this floor number. Okay, so maybe it won’t be top 50 in China.

This is a 5 Spotter.

Buy it. Play it. You won’t be disappointed.

App Spotter