"If there is an app for that"

Rickle Review

June 11, 2021 by RSS Feed

Some games are supposed to consume your life, monopolising your consciousness and transporting you to parallel dimensions full of wonder and intrigue. Not Rickle.

Rickle sits at the exact opposite end of the spectrum. This hyper-casual mobile game involves making a pile of stones, and that’s about it.

Rickle is a tower-building game. It sees you trying to build the tallest stack that you can out of slabs that fly in from the left and right. To place these slabs on your tower you just need to tap the screen.

The aim is to place each slab flush with the one below, but Rickle is a game of attrition. Sooner or later you’ll falter, placing a slab too early or too late. This leaves an overhang, which gets chopped off, diminishing your tower and making the next placement harder.

You’re chasing two carrots in Rickle: your own high score, which is always displayed in the top-right of the screen, and the next world.

To help you keep each attempt alive you’ve got three consumable power-ups: one that automatically places a slab flush with the top of the tower, one that slows the incoming slabs down for a spell to make it easier for you to place them, and one that resets the incoming slabs to full size.

These power-ups are consumable but totally free. You buy more with the gems you earn through gameplay, and by watching videos. Rickle is refreshingly IAP-free.

The Good

While it’s not spectacular in technical terms, Rickle looks stylish and slick in an understated sort of way. It’s text-free, too, making it both universally accessible, if slightly confusing for the first few minutes.

And it’s a quietly addictive little casual game. There’s satisfaction to be found in building the highest tower you can and unlocking new worlds, though the dynamic shifts as you work your way through the game and the intervals between new worlds grow larger.

The number of points you need to unlock worlds increases exponentially, but the number of points you earn per attempt stays pretty much the same, creating ever-expanding deserts of progress where all you can do is inch forward one slab at a time.

In that sense, Rickle has more in common with Peter Molyneux’s Curiosity than, say, Rising Sushi - a fact underlined by the Sunflower Race that developer Polyworks Games is running this summer, which comes with a cash prize.

Outside the gameplay, Rickle lets you help make the world a slightly better place.

How? A portion of the revenue from Rickle goes to three environmental charities: the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Union of Concerned Scientists, and the Environmental Working Group.

We won’t give you the spiel on what these charities do, as you can find that info on Google in your own time. Suffice it to say that they all advocate for a safer, cleaner, more sustainable planet.

The Bad

While we’re totally down with Rickle’s charitable mission, and we’re onboard with its distinctive gameplay arc that emphasises long-term progress over the usual smash-and-grab casual gaming hijinks, there’s no getting away from the fact that it can be a little bit bland.

Most tower-building games contain an element of physics. It’s fun to build a tower, but it’s more fun if that tower lists and teeters, and if misplaced blocks dangle perilously, like the bus in The Italian Job.

Plugging away at the goal of winning a race is what makes Rickle appealing after a while. The basic block-stacking mechanic is fine, but it’s a tad too monotonous to hold your interest for long. Fortunately updates seem to be on their way to help mix things up and keep you playing. You can check out the game for yourself via the App Store and Google Play, and there’s an official site as well.

Overall

Rickle is a decent casual game with solid presentation and an admirable philanthropic mission. It’s worth a look in a block-stacking genre that is perhaps a bit overcrowded.

8.0

OVERALL

Game Controls 8.1

Graphics 8.1

Sound/Music 8

Gameplay 8

Replayability 7.8

$1.99

Rickle

Polyworks Games LLC

Source link: http://appadvice.com/reviews

Mango Languages Puts Language Mastery in Reach

May 04, 2021 by RSS Feed

Reviewed by Jimbo

Mango Languages is an incredibly capable mobile and browser solution for mastering the basics of a new language. With over 50 languages covered, the world is at your fingertips.

This comprehensive offering comes from Creative Empire LLC, and features vocabulary, spelling and conversational skills for over 50 different languages at very reasonable costs.

There’s a lot to love there, and, naturally, our iPhone app review of Mango Languages will let you know just what to look for.

Features:

I don’t think we’ve ever seen a language app with as much raw language information along with a bona fide educational strategy tucked inside and at such an attractive price (free to download but ongoing training requires a subscription, more on this below).

Mango Languages gives users ample practice with vocabulary lessons, drills, repetitive audible pronunciation for each word, spelling and flashcard games to increase learning retention, and even an awesome visual representation of each word to help engrain them in your brain.

Along with using native speakers to insure you hear the proper pronunciation, there are also informational nuggets that help to understand the cultural setting in which the language exists.

There are well over 60 different languages to choose from with many offered with more than one “flavor”. Arabic, for example, is covered with 4 variations: Egyptian, Iraqi, Levantine, and Modern Standard. With Spanish you can opt for Castilian or Latin American.

By breaking words down in categories, it’s easy to practice commonly used terms with the app, such as conversational phrases, numbers or colors. It also features an extremely useful searchable dictionary, so if you’re ever in a language pinch this app could come to the rescue right quick.

There are also over 20 English courses for non-native speakers focused on the most popular non-English languages.

Functionality:

Mango Languages iPhone App

For the first round of word learning and in-app quizzing, Mango Languages delivered admirably.

Each lesson takes you slowly from a point of competency that you left in the previous lesson to the next slightly higher degree of capability

We especially like how your language knowledge is reviewed in subsequent lessons. The design of the pedagogy never assumes that you remember everything from prior lessons. This is great since you may skip some days in between and need that bit of refresher.

The progression of vocabulary and grammar is easy, smooth and clearly well understood by the app developers to make learning your next language as easy as possible. But don’t be fooled into thinking that means it’s easy to learn a new language. It’s not. But the right program can help a lot.

Unfortunately, the lessons are not associated with a compendium of vocabulary words so you can easily drill what you’ve learned to date.

This feature is in beta and we hope it is fully released soon.

Overall Value:

In our opinion Mango Languages is an awesome app for learning the basics and beyond of a new language.

This also applies to polishing existing skills, especially when it comes to spelling and writing in the new tongue.

Downloading Mango Languages costs nothing, nada, zip and you get to try your first lesson at no cost. That’s a heck of a deal, folks, especially when you consider the methodology and the enormous wealth of the information available via this app.

Mango Languages iPhone app requires iOS 12.0 or later and is compatible with iPhone, iPod touch and iPad.

Source link:https://www.theiphoneappreview.com/mango-languages-iphone-app-review/

CodeKit Transforms Your iPhone Into a Powerful QR Tool

April 07, 2021 by RSS Feed

Reviewed by Sarah Hanlon

QR codes are useful coded images that can be scanned with your phone so you can access a wide variety of information quickly.

Unfortunately I don’t think people take advantage of them enough, mainly because it’s a fast way to zip to a website or read more information about a product without having to search for it.

However, finding a reliable app that allows you to process QR codes and barcodes quickly can be challenging.

CodeKit does a stunning job of making QR codes simple and easy for you. It not only allows you to scan QR codes out in the world, but you can generate them as well.

Concept and Functionality:

Personally I feel like QR codes have fallen to the side, which is very unfortunate because I believe they’re incredibly practical and efficient. Similar to barcodes on products you buy, QR codes are unique and can be customized to great lengths.

To begin using the app you need to create a group. Once you’ve done so, you can quickly scan whatever QR codes you need to and CodeKit, developed by Zane Carter,  automatically saves the scanned results in your history.

Perhaps the best part of this feature is that you don’t have to wait for scan animations or anything like that – the iPhone camera always stays awake so you can scan quickly.

Something I really like about CodeKit is the fact that it keeps track of what you’ve scanned in the past, kind of like the history feature on your internet browser.

The app even allows you to take things a step further by not only letting you use filters and flags while browsing your code generation history, but also by supporting deep linking and shortcuts.

Features:

CodeKit iPhone App

One of the things that really impressed me about CodeKit is the fact that you can use 21 different code generators in order to find what works for you.

This includes creating QR codes for email addresses, Wi-Fi network information, text messaging, web links, deep links, and even sharing your phone number. As I mentioned above, CodeKit allows you to create customized groups in order to keep things that you’ve scanned organized.

This is incredibly helpful if you tend to rely on QR codes because it’s very easy to get them confused and mixed up.

Value:

CodeKit is available to download from the App Store for free, but you can choose to upgrade to the Pro version of the app via a 6 month, yearly, or lifetime subscription if you find it very useful.

The pro version allows you to create unlimited scanning groups, generate PDFs, access additional code generating features, and unlock a wide variety of other helpful tools.

Overall, CodeKit is a very helpful QR code app that definitely accomplishes what it was designed to do; help users generate and scan QR codes quickly and easily.

I definitely think this is an app that you should download and keep on your iPhone so you’re good to go the next time you want to scan a QR code.

CodeKit requires iOS 14.0 or later and is compatible with iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch.

Source link:https://www.theiphoneappreview.com/codekit-iphone-app-review/

Roblox is Setting the Internet on Fire

March 21, 2021 by RSS Feed

Reviewed by Jimbo

The beauty of having cellular data and/or Wi-Fi access with you wherever you go is the fact that you can communicate with anyone anywhere in the world.

With the Internet constantly at your fingertips, you have the entire world in the palm of your hand 24 hours a day.

And now, with Roblox by Roblox Corporation, users may utilize this convenience to connect with gamers and developers around the globe.

Roblox is enormously popular, with over 115M users as of Jan 2021, and has usurped Minecraft as the game-du-jour and as such it has attracted the interest of kids, and concern of parents, all over the world.

It isn’t a game as much as it is an environment. Essentially, kids create an avatar and can also easily create games that they then invite their friends to play as well as play games that others have created. They also wander around exploring and interacting with others in a virtual immersive 3D world. All of this is incredibly fun and addicting hence the enormous success of this app.

Players start out with a modest amount of game money so they can rent a house and get their online existence going. Outfitting your home requires real-world money, however, and it ain’t cheap.

It’s an incredibly well done environment and the whole experience is difficult to quickly describe since it is so varied.

No matter which game you decide to play, or if you just roam around exploring, the controls and visuals have been meticulously crafted to make the whole time you in the Roblox world quite enjoyable.

One game on the platform, Royale High, is a fantasy school role-playing and dress-up game that has been played over 5 billion times!

Since games on Roblox are typically played amongst existing friends, as well as new fast friends who get to know each other via their avatars, there is a good amount of pressure to keep upgrading various aspects of your online persona.

The other key to this game is the aforementioned ability to meet new players. This is done by wondering around and chatting it up with other avatars that you run into. The issue here is that the interactions are unmoderated and since you’re meeting an avatar, the actual person you’re talking to can be anyone of any gender and any age with any agenda.

Roblox iPhone Game

Of course this is largely benign and the players have a great time but the costs and interactions are two areas where some oversight is needed.

It’s important to note that these issues are not peculiar to Roblox as all online connections tend to be anonymous and hidden costs add up fast with many games (did someone say Candy Crush?).

The good news here is that while some abuses are inevitable with a platform such as this, there are some privacy options. For example, parents can use controls that make sure younger players can only chat with their friends.

Overall Roblox is not only an incredibly well crafted gaming environment but it is also a glimpse of the future where more and more time is spent in virtual worlds and anyone can be not just a player, but also a creator.

Roblox requires iOS 13.0 or later and is compatible with iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch.

Source link:https://www.theiphoneappreview.com/roblox-iphone-game-review/

Clubhouse Sounds Awesome But Tread Carefully

March 07, 2021 by RSS Feed

Reviewed by Jimbo

Apps have made it incredibly easy to connect with those you care about. Remember actually going places to engage with people? Wow, how old are we? LOL!

That’s all behind us now, just open an app and you can hang out and chat with people who you never would have had the chance to meet.

Clubhouse is a well-designed and easy-to-use app whose focus is drop-in audio conversations with friends and others around the world.

What’s so cool about this app, and why it’s taking off like a rocket, is that you can drop-in to a session just to listen to someone you follow and hear what he or she, and the whole group, is talking about.

Concept and Functionality:

Signing up for Clubhouse, a free app by Alpha Exploration Co., is incredibly easy – although in these days of privacy concern having to provide a phone number is a bit of a red flag.

Most people don’t mind this but they also require access to your contact list. All told this aspect of the app is something we’d like to see come up to speed with other social apps that are more sensitive to those who want to opt in to more privacy.

As far as the actual audio conversation or listening-in experience goes, we like the fact that Clubhouse covers new ground by moving users away from texting or just dropping comments, images and videos for others to see and waiting for feedback.

In a world of emojis, it’s actually quite refreshing to hear actual voices expressing actual emotions.

It seems like a strange concept at first, but being able to just drop-in an listen in on an ongoing discussion hosted by someone you’re interested in, is really pretty cool.

One thing to be aware of, though, is that the app is in its early days so don’t expect much in the way of content generally considered to be offensive being moderated out. When it comes to hateful speech or spreading known false conspiracies, it’s caveat emptor.

Features:

What seems to make Clubhouse click is that once you’re in a room you can see who’s on stage and who is speaking. It can be a challenge when the number of people increases but overall we like how it’s set up.

As you listen to different people speaking their avatars increase in size indicating they are the one speaking. Expect to do some scrolling though in a crowded session.

Unfortunately right now it’s invitation only so you may or may not be able to set up an account. That said, this is a smart move that makes it seem a bit exotic and probably helps them figure out what people like, don’t like, and make sure their tech is spot on to handle big user loads.

Value:

Clubhouse is available to download for free from the App Store. There are no ads or in-app purchases, which makes this a completely free app to use and enjoy. No subscription fees, no paid extras, and no nonsense.

Overall it’s a worthwhile download and, if you can create an account, an interesting experience that we think you’ll find quite compelling. However, we hope the devs will pay more attention to user privacy and moderating extreme content.

Clubhouse: Drop-in audio chat requires iOS 13.0 or later and is compatible with iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch.

Source link:https://www.theiphoneappreview.com/clubhouse-phone-app-review/