"If there is an app for that"

Bumballon review

June 22, 2023 by RSS Feed

Over the years, the App Store has seen some ingenious design go into the humble one-touch platformer. I'd even go as far to say that some of these past titles are some of the best platforming you can find just about anywhere. Due to this stiff competition, games like Bumballon have a hard time standing out. Despite a decently charming aesthetic and intriguing concept, this game has just enough working against it to make it hard to recommend over alternatives.

Balloon bouncer

In Bumballon, you play as a duck-like creature who launches out of cannons to blast through environments has super speeds. Your only way to control this creature is by tapping to make it inflate and float slowly along like a balloon. You only have a limited time to be inflated, though, with the idea being that most of the time you'll be shooting through levels in mere seconds.

As you fly through the air, any number of things might come in to view to knock you out of the sky. Deadly creatures, walls, and other hazards you have to play around and try to time your flying just right so that you don't careen into them and die, which would force you to start the level over from the beginning.

Duck death

It doesn't take long for Bumballon to become a pretty serious test of your reflexes. Once you get to the end of the first world (of seven total), you'd have to be pretty lucky to make it through a level without dying at least once. The speed at which the game moves and the way you only have such limited control of your character means you can expect to die quite a bit before clearing levels moving forward.

I don't usually have an issue with platformers that are punishing like this, but Bumballon's flavor of it has a couple sour notes. The first is that there are many times where you can identify your doom well before you even reach it, as sometimes a mistimed launch can't even be saved by the one control option you have. The second--and perhaps most important--reason I don't have much patience for dying and retrying in Bumballon is that restarting levels takes a bit too long. By my estimate, viewing the death screen (which also keeps a tally of your increasingly embarrassing death count and tapping to try again takes a few seconds, when it should really be an instant restart.

Quacky quirks

Outside of the core design decisions of Bumballon's gameplay, there are a couple of other things that rub me the wrong way. The first is that the game is a little buggy, particularly when it comes to its sound. During almost every play session, the game sound completely stops, which can be quite distracting, especially if in the midst of a challenging sequence.

Also, the game's free-to-play model--while generally pretty standard in most circumstances--makes the punsihment of death even more excrutiating. Having an advertisement add further delay to the retrying process ruins what is already a pretty sluggish sense of momentum, which is key to making a challenging one-touch platformer feel replayable and less frutstrating than it would otherwise be.

The bottom line

There are just a few too many things that make Bumballon bothersome to play. In light of no quality alternatives, that may well make it worth picking up, but that is definitely not the case. There are myriad other high-quality platformers you could be playing that deliver what Bumballon in a slicker and better designed package.

Source link:https://www.148apps.com/reviews/bumballon-review/

Free Apps to Download TODAY ONLY 06/22/2023

June 22, 2023 by RSS Feed

monotasker: tasks & to do list , Animal KIDS: Puzzle for 3,4,5 , World Clock - Time Travel Pro and more

iPhone:

monotasker: tasks & to do list ( $1.99 → Free ) Jennifer Bush Monotasker is set up so you focus on one task at a time. With a minimalistic design it’s easy to stay organized and build productive habits. Add tasks individually or set them up as recurring. You can visualize your accomplishments with each completed task and enjoy the satisfaction of progress.

Animal KIDS: Puzzle for 3,4,5 ( $0.99 → Free ) Alexander Deplov Animal KIDS is a fun way for kids to use their little fingers to place the puzzle pieces in the correct spot. The app is filled with lots of different shapes and colors. The upbeat music along with adorable artwork will keep your kid entertained for hours.

World Clock - Time Travel Pro ( $0.99 → Free ) David Richmond World Clock is a simple world clock that supports a variety of locations around the world. The app has time shifting and offers a unique global perspective. Spin the globe to see the times at any point in the future or past. You can set notifications when the local time at any location reaches the time you specify.

Fresh Reversi ( $0.99 → Free ) Alexander Deplov Fresh Reversi allows you to jump right in and play. You’re able to compete against three different computer-controlled opponents, grab a friend and play locally, or play online. As you play you’ll see a running tally of the pieces you own at the top of the screen. You’re also able to have hints shown and change the starting position. The game includes full stat tracking as well.

DobbyxEscape: Adventure Story ( $1.99 → Free ) LKMAD Help your witchy friend complete her party potion. You need to the essence from five mystic locations. On your adventure you’ll explore different beautiful places while collecting items and solving puzzles.

Source link: http://appadvice.com/apps-gone-free

Coffee Golf review

June 21, 2023 by RSS Feed

There have been quite a few attempts to develop games that double as a sort of daily ritual in the wake of Wordle, but I'm not sure many have had all the requisite components to compete at this level. After spending a few weeks with Coffee Golf, though, I am prepared to say that this daily golfer is probably the closest I've seen anything come to recreating such a winning formula.

Golf club

Coffee Golf is a casual golf game that serves up a unique landscape with five different holes on it every day. With three clubs at your disposal, you can chart your own path through the course in an effort to take as few strokes as possible. Once you've completed the course, your score is tallied, you can get some limited information on how you measured up against other players, and share your score easily by copying your scorecard to post an emoji-laden readout of your performance.

Outside of the nonlinear structure, Coffee Golf doesn't get too off-kilter with its brand of golfing. Course obstacles are standard sand traps and trees, and your clubs are the familiar basic tools of a driver, wedge, and putter. You control your strokes through dragging and releasing on the screen, with longer shots typically being less accurate than short-game strokes.

Routine exercise

If you spend even a small amount of time with Coffee Golf, its similarity to Wordle is easy to see. Each time you boot the app, you see the day's course and start, with no other menu options or alternate modes around to distract you. Also, each course just takes a few minutes to complete and your shareable scorecard is just as colorful, clever, and fun to share as Wordle's.

Where it departs--obviously--is in the actual activity, but I have to say I quite like the feel of Coffee Golf's swing mechanics and it feels more immediately like a game of skill than Wordle. Where the latter always starts as a pure guessing game, the way you decide to approach holes from your first tee-off in Coffee Golf has an impact on the rest of your performance on the day's challenge.

Free swinging

Coffee Golf is a completely free game, but it does offer a single, odd in-app purchase. For $ 3.99, players can unlock "unlimited play" which allows you to replay the day's challenge as many times as you want. This means that paying players can try to change their score after already playing the course, which feels somewhat antithetical to the kind of "once per day" design principle of the game and ones like it.

I can see why someone might want this feature, as Coffee Golf does have an element of randomness to its shot accuracy that can occasionally really throw off a day's score. That said, managing swing variability feels like a core "risk vs. reward" system that creates the challenge of the game in the first place. Personally, I couldn't see using unlimited play as all that rewarding as I'd know that my first attempt is really my true score, but if someone wants to pay for that option who am I to say otherwise?

The bottom line

This is all to say that Coffee Golf is a high quality, fun, and free daily golfer. It is just frictionless enough to making daily play incredibly easy while also maintaining a sense of challenge to drive you to improve. Because of this, I plan to keep golfing over my morning coffee for a good long time.

Source link:https://www.148apps.com/reviews/coffee-golf-review/

Free Apps to Download TODAY ONLY 06/21/2023

June 21, 2023 by RSS Feed

True Skate , Tonality: Music Theory , Pupillary Distance Measure X and more

iPhone:

Pupillary Distance Measure X ( $1.99 → Free ) VisTech.Projects LLC Pupillary Distance Measure X gives you accurate pupillary distance measurements every time. Just go to a well lit room, hold your device straight, and snap a photo. The app will automatically detect your eyes and give you quick, accurate pupillary distance measurements. This will help you order glasses online or adjust your VR headset.

True Skate ( $1.99 → Free ) True Axis In True Skate, your fingers act as your feet. The flick controls work exactly as you would expect them to, allowing you to pump, ollie, flip, and grind with little effort. The tutorial at the beginning of the game will walk you through the basics to ensure you get the hang of things before taking on missions. The game includes realistic physics, the ability to challenge other players, replays, slow motion, and the ability to unlock loads of additional content.

Tonality: Music Theory ( $7.99 → Free ) Bryce Hostetler Tonality allows you to view and hear a large database of piano/guitar chords and scales. It also includes an interactive circle of fifths that lets you view signatures and scales for major and minor keys. You can run Tonality as an AUv3 MIDI receiver and see chords that match MIDI input you route to it, or as a MIDI source and send chords to other apps. The built-it chord and scale dictionaries are filled with over 1,000 chords each. Learn to recognize notes, melodies, intervals, chords, and scales by ear with the help of this powerful music app.

Tongo Music - for kids ( $2.99 → Free ) Firstconcert Productions Tongo Music was produced and designed by musical teachers and professionals. There are 12 animated musical instrument movies and each one includes sound samples. Your little one can even use the interactive piano keyboard along with percussions to play their own tunes.

Cardinal Land ( $0.99 → Free ) Petro Shmigelskyi Cardinal Land is not only fun, it’s informative. Your job is to fill in the animal silhouette using colorful pieces. Just drag and drop to place, and tap to rotate. If a piece is in its correct position, it will snap into place. Move quickly in order to earn a perfect rating. After each puzzle has been completed, you’ll receive a surprising fact about the animal. The game includes more than 80 puzzles.

Slideshow Make Photo to Video ( $11.99 → Free ) Owen Schick This slideshow maker lets you tell a story with your photos. Add music and text to narrate your slideshow in just a few taps. The app is uncomplicated and straightforward, making it easy for anyone to create high-quality slideshows.

Source link: http://appadvice.com/apps-gone-free

Free Apps to Download TODAY ONLY 06/20/2023

June 20, 2023 by RSS Feed

Resize Image: Resizer , Inssatem - Emoticons Keyboard , BallBreaker and more

Resize Image: Resizer ( $0.99 → Free ) Le Giang Nam Resizer is a powerful app that lets you quickly resize and compress multiple photos at once. You’re able to rotate, flip, and crop photos right from the app. It allows you to print multiple photos to actual size, saving you both time and paper. You can also convert your photos to compatible formats such as JPEG, PNG, and HEIC and share to any device.

Inssatem - Emoticons Keyboard ( $0.99 → Free ) Techin Park Emoticons Keyboard includes over 1,000 different types of text emoticons. Filter out your favorites for even quicker access. The app also has fancy fonts you can use whenever and wherever you desire.

BallBreaker ( $0.99 → Free ) Ivan Cerra de Castro BallBreaker is similar to any brick breaker game. The idea is to maneuver your ship to bounce the ball into any remaining bricks. Collect power-ups by catching capsules with your ship. There are 35 levels for hours of addicting fun. Try not to miss the ball and don’t forget to dodge enemies.

Source link: http://appadvice.com/apps-gone-free