The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth for iOS is the Ultimate Port
January 12, 2017 by RSS Feed
The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth ($14.99) by Nicalis, Inc. is the long-awaited mobile port of the cult-classic roguelike top-down 2-D action RPG shooter. If you love a good roguelike that has an incredibly dark theme to it, then The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth is a must-have, especially if you have never played the game before. It’s also a great buy for those who have played it previously on Steam (PC, Mac, and Linux), PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita, Wii U, Nintendo 3DS, or Xbox One and just want to have another mobile port with them at all times.
Over the past several years, procedurally-generated roguelikes have risen in popularity quite a bit, and I’ve discovered how incredibly awesome the genre is. There’s nothing like the action or strategy that these roguelike games pack, and when you die and start a new game, it’s never going to be the same thing twice. While not everyone may be a fan of this, I find the idea of a brand new experience rather exhilarating, and it’s always a challenge. And even though The Binding of Isaac was originally released in late 2014, I never actually played it until now because I’ve been waiting for an iOS version after first hearing about it a long time ago. After going through a long approval process (originally submitted in February 2016 and rejected due to “violence towards children”), The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth is finally on iOS almost a year later, and it was well worth the wait.
Visually speaking, The Binding of Isaac is rather beautiful, despite all of the dark and morbid things that are in the game. Even if you’ve played the game before on another platform, you may notice that the iOS version features all-new hand-drawn pixel art visuals and effects that make everything pop out just a bit more for your Retina screens. This is due to the fact that the game is now on a new engine, so everything is more polished than before. The game has mostly dark and gloomy colors since everything takes place in the basement of Isaac’s mom’s house, but the bright colors of Isaac, his tears, and his foes contrast nicely against the murkiness of the various rooms. Animations are buttery smooth and fluid, and the game even has a brand new soundtrack and audio by Matthias Bossi and Jon Evans. So even if you’re a veteran Isaac player, then there’s enough new stuff in this iOS port to entice you if you’re a big fan of the game. On top of everything, The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth can be played in both portrait and landscape mode on iOS, though the latter requires Rotation Lock to be off.
Since The Binding of Isaac is a roguelike game, each run you do will be procedurally generated. This means that no game will ever be the same thing unless you try to continue after you die. Each run will last infinitely until you run out of hearts, and when you die, you’ll have to start over from the beginning if you choose to continue (this is where Rebirth comes in). There are also 20 Challenge Runs that you can take on, which is like the regular game but with a predetermined condition that affects the full run, such as being in the darkness the entire time. The main goal in The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth is to survive the basement long enough to eventually defeat his mom, who has been corrupted by faith.
If the goal of defeating your own mom sounds weird, it’s because the story of The Binding of Isaac goes like this: Isaac once lived happily with his mom, until she watched too many religious programs on television. She then believes she received a message telling her that Isaac was corrupted and she had to save him, which was done by taking away his toys and clothes, and then eventually locking him in his room. Eventually, she hears the instruction to kill Isaac as a test of her devotion to faith, which leads Isaac escaping his room and into the basement that he must eventually escape from, and then that’s where the events of the game take place.
Controls in the iOS version of The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth are simple and intuitive, though it does take a bit of getting used to. In the bottom left corner area, you’ll have a virtual joystick for moving Isaac around each room. The bottom right sector has a button that lets you toggle Isaac’s basic tear attack, where he shoots tears from his eyes at enemies. You can aim the tears left, right, up, and down by pushing the virtual stick in the direction you want to attack in. As you make your way through the basement, sometimes you’ll find bombs, which can be activated with a tap of the bomb button that can be found in the space between the two virtual joysticks.
I would like to have the option to adjust the sensitivity of the controls though, because I feel it’s not responsive enough at times, so hopefully that’s optimized in the future. There is full support for MFi controllers though, which would make the game much easier to play if you have one. Another bonus of having a MFi controller around is the fact that you can do two-player local co-op this way, and there are over 100 different characters that can be used for the co-op mode.
In addition to always offering a new experience with each new run you do, there is a lot of other content in Rebirth that just adds to the replay value. Once you meet certain conditions in the game, you can unlock up to 10 new characters to play as, and each one has their own unique traits that can help you in the dangerous basement. There are also over 100 enemies to discover and overcome, over 50 challenging boss fights, and plenty of power-up items (over 450 right now, including 160 brand new ones) that can give you more hearts, do more damage, and more. There are runes that you can use to upgrade your characters, and the shops can be upgraded as well.
As someone who has not played The Binding of Isaac before (but watched others play it), I am loving being able to have this on-the-go anywhere. The revised graphics of this port are sharp and crisp with smooth animations, and the soundtrack is captivating. The controls do take a bit of getting used to compared to other dual-stick shooters, but it just takes a bit of practice. Hopefully it will be possible to adjust the sensitivity of them in the future. And while the price of the game is a bit high compared to most games, given the fact that there is an almost infinite amount of replay value (over 500 hours according to the developers), you are definitely getting your money’s worth here.
I highly recommend picking up The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth if you have never played the game before or just can’t get enough Isaac in your life, since this port contains a ton of new stuff. The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth is available on the App Store as a universal download for your iPhone and iPad for $14.99. There are no in-app purchases and it will be coming to the Apple TV “very soon.”
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Free Apps to Download TODAY ONLY 01/12/2017
January 12, 2017 by RSS Feed
Overpainted , Feelca B&W , SamCard Pro-business card scanner&reader&visiting and more
iPhone:
Feelca B&W ( $0.99 → Free ) IDEAMP Co.,Ltd. Feelca B&W mimics the look of film cameras. You're able to choose between 24 and 36 exposure film. Then line up your subjects and snap away. The app automatically organizes photos as if they were rolls of film. Afterwards you can add a caption, which is presented as a Polaroid-like developed photo, or you can just share photos as they are.
SamCard Pro-business card scanner&reader&visiting ( $3.99 → Free ) SamTeam Stop wasting time manually adding business card information to your personal database. Instead, snap a photo and let SamCard do all of the work for you. The app is able to automatically recognize business card text and add it to the appropriate fields. Just make sure you have the business card in good lighting. SamCard's anti-shake photo shooting mode should also help you achieve fantastic results.iPad:
After3D Prism - Craft 3D Art, Create 3D Models Pro ( $1.99 → Free ) Guyverson Junior Vernous
With After3D, anyone can create a 3-D design thanks to its unique interface. The screen is divided into two parts, with a preview of your model to the left and the drawing area to the right. The drawing area provides a simple 2-D view of your 3-D object. All you need to do is draw lines. The lines can be contorted and attached to each other to create the 3-D model. It’s surprisingly simple and effective. You’re able to share your creations as images or as files that 3-D printers can read.Universal:
Overpainted ( $0.99 → Free ) Milky Brain OOO Overpainted is a platformer that’s absolutely bursting with color. You’re put in control of a single white square, and your job is to reach the exit at the end of each level. However, the floors and walls of each room aren’t immediately visible. You must jump around in order to spray them with paint and make them appear. Along the way you’ll have to dodge obstacles, clear chasms, and defeat bosses. The game includes 100 levels.
Highlights Monster Day ( $2.99 → Free ) Highlights for Children, Inc. Highlights Monster Day will teach your child about friendship by exploring the world around them. They get to choose one of five friendly monsters and guide them through their day. Your child will be tasked with helping their monster brush their teeth, eat breakfast, complete school projects, wash up, and more.Source link: http://appadvice.com/apps-gone-free
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Build Your Perfect Space Station And Fend Off Hostile Forces In Rymdkapsel
January 11, 2017 by RSS Feed
rymdkapsel ($3.99) by webbfarbror AB is a strategy game that is not like anything you’ve seen before. It’s almost like a hybrid of Tetris and Star Command, yet it’s much more relaxing, hence the “meditative” part of the description. It features elements of base-building, tower-defense, and puzzle, all in one complete package.
I had been hearing a bit of commotion about this game, which has also earned a prime spot in the main screen of the App Store, so I knew I needed to check it out. I was a bit confused at first, as this is one of those games that kind of babies you vaguely in the beginning, but then lets go and expects you to figure it out on your own. However, the moment you understand how this game works, you will find it to be an excellent experience.
The biggest thing that I love about this game are the visuals. It’s flat, but still has some depth to it because of the angle, making it appear in 2.5-D. Additionally, everything is color-coded with eye-catching colors, so you know what is happening at-a-glance. Animations in rymdkapsel are smooth and fluid, with absolutely no lag. Even the transition from the game to the main menu is flawless — your game will freeze and become a dimmed out background to the menu, a bit reminiscent of iOS 7. To go along with these calm, soothing graphics is an amazing, tranquil soundtrack. I recommend putting on a good pair of headphones so you can fully enjoy the tunes, which will also help you feel immersed in the game itself.
The objective in rymdkapsel is to create and build your own space station, complete with minions. With this spacecraft, you will want to explore the galaxy that you’re in, which means dealing with other lifeforms as well. This is a strategy game where you don’t need to worry about selecting units and how to attack your enemies — all of the focus is on building.
As I mentioned before, the game will guide you in the beginning, explaining the seven different components of your craft: Corridor, Extractor, Reactor, Gardens, Kitchen, Weapons, and Quarters. To build a room, just tap-and-drag on it from the menu bar into the spot on the grid that you want it placed in. It can be rotated by tapping on the screen with a second finger while dragging it. Each piece will be in a different shape that is inspired from Tetris, and you can see the shape of the next room in the top left corner. If the room can be placed in a spot, it will have a white outline; if not, it will be red. Your rooms will need to be connected with corridors, so make sure you have plenty of those.
Now, each room will not appear right away. Rather, you select the spot to place it in, and then you will need to have your minions perform construction on it. The minions are the little white blocks that move around on your ship. By default, they may be idle, but you can assign tasks to your minions by dragging their icons to the task you want at the bottom.
Construction for each room will vary, and you can see at the top how many components are needed to make it. The components will be generated from other sources, such as the extractor and reactor that you get in the beginning. Once the minions deposit the required elements to the room, it will be complete and used for resources.
Of course, since you’re out in space, you are definitely not alone. Rymdkapsel will have a gray/red bar at the bottom that will show you how much time you have until an imminent attack. To defend yourself, you will need a weapons room, where your minions can arm themselves and attack any intruders that come in. The enemies appear in waves, increasing their numbers and strength as you progress.
You start out with only two minions, but you can get more by building Quarters, which will require food from the Kitchen, which originates from sludge from the Gardens. See how intricate all of this is? Everything in your ship is connected in one way or another, so it’s vital to have everything, as well as multiples in case resources are depleted.
There are also missions for you to accomplish, which are shown on the game’s main menu. These give you an incentive to keep playing the game, and are rewarding when you do complete them.
Rymdkapsel is definitely something else, providing a magical experience once you understand the fundamentals of the game. This is definitely the type of game that you need to experience yourself to know what makes it so good, but it’s definitely worth it.
The only thing I wish that the game would improve on is to have a confirmation dialogue for the “New Game” option, as tapping on this will erase all of your previous progress without warning. This can be quite dangerous, so I think it would be best for either a confirmation dialogue, or at least multiple game saves.
Still, I recommend this game if you enjoy puzzles, strategy, and tower defense games, as this is a mix of all of those. You can get rymdkapsel in the App Store as a universal download for $3.99.
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There’s More to Life Than Milking Cows in Milkmaid of the Milky Way
January 11, 2017 by RSS Feed
Milkmaid of the Milky Way ($3.99) by Machineboy is a point-and-click adventure game that has a focal point on the story, which is also done entirely in rhyme. If you enjoyed games like Sword & Sworcery, Machinarium, and Broken Age, and love something as quirky as constant rhyming, then you will appreciate what Milkmaid of the Milky Way brings to the table.
While my genre of choice when it comes to mobile gaming is the puzzle game, I like to lump in point-and-click adventure games into that category as well, since most of them involve puzzles that need to be solved to make any progress anyway. And as a person who grew up in the golden age of gaming with the retro, pixelated art styles, I can’t help but love games that modernize the vintage look. Finally, as someone who went to school for the art of words, while I may not have been the best at them, I admire when rhymes are done well by others, as they always seem to bring a smile to my face. So naturally, when I saw Milkmaid of the Milky Way on the App Store, I had to check it out for myself. And if you’re a fan of any of the things that I just mentioned, then this game is a gem that you should check out.
Visually speaking, Milkmaid of the Milky Way is beautiful and features a completely pixelated, retro look that is reminiscent of Sword & Sworcery, but done in a pseudo 3-D way. The game shows off bright and vibrant colors that appear rather soft because there are no harsh outlines on anything, and everything just looks natural. Despite the pixelated art style that not everyone may be fond of, everything in the game looks highly detailed and the character models for protagonist Ruth, the animals, and everything else that you come across look as realistic as they can be and the animations in the game are smooth and fluid. To top off the overall quirkiness of the game, there is an atmospheric soundtrack that is rather whimsical and fitting for the tone of the game, which goes from normal to weird pretty quickly. Overall, Machineboy did a great job with Milkmaid of the Milky Way in terms of the visuals and audio.
If you’ve ever played a point-and-click adventure game before, then you know how this goes. You start off in the beginning of the story, and things seem pretty normal at first. You’ll be introduced to Ruth, who is just a young woman living alone on a remote farm. Her job in life is to take care of the cows and make delicious products (butter and cheese, anyone?) that her friend sells in town. Things just seem all hunky-dory and routine until weird things begin to happen to Ruth and her cows, and then eventually, you’ll come across a mysterious ship that descends from the skies. When this happens, Ruth will wish that it didn’t, as life was much simpler before then. Throughout the game, players will have to guide Ruth through the strange events that are happening and solve puzzles along the way to uncover the secrets and hopefully return back to a normal life at some point.
Controls in Milkmaid of the Milky Way are simple and intuitive, and should feel natural if you’ve played any kind of point-and-click game before. To move, just tap where you want Ruth to move to. You can also tap-and-hold to have Ruth run to speed things up. When you find something peculiar in the environment, you can tap on it to try and interact with it. Ruth will pick up the item and keep it in her stash, which is accessible from the space at the bottom of the screen. Whenever you interact with anything in the game, the dialogue text will always be in rhyme, so it’s like a constant riddle when you play. When the time comes to use an item, just drag it from the stash to the environmental item you want to use it with. If it works together, you’ll be able to tell from the text; if not, then you’ll be told in rhyme that it won’t work. Like any point-and-click adventure game, there will be a lot of back-and-forth exploration going on, because you may have missed something that you need in order to progress.
For those who care about getting their money’s worth, Milkmaid of the Milky Way features about 2–4 hours of gameplay if you play it straight through and don’t have any problems with the puzzles that it presents. However, even if you’re a complete newbie to the world of point-and-click adventures, the game is fairly fail-proof, so you can’t necessarily die and it’s not infuriating. The game also saves your progress automatically as you play, but there is also a manual save option in the game menu if you prefer to save after every five minutes like I do sometimes — can’t risk losing data!
I’m still fairly early on in the game, but I’m finding Milkmaid of the Milky Way to be quite relaxing and fun to play when I have some downtime to kill. The graphics are beautiful and rather soothing, the music is charming and delightful, the controls work well and are responsive, and the puzzles will keep you busy. The only improvement that could be made is to make some puzzles more clear, as other players have reported that there are some possible flaws in logic for some, so be aware.
I would still recommend Milkmaid of the Milky Way if you are a fan of point-and-click adventure games and enjoy rhymes. You can find Milkmaid of the Milky Way on the App Store as a universal download for your iPhone and iPad for just $3.99. There are no in-app purchases.
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Free Apps to Download TODAY ONLY 01/11/2017
January 11, 2017 by RSS Feed
Busy Shapes , Pocket Anatomy - Interactive 3D Human Anatomy and Physiology. , CMYK. and more
Universal:
Busy Shapes ( $2.99 → Free ) EDOKI ACADEMY Busy Shapes will help your child improve their motor skills and problem solving abilities through colorful shape puzzles. The basic idea is to get each shape into its corresponding hole. Along the way, new shapes and concepts will be introduced. There isn’t a penalty for failure nor is there a timer, so it’s a completely relaxed environment. Busy Shapes also allows you to monitor your child’s progress.
Pocket Anatomy - Interactive 3D Human Anatomy and Physiology. ( $14.99 → Free ) Pocket Anatomy Pocket Anatomy includes interactive models for all the bones, ligaments, muscles, arteries, and veins in your body along with the nervous, respiratory, and urinary systems. You’re able to listen to pronunciations for all anatomy terms, add notes and bookmarks, search for specific anatomical structures, and watch detailed videos.
CMYK. ( $0.99 → Free ) Seth S. Scott CMYK requires quick thinking and even quicker reflexes. Lines descend from the top of the screen, and it’s up to you to tap the button at the bottom that matches each line. White lines can only be removed by firing all four colors, which you can do with a swipe across the buttons. Buttons must be tapped in order, as one wrong move will end the game.
Farm Story Maker Activity Game for Kids and Toddlers Premium ( $2.99 → Free ) Eggroll Games LLC There’s so much to do on Lily’s farm. Your child is able to choose from nine different base scenes and populate their favorites with over 100 fun and cuddly stickers. The stickers can be placed anywhere in the scene with a drag and drop, and they can be resized and rotated with common gestures. Tap on a sticker to bring it to life. Stickers are sorted be category, so it’s easy for your child to find exactly what they’re looking for.Source link: http://appadvice.com/apps-gone-free
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