November 08, 2016 by macjeff
Comblosion ($1.99) by Sebastian Miedtank is a twitch reflex arcade game that is all about connecting and collecting. If you want a much more fast-paced game about connecting dots, compared to Dots & Co and other puzzle games, then Comblosion is just your style.
Even though I have several different console systems, I still do most of my gaming on my iPhone these days just because of the convenience. While I get the most enjoyment out of puzzle games (they’re a great way to relax), sometimes I do want something that moves at a faster pace and lets me chase high scores all day long. Comblosion is one of those games, and while it’s about connecting the dots, it’s much different compared to some of the popular games out there, like the Dots series.
In terms of visuals, Comblosion features a super simple, minimalistic style that will appeal to everyone who likes a clean aesthetic. The game sports a black background with colored dots and lines that contrast nicely due to the bright and vibrant hues. The animations are buttery smooth with no lag on my iPhone 6s Plus. The game doesn’t have a continuous soundtrack in the background, but it does have charming little sound effects as you connect and collect. While Comblosion is pretty no-frills in the visual and audio department, the developer still did a great job in creating something that just looks great on your Retina screen.
Since Comblosion is an arcade game, it’s essentially just a high score chaser. There are no levels — you just play infinitely as long as you can, progressing to the next stage layout as you rack up the points. The objective of the game is pretty straightforward: connect the dots as they appear on the screen. Once you connect to the dot, a new one appears. But you can’t cross over previously drawn lines, and you only start out with a few seconds on the clock, but each dot you connect with adds another second to the countdown. There’s no end to connecting the dots unless you run out of time, which can be pretty fast. Sometimes items will appear on the screen, like gifts, extra time, and point boosts. If you see those, make sure to collect them before connecting to your next dot, as they disappear otherwise.
The controls in Comblosion are easy enough — just connect the red dot to the other red dot (with the orange dashes around it) with your finger. However, I recommend watching how you draw the lines, because the placement of the next dot is always random, and sometimes the game puts it in a spot that you can’t get to due to trapping yourself. Sometimes it just can’t be helped, though, and the procedurally generated nature of the game keeps things interesting. Again, if a power-up item spawns on the screen as you’re trying to make another connection, make sure to collect them along the way for nice bonus.
Despite the game being an endless high score chaser with no levels, there are times when you will advance to the next stage once you obtain the power-up or get enough dots, which means a different layout. In addition to not being able to cross over previously drawn lines, you cannot touch the red areas that are on the screen, which will always vary with each attempt. If you touch the red areas, your line breaks and you’ll have to try again, hopefully circumventing that section and any other existing lines already.
If you are good enough, you’ll eventually get the rocket item, which can be used to give yourself a head start and net you several hundred points before you even make a single connection. I have yet to unlock these rocket items though, so I’m assuming you have to reach a certain point threshold to get access to them.
I’ve only just started playing Comblosion, but so far I’m enjoying it, even though I’m doing terribly by trapping myself in my own web of connections. As a fan of minimalism, I like the aesthetics, the sound effects are whimsical, and the gameplay is simple but challenging. The only thing that would make the game even better is different game modes, if possible, but the infinite high score chasing right now is sufficient enough.
I recommend checking out Comblosion if you are searching for a fast-paced high score chasing arcade game to pass the time with. You can find Comblosion on the App Store as a universal app for your iPhone and iPad for just $1.99.
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November 08, 2016 by macjeff
Foresee: Your Personal Activity Forecast ($0.99) by BorderLeap, LLC is a weather app that helps you plan out your day and activities. Foresee is definitely an app that will help you make the most of your day given the present weather conditions of your frequently visited areas, and a great app for making life a bit easier. It’s the first app from the game developer BorderLeap, who has made some great hits like har•mon•y, Alpha Omega, and Drop Flip.
Like everyone else, I live a fairly busy life that is full of work, personal things, errands, appointments, meetings, and any other thing that gets thrown my way. It can be hard to plan things, but everything gets thrown into my calendar so that I can make sure I remember something coming up. However, aside from the normal things every day, I don’t necessarily schedule new activities ahead of time based on the weather, because to me, it seemed like a hassle — I’d have to use two different apps and always constantly check how the weather is as the day approached. Fortunately, that problem is now solved with Foresee.
In terms of visual design, Foresee is gorgeous. The app will launch with a gorgeous background photo (you can change this for each location) that is transparent enough for text to be shown clearly on the foreground. You’ll clearly see the present temperature and weather conditions at the top in large text, with a full two-week timeline underneath, with a projected forecast for the next seven days. Navigation is quick and easy with the recognizable buttons, and there is a lot of flexibility with the criteria you want to put in for activity planning. Plus, with the wide variety of different background images that you can use, there is a lot of customization in Foresee.
The first thing that you’ll want to do in Foresee is to grant it permission to your present location. This makes it easy for you to plan activities in your home or work area. The app also lets you add multiple locations, though you’ll have to tap on the hamburger menu button in the top left corner to access the menu. Along with adding several cities from this menu screen, you can change the temperature and wind speed units. There is also an introductory tutorial in case you need some guidance on how to use the app, though I believe it’s pretty self explanatory.
When you are ready to start planning an activity for the weather, just select the location you want to plan it for, and then tap on the plus button under the present weather bar. This is where the magic of Foresee happens.
The first thing you’ll want to do is give your activity or event a title, and then choose the appropriate icon for it: running, walking, cycling, mow the grass, walk the dog, etc. There’s a lot of options to choose from, and you can just swipe horizontally to scroll through the icon ribbon. Then, you will set your time and date preferences, including how often this activity will occur and at what time range. You can set it to notify you when your conditions are met as well. After the date and time are set, you can tweak your optimal weather preferences for the activity. These include specific temperature ranges, chance of precipitation, cloudiness levels, wind, and humidity levels.
Since I live in Southern California, the weather has not been optimal for me to be outside during peak afternoon hours most of the time. My skin also has a sensitivity to heat, so I’m finding Foresee to be incredibly useful, even though I’m seeing that my optimal weather conditions may not happen around this time of year (oh woe is me). However, it’s amazing that I can tell the app what I consider to be perfect conditions for a certain activity and it will let me know when that day arrives so I can do what I want to do.
You can add separate activities for each location, as well as multiple events in one area. The app tells you from the main location view whether or not the day’s weather meets your criteria. Even if it does or doesn’t, you can tap on the activity and see the conditions for the time range that you specified.
To change the background image for your cities, just tap on the photo icon in the upper right corner. It brings up a ribbon of thumbnails that you can scroll through horizontally, and when you find an image you like, just tap on it to select it. The location detail screen will refresh with your choice, and it’s pretty fast to render as well, so you can constantly change the theme on-the-fly.
I only downloaded Foresee over the weekend, but I can see this being an invaluable tool to plan my outdoor activities, especially in the SoCal heat. The app itself looks gorgeous and is intuitive for anyone to use, and the ability to customize your optimal forecast for specific activities and events is fantastic. I think the only improvement that should be made to the app is the ability for users to add in their own photos as background images, giving it even more of a personal touch.
I recommend giving Foresee a try if you want a weather app that works with you to schedule your activities in ideal weather conditions. Foresee is available on the iPhone App Store for just $0.99.
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November 08, 2016 by macjeff
Crooked Path ($1.99) by Ruvix is a puzzle runner that serves as an analogy for life itself. If you are looking for a true challenge and like to test out your reflexive skills, then Crooked Path is a game to check out. Be warned though — this one is clearly not for the faint of heart (or the easily frustrated).
If there is anything that mobile games have taught us from the past few years, it is that puzzles and runners are pretty popular. I mean, who doesn’t like to sit down with a relaxing puzzle or just kill some time seeing how far they can go? But what if you combine the two into a single game, and turn the difficulty level to 11? Well, that’s pretty much Crooked Path in a nutshell. It’s also has a rather transformative message about life, though it may get lost in the difficulty of the game.
Visually, Crooked Path is beautiful with a simple and clean aesthetic. In fact, it reminds me a bit of Monument Valley due to the pseudo optical illusions. The colors in Crooked Path are gorgeous, as the game features a nice range of soft pastels to bright and vibrant hues, as well as some fun light particle effects. Animations in the game are smooth and fluid with no lag on my iPhone 6s Plus, which is important because you have to be quick on your feet in this game. There is also an ambient, atmospheric soundtrack that is rather immersive, so I recommend using your best headphones. And while the gameplay itself can be a bit frustrating, the soundtrack can help you focus on the game itself and get you to solve the puzzles…as long as you don’t throw your phone.
Crooked Path is a level-based game, so you will have to solve each stage before you can gain access to the next chapter. The objective of the game is simple: guide your runner to the light, glowing portal at the end of a labyrinth. However, this is much harder than it looks, and since the controls just require one touch, you have to figure out the turn patterns and where you need to go while collecting the white orbs. It’s a puzzle that you must solve in order to reach the end and advance to the next level. And if you think that the game starts off easy enough, I’m sorry to disappoint you, but it’s insanely difficult right from the get-go. As I mentioned at the very start — this is not for those who give up easily.
The controls in Crooked Path are easy enough: just tap on the screen at the right moment to turn left or right, since your guy runs automatically. However, the trick is that your runner can only turn one way when you reach certain forks in the road. I was confused by this at first, but then I realized that this is part of the puzzle aspect — observe and memorize the turns that you take at those forks, and remember them for the next attempt, because you’ll be failing a lot. Once you get the pattern down and time your turns for the correct moment, you should be able to reach the end goal, though it will take you numerous attempts for each stage. And new mechanics are introduced as you go, like buttons that extend certain paths, so it only gets more interesting as you go, if you can make it, anyway. Fortunately, you aren’t penalized for falling and failing, and there is no time limit, so you can go at your own pace.
So how does Crooked Path relate to life itself? It’s pretty straightforward: the path to your destiny is not going to be a straight one. As cheesy as the line sounds, it’s true. The game presents you with many different routes that you could take, but you have to use your head and reflexes to find the right one. And like life, the game is not easy. Life is all about experience and learning from your mistakes, and that is just what you can expect from this game. I can only imagine what the rest of the game will be like after spending about 30 minutes trying to complete the first stage.
After my testing of the game for this review, I have some thoughts. First, I love the visual style of the game, because it’s nice and clean, so it doesn’t look too busy and distracting when you have to focus. The music is soothing, immersive, and helps you focus. I enjoy puzzles and runners, so the mix of both of these genres is interesting and refreshing from the typical App Store fare these days.
However, I think the difficulty level of the game is set way too high right now, because it feels almost impossible right from the get-go. I was persistent enough to complete the first stage, but I can see many others (especially casual gamers) giving up rather quickly. I know that the game is to serve as a metaphor for life, but I don’t think it’s fair to start it off so hard. The game moves super quickly, giving you just a split second to react to turns, and it’s rather frustrating after a while. Honestly I think the game would be better if it started off a tad slower, or at least give you a way to practice before going in to the real stage. Either way, I just think the game is brutally difficult right now and rather unforgiving, so it could definitely use some tweaks in game balance.
If you’re a casual gamer who just wants something fun and relaxing, then I do not recommend Crooked Path. But if you are a hardcore gamer who wants a real test and is up for the challenge, then by all means, grab Crooked Path. Just don’t say I didn’t warn you.
Crooked Path is available on the App Store as a universal download for your iPhone, iPad, and Apple TV for just $1.99. There are no in-app purchases.
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November 08, 2016 by macjeff
Linia ($1.99) by Yari D'areglia is a colorful puzzle game that’s all about finding sequences and being in rhythm. If you enjoyed other recent games like Polyforge and The Little Fox, then Linia is another game that is right up your alley.
While it seems that a lot of my gaming lately involves hunting (either Pokémon Go or Monster Hunter Generations on my 3DS), sometimes I just want to take a break from both and relax but challenge myself at the same time. This is when I like to turn to the many puzzle games I have on my iPhone. Even though it seems like I have almost every puzzle game out on the App Store, I’m always looking for new ones to check out, especially if they have gameplay mechanics that differentiate themselves from the crowd. So when I laid my eyes on Linia on the App Store, I had to try it for myself.
In terms of visuals, Linia is rather stunning with the clean, minimalistic style. Everything you see will be flat and 2-D, but the animations are buttery smooth and rather hypnotic at times. The game is rather colorful with hues that range from soft pastels to bright and vibrant tones. Linia has an atmospheric and ambient background track that helps you relax, despite the rather unforgiving gameplay. The game also has some whimsical sound effects that serve as nice audible feedback when you correctly get the sequence or not, so I recommend playing the game with the sound on, as well as a good pair of headphones if you truly want to immerse yourself.
Linia, like many other puzzle games, is level based, and you’re going to have to go through them one-by-one in order to move forward. However, the goal is simple enough that anyone can understand it: match the color sequences that you see at the top by tracing a line through colored shapes. Easy peasy, right? Well yeah, the game starts out with shapes that stay put right where they are, but then you’ll find more colors, more shapes, rotating and moving shapes, shapes that change colors, shapes that fade in and out, and much more. The puzzles become much more intricate, complex, and harder to solve. Fortunately, though, there are no time limits or move restrictions, so you can take as long as you want on a stage. And if you make mistakes, you don’t get penalized — you just restart and try again. In a time where so many games seem to impose limits on you to solve puzzles, it’s nice to see more lenient ones like Linia, though the game itself is rather challenging.
Controls in Linia are straightforward — connect the colored shapes together by drawing a line through them, with the intent to match the sequence that is displayed at the top of the screen. However, you have to think fast while memorizing the pattern because as things start moving around and changing colors, things get tricky. When the line is drawn, you’ll see circles that magnify the colors that the line touched, indicating whether or not you matched the correct sequence. Checkmarks also tell you when you’ve matched something, while X’s show mistakes, also meaning you’ll have to try again. And if there are two blocks of the same color consecutively, it counts as one part of the sequence, so keep that in mind.
I am not too far into Linia, but I’m enjoying it so far, despite the increasing difficulty levels. The game starts out simple enough, but once you have changing colors, fading in and out, and rotating shapes, you truly have to pay attention and be on your toes to get the sequences correct. Focus is super important, because you’ll want to learn the movement patterns and then get into the rhythm of things before you try to connect. It’s a relaxing game but still stimulating, plus the minimalistic aesthetics and ambient music is a great touch. I did get a bit flustered at some levels at times, but through persistence, I managed to persevere.
I recommend checking out Linia if you’re into challenging puzzle games with a twist. Linia can be found on the App Store as a universal download for your iPhone and iPad for just $1.99. There are no in-app purchases.
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November 08, 2016 by macjeff
Albert & Otto ($0.99) by Mokuni LLC is a stylish and haunting puzzle platformer that is reminiscent of the cult classic LIMBO. If you’re a fan of eerie black-and-white platformer worlds that make you think, then you will probably enjoy Albert & Otto as well.
When I was growing up, I remember I put in a ton of hours on classic platformers like the original Super Mario Bros. As a kid, I didn’t really think too much about strategy and how to solve things, because hey, I was a kid and liked to just push buttons and see what would happen on the screen. But as I grew older, I learned about some strategies and how to actually solve those puzzles I always ended up getting stuck on. So I’ve grown to love platformers even more as time passed, and now I just can’t get enough of them. When LIMBO first came out, I was in awe with the style, and let’s face it — the challenging puzzles were fun too, and quite rewarding once you figure them out. Since LIMBO originally came out, there have been many other games that follow in its footsteps, with some being up to par and others not so much. When I saw Albert & Otto on the App Store, I was intrigued enough to check it out myself.
In terms of visuals, Albert & Otto falls in line with the black-and-white silhouette style of LIMBO and other similar games. However, unlike LIMBO, Albert & Otto has much sharper graphics, since it isn’t a “dreamscape” environment that you’re in. In fact, the game carries a somewhat minimalistic design, as everything is flat and sharp, with some rough shading on elements in the setting. The backdrop is rather nice with the black silhouettes set against the dark gray background, and the foreground is full of beautifully designed architecture and obstacles that contrast nicely with the gloom-and-doom of the backdrop. Since the game is like LIMBO, you’ll only find shades of black, gray, and white in the game, with the occasional splash of blood red due to Otto the bunny and shards of drawings that you will need to collect. To top things off, the game has an atmospheric and haunting soundtrack that truly immerses you in the game world, so I recommend using your favorite pair of headphones while playing. There are also some fun and grisly sound effects, which I don’t recommend if you’re squeamish, though everything is in good fun.
Albert & Otto is a rather interesting game. The story takes place in a creepy, 1939 Germany where the focus is placed on a mysterious girl with bunny ears, who also appropriately has a red bunny companion named Otto. You’ll want to find out who this girl is, and the only help you’ll have is from Otto, who you eventually find as you set out on the journey with Albert. As you venture out into the eerie Germany setting, you’ll find clues about who the girl is through painting shards and letters in mailboxes that contain child-like drawings. And while the game features chapters, there’s a seamless transition between each level so that you’re never abruptly interrupted. It all flows together flawlessly, and the only time you know you’re in a new level is when the chapter title reveals itself in the beginning. You can also go back and replay specific chapters you’ve completed with the Chapter Select screen. The game also has plenty of checkpoints, so you don’t have to go back very far if you end up dying while solving a tough puzzle or encounter a difficult boss battle.
The controls in Albert & Otto are simple and straightforward, though some actions take a bit of getting used to. To move left and right, you’ll use the virtual joystick in the bottom left corner, thought it “floats” to wherever your thumb is. To jump, you’ll press on the jump button in the bottom right corner. The ability to do a double jump is gained once you find Otto the Rabbit, who you can also drop, pick up, and remotely control with a touch of a button. Albert is also equipped with a pistol, which you can use to shoot down crows and other enemies by placing your finger on the right side of the screen, drag to aim, and then release to shoot. You can also go in and out of buildings with the button that shows up as you’re in front of a door, or interact with switches in a similar fashion. Pushing objects is done by just going up to them and moving forward, and eventually you gain the ability to levitate objects (like sheep) with Otto. Sometimes obstacles that you need to progress can be shot at with your gun as well, so make sure to keep an eye out for things on ropes that can be shot and the like.
Like I said, the controls are simple enough, but I think they could be better optimized. I found the sensitivity for aiming to be a bit too sensitive, as sometimes it was hard to get the line to line up correctly with where I wanted to shoot. I also felt that the joystick wasn’t sensitive enough, so I would really have to push my thumb in one direction to make Albert move as fast as he could. It would be nice to see some sensitivity adjustment options in the future.
I’m pretty early on in the game still because the puzzles themselves are rather challenging, and some of the platforming will take all of your skill to get through. I just think the game would be better if the control sensitivity was improved a tad, but it is still manageable in its current state, as long as you have a little patience. I am in love with the dark and eerie visuals and music, though, and will be coming back to this one. At the moment, Albert & Otto only has one episode, but more are coming in the future. If you don’t mind cliffhangers at the end, then this game is worth a look.
I recommend Albert & Otto if you enjoy creepy, but fun, puzzle platformers with an engaging story. You can find the first episode of Albert & Otto on the App Store as a universal download for your iPhone and iPad for just $0.99.
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