"If there is an app for that"

Best app deals of the day! 10 paid iPhone apps on sale for a limited time

March 18, 2016 by macjeff

Everyone likes free apps, but sometimes the best ones are a bit expensive. Now and then, developers put paid apps on sale for a limited time, but you have to snatch them up fast. Here are the latest and greatest apps on sale in the iOS App Store.

The post Best app deals of the day! 10 paid iPhone apps on sale for a limited time appeared first on Digital Trends.

Source link: http://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/daily-app-deals-ios-03-18-2016/

Telepaint

March 18, 2016 by macjeff

Telepaint ($2.99) by Acid Nerve is a cute little puzzle game involving buckets of paint and colorful messes left behind. If you are looking for a fun and challenging puzzle to check out over the weekend, then Telepaint is worth a look.

I’ve been going through some fairly stressful events in the past few weeks, so I’m super happy that I still have the option of turning to video games to help take my mind off of things. Though a lot of my gaming is done on my 3DS handheld, I still put a bit of time and effort into my mobile iOS games, considering the fact that my iPhone 6s Plus is practically glued to my hand. And during my tenure here at AppAdvice for the past several years, I’ve gone through hundreds of different iOS games, but always love finding new ones, particularly puzzles, to pick up and play. During my perusal of the App Store releases this week, I stumbled on Telepaint, and am super happy that I did — this game is just fantastic.

Visually, Telepaint is downright beautiful. It has a combination of retro, pixelated graphics that take you back to your childhood, as well as an old-school television screen overlay, complete with flickering lines. The game also makes use of traditional RGB colors and static that were always seen on old televisions, so the developers sure didn’t miss a thing when creating the unique aesthetic. Animations in Telepaint are buttery smooth and fluid, with no lag on my iPhone 6s Plus. The upbeat and quirky chiptune soundtrack is a joy to listen to as well, and it’s important to hear it since the game does have a bit of rhythmic puzzle solving going on, so the music helps. And the fun sound effects (that sync with your movements) are just icing on the colorful, explosive cake that this game is.

Like most puzzle games, Telepaint features six different worlds that have its own amount of levels within. At the moment, there are over 100 stages to paint your way through, so you do get a good value for the buck. Several levels will be unlocked at a time, so you don’t have to be super linear about it, but later levels won’t be available until you solve the current ones. Hopefully more are added in the future, though. The objective in each stage is to help the paint bucket reach the paintbrush, and while things start out pretty easy enough, the complexity of the puzzles will rise, leading to some tricky and messy situations. You’ll have to avoid dangers like spikes and explosives, while grabbing keys to unlock access to the paintbrush, using anti-gravity switches to get around obstacles, and much more. As you get further into the game, new mechanics will be introduced as you go, adding to the challenge.

The controls in Telepaint are easy, but will take a few tries to get used to. Your cute paint bucket character will walk forward automatically when a level starts, so you don’t have to worry about that. However, the only way it will turn around and change direction is if it runs into a wall, so you’ll have to figure out ways to achieve that. To get the paint bucket across hazards like spikes, you will have to make use of the colored portals that are scattered on the levels — just tap on a portal square to activate it, but make sure you open up another portal for it to go through on the other side as well, otherwise there’s going to be trouble. The colors of the portals don’t matter, but you can only have two portals open at one time. The moment you tap on a third portal, the first one will close. The portals also close automatically once the bucket passes through them, but you can tap on them again to use them if needed. The trick is to determine the obstacles on the stage first, then figure out the order of portals for you to go through to reach the paintbrush safely.

Since the animation of the bucket walking can be somewhat slow, just tap-and-hold on the fast-forward button at the bottom to speed things up. If your bucket dies, just tap the rewind button to restart the stage. You can also pause or access the menu with the pause and stop buttons on the screen. If you pause, you’re still able to activate the portals, so it’s nice to take advantage of that for planning ahead of time. As you bucket passes through each portal, it leaves a splash of color (according to the portal color) behind, so the end result of the mess is pretty funky and cool.

I’ve been spending a bit of time with Telepaint today, and must say that I’m impressed by the quality of this title. Not only do the graphics look amazing, but the game runs at an incredibly smooth 60 fps, though you can change it to 30 fps in the options for better battery. The music has a nice beat to it as well, so it’s downright fun to listen to. The simple, one-touch controls for the portals is intuitive, so you don’t have to worry about anything being complicated, besides the puzzles, of course. Since there isn’t a point or star system in place, the replay value may be a bit low, but there are plenty of stages to keep you busy for a while. I also hope to see more levels in the future, because this is a game that I plan on keeping on my device for a long time.

I highly recommend checking out Telepaint if you’re a fan of portal-based puzzle games with a lot of charm. This is definitely one of my favorite games this week. Telepaint is available on the App Store as a universal download for your iPhone and iPad for just $2.99. There are no in-app purchases.

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

Pilots of the Dawn

March 18, 2016 by macjeff

Pilots of the Dawn (Free) by Sapeli Studio Oy is an action-packed, retro dogfighting arcade shooter game. If you’re familiar with the highly-popular Vlambeer classic, Luftrausers, and have been clamoring for an iOS version, well, Pilots of the Dawn is the closest thing you’ll get … for now.

Ever since I heard of and bought Luftrausers on Steam back in 2014, it has earned a spot on my “favorite games of all time” list that I keep in my head. Luftrausers became one of my favorite games because it was from Vlambeer (they make awesome games like Ridiculous Fishing and Super Crate Box), had some awesome sepia-toned retro graphics, and the dogfighting action was downright amazing. Even though I loved playing the game on my laptop, I wished it was available on iOS, since I do most of my gaming that way these days (if not for my 3DS). But honestly, I’m not sure how the controls would translate to touch screen devices, so who knows if we will ever see Luftrausers on mobile. Fortunately, there is now Pilots of the Dawn (PotD) for your mobile dogfighting fix.

In terms of Visuals, PotD has a classic vintage aesthetic that closely resembles what you would find in Luftrausers. In fact, it’s pretty obvious that this entire game has been “inspired” by Vlambeer’s popular title, to the point where one could mistake it for the real thing if they weren’t careful. I do wish that the developers could have been a bit more original in how they chose to present the game, but since Luftrausers is not coming to iOS anytime soon, I guess it’s just something I’ll have to live with. A differentiating factor with PotD is the fact that the game does have different colors to represent day and night cycles, so everything is not just through sepia-colored glasses. The sprites used to represent aircraft and sea-ships are clearly visible against the colored backgrounds, and animations are smooth and fluid. The quirky chiptune soundtrack is fun to listen to, and the sound effects add a nice final touch to the overall package.

There are three game modes in PotD: Endless, Daily, and Campaign. Unfortunately, the Campaign has to be unlocked by scoring enough points in Endless. While it’s a fairly low threshold to cross to unlock, it does take a bit of practice (just like Luftrausers). In Endless, you will just participate in aerial and sea combat with enemy ships until you take enough damage or crash into the terrain, hoping to rack up some points before dying. Daily features a new challenge every day, which are randomly generated, so it’ll always be something different. Unfortunately, the Daily mission will become unplayable until the next day if you choose to go back to the main menu, which I found a bit annoying. Campaign features 30 different missions that players must go through in a test of skill and aerial combat prowess. These missions include objectives like “kill two enemies,” “defeat the boss,” or “survive for 15 seconds.” They are all different and will truly put your skills to the test, so be warned — this game is not for the faint of heart.

The controls in the game are a bit more straightforward than what you had in Luftrausers, but again, it takes a lot of time and practice to master. In PotD, your airship will fire its weapon automatically, so you don’t have to worry about having to manually attack. Instead, there are two buttons in PotD, which are both located in the bottom corners of the screen. The one in the right lets you steer your ship clockwise, and the other goes counter-clockwise. In order to do well in the game, you’ll need to time your turns so that your bullets actually hit the enemies. It can be a bit frustrating at first, but once you get the hang of things, and get a better ship, then it gets better.

Just like with Luftrausers, there are different ships that you can play as. Of course, PotD lacks the customization of different bodies, engines, and weapons, since there are only five pre-built ships for you to choose from. However, each one has its own set of attributes for handling, speed, and hitpoints, which you need to take into consideration before going into combat. These characteristics affect the durability of your plane as well as the controls, so practice is also needed for each one. To unlock the rest, you have to spend your hard-earned coins on them, and they must be unlocked in chronological order, so you can’t just save up 500 coins and go for the last (and probably best) ship without using the other ones first. But since PotD is a free game, you can get them early with in-app purchases.

In addition to just unlocking new and stronger planes, old one scan be improved through upgrades as well. While you’re in the Hangar, just scroll to the ship you want to use, and then select the attribute you want to upgrade. The higher the level, the more it will cost. During fights, you can also fly your ship up higher for the chance of finding power-up items, such as rapid-fire, repair kits, and shields. In similar fashion to Luftrausers, you don’t see how much health your ship has, but the more damage you sustain, the more red the screen becomes. Unfortunately, you don’t regenerate hitpoints if you don’t touch the screen, which is what Luftrausers does (repair your ship slowly by not firing your weapon).

Since I’m a big fan of Luftrausers, I was excited to see this on the App Store, as it’s pretty much the closest thing to Luftrausers on iOS for now. However, most of the time I feel that the game is pretty dependent on luck, as enemies are already shooting at me as I spawn on the map, so I’m already taking a lot of damage as I try and position myself to take them out. I also don’t like that you can’t regenerate your ship if you just don’t touch the screen, as finding power-ups while trying to avoid enemy bullets is a frustrating and difficult. Despite these little annoyances, I am still enjoying the game, since it can differentiate itself a bit from the classic Luftrausers while also retaining a familiar aesthetic. At the end of the day, Pilots of the Dawn is a fun, time-wasting arcade shooter that tests your skills as a dogfighter. Like Luftrausers, the weak need not apply.

I recommend checking out Pilots of the Dawn if you like Luftrausers and have been wanting a similar game for iOS, or just enjoy intense, arcade shooters. Pilots of the Dawn is available as a universal download on the App Store for free with in-app purchases.

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

Dirac

March 18, 2016 by macjeff

Dirac ($1.99) by Mediocre AB is a new connect-the-dots puzzle game that is fast and frantic. If you loved games like TwoDots but want something more challenging and arcade-like, then you’ll want to give Dirac a try.

Ever since Mediocre released hits like Smash Hit and Does Not Commute, I’ve been in love with their work. I spent a lot of time on Smash Hit when it was first released because it was a unique take on the endless runner style gameplay, and Does Not Commute was challenging and full of humorous personas. So naturally, when the news of a new game from them hit my inbox, I was ecstatic. And as a big fan of arcade and puzzle games, I knew Dirac was going to be a hit with me, and probably many others.

Visually, Dirac is beautiful, which is what you’d expect from the studio. I love the stylized CRT-like monitor screen that the game takes place in, as it is an example of some tastefully done skeuomorphism. While the game has a fairly dark background mixed with shades of blue and green, the molecule centered on the screen has a nice glow surrounding it, making it easy to spot. The atoms that are emitted from the molecule, which is appropriately named DIRAC, are tiny but easy to spot due to the bright, neon blue and red coloring. The lines you draw that connect the atoms to each other match the color that you’re connecting, but have their own set of nice animations while connected, or even fizzle out when they get interrupted by an opposite-colored atom or touch the DIRAC itself. The overall animations in the game are smooth and fluid, and there is a soothing, atmospheric soundtrack that is pleasant to listen to. The sound effects are also fun to hear as you play. In terms of design and audio, I believe Mediocre has hit another one out of the park.

In Dirac, players are given the role of an intern at a laboratory, which allows them to work with the DIRAC, the latest in computerized quantum disentanglement technology. Didn’t get a word of that last part? Don’t worry, it’s not that important to enjoy the game. With this intern position though, you have unlimited and unsupervised access to the DIRAC terminal, and your job is to manually disentangle and sort through the macroscopic existence of the microverse. Yes, I know — the terminology is so scientific it sounds like gibberish, but hey, they needed some background for it, right?

There are five different game modes in Dirac: Novicium, Medianium, Extremium, Beyondium, and Absurdium. While all of these modes are made to sound complicated and intelligent, they boil down to Beginner, Normal, Hard, Insane, and Absurd (or something along those lines). It’s pretty straightforward if you think about it. But before you jump into any of those difficulty levels, there is also the Tutorium, which introduces the basic game mechanics to you. I recommend trying that out first so you know how the game works.

Essentially, the molecule in the middle will be emitting particles of light that are colored blue and red. Your job is to “disentangle” them, which involves connecting the like-colored particles together by drawing a line between as many as you can to create a chain. If you can create a full loop for that chain, meaning the last connection is the one you started out with, then you convert all other particles inside that enclosed space to the color you’re connecting, and it nets you more points. There are also glowing molecules that float around, and if you can close a space with that inside, then your score multiplier increases.

However, while that sounds easy, things get difficult since the molecule will begin to emit more particles than you can keep track of, and if the connection touches an opposite-colored particle or the center molecule, then it will fizzle out and you lose those particles you were connecting. This leads to wasted time and less particles to connect for big points, and it also means the DIRAC molecule is depleted faster. Particles emit a sound when they near the edges of the screen, and if they escape, then you are penalized for it. Once the entire molecule is depleted and you don’t make enough connections to fill the gauges at the top of the screen for more molecules, then the game ends. Your score is determined by how many particles you connected, as well as the score multiplier you ended up with. At the end of a game, you also see how long you survived, how many boosts you made, how many points you got from your best move, and the highest multiplier you achieved. As I mentioned, things start out easy enough, but the particles get harder to track as more show up.

I’ve only spent a little time with Dirac so far this week, but I’m loving every second of it so far. The game itself is just beautiful, the music and sounds are delightful, and the controls are intuitive. When you add challenging gameplay and plenty of difficulty levels to satisfy everyone’s skill level, then there’s a winner. I’m a big fan of Mediocre’s games, and hope to see more premium releases like this from them in the future.

I recommend Dirac to anyone who enjoys challenging arcade-style puzzle games. You can find Dirac on the App Store as a universal download for the iPhone and iPad for just $1.99. There are no in-app purchases.

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

Ulysses Mobile

March 18, 2016 by macjeff

Ulysses Mobile ($19.99) by The Soulmen GbR has finally been updated to bring the desktop-class writing experience to your iPhone. Previously, Ulysses was only available on the Mac, then it came onto the iPad. And now the trifecta is now complete with an iPhone version. If you love to write, and write a lot (especially on-the-go), then having Ulysses Mobile on your iPhone will prove to be an invaluable and essential tool.

Ever since I was a kid, I loved writing. I wrote my own stories (as corny as they were at the time), and I always had a lot to write for essays and assignments in school. When I got to high school, I made sure I joined the school paper, as journalism was a thing that interested me. When I got to college, I went after a journalism degree because I love the news and I love writing, so it was a perfect fit for me. Since I ended up at AppAdvice, I truly love what I do — write about iOS apps everyday. Because I am always checking out what is on the App Store and writing, I end up writing a few thousand words a week. For a mobile person, I need a writing editor that can work with me as well.

I only recently bought Ulysses for my Mac a few weeks ago, and have fallen in love with how it handles all of my files and lets me edit them without having to go through the traditional Finder method. While I have an old iPad 3, I hardly ever use it anymore, and so I’ve been eagerly awaiting the arrival of Ulysses on the iPhone, so that I can use it on my iPhone 6s Plus. Now the day has come where it is finally universal, and I put it through its paces. Basically, this is one of the best writing apps a writer could have on their iOS (and Mac) device.

Visually, Ulysses Mobile has a simple and clean aesthetic, which will appeal to all minimalists out there. Honestly, if you show Ulysses Mobile to someone who does not know much about apps, they may think that it’s just another app that comes pre-installed on the iPhone, because it has the barebones iOS look. But don’t be fooled by the simplicity of how the app looks — there are plenty of customization options, the organizational layout is intuitive and straightforward, everything is super responsive, there are plenty of power-user keyboard extensions (great for both writers and coders), fast iCloud syncing, and a ton of different ways to get your writing out of the app. While Ulysses looks like a simple text editor on the surface, it packs quite a punch when it comes to all of your writing needs in one place.

While I’m fairly new to Ulysses, one feature I did love about the Mac version is the fact that you can just add external folders to the file pane, I was a bit disappointed to see that this did not work the same in the iOS version. I’ve been saving all of my writings to Dropbox for the past several years, and it is the primary place where I store my files. Unfortunately, on the iOS version, I am not able to get access to my Dropbox folders, since they put the focus on iCloud syncing. It’s a shame, really, as I don’t entirely trust iCloud, but I’ll have to make-do with it for now, copying my completed files over to Dropbox while I’m using Ulysses on my Mac. Hopefully the developers can reconsider this in the future.

Now, as with any writing environment, you’ll want to make it yours before you fully dive in to it, as it should help you focus on writing when things are set up the way you like. To change how Ulysses looks, just tap on the gear icon when you’re in a sheet (new or existing). You’re able to change all of the editor settings, including font, layout, theme, dark mode toggle for writing at night, text editing, sheet preview, and markdown format. As far as fonts go, users can choose from any of the installed fonts on their device, or install custom fonts by opening an OTF or TFF file in the Ulysses app. I’m a big fan of this, because having the right typeface while writing motivates me to write more and more, and it’s just nice to have a lot of choice when it comes to creating your perfect writing environment.

While Ulysses Mobile places the focus on iCloud, there is still an External Files section in the Library, though Dropbox does not work. However, you can import DOCX, Markdown, or text files from iCloud, or Google Drive, and edit those as you please. Hopefully one day, Dropbox files can be edited directly from Ulysses Mobile as well.

When you want to create a new sheet, just navigate to the Library source you want to add it to, and then tap on the “New Sheet” button that is located in the bottom toolbar. Ulysses will then go into the sheet in editor mode, so you can start writing. To edit files that you already have, just tap on the one you want to work on, and you’ll be in editing mode as well.

As you’re in editing mode, you can do a lot of different things. There’s a magnifying glass that lets you search for keywords in the document, in case you need to replace it with a synonym or just see how many times you used a single word. There is an undo and redo button in case of those writing boo-boos. In the middle of the keyboard extension are three buttons: a hamburger button, a format button, and a Command (⌘) button. Each of these has a different function, with the hamburger being for heading text, comment, code, or source blocks, lists, block quotes, line breaks, indent and outdent, and clearing your markup. The format button lets you format your text for strong (bold), emphasis (italics), links, comment, images, video, footnotes, annotations, and more. The Command button lets you insert the beginning and ends of brackets, parentheses, and other symbols. At the very end of the keyboard extension are two buttons for navigating the cursor left and right.

While there aren’t any workflows (such as Editorial) that you can use in Ulysses to make your life easier, Ulysses Mobile still has an impressive feature set when it comes to writing. Plus, you’re able to see all of the formatting, inserted images and video placeholders, links, and other fun stuff in your text as you write. They’re all color-coded so you can easily differentiate them from one another.

When you’re done with your writings, there are several different ways to get them out of Ulysses Mobile. Just tap on the Share button at the top of the document, and you can choose between HTML, Text, ePub, PDF, DOCX, and even Medium. Then you can change the style depending on the format you chose, as well as the paper format. Once you’re done making your choices on how to export it, tap on the “…” button to see what actions you can take. The file can be sent to or opened in another app, printed, or uploaded to iCloud Drive, Google Docs, or Dropbox.

Despite the fact that I’m still pretty new to the whole Ulysses family, I am in love with the app so far. On the Mac, Ulysses has replaced Byword, and Ulysses Mobile is giving Editorial on my iPhone a run for its money. I love the customization of the app, the super fast syncing (changes are almost instantaneous between my Mac and iPhone), and the powerful keyboard extension makes writing so much easier on-the-go. However, I’m just a bit annoyed that I can’t access my Dropbox folder directly for editing without some workarounds, and I do miss having workflows, though it’s something I can try to get used to. Still, Ulysses Mobile is an excellent writing tool for any writer, and having it available on all of your devices makes it a winner.

I highly recommend giving Ulysses Mobile a try if you haven’t already. It’s a powerful and comprehensive text editor that is flexible enough to work with you, for the most part. You can get Ulysses Mobile on the App Store as a universal download for $19.99 for a limited time (normally $24.99). Ulysses for Mac is also available on the Mac App Store for $44.99. If you already owned Ulysses for iPad, this is a free update. The Mac version was also updated today with many improvements, notably to iCloud syncing with the iOS version.

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