Good Game Get! Kometen
Kometen’s real charm lies not in in its beautiful water colored visuals, nor its superbly crafted and catchy background music. While both are charming in their own right, they’re really not the defining points when it comes to the iPhone game’s magic.
Kometen rules because it engages us in such a simple way with non-linear goals that promote the joy of flying through space, attaching our comet to the planetary pulls of Issac Newton’s famous law, and engaging with nothing but inanimate objects and isolation.
We naturally find it exhilarating to fly through space (the notion at least), collect things, and discover new places. All of this is possible in Kometen and no one is telling you what to do, how long you have to do it, and the consequences for not doing anything but fly around aimlessly so are non-existent.
Kometen confirms why we play games.
To escape.
Pixel Tilting: The Great, Interactive, and Illusion Inducing World of eBoy’s iPhone Debut, FixPix
Tilting a screen to reveal something or to change angles in a virtual world isn’t new, but it’s about to be released as something really stylish and effectively fun.
Enter extra cool pixel artist, eBoy and his eclectic low resolution, high color, and sharp output of a vision for art. As a pioneer of the pixel art genre he has more than a knack for his craft and now he is pushing pixels further with some interactive upgrades to his art.
Teaming up with with German app reviewers gone app developers, eBoy and Delicious Toys have created FixPix.
Utilizing multiple layered artworks, you must tilt to fix disoriented pictures and continue on to the next one. The multi-layered meticulously detailed works may seem easy at first, but according to Filip Visnjic’s preview; the levels become harder to match up perfectly as they become increasingly intricate.
A title on the horizon, the interactive art game isn’t yet available on the App Store, but should be soon, and I’m stoked to play.
Erik Svedäng and Niklas Åkerblad are almost ready to launch (after App Store approval) one of the neatest iPhone games I’ve laid eyes on.
The water color visuals are just too awesome!
Kometon is described by Erik as a “game [that] is about exploring space to find art, while at the same time learning how to fly around in a graceful way.” He also notes how no scoring system is in place and the player will be their own judge of progress in the game.
The gameplay looks as if it’s gravity based with the player revolving around the planets and switching to different pulls while collecting art.
The game’ll be out soon and I’ll be sure to pick it up and give you a full recommendation.
Good App Get! Joypad
Joypad is an excellent app that enables you to turn your iPhone/iPod touch into a fantastic touch-based wireless controller for your Mac. You can play your favorite emulated games and customize the controls using an easy to use keystroke mapper. I even managed to get it to work with MacMAME and played some SHMUPS and it worked really well.
Haters gonna hate. Touch screen controllers have been hit and miss, but I assure you that Joypad’s well-thought out design completely dismisses any criticisms sans physical feedback that you might have about them.
You might think that you’ll have to constantly look down at the controller screen to see where your thumbs are.
Wrong.
The size and layout of the buttons are super smart.
The Directional Pad
The directional pad at first may appear to you to only register input if you are touching it, but its merely an animated image that serves as a reference point as the input is actually calculated based on the origin of the directional pad versus where your thumb is, so according to the developers, “you can touch way outside the d-pad image itself and it will still work as expected.”˚
And, it does. It works incredibly well.
The B & A Buttons
The buttons on the right side of the controller are (obviously) the second half of the intelligent design of Joypad. Instead of choosing to emulate a traditional circular controller button - the devs decided to opt for big vertical piano key buttons.
It works so well that throughout my playthroughs of Espa Ra.De and Gunbird 2 I never once hit the wrong button or had a problem manipulating the smooth directional pad.
While you won’t find many apps like it, Joypad is the gold standard of controller apps. The idea is fantastic, executed so well, and it’s the absolutely best wireless controller you could ever buy for $1.99.
It’s a blast to use.
Want a free copy to show to all of your friends, or at least the friends who will get exactly how awesome Joypad is?
Lou Zell (one half of the developers behind Joypad) was kind enough to give me some iTunes promo codes for five free copies of Joypad for you to hopefully enjoy as much as I have.
The first five readers to comment get a free copy of Joypad!
I’d like to note that I myself have not received Joypad for free and initially bought it before contacting Lou and writing this post.
˚ Quote extracted from a Reddit comment from one of the devs.
Alex Okafor and Adam Stewart of One Man Left have only made one commercial game to date, but it’s hella fun, witty, and polished. Their debut game Tilt To Live isn’t some ridiculous poppycock art game, it’s an arcade inspired tilt shooter inspired by our desire to move our hands and shoot shit.
Shit being shot at also known as red dots.
You are the white ball and arrow and you move around via the magic of the accelerometer and your goal is to a.) survive, b.) aim and shoot by picking up various items, and c.) score chase.
If only real life was that simple.
The game gets hectic, hard, frustrating, and you still will not put it down. It’s so simple, yet genius, a casual game with a hardcore twist. I’m using might floaty and shallow words here to describe the magic of Tilt To Live, but it’s awesomeness is pretty indescribable unless you want me to be boring.
I could totally talk about how the game facilitates desire and power receptor reactions in our brains to form a temporal addiction, but again, that is boring.
Tilt To Live is not.