Posts tagged iphone

Posted 2 years ago

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365Cocoa

Lately I seem to be picking up blogs promising content on fixed schedules. The newest is by Pieter Omvlee, proprietor of Bohemian Coding and and winner of an Apple Design Award for his application Fontcase.

Each post is a bite-sized tip or Objective-C code snippet and accompanying explanation. In the first three days I’ve already learned three great new things. I’m looking forward to the rest of the year!

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Posted 2 years ago

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This is a seriously clever game idea by Shaun Inman, creator of the Mint and Fever web apps. Mimeo and the Kleptopus King is an in-development 2D platformer for the iPhone and iPod touch. The twist is that power-ups don’t change your character, they change the world.

Your initial view of the world is that of a 2-bit display - pixels are either on or off, black or white. When you get your first power-up, the game display becomes 4-bit grayscale, presented with a green tint that makes it look like the original GameBoy. The next power-up makes the graphics 8-bit (NES) and the next, 16-bit (SNES).

As Inman explains, this mechanic will figure into the gameplay as well, with certain world elements perhaps only available at one world “resolution”. Even the music will switch between 2, 4, 8, and 16 bit representations as you play. The concept is great and the graphical effect of shifting between the “resolutions” looks spot on.

Embarrassingly, my blog shares the same name as one of Shaun’s earlier games. I promise I wasn’t aware of it at the time and there was no intent to confuse!

(via Daring Fireball)

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Posted 2 years ago

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Game Review: WordCrasher

The word search genre is a crowded one, especially on the iPhone. However, WordCrasher stands out with great graphics and sound, and a physics system that makes the whole thing feel somehow real.

The premise is simple: colorful lettered discs fall from the top of the screen and collect into a pile. Tap the letters to make words, destroying them with satisfying pops before your pile reaches the top of the screen.

The physics come into play as you tilt the iPhone and the pile of discs rolls, shifts, and settles with the gravity. In addition to being neat to see, it affects gameplay as you frantically tilt to gain precious vertical space by settling your pile. At the same time, the letters are rotating and moving away from where you last saw them.

If that standard “marathon mode” gets too easy for you, you can try “flood panic” where liquid fills the board from the bottom up as letters fall from the top. Eventually your stack floats higher and higher on the screen, causing the motion of the discs to be amplified and forcing you to make high scoring words quickly to end the stage and reset the liquid level.

My only complaint about the game, which is currently selling for $.99, is that the word dictionary is somewhat limited. There have been many occasions where I or my wife has exclaimed at the game’s failure to accept what we know to be a valid word. Still, this is not enough to stop me from recommending the game, and I hope that the author can expand the word list over time.

Update: The author, Kevin Ng, has left a comment pointing out that proper nouns and other kinds of words will not be listed. This rules out “Zen”, for example. Furthermore, as is mentioned on the FAQ page of his site, you can send an email to words@wordcrasher.com to mention words that you think meet the listed criteria and should be included. Thanks, Kevin!

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Posted 2 years ago

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Go on, make my day (better)

I first became interested in Go, the ancient Chinese game of strategy, after moving to the Boston area about seven years ago. At that time I had recently graduated college with my degree in Computer Science right in the midst of the dot-com bust of the early 2000’s. While fruitlessly searching the web for job prospects, I noticed that there was a local Go club within walking distance of my apartment. Spending time there learning the game got me out of my apartment and gave me a much needed sense of accomplishment. I certainly never became one of the stronger players there, but that was fine.

More recently, I started a Go club at work that meets once a week to play during lunch. Teaching others to play is one of my favorite things to do, and technically minded people like those at my company seem to take to Go quite well.

These days I work to improve my play by watching strong players play on the Internet Go Server. Providing a portable IGS client, Tetsuki is one of my favorite apps for the iPhone/iPod Touch. It’s no exaggeration to say that I use it every day, taking in a game or two in bed before falling asleep. The author, Kris Van Bael, has just released another update for the app, and amazingly it is still completely free. Given how much I use it, a donation was easy to justify and happily given through the website. If you play Go and have an iPhone/iPod Touch, check out Tetsuki!

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