AppCraver » Amelia Sauter

Race For Home Mixes Fantasy with Action

Amelia Sauter — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 23:00:54 +0000

Race for Home is a surreal game that combines adventure with the fantastical. Race for Home is a simple game that draws the gamer deep into its clutch.

Race for Home from Shawn Kollat is delightfully creepy. Your job is to help Grace float home by hooking her umbrella on different things in the sky, such as rockets or angels. On each level in Race for Home, there is an evil one whose only goal is to foil Grace’s progress. For example, Grace is followed on Level 6 by a shooting star who literally shoots Grace.

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Fluid 2 is Meditation in Motion

Amelia Sauter — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 20:00:44 +0000

There are so many apps now that do so little. Fluid 2 is one of those Zen apps whose motto could be “don’t just do something, sit there.”

Fluid 2, a ninety-nine cent version of the free Fluid from Fabien Sanglard, allows you to do more than tap the screen and watch the waves ripple across the water. With Fluid 2, you can also toss a coin to make a wish, upload your own background from your photo album, listen to ambient music and change the color of the water.

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Zimmer Twins are Out of Control in Stunt Wagon

Amelia Sauter — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 17:00:31 +0000

Did you ever race down a long, steep hill in roller skates or in your go kart, against the cautionary advice of your mother? With Stunt Wagon, you can join the Zimmer Twins in a speedy downhill adventure and not have to worry about breaking your leg.

Stunt Wagon from zinc Roe looks like a game for children, but believe me, Stunt Wagon is challenging. As the characters race down the hill, you tilt the iPhone to steer the wagon, avoiding tires and pylons, and tap the screen to jump over the obstacles. You can get speed and power in Stunt Wagon by running over white stars and picking up potions.

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Expand Your Game Experience with Xpandaballs

Amelia Sauter — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 17:00:02 +0000

I know a game is good when I need to write a review of it and I find myself saying, “Let me just play it once more first.” Xpandaballs is one of those addictive games.

Xpandaballs is unique. I do not know whether to call it a puzzle game, action game or strategy game. Essentially Xpandaballs falls into all three of those categories.

To play Xpandaballs, you try to destroy balls by hitting them with other balls. Each ball requires a different number of hits to be destroyed. When the ball you fired stops bouncing off the walls of the iPhone screen, it expands to fill the space where it landed. If the ball hits the boundary line at the bottom, you lose a life. Different colored balls have different properties; my favorites are the yellow, which can safely hit the boundary, and blue, which destroys a ball with one hit.

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Music iQ Tests Your Music Recognition

Amelia Sauter — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 23:00:59 +0000

I smartly downloaded Music iQ before embarking on a four-hour car ride. Perfect timing! I entertained myself, the car trip went more quickly, and I discovered I am terrible at remembering the names of songs, even when I recognize a tune.

Music iQ from Phase2 Media is like an iPhone version of “Name That Tune.” Music iQ plays random songs one-at-a-time from your iPhone’s or iPod touch’s library, and the quicker you guess the songs, the more points you get. The good news is that Music iQ is a multiple choice quiz game, so you are given five options to choose from to help jog your memory.

The music library on my iPhone is small; I keep most of my music solely on my iPod so I don’t use up all my iPhone’s memory. If you do the same, you might find that Music iQ might be better used with your iPod touch than your iPhone. The larger your music library is, the more challenging it will be to play Music iQ.

A nice side effect of Music iQ is that it keeps you in touch with all of your music, not just with the artists or albums that you listen to the most. Along that same line, you can also ban individual songs, albums or artists from showing up when you play Music iQ, for example, an artist whose music you are not in the mood for or a friend’s homemade album whose song names you have listed in your iPhone as “Track 1,” “Track 2,” and so on.

Music iQ functions as described with no problems or quirks. It is easy to play, and you can pick it up whether you have a few minutes or an hour at your disposal. Whether you play to pass the time or to test your knowledge, Music iQ is a great app for music lovers.

Create Dizzy Paintings with SpinArt

Amelia Sauter — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 17:00:27 +0000

SpinArt will remind you of childhood art projects. Playing with SpinArt feels like a combination of blowing paint with a straw, tie-dying and that game (whose name I cannot remember) where you make geometric patterns by drawing with round plastic things that spin. But SpinArt is not messy, and it is not just for kids.

When I sat down to use SpinArt, the first thing I realized was that I needed to read the instructions. SpinArt isn’t hard once you read the descriptions of how to the tools, how to start the spinning, and how to make it stop. The learning curve is not steep, but it definitely helps to watch a SpinArt demo video (available after the jump).

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Nabbed Makes Fun Photo Captions

Amelia Sauter — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 22:00:24 +0000

Using hundreds of letters cut from magazines, Nabbed from More Blu Sky is a creative way to add captions to your photos.

I am not sure how Nabbed chose its app name, but perhaps it is because the letters look like a ransom note when they are used to make words to add to your photos. With Nabbed, you can use a picture currently in your iPhone library, or take a new one. You can rearrange the words once you have typed them so you can choose their placement aesthetically.

Nabbed is cool to use as is, but it needs some tweaking.

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You Might Need iWrecked – Auto Accident Assistant

Amelia Sauter — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 16:00:37 +0000

I would like to say that I have never had a car accident but, unfortunately, this is not the case. I have been in five car accidents in the past 15 years. (None of them were my fault. I swear it). I wish I had iWrecked- Auto Accident Assistant at the time.

iWrecked – Auto Accident Assistant is an iPhone app from Vurgood Applications that allows you to easily record the details of a car accident. Sure, a pen and paper will do, but good luck finding them in your messy glove compartment when you are stressed out.

When you have an unsettling or traumatic accident, you might also have a difficult time remembering what information to write down. iWrecked is like a friend who asks you all the right questions; all you have to do is fill in the blanks.

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Baby Maker! Creates Comical Kids

Amelia Sauter — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 20:30:17 +0000

I do not have any children, but I have wondered on occasion what my kids would look like if I had some. Baby Maker! is designed to give me a comical glimpse into a child-filled future.

Don’t take Baby Maker! too seriously. Because Baby Maker! is a joke app, you will not find results that reflect you and your photo partner’s stunningly good looks. Rather, Baby Maker! creates pictures of kids that can be described with one word: creepy.

You start by choosing two pictures. Baby Maker! takes the eyes from one person and the mouth from another and drops them onto a photo of a child with the gender and ethnicity of your choice. The final product is a zombie-like creature with bizarre features. You can also allow Baby Maker! to choose gender and ethnicity randomly, but the subsequent results can be rather tasteless.

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Bed Bugs is a Sleepwalking Adventure

Amelia Sauter — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 20:30:20 +0000

Sleeping should be a peaceful activity, but for the little guy in Bed Bugs, it can get pretty intense. Igloo Games, the makers of Dizzy Bee, has developed another winner with Bed Bugs.

When playing Bed Bugs, your goal is to use multi-touch to eliminate the floating bad guys so the sleepwalker does not wake up as he snores and travels various landscapes. If you are not quick enough, the sleepwalker will awake with a start and the game will be over.

I had two recurring thoughts when I played the first few levels of Bed Bugs. The first was that Bed Bugs seemed too easy. The second was that Bed Bugs needed instructions. Now that I am playing Level 9, or should I say, kind of stuck on Level 9, I have changed my mind on both of these judgments.

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