Worms 3, Guerilla Filmmaker, and other awesome apps of the week

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If you're appy and you know it, check our list!
If you're appy and you know it, check our list!
Photo: Cult of Mac

It’s the weekend, which means it’s time for Cult of Mac to run down the week’s best apps. From guerrilla filmmaking to guerrilla warfare, and silent messaging apps to RSS readers, we’ve got something for everyone.

Check out our picks below:

Guerilla Filmmaker

Shoot your iPhone movies like a pro.
Shoot your iPhone movies like a pro.
Photo: Sotcha Ltd.

From Bentley commercials to Sundance indie movies, it’s not exactly a secret that more and more filmmakers are turning to the iPhone for filmmaking. With the rumors about a major camera upgrade for the iPhone 6s, that trend’s not likely to change any time soon, either.

If you’re interested in using your Apple handset for some semi-professional shooting — or just want to make your home movies look good, it’s worth paying attention to Guerrilla Filmmaker: a new app designed to let you take full control of your iOS device camera for shooting video.

Using simple controls, Guerrilla Filmmaker lets you program simple or complex sequences, such as pulling focus at different times in a scene, racking focus between actors in a dialogue two-shot, or automating a long, smooth, Kubrick-style zoom. What more could you need?

Available for: iPhone, iPad, iPod touch
Cost: $3.99
Download from: App Store

Worms 3

Say hello to my little friends!
Say hello to my little friends!
Photo: Team17

I’ve loved the Worms franchise since I first played the series’ first instalment way back in the late 1990s. Unlike many iOS-era revivals of classic series, this mobile version of the game isn’t bogged down with lazy gameplay and a worm-load micropayment demands.

For those who have played an instalment of the long-running series before, Worms 3 doesn’t tamper too much with the tried-and-tested formula, although the ability to assign different skills (heavy, scout, scientist or solder) to your individual troops adds a new level of strategy.

Best of all? As Apple’s “app of the week,” it’s currently totally free.

Available for: iPhone, iPad, iPod touch
Cost: Free
Download from: App Store

Reeder 3

The best RSS reader yet?
The best RSS reader yet?
Photo: Reeder

It’s still in public beta, but Reeder 3 is a great RSS reader for OS X Yosemite. It works with popular RSS services like Feedly and Feed Wrangler, in addition to read-it-later tools like Instapaper.

With more themes, an updated UI, private browsing support, and much, much more, this is definitely worth a look for anyone who uses RSS on the regular.

Available for: Mac
Cost: $10 (free for Reeder 2 users)
Download from: Reeder website

Yahoo Live Chat

Heading
It’s a bit like being trapped in a silent movie.
Photo: Yahoo

Right now it seems like everyone’s trying to find the next big social media frontier — from live-streaming apps like Periscope to downright hilarious oddities such as Yo! Yahoo’s Live Chat app is, essentially, text-based video chatting without the sound.

“The advent of smartphones led a shift towards convenience and speed,” Yahoo explains. “We’ve gone from communicating primarily with our voices to using our fingers to text on glass. But somewhere, along the way we lost the natural flow of conversation. Our solution is to go back to the basics, by putting your words and your friend’s real-time reactions at the center of your interaction. We’ve removed audio from the equation, as it’s rarely convenient in today’s fast-paced world.”

Personally speaking, the jury’s still out on whether this will become a “thing,” but on the off-chance that it does, it’s worth a download now to see what all the fuss is about. Even if it’s just to be able to shock any teenagers you know by being able to say things like, “You use Snapchat? Isn’t that so July 2015?”

Available for: iPhone, iPad, iPod touch
Cost: Free
Download from: App Store

Red Game Without a Great Name

This summer's most challengingly addictive game?
This summer’s most challengingly addictive game?
Photo: iFun4all

We’ll have an in-depth feature on this new iOS puzzle game next week, but the (ironically) wonderfully-titled Red Game Without a Great Name is more than worth a look if you want to find this summer’s addictive replacement for Flappy Bird.

In Red Game, you take control of a mechanical bird maneuvering its way through 60 levels of steampunk-inspired obstacles — with the biggest innovation being its swipe-based teleportation system.

Trust me, it’s a lot of fun — and gorgeous, to boot.

Available for: iPhone, iPad, iPod touch
Cost: $2.99
Download from: App Store

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