Milkmaid of the Milky Way, and other awesome apps of the week

Las Vegas’ massive CES expo monopolized the tech world’s attentions this week, but that doesn’t mean there weren’t some great things happening in the App Store, too.

Coming off a record holiday season for iOS apps, here are the picks we found ourselves tapping away on over the past seven days.

Milkmaid of the Milky Way

With a title like Milkmaid of the Milky Way how can you not pay attention to this iOS game? A retro-style adventure game, this will appeal to anyone who enjoyed LucasArts point-and-click classics like Full Throttle and The Secret of Monkey Island.

Created by just one person, developer Mattis Folkestad, Milkmaid is a love letter to a type of game many of us grew up loving. With rhyming dialog and a frankly surreal plot that merges, well, milkmaids with science fiction, it’s a brilliant and very enjoyable experience.

Available for: iPad
Cost: $3.99
Get it from: App Store

Procreate

Procreate isn’t a new app, but this week it received a good dose of publicity, which is why I’m featuring it on this list. That publicity came in the form of a New Yorker cover drawn by long-time art editor Jorge Colombo using the app, his iPad Pro, and an Apple Pencil.

In the above video, you can see a time-lapse of the painting coming together, demonstrating what an impressively versatile tool Procreate is for any budding artists out there. (By contrast, I use it almost exclusively for detailed pencil drawing, which it also works great for.)

The app was last updated on December 31, adding some improvements for brushstrokes.

Available for: iPad
Cost: $4.99
Get it from: App Store

Live By Night – The Chase

Based on the new Prohibition-era Ben Affleck gangster movie, which in turn was based on a 2012 Dennis Lehane crime novel, Live By Night – The Chase strips the story down into a driving-and-shooting game. Evading the police, robbing banks and upgrading your vehicle, it’s a fun attempt to turn some of the movie’s set-pieces and locations into an action-packed iOS title.

If you’re looking for something a bit more in-depth with the same overall idea, you’d be better off downloading GTA: Vice City, which was remixed and rereleased on iOS not too long ago. However, if you enjoyed Live By Night and want to relive it in game form, this will keep you occupied for an hour or so on a quiet Sunday afternoon.

Available for: iPhone, iPad
Cost: Free
Get it from: App Store

Time — Beat Procrastination with AI

I always like to support young developers (hey, you never know who’s going to be the next Mark Zuckerberg!), and the 17 and 15-year-old creators of Time certainly fall into that category. They’re recipients of Apple’s international scholarship for iOS development skills, and the app they’ve created shows why.

It’s a task planner app, with a countdown timer for each task that ensures you stay focused on just one thing at a time. The interface is uncluttered, with simple gestures and useful color coding. Where Time really comes into its own, however, is in its use of machine learning to learn your behavior and make productivity recommendations.

Were it just to support serious young developers, I’d say the $0.99 price tag is worth it. As an app that’s incredibly useful — regardless of who created it — I’d say Time is a definite recommend!

Available for: iPhone, iPad
Cost: $0.99
Get it from: App Store

Luke Dormehl

Luke Dormehl is a U.K.-based journalist and author, with a background working in documentary film for Channel 4 and the BBC. He is the author of The Apple Revolution and The Formula: How Algorithms Solve All Our Problems … and Create More, both published by Penguin/Random House. His tech writing has also appeared in Wired, Fast Company, Techmeme and other publications.