A 9-year-old boy battling leukemia was granted his wish to develop an iPhone game.
Owain Weinert, who has pre-B Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia, asked the Make-a-Wish Foundation to develop a mobile game. His wish was granted: the game, called Allied Star Police, launched in the Apple App Store Thursday. Developed with Seattle firm 4th & Battery, it’s offered gratis and also comes in an iPad version.
You’re always strumming out guitar chords while prancing around your living room listening to Yanni right? Well, here’s your chance for a more interactive experience for your air guitar greatness. Air Guitar Move is a connector for your iPhone/iPod Touch that combines a guitar pick with motion sensor technology to turn your wild flailing into sweet sweet music.
For this week’s giveaway we’ve partnered up with the friendly folks at Appular to bring fans a great package of iOS gaming apps, for free. We’ve got codes for five of the hottest games in the iPhone App Store right now and we’re ready to dish em out to our awesome fans to liven up your iPhone gaming lives. Today’s package of apps includes Cars 2, Tiny Wings, Hanging With Friends, The Game of Life, and Sea Battles. If you want a chance to win all five games then hurry up and enter the contest.
There’re absolutely zero reasons not to get this incredibly slick, fly-by-the-seat-of-you-pants remake of the 90’s classic racing shooter Death Rally iOS game unless you hate fun or you’re dead.
What a difference a letter makes: change “smuggle” to “snuggle” and the game about taking clandestine immigrants across the border becomes…a game about cuddly creatures escaping the wilderness for the comfort of a zoo, where they are provided plenty of food, shelter and “state of the art healthcare.”
The developers of Smuggle Truck changed the name and graphics to Snuggle Truck to gain Apple approval for sale in iTunes.
An update to Firemint’s Real Racing 2 HD game today sees the company introduce dual-screen gaming to the iPad 2 using the new Digital AV Adapter accessory. When hooked up to a HDTV, users can enjoy their race in 1080p on their TV, while their iPad displays an alternative image from the game – such as a map of the circuit – simultaneously.
The iPad continues to act as a controller, so you can control the car on your TV using the iPad’s gyroscope controls, as demonstrated in the video below.
The iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad have already made Apple a huge player when it comes to gaming, with the touchscreen devices proving to be stiff competition for handheld consoles such as the Nintendo DS and the Sony PSP. However, two faces headed to the Apple camp would suggest the Cupertino company wants to get even more serious about gaming.
If you’re lucky enough to posses an iPhone 4 and haven’t already downloaded freebie Ball Pit, do it now and play around with it a little. Go ahead, I’ll wait.
Pretty cool, right? For those of you at work or still saving for an iPhone 4, the game is basically a first-person shooter set in the middle of a what looks like a holodeck from the later Star Trek shows, with the objective of shooting down the spheres that happen to be floating around in the big room with you.
Y’know how you’ll be chugging along on a game and get to a point where, for hours, the gameplay is just sod-awful boring? And you want to get up and watch TV, but don’t want to leave the game for fear something actually exciting — like crashing into a mountain — might happen? Well, there’s an app for that. In some instances, anyway.
In this case, clever app FSXFollow saves countless faux pilots from the numbing monotony of piloting their faux Cessnas over the Midwest, by shunting all the data to their iDevice, so the pilot can walk off and get a latte or watch TV. Definitely limited appeal to this app (and frankly, if the simulation or pilot is too hardcore to employ a simple time-lapse feature, I’m not sure getting up to watch TV or do laundry in the middle of a flight is any better; but then I’m not down with all the current FAA rules), but the concept is cool — using a handheld as an integral part of a much larger experience on the desktop.
FSXFollow works with apps like the superb X-Plane and Microsoft’s Flight Simulator X and costs $6. There’re more examples of this kind of mobile/desktop symbiosis, of course; anyone got a favorite?
If you have a 27-inch iMac or 27-inch Apple LCD Cinema Display and you don’t already know about the Kanex XD, then you should. This miniature aluminum box enables you to take any device with a HDMI connection – such as your PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, or Blu-ray player – and hook it up to your iMac or Cinema Display via the Mini DisplayPort connector.
It’s perfect for casual gaming at your desk or catching a Blu-ray in your lunch hour, and it’s a great way to make the most out of your expensive Apple display.
Read on to find out more about the Kanex XD!
Responding to critics, Smuggle Truck, the game about illegal immigration has added a legal mode.
The game still hasn’t been approved for iTunes yet, but if and when it is in April, you’ll be able to access Legal Immigration mode via the game’s main menu.
How do you play? Well, you don’t. Not really. You get a screen with 20-year countdown.
When asked why two decades, Owlchemy Labs developer Alex Schwartz said:
“Well that’s the greater than 10 years it takes for someone to obtain a green card. Plus the multiple occurrences of ‘lost paperwork’ that are bound to happen during the process.”
“Smuggle Truck: Operation Immigration” has released a storm of controversy – and free publicity.
In it, players navigate through what looks like the U.S.-Mexican border. As the truck drives over cliffs, mountains and dead animals, immigrants fall off the truck bed. Scores are calculated by the number of immigrants helped into the U.S. Hundreds of news outlets have written about the game, many weighing in on whether it’s in bad taste or a wry commentary on the current US immigration policies.
From the press release released, it sounds like the game makers are keen to keep up that publicity spin cycle:
“Tilt your truck, catch newborn babies, drive over armadillos, and rocket your way over hills, through caverns, and over quicksand to save the people!”
Having gone through the frustrating, expensive, time-consuming green card process for a family member, the legal mode option gave me a good laugh.
Via Joystiq
If you’re ready to play at smuggling illegal immigrants over the US border, check out the demo for “Smuggle Truck.”
The game, from Boston company Owlchemy Labs hasn’t yet been approved by Apple, but you can try it out on gaming portal Kongregate for free.
“Smuggle Truck: Operation Immigration” has released a storm of controversy – and free publicity – for the game devs hope will be approved for iTunes by March.
N.O.V.A. 2 – ($0.99) iPhone – Games
Although it’s not strictly a brand new release, today’s must-have iOS game has been chosen simply because it’s one of the most exciting first person shooters available in the App Store, and it’s on sale today for just $0.99!
N.O.V.A. 2 is the sequel to Gameloft’s first hugely successful sci-fi FPS – Near Orbit Vanguard Alliance, and this follow up title boasts new enemies with improved AI, a larger range of weapons and powers, and 10-on-10 online multiplayer – you won’t want to miss it!
Find out more after the break!
It’s time for yet another Monday iPhone App Giveaway brought to you by Appular! If you’re into hamsters and zombies, you are going to have your mind blown with the apps we’re giving away. Just checked and the hamsters are actually FLYING hamsters. Good Lord!
All you need to do is follow @cultofmac and @appular on Twitter and tweet this phrase to be entered, “Big ups to @cultofmac and @appular for making it rain with free iPhone app codes!” A 5 random twitterers will be chosen to win this app bundle. We’ll choose the winners at 11:59pm on Tuesday and notify through Direct Message on Wednesday.
Special Thanks to Appular for helping us put together these app code giveaways! If you’ve got a mobile app that you’d like marketed effectively, contact the good folks at Appular!
Here’s a look at the apps we’re giving away:
A dad whose daughter ran up his credit card while playing the Smurfs’ Village app has launched a Facebook group to convince Apple to ban in-app purchases in kids games.
The fledgling group – as of this writing, it has 20 members – started after Tobias Feldt’s daughter bought a load of Smurf extras by accident.
Feldt says Apple refunded the purchase immediately, with no questions asked – as it often does in these cases – but he decided the incident shouldn’t end there.
Feldt has tried to teach his two children to play games responsibly. His oldest daughter, age nine, was “devastated” when she found out that she had run up a bill playing the game.
A game developed by a 14-year-old has knocked Angry Birds from its perch as the top free game in iTunes.
The game, called Bubble Ball, is a physics puzzler developed by Utah teen Robert Nay. Nay wrote the 4,000 lines of code using Corona SDK. He did have had a little help from his mom, Kari, who lent a hand with the graphics. Although he’s only in the 8th grade, Nay has been programming for six years and currently codes in languages including HTML, PHP, AJAX and Java Script.
Bubble Ball launched December 29, shortly after iTunes announced that Rovio’s Angry Birds ruled the roost as the top paid and free game.
Nay’s game has had some three million downloads since launch.
What’s it like?
Players try to move a bubble from point A to point B. To keep things moving along, players use geometric shapes to create ramps, platforms and catapults to send the bubble to its destination.
Simple, but perhaps that is what catapulted it to the top of the crowded gaming heap on iTunes.
I haven’t played it yet, but looking forward to checking it out: I’ve got three versions of Angry Birds on my phone already.
Source: IB Times
A company called Ten One Design has announced a $25 joystick for iPad called Fling that attaches to the screen with suction cups.
The Fling goes on top of the on-screen controls, and replaces your direct finger or thumb. The joystick is mostly clear plastic, so you can see through it.
Does this defeat the whole purpose of using an iPad for gaming, which is direct touch on an elegant surface? Or is this just cool?
Fling is available for pre-order Jan. 6.
Most tech companies go out of their way to publish product roadmaps, so their customers know what’s coming next. But Apple is not most tech companies. Ask anyone from Steve Jobs to the guy at your local Apple Store, and you’ll hear the same refrain, “we don’t comment on unannounced products.”
It’s this dearth of hard facts on what’s coming next from Cupertino that makes speculation so irresistible. And with the new year now upon us, it’s the perfect time to ponder what Apple may have in store for us in 2011.
Blogger Deon Devine, from Houston, Texas, has sent Cult of Mac some very interesting predictions.
Thanks to the advent of Steam for Mac, the dedication and ingenuity of indie developers and the App Store’s raising of awareness of Apple and its products, 2010 was the best year for Apple gaming since, well, the Big Bang.
We can’t even pretend to have played all the games that came out this year, or even a tenth of them. There were a lot of great games that escaped our radar, or we just didn’t get the time to play. Heck, we don’t even have editorial consensus amongst ourselves.
After the jump, though, you can find at least my list of 2010’s iOS and Mac games that siphoned away most of my time, causing me to miss deadlines, emotionally neglect my girlfriend, and extend my index fingers by three inches through callus mass alone. What were the games that extended yours? Let us know in the comments
Retrospectively casting an eye over an incredible year for both Apple and its customers, one of the most surprising developments of 2010 was the Mac’s long-overdue maturity into a serious gaming platform after years of false hopes and promises.
More surprising than even that, though, is the fact Apple almost had nothing to do with it: even while Cupertino oiled and massaged iOS into a platform capable of rattling the nerves of gaming’s most unassailable colossus, they continued to ignore Mac gamers and its developers.
So who was responsible for the Mac Gaming Renaissance of 2010? There’s no one company in particular, but let’s start with Valve.
Smurfs’ Village, the iPhone/iPad game a lot of parents point the finger at for accidental in-app purchases, has now added a few warnings.
The first sentence of the game description now reads:
“Smurf Village is free to play, but charges real money for additional in-app content. You may lock out the ability to purchase in-app content by adjusting your device’s settings.”
Epic Games, the company behind such diversions as “Batman: Arkham Asylum” and “Gears of War 3″ is releasing tools for developers to meet demand for iPhone and iPad games.
The company will launch the latest version of its game-development tools, called the Unreal Development Kit, to the public Thursday. The free to download kit will include new tools to create high-quality graphics and animations on iOS, which should simplify and speed up the development processes for games.
“Apple’s App Store is the most vibrant market for mobile gaming,” said Epic Chief Executive Mark Rein. “If you’re going to make a game for a mobile device, and you want to make the most money, you’re nuts not to make it for iOS.”
If you’re in the netbook, notebook, PC, hand-held gaming, newspaper or DVD business, Apple wants to eat your liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti — at least according to a huge number of observers who don’t know what the word “cannibalize” means.
For example, Microsoft’s general manager for Windows product management, Gavriella Schuster, said this month that the netbook market is “definitely getting cannibalized” by the iPad.
Wait, “cannibalized”? What does that mean, exactly? And why is everybody saying it?
Remember Epic’s stunning display of the Unreal Engine 3 running on the iPhone with Epic Citadel? That was more of a technology demonstration than anything else, but the first proper game running Unreal Engine 3 is coming to the App Store soon in Chair’s Project Sword, a swipe-controlled fighter with an RPG level-up and equipment mechanic…. and as you can see from the trailer above, it looks breathtaking.
As a gamer, I’ve slowly gotten used to the virtual D-pads and buttons in iOS games, but in all honesty, I still miss the tactility of real buttons underneath my thumb pads.
That said, I can’t imagine who would go in for this: the Tactile+Plus is a transparent overlay you put over your iPhone or iPod Touch’s screen to lend tactile feedback to a virtual D-pad.