Readers’ App Reviews – July 2013
Check out this month’s batch of reader’s apps – including action games, an app about eavesdropping, and a steak that can take a beating! By Ryan Poolos.
More great apps by you!
Summer is flying by, but its not stopping you guys from releasing some fun games and great apps.
This month we’ve got:
- A game leveraging your Instagram for puzzles
- An app to help teachers manage their classroom
- A steak that can take a beating
- And of course, tons of addicting games!
Read on for awesome apps and games made by your fellow readers!
Whirl the Squirrel
Whirl’s evil ‘Nenemies have stolen all his treasures. Help him get them back in this classic sidescrolling adventure game.
This isn’t an endless runner, its a fantastic level based game with lots of obstacles and powerups to keep you entertained among some hilarious animations. Jump through hoops, roll around loops, avoid electric shock, and more!
Beautiful Retina graphics, universal support, GameCenter leaderboards and achivements help make this a great game.
- Author: Donovan Vice @dioxismining
- Most useful tutorial: How To Create a Simple iPhone App on iOS 5 Tutorial: 1/3
- App Store Link: Check it out!
PYXL
PYXL is a simple game where you control a little PYXL trying to survive.
Rotate your PYXL to match colors flying at you. Tap square powerups for an extra boost, or black projectiles to avoid certain demise. It gets fast and addicting quick so get collecting right away.
Of course it woudln’t be a game without GameCenter to put your friends to shame.
- Author: Salman Suhail @salmansq
- Most useful tutorial: How To Create a Simple iPhone App on iOS 5 Tutorial: 1/3
- App Store Link: Check it out!
StartsWith
StartsWith is a fun game that puts 30,000 vocabulary words on the tip of your tongue… or fingers. :p
StartsWith gives you the first letter and a clue to help decipher a vocabulary word. You can choose from several difficulty levels, but if you ever get too stuck, just give the magic lamp a rub and a hint will appear.
There’s great background music and GameCenter integration to round out this fun word game.
- Author: Narendar Rajagopalan @rajnarendar
- Most useful tutorial: 40 Secrets to Making Money with In-App Purchases
- App Store Link: Check it out!
Messy Room
Messy Room is an education game to help teach kids to clean their rooms! Who doesn’t need that?
The app comes preloaded with some messy rooms for boys and girls. Kids can drag items from around the room to their proper places to unlock praise and balloons. Educational games like this are great and showing what a wonderful device the iPad can be in the hands of a child.
- Author: Antonio Silva @ton1n8o
- Most useful tutorial: How To Drag and Drop Sprites with Cocos2D
- App Store Link: Check it out!
Flightless
Flightless is an interesting game where the goal is to slow down.
You’re a bird drifting through the sky and your mission is to collection as many feathers and parachutes as you can to slow your descent. Color gems on the way down but watch out for snow flakes that freeze your ability to steer!
Flightless even has a neat trick where the sky changes with the time of day. Sweet! :]
- Author: Kyle Goslan @kylegoslan
- Most useful tutorial: How To Make a Tower Defense Game Tutorial
- App Store Link: Check it out!
Eavesdrop
Eavesdrop is a fun social app where you submit silly things your overhear from others around you.
Check out what people have heard nearby, maybe its something you said!? Update vote the funniest, downvote the boring.
Connect to your Facebook or Twitter accounts to pass along your favorite sayings.
- Author: Daniel Bowden @eavesdropapp
- Most useful tutorial: User Interface Customization in iOS 5
- App Store Link: Check it out!
PixHole
PixHole is a fun game using Instagram pictures to create fun puzzles. It cuts circles out of pictures that you have to place back.
You can play with your own photos and likes or popular photos if you don’t have an Instagram account. Shoot for the longest streak you can manage. :]
It gets challenging as they rotate and swap colors to trick up your game.
- Author: Stefano Figurelli @moonsterdance
- Most useful tutorial: How to Submit Your App to Apple: From No Account to App Store, Part 1
- App Store Link: Check it out!
Charlie, The Steak
Charlie is a steak. And what do you do with steaks? Beat them, burn them, and throw knives at them of course!
Charlie is a stress reliever that lets you take out your anger on Charlie with minigames, video recording, and good old fashion blow-torches.
You can take silly pictures and videos of what you do to Charlie and send them to your friends. Collection meatballs to unlock more things to do to Charlie!
- Author: Dominik Hadl @dynamicdust
- Most useful tutorial: Introduction to CALayers Tutorial
- App Store Link: Check it out!
Match 4 Kids
Match 4 Kids is a simple game that lets kids drag and drop pieces of over 30 pictures where they belong.
You can turn on rotation and zooming to add a little more challenge to the placement as they have to twist and pinch to get the pieces to fit. This is a great challenging game for younger kids who just want to play on the iPad.
The kids are sure to love the cute pictures and parents can hand over their iPad without worry as there are no ads or extra buttons.
- Author: Grzegorz Zajac
- Most useful tutorial: Introduction to In-App Purchases
- App Store Link: Check it out!
iSeatplan
iSeatplan is an app to help teachers diagram their seating charts on the iPad. Simply drag and drop your kids where you want and save it for each class.
The app also lets you learn your students names with a simple quiz game. You can put pictures in if you like and even use the app to take attendence or track who speaks up in class and who disrupts class.
- Author: Martin Lücke @redtoastydev
- Most useful tutorial: iPad for iPhone Developers 101: UIPopoverController Tutorial
- App Store Link: Check it out!