Monster Valley

Help Poppy’s jumping monsters! App Store link (0,79 €)

We love Poppy, and we are happy they have a new small game for us. As usual in Poppy’s universe, this new game is easy, really nice and addictive.

The aim is to help monsters cross a valley by placing a bridge where they can jump. Well, I confess, I am not a great player, but it is not so easy as it sounds. From time to time a bird will drop an egg. If it reaches the right side, a new monster will be born!

All I can say: this is a just simple game that you will enjoy. I love poppy.

App Store link (0,79 €) and developer link: Poppy

Niklas Old

What will you look like, when your old?. App Store link (2,39 €)

This app generates an animated 3D portrait from a static photo and adds a slider that you can use to adjust your age!

Sounds unbelievable, but it really works. Your foto will be processed by an online service named Motionportrait. It will generate the animated version of the portrait. The face looks around and the eyes blink. Touch the screen and the face will look to your finger.

Using the aging slider will add wrinkles and stains to your face – a shocking effect!

App Store link (2,39 €) and developer link: Website

iPhone

Brick up your life! App Store link (free)

With this small toy, you can transform your pics into LEGO bricks. Nothing more, nothing less.

This simple App lets you take photos and convert them into images made of LEGO bricks. Or you can just pick photos from your albums and do the same. Touching the screen will change the colours in a nice wave effect. And you can save your best creations in the photo album, so you can send them by mail, or post them in your blog.

Of course the App does it good. The wave effect is nice and makes the App not so plain. In the end you could ask yourself “Is that all there is?”. But the point here is more how a (free) App is a new way of marketing a product. Using an App for promotion is a clever and user-friendly way of circumventing usual publicity channels. And with the iPad coming soon, I’m sure this kind of Apps will proliferate.

But back to the fun, if you need a template for your next LEGO creation, give it a try.

App Store link (free) and developer link: The LEGO group

Get started 3

An app for the artist within you. App Store link (1,59 €)

No matter how bad you are as an artist – with this app you’re going to express your thoughts, feelings and emotions with ease and fun. Spin the canvas, choose a brush size, pick a colour and: ACTION!

The app won’t confuse you with lots of options and settings and stuff, there are just two basic functions: paint (the upper left icon) and spin (below). There are three different brush sizes to choose from and enough colours. The star opens a menu with 5 reasonable options (e.g. clear background).

The actual canvas doesn’t seem huge but the final image in your photo library is much bigger than you can see on the screen. And the colour splashes look great in detail. Don’t hesitate and discover the fun of messing around with paint today!

Check out the flickr group here.

App Store link (1,59 €) and developer link: 7twenty7

O.D.E.

You won’t find smaller enemies in the iPhone. App Store link (free)

In One Dot Enemies, short O.D.E., you have to kill the, well, only one pixel sized dots. And clean up the mess afterwards.

What I like about this toy is its simplicity. No ugly graphics needed, no extra menues needed. All you see, or try to, are the dots, and when you think you killed enough of them, just shake your iPhone to get to the clean up device. With just one button you can flush all the “corpses” and see how many enemies have been killed so far in the whole world.

I like seeing how people are using the iPhone as an arena for small apps like this, most of them time-killers, where small ideas can also mean (big) fun.

O.D.E. is a very simple but well done app, without unnecessary stuff, and that on top of that it’s for free. Try it!

App Store link (free) and developer link: STUDIO-KURA

Drip

Tag your iPhone! App Store link (free)

It couldn’t be easier. Just paint with your fingers and control the initial dripping direction tilting your iPhone.

What I like the most of Fat Tag is how incredibly good it really reacts to your finger touches. And the app is about painting, so that is the really important thing. You can’t choose among a palette of colours, but the ones there are well picked out. And the dripping effect is cool and feels real too.

Some second thoughts: this is a free app. More than that, it is an Open Source app. So, in the first place, don’t blame if it doesn’t make what you thought it could, should or must do. Second, if you feel it should do those things you thought it could, should or must do anyway, well, just improve it, add what you feel it’s missing.

So tag it or leave the place for others!

App Store link (free) and developer link: Website

Open Up – Questions to spark conversations.

More information – mehr Informationen – más información

Apple and Monster

Another great iPhone toy from Poppy! App Store link (0,79 €)

Poppy did it again. They have a new delicious game for the iPhone. This time is all about jumping.

The game is similar to other jump higher games out there. You have to draw lines to keep Apple springing. On the way up, you can get pencils, to draw more lines, or apples, to get even higher. I am not so good yet, as you can see from my record.

Apple and Monster has the Poppy touch. It is not only that their ideas are always original, Poppy also makes them so appealing, that you must have every game. I love the graphics and the little details.

And again, this is a strong addicting game. So, enough said now, I must improve my record!

App Store link (0,79 €) and developer link: poppy

Passage

A beautiful life simulation. App Store link (0,79 €)

Passage is an art project that shows you life till the end, in a way that made me almost cry. When I first started Passage I wasn’t quit sure what to do. What’s the objective ? After a minute of trial and error I realised that there’s no prescribed objective.

This app is an effigy of the real life. You start your journey alone and after a short time you meet a woman. Together you go through life, manage problems, grow old and die at the end. The hole experience takes five minutes. It has a beautiful soundtrack and an old school pixel graphic, that strangely makes the hole idea behind passage even more real and touching.

I don’t want to go too much into detail, cause it maybe would change your point of view and I think it’s best to try it out and see what happens, as in real life.

Passage is a really beautiful app by artist Jason Rohrer. App Store link (0,79 €)

iSwapFaces - Fiete + Katja

Take a photo with two faces and swap them easily. App Store link (1,59 €)

Playing around with photos of your friends is always fun. With iSwap Faces you place and adjust grid masks over the faces in a photo and then hit the swap button. The faces are softly cut out and swapped. It works surprisingly well and is a lot of fun.

There are some additional controls and adjustments to optimise the result. You can flip the faces which makes sense in photos where people were looking in different directions. And there are three different shapes for the grid mask.

You get the funniest photos if you swap faces that are very different. Swap the faces of a man and a woman, an adult and a child, a human and an animal. Give it a try!

App Store link (1,59 €), lite version and developer link: Black Frog Industries