Playing poker efficiently has never been easier thanks to apps that users can easily whip out in times of need. Whether you’re a casual player or tournament card shark, these apps will give you the edge you need in keeping track of matches and calculating the odds of winning. Read on and see why the pros are treating these programs as essentials whenever they host matches or participate in tournaments.

Home Poker Tools – Clock

This poker tool is perfect for tournament hosts. Keeping track of time and matches can be a handful when done manually. So if you’re having a poker tournament with a lot of players, using this Home Poker Tool – Clock app made for the Android OS is a good idea. This easy-to-understand poker clock acts as an organizer that can automatically alert hosts of the tournament’s progress. It can keep track of the blinds, next blinds, number of players, number of players left, bounty, and provide suggestions on tournament payouts. The poker clock can be downloaded for free.

Poker Cruncher

Calculating the odds is a problem that many poker players face. Even professional card sharks sometimes find it hard to make accurate calculations especially during intense matches. Thankfully, there’s now an app that does this work for players, allowing them to fully concentrate on tournaments.

Poker Cruncher is a handy poker odds calculator. Users who are familiar with the Texas Calculate ‘Em program for the PC, which was made as a professional calculating tool for the partypoker.com software, will find the app’s functions quite similar. To date, Poker Cruncher is quite possibly the most powerful odds calculator available for smartgadgets. This is because it allows calculations for random hands and multiple player card input – features that aren’t readily available in other poker calculator apps. Like the Home Poker Tools – Clock app, Poker Cruncher can be downloaded for free.

There are also tools that can help poker players keep track of their opponent’s playing style and match history. Poker Tracker and Poker-Edge are examples of these tools. Unfortunately, such programs are currently only available for the PC and Mac. If you can find an app that has the aforementioned features, make sure to download it as well since it can help poker players improve their game.

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A Great New Mobile Game

Players experience movie thrills along with Batman, the Joker, and several other classic characters. Exciting bonuses are coupled with several exciting movie scenes. Batman continues to lead players on shadowy and audacious adventures paralleling segments from the blockbuster movie. Caught up in escalating action and captivating confrontations, the Dark Knight Rises is one of the new mobile games that combine convincing auditory effects designed to enhance play and produce power-punching twists at every turn.

The most exciting scene-stealer involves the virtual fight progression that incorporates the Free-Spins Accumulator. This revolutionary feature randomly occurs in the basic game where Batman and Bane battle against one another, ultimately resulting in Free Spins and exciting Multipliers. As entries are made into this new feature, players accumulate chances to win. The video is an ideal mix of lifelike photographic imagery and adrenaline pumping wins. A free-play option is an added bonus!

Technical Specs

The Dark Knight Rises centers on one of the most famous characters on the silver screen. Superb visuals combine the five-reel slot with awesome pay-lines, wild scatter symbols, free spins, and some of the greatest wins around. Cash bonus, free spins, prizes, and bonus features provide hundreds of winning combinations and thrilling adventures in this action-packed video slot!

The Dark Knight Slot Machine

The Dark Knight Rises Slots has countless automatic play features with betting panels that accelerate game options. The pay-line makes this a wallet friendly betting game that allows for potential wins without destroying your bank account. Realistic symbols and Black Knight Wilds trigger the free-spins. Lock into position to increase your winning potential. Bonuses ignite player anticipation while accelerating the heart rate. This impressive Dark Knight Slot Game makes for great winning combinations. Character rewards provide cool prizes and superior features.

Playing Dark Knight Rises

During free spin play, characters appear at random, increasing the multipliers and allowing opportunities for more free-spins. Individual scatters trigger free-spins with double multipliers. This hugely popular slot creates an adrenaline rush comparable to the other Dark Knight Slot Video games, triggering random bonuses on the wheel. All of the superior game versions bring you along on Dark Knight Escapades so that you can participate in action packed bends and curves while experiencing incredible opportunities to win big!

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This 70 level action platformer seems to have distilled down its console based parent into three simple actions, tap one side to jump, the other to hit and hold to fly. The four areas (with ten stages in each) are broken into actions so you learn how to jump in the first ten, fly in the second, wall run in the third and finally hit in the forth. Once you have nailed these skills then the final 30 levels see you running for your life away from what looks like angry old men and spikey plan life.

On each level you will be driven to collect navi-like ‘oms’ which are similar to glowing fairies. The amount you collect, coupled by the speed at which you complete the level is all totted up to give you a score at the end. It will ultimately be this score that will drive you to redo levels in order to improve on your last run and gain unlockables. Each of the wonderfully designed levels feel alive as platforms fall, plants weave and helping hands swing you across chasms. As you run around like a headless chicken you will notice little alleys, or alternative routes that, should you be inclined you can memorize for next time.

The graphics are lush with smooth and amusing animations coupled with an array of ditties and tunes that will make you smile. All of which culminate to create a heart pounding action platformer that will make you smile every time you play it. At first I was a little hesitate to pay the $2.99 price tag but I am happy that I did as I have well and truly got my moneys worth. This is a great game that is easy to pick and play in small bouts, but do not be surprised if you find yourself tackling some if the more difficult levels for longer than you planned.

The polish and amusement of this game has definitely spurred me on to try out its console counterparts.

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More to the point, most of these games require a lot of time to enjoy and are the sorts of games you would only really play while relaxing at home. With that in mind, it makes far more sense to just play them on a PC or games console as they were intended. I soon realised that the sort of games that become fun and addictive to play on a phone are fairly simple in nature, use lots of quick levels, and have some sort of points system that are used to unlock later levels. They don’t necessarily have flashy graphics, but what they lack in visuals they more than make up for in playability.

I have found these to be the elements that make a smartphone game enjoyable and all of these elements are present in one of my favourite smartphone games available for Android and iOS: Blast Monkeys.

The concept is quite simple, even if it doesn’t really make much sense. You have a cannon which you use to fire a monkey called Moki up in the air. Once fired from the cannon you have no control over the monkey and have to rely on bouncing him off walls or platforms. Your objective is to capture three bananas on each level and then make your way to the finish point. Getting one or two bananas and reaching the end of the level is often fairly straightforward, while collecting all three bananas and making it to the finish point can very often be quite a challenge. Bananas are then used to unlock later levels, so if you don’t collect all of the bananas on each level you cannot fully complete that world.

The game is split into various worlds, each containing 25 levels and 5 “expert” levels which are more difficult. The worlds offer different themes, different graphics, and different challenges. For example, the snow world features levels that contain icicles which fall from above onto Moki and kill him, while the space world has strange vortexes that can transport you around the level in unpredictable ways.

Because of the short and quick nature of the levels and the fact that is can be so easy to almost complete a level perfectly and then cock the whole thing up, I have found this game to be extremely addictive and sometimes quite frustrating at the same time.

The short nature of the levels means this is the sort of game you can whip out and enjoy at any time. You could just have a minute or two spare while you are waiting for a bus, or for your drink at a coffee shop, but it is equally well suited to long stints while relaxing at home.

Levels often require you to act in stages. After firing Moki from the initial cannon to get the first banana you can often end up in a new cannon, a floating bubble (which you are able to pop at a desired altitude), or a block of ice that will move you to a new part of the level. It is this splitting of the levels into a few separate stages that makes the game addictive. The first stage may be quite difficult and require many attempts, but once you have managed to get the hang of it you are still not able to complete the level because the second or third stage results in your monkey dying. Not since playing Goldeneye on the N64 have I so much wanted to throw a game controller (in this case my phone) at a wall and sit in a corner rocking and back and forth.

This game is a couple of years old now and has already been enjoyed by over 12 million people on Android and iOS. Based on this success the developer behind Blast Monkeys, Yobonja, has released a sequel called Blast Monkeys Forever which comes with even more features and a new game concept called “infinite runner”.

Simon writes for UK money saving community Suppose.com

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Scary Maze Game has challenging levels for gamers to play through, leading their little dot around corners and down long hallways. The game lends a false sense of security, as in the early levels the corners and hallways are nice and wide. Then on the later levels the gameplay takes a turn for the nasty and forces players to squeeze their ball through the passageways if they wish to complete unscathed. Once the little dot touches the walls, look out! The prank is on, watch the faces of your friends as they receive the scare that you have waited all this time to deliver. If by some chance the players make it to the last level without touching the walls, the games forces the scare onto the gamers once they reach the little green square that indicates the end of a level. For that little extra touch, lend your friends your earphones as they play. This makes the game more like the desktop version in the sound department, which is a big plus for the mobile version.

There is some difference between the mobile version of Scary Maze Game from the desktop version. With the desktop version, gamers have the benefit of the surround sound system that most desktops have equipped. On the mobile version, the audio is reduced to the tiny speakers and this may result in the prank being less scary. Also, on the desktop version, screen size makes the image of Linda Blair; taken from the 1973 Horror Classic film The Exorcist, really jump out in the face of the unsuspecting player. In the mobile version, players would have to place the device really close to their face to have the same effect, yielding the face that your friend makes hard to see at the moment of the scare. The Exorcist is a movie about a young girl who lives with her single mom. The child becomes possessed by demons and the mother reaches out to the Catholic Church for help.

Make no mistake about it; Scary Maze Game is a low budget game. The graphics of the maze itself would make any game proud, that is if the game was made for the Atari 2600, yes, the game is that bad looking. After all, the scary image used is from a movie that was made forty years ago. To make up for this the game developers used interesting sound effects to compensate and somehow found a correct formula that works well for what is intended. The game is published by Halfpeeled, Llc, Geeky Lemon Development, EO Games, and many individual developers and is available on the iTunes store.  Prank away!

[alert type=”yellow”]The review has been contributed by content editor of scary maze games, online community fan page dedicated to online zombie, monsters and scary games.[/alert]

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Candy Crush Saga is a variation on games like Bejewled, where you have to match three like pieces to make them disappear and move forward. There are five different types of levels; Moves, which limits the number of moves you have to complete a puzzle, Jelly, which encases pieces in jelly that you have to chip away, Ingredients, where special unmatchable pieces are needed to score points, Time Limited, which is obvious, and Candy Order, where players must collect a specific number of candies using a set number of moves.

If a lot of that sounds difficult, well, it is. The higher the level, the greater the difficulty, and there are 350 levels in total. That’s a lot of candy matching. The game can become frustrating at points, the kind of frustrating that makes you want to give up, not actually try to get better. That’s the problem with Candy Crush; as easy as it is to pick up, once you hit a wall, it’s just as easy to toss away and never want to look at again.

Still, a free game is a free game, and for that, it might be worth a few hours of gameplay until you get fed up. If you love that kind of challenge, though, this might be the kind of game you’ve been looking for.

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The objectives remain the same as the original, which is that players can build whatever reality they’d like, dealing with mobs of zombies, creepers, skeletons, pigs, cows and more. Worlds are finite like the Classic version, but there isn’t infinite water at the corners, which makes things a little more difficult. Otherwise, most of it is near the same, often being updated which is a plus to any mobile game.

Of course, the 3D game environment really drains the phone battery, so unless you are running on full charge or are plugged in, you might find your phone dying fairly quickly. For some, that’s enough to quit playing altogether instead of always compromising their phones uses.

Multiplayer is also an option and is cross platform from the Androis to iOS, but not between the demo and the full version. The cross platform ability is a huge pull, as it expands who you can play with to a better degree and lets you play with friends no matter what kind of phone they, or you, own.

Minecraft Pocket Edition is great for those who want to sculpt and create on the go. It is always being updated, which is more than can be said for most apps, and it is worth it for those who want to dabble before trying out the full PC or console games, or to whet fans’ appetites on the go.

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Graphics-wise this game holds its own against the slew of Bejeweled and Zuma clones already out their on the market. Although there are not many, there is some really nice animations and the whole package is lovingly polished. Tomb Breaker’s jewel collecting narrative is told through the eyes of a young Tomb raider called Aria Brite. It’s slightly familiar territory but to be honest, it’s all about the puzzles as apart from a cartoon girl and a voice over intro there is no real story or progression through a narrative.

The games main mechanic is matching the same colored jewels with each other that are horizontal or vertical to each other (not diagonal). The jewels do not need to be directly next to each other and you can connect multiple gems in a single swipe. It’s easy to get the hang of but difficult to master. Extra bonus points are given when you connect the entire collection of a single colour or if you cross your own lines. Each round lasts 60 seconds and you not only collect points but special gems which act as currency to buy power ups.

The Power Ups

The power ups come in five styles:
– double points
– 10 more seconds
– lighting mode
– double crossover points
– +1 to all matches

The game is very addictive and it wasn’t long before I had earned my ‘Played 50 games’ gamecentre achievement. Some rounds everything goes your way and you are clearing colours, crossing the lines and stacking up a pile of special jewels to use to buy powers ups and other times you have difficulty getting three gems to line up. This is a great pick up and play game that you can dip in and out of as you please.

The Issues

There is however, a few issues that stops this game reaching the top score and top of that list is the cost of the power ups. I played well over 50 games and earned enough to buy one of the power ups. I eagerly purchased the ’10 more seconds’ power up thinking that more time would lead to more points and more prizes. For a short time (about two rounds) this was true but them the power up was removed and I was left having to play another 50+ games to attempt to earn another one. Of course you can buy booster packs to gain extra currency ($1.99 will get you 100,000 and power ups cost between 3000 – 7000) am I did buy one pack in order to test out the other powers up (as well as support the developer as it was a free game) but I was a little annoyed.

I have spent the week playing and playing and although I still think this is a great game, many gamers will lose interest with it after a while as there is no story or quest mode, and you are ulytimately playing the same board over and over. If there was a steady progression of obstacles, enemies, boosters and general forward movement then this would score better on the longevity front. As it stands however, you may be like me and really enjoy playing it but ultimately stop playing after a while for lack of progression. If you enjoy playing over Facebook and challenging friends then it will last longer but if you are just after a fun puzzler in those ‘quiet times’ then you may be disappointed later down the road.

Overall

Overall this is a highly polished and hugely addictive game marred by over ambitious in app purchasing expectations and limited story line and progression. As its free I would definitely recommend downloading it but if you are stingier gamer who doesn’t like shelling out for in-app purchases then don’t get too excited about the power ups as you will only get to use them one in fifty games.

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The graphics are stunning and provide the player with a vibrant and colorful experience using a cast of well drawn characters and backdrops. The animation is solid, if a little ‘flash like’ but the maps, assets, shop, extras and awards are all beautifully drawn and match the rose tinted expectations you might have of the He-Man of yesteryear.

The characters include all the classics, battle-cat, man at arms, Teela and Orko as well as all the classic enemies you might expect such as Beastman, Lockjaw and the mighty Skeletor. A recent update has also added She-Ra as a playable character right from the outset.

Sounds and music all fit perfectly and they are plenty of swooshes and tings to reinforce the 80’s vibe whilst the music does seem like it might be based on the original tunes from the show (though I can’t remember more than the shows theme song).

The controls try so hard to be intuitive and they make a pretty decent job of it but it’s not perfect. The game has done away with on screen d-pad and buttons and instead adopted more of a gesture model. In theory this sounds great; moving your finger left and right on the left hand side of the screen moves your character and various taps on the right hand side attacks. Swipes upward on the right hand side also jumps your character. As the game progresses and you buy more skills and attacks, other gestures are added to your arsenal in order to perform them. Special powers are controlled by buttons in the top right and you will end up looking forward to the times you get to power up to the sound of ‘I Have The POWER!’ And you be forgiven if you hold your phone aloft when he says it.

There are plenty of levels to keep any gamer busy but the levels aren’t hugely complex (think Early Mario Brothers) and what it lacks in level difficulty it makes up for in hack and slash as are a plethora of enemies of your to cut down and collect those valuable gems. This crystalline currency can then be used in the store to buy an assortment of skills, attacks, weapons and characters. As you would expect, your gem count can be easily boosted with the range of in-app purchases that are all to frequent in mobile games nowadays.

Overall, this is a fun game that not only has bags of retro charm but also innovates in terms of controls. The graphics and sound are fantastic whereas the animation and control accuracy is less than perfect. The free to play model means you have no excuse not to download this nostalgic gem and re-live those innocent days playing with semi naked muscle bound men.

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It all started about three months ago whilst looking for a iPad game for my two year old daughter Lucy. Happy street looked harmless enough and had plenty to look at. The graphics are lush using a combination of simplistic stylized characters and an array of more detailed shops, houses, accessories and extras. The player starts with one house and one shop and only two villagers but through building additional houses as shops you earn money, increase the number of villagers, and when there is enough love in the air from happy visitors you can throw a fiesta. This loved up street party gives your shops a boost whilst elevating the general happiness around the village. Add to that a forest area that you can nip over to for wood, fish, plants and rare gemstones and you have a happy little Eco system.

This was supposed to be for my daughter so every so often we would dip into the game, restock the shops, chop down some trees and set the next timer to go. Like other town sims, players must wait for objects and building to be built. You can pay to have the buildings created instantly but as you can probably guess this costs a lot of virtual money (coins and flooze?). You do earn money throughout the game but for this kind if action you would need to purchase a ‘top up’ pack which costs real money.

Anyway…

Lucy and I would dip into the game and slowly but surely our village grew. I should have known I had a problem when I started checking it without her, and humming the happy little tunes that are the soundtrack to the game. Before I knew it, I was checking it daily and I had more a thriving town that a street that the name suggests. The game is great at drip feeding different houses and shops and add extras such as bus stops, arcade machine, park equipment and its regular updates means it changes with seasonsal celebrations. I have seen various themes come and go such as Chinese New Year and even St. Patrick’s day. All of which have their own ‘collectors items’ which you can add to your village.

This is a fantastic game which doesn’t push in app purchases on you all the time. Instead it lays out everything clearly so you can see what can be bought with virtual money and what needs real cash.

I think the game is slightly to old for my two year old but give it another year and she’ll be taking over my town or perhaps deleting and starting over. Either way this is a great game for both children and adults and I’m sure there is a few lessons about saving up and caring for other people in there. Which is never a bad thing.

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Zombieville USA is simple; you choose a character, each of which has strengths and weaknesses, and you side scroll through towns, bashing zombies with melee attacks or utilizing guns to mow them down. The more zombies you kill, the more money you get. You can also loot homes for ammo and to hide from the onslaught.

Some levels you might luck out and find a vehicle has spawned. It’s neat when this happens; you can tap it to jump right in and it will not only take you directly to the end of the level, but kill tons of zombies along the way.

In between levels, you can buy weapons or health, often a tough choice when you don’t have much cash on you. As you get through later levels, a lot of the weapons become obsolete. Getting into level 40+, you might as well forget everything else and stick with just the rocket launcher and laser gun, which really takes a lot of the fun away. It would be much better if the other weapons could be upgraded to be strong enough to take on the stronger and more numerous zombies (and boy, is there a ton in later levels). It makes it feel like the other options are just moot at that point and it becomes less fun.

As far as it goes, it doesn’t seem like there is an endgame, though it’s possible it doesn’t go past 99 levels, which will still keep you busy for a very long time. It’s truly a game of survival; you will keep going and going against wave after wave until your finger can’t tap anymore. Despite it’s very hard AI later in the game, it is still an enjoyable mobile game you’ll find yourself going back to, from time to time.

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Well, it’s not that easy. The game randomizes platforms, so as you start it’s easy to get yourself up there but the further you go, the more spaced out they are. Or they might collapse when you jump on them, or move back and forth, making it harder to aim. Your jumper is always in jumping motion; it takes a tilt of your smart phone to move him back and forth. The more extreme the tilt, the faster he’ll travel in that direction. The sensitivity can be changed, which is a good thing, as it really is all about how you work with your phone’s accelerometer.

You’ll also run into enemies along the way, which emit a sound that you can hear before they appear on screen. The downside is if you choose to play with sound off, you have no idea they are coming up. It’s very easy to run into one with no warning, making it hard to play this game in a public place where you might not want to disturb others.

Another downside is particular to the Android version; you don’t have the option for upgrades like the iPhone version does, making the game a lot more basic and overall much harder. It isn’t certain whether they will implement those options for Android users in the future, but it would be nice.

Your goal is only to beat your high score; there is literally no end game. This can make for an engrossing game, so it’s best not to start if you might have to abruptly finish!

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Bloodflow is a pipemania inspired puzzle game for the iPhone and iPad. Unlike its retro inspired predecessor that follows the exploits of a plumber trying to attach water pipes together, you are tasked with attaching blood filled pipes to keep the vampire bar up and running.

The gameplay is simple enough and players tap a square on a grid in order to place a tile (or section of pipe). The upcoming pipes are all displayed on the left so you can plan your strategy accordingly. Once a tile has been placed, you can not remove it, only rotate it in 90 degree intervals. After a few seconds the blood starts flowing and you have to ensure that the start pipe is connected to the end pipe. As the blood speeds up it all gets pretty intense.

As an added element to the game, Bloodflow also has various collectables around the levels such as keys and money for extra bonuses and achievements. This gives the player extra distraction and hardcore puzzle game fans will enjoy chasing those extras.

The graphics on Blowflow are cute, simple and lovely to look at. There is lots of little animations everywhere which make the game feel well considered. The sounds and music are funny and atmospheric with some cute voices that will definitely make you smile.

As for longevity, this is where the game comes into its own. The game generates random levels so you don’t have to play through the same levels again and again. Whilst the game lacks a full narrative and end goal it offers hours of gameplay as you collect the different items and gain achievements. The random level generation also means you can quickly pick up and play it and know you will get a new challenge.

Overall, this is a very slick game. It’s simple premise is executed very well and there is lots of puzzle action you keep you busy for hours. The finish is slick as the graphics and sound set the scene perfectly. It might not have the 3D sheen and neon explosions of more modern puzzlers but it oozes retro goodness and brings back memories of the many hours spent on pipemania. Personally, I prefered playing the upscaled iPad version over the iPhone as sometime my chubby digits lost prescision under pressure but either way, its a great puzzle game from Deep Blue Apps.

The post Review: Bloodflow appeared first on AppTrawler.

There’s not going to be many people who haven’t played this game. It’s been given away free at various times including during the recent ’12 Days of Christmas’ promotion by Apple.

The premise of the game is simple; guide your jet pack clad hero through miles of tunnels whilst avoiding obstacles, layers, missiles and other assorted troubles. Pressing the screen fires your jet pack and letting go sending the protagonist down to the floor. The simple aim is to get as far as you can and collect as many coins as you can.

What really makes this game fun is the massive amount of extras there are. In game, there are various vehicles to pick up from a Bad As Hog which is a Harley Davidson esqe bike to a Chinese style robotic dragon. Each of which give the player an addition level of protection meaning it will take two hits to kill you instead of one. These vehicles also add an extra dimension to the game as the dragon reveres the controls, the gravity suit either sticks you to the floor or ceiling and the transporter zips from one random space to the next. Out side the main game there is a massive amount of collectables and customization options to buy with you well earned coins from zombie outfits to coin magnets for your vehicles. Couple that with a huge range of challenges such as ‘high five 20 scientists’ and go 1000 meters without collecting a coin’ and such like. These additional extras are really what will keep you playing again and again in an attempt to beat your longest distance, get those elusive extra coins and acquiring that bubble powered jet pack.

This is a truly fun, pick up and play title which has been excellently executed and ideal for any smartphone user. The game is fun, it lasts for ages, and the regular updates from the developer will ensure that this app doesn’t get deleted any time soon.in an attempt to beat your longest distance, get those elusive extra coins and acquiring that bubble powered jet pack.

This is a truly fun, pick up and play title which has been excellently executed and ideal for any smartphone user. The game is fun, it lasts for ages and the regular updates from the developer will ensure that this app doesn’t get deleted any time soon.

iTunes link: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/jetpack-joyride/id457446957?mt=8

The post Review: Jetpack Joyride – Thrusting fun on the iPhone and iPad appeared first on AppTrawler.

Although he was gone he was not forgotten, and various attempts to bring him back all seemed to fail. Recently there was a Kickstarter campaign (last month) by non other than the egg’s creators ‘The Oliver Twins’ who wanted to give Dizzy a complete overhaul to bring him into the 21st century. Sadly this failed and we had to settle for a Codemasters remake of Dizzy Prince of the Yolk Folk.

The graphics have been lovingly updated from its 16bit counterpart and everything has been mirrored from the original so retro fans and dizzy fan boys will be happy. This game celebrates it retro-ness with an old style graphic splash screen and Amiga ‘workbench’ screen whilst loading. However, for new gamers I am not sure the pick up and carry mechanic will hold many people’s attention. In essence, you have to find an item at one end of the level, take it to the other end and move forward. Sounds simple enough but there is plenty to keep you entertained throughout your journey. From start to finish there is a few hours game play so its well worth the price tag.

The one let down has to be the controls. They work fine but just seem a little ‘spread out’. There are six buttons for each of main points of the compass; up down, left right and all the diagonals but they are on all sides of the screen which makes it unusual to play to say the least.

Overall, it’s great to see the little egg back in action and although many newer gamers might not like the simplicity of this classic adventure those that remember the early day of gaming will play it with fond memories of yesteryear. We can only hope that this is Dizzy dipping his proverbial toes in the world of smartphone gaming, as it would be great to see more of our shell shocked hero.

iTunes link: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/dizzy-prince-of-the-yolkfolk/id474181227?mt=8

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There are about 10 different zones each split into 10 levels, so there is plenty of levels to play through. The levels do increase in difficulty but they do throw in a few curve balls to really stress you out. Obstacles include extra bouncy blocks that send your balls off the screen, spinning blades, lasers, doors, bombs and eventually evil space pirates.

The grunge style spaceship graphics are nice enough and do have a 3D ‘ish’ feel. The deep mechanical music has an ambient and slightly scary feel whereas the sound effect are much more modern and high tech.

The puzzle element is quite addictive as on some levels you have to bounce your Terrorball of various platforms to access the transporter, other require precision arches and some you just have to fire a tonne of balls to blast your way through.

Overall, the game is a solid a fun journey and whilst some levels are relatively easy there are some which will stump you for ages. The star collection is ok and there is an internal achievements table but this could have easily been connected to game center achievements to add an additional pull. There are plenty of levels which is good and we found it easier to play on a iPad a double the screen size. I think an iPad version of this game would be better received.

Its a solid game which will keep you entertained for a fair few hours and although it’s not the best trajectory game out there it’s well worth a play.

iTunes Link: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/terrorballs/id564783785?mt=8

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I am a seasoned gamer and love playing video games but I like to think that I have some common sense as well as a family to feed. Why is it that a simple mobile game which sees you building housing and business, whilst protecting your residents from a post apocalyptic horde of zombies, has me obsessed?

I’m no spring chicken and as such I have played through many a game from an Atari 2600 through to an Xbox 360 and completed, dented and sometimes only scratched the surface (Oblivion) of various games. I later went on to design and develop games for the iPhone and iPad. I thought all of this ‘experience’ would prepare me for anything the gaming industry could throw at me but I was sorely mistaken.

A free download started me off. Many free games don’t stay on a phone for long so I didn’t expect much from ‘No Zombies Allowed’ and to be honest it didn’t deliver much. I built a house and a shop and then had to wait before I could do anything else… Wait!!! Five minutes turned to ten minutes, ten minutes soon became hours and before I knew what had happened I had 20 buildings are busy do their things. I decided to pay out for some cash using real money ($1.99) and swore to myself that is all I would spend.

Thankfully I have (so far) kept to this but this hasn’t stopped me waiting and checking every ten minutes to find out what my little community has made, sold, found or killed.

I started to notice something was wrong when I found myself stocking up and doing supply runs as I walked down the street (even with company). I would get frustrated at the sun for glaring on my screen and ruining my 100% no damage bonus and speedily find a shaded route to my destination. It reached a new low when I found myself at 3am preparing a supply run so it would be ready by 7am when I got up. In my defence, however, I have a 1 year old who doesn’t sleep through so I didn’t set an alarm, I was merely ‘up anyway’. Nevertheless, this is no excuse for such an obsession.

As if to answer my deep routed prayers to be rid of this game I was given two opportunities to finally be separated from my obsession. Firstly, I stumbled on the scoreboard
Which not only showed the top player having 999 building compared to my measly 50 but showed the amount of zombies killed at a staggering and mathematically impossible 2,147,448,679. There is no way that I could waste that amount of time killing zombies unless my life, and the lives of my loved ones depended on it. The second restbite came when I cracked the screen of my phone and had to send it away for repairs. To cut a long story short, a missing sim card and additional damages meant that six weeks later I have a brand new, restored to default, shiny iPhone.

My new phone was clear of game data. My less than angry birds were pretty fuming again having to start at level one and my little town of 70 residents were now only found in the depths of my memory.

Any sane person at this stage would say ‘oh well, it was zapping my time anyway’ and continue on with their lives as normal… I lasted 5 days before booting up the app again and earning my free dollars.

That was five days ago. Now I have 40 buildings and my smaller (but still busy) team are making and selling virtual goodies and I find myself at 11.30pm preparing my shops are supply runs ready for when I awake.

Do I like this game? Absolutely. Would I recommend it to a friend? Definitely not. I have to hand it to Boyah for creating a fantastic game that balances anticipation with action and instant gratification with a long term sense of achievement. It’s perfect for the mobile market and their regular updates are most welcome. However, I have a family to feed and a life that needs living so if anyone can help with my addition, I’m all ears (in between supply runs obviously).

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As I said earlier, Droplitz is a puzzle game based around moving and routing a bunch of water drops. The drops start at the top of the screen. So, the main objective is rearranging hexagonal pipe segments to facilitate the journey of water droplets from the top of the screen to the bottom of the screen. There are a series of spinning dials that have different tube paths.
By altering the orbs, you try to create linked chains for the drops reach the “collectors”. The game is over once the number of drops runs out. Points are given by routing drops to the “collectors”, triggering bonus drops and the number of dials knocked out in your completed paths. The more connections you make, the more the score multiplies. Connecting pipes so that water flows from point A to point B is easy, but stringing together combinations is where you start racking up some big points. After you’ve made as many connections as you can, the tiles disappear, and in order to keep the combo going you’ve got to quickly make a new connection or lose everything.
Controls in the game is basic and easy. You just need to tap the dial to spin it. And you can make the dials move in the opposite direction by pressing a special dial.

On a side note, there are options to change the overall color schemes during gameplay, which makes the game just a little more playable, I guess.

Droplitz is the sort of puzzle game that I consider numbingly addictive. Like Tetris, Bejeweled, Hexic, or any successful game in the genre, it foregoes a flashy presentation, fixing your attention to its particular game play mechanic and lulling you into a sort of fugue state in which the only thing that makes sense is playing more.

All in all, with three gameplay modes (i.e. Normal, Hard, Free Play), Droplitz will keep you busy for a while!

The post Review : Droplitz – A fine puzzle game for iOS! appeared first on AppTrawler.

Well we’re back and what better way to come back than a ‘First Play’ preview of the new top down shooter Dragon Fire: Una’s Quest.  Dragon Fire is a bright, fun and strange top down shooter reminiscent of ‘Pop n Twin Bee’ and ‘Parodius’ where you play Una, a small red Dragon who’s aim is to bring peace back to the land by shooting everything that moves.  The auto fire constantly shoots and you use an onscreen D-pad (or optional joystick) to control the player.  Power ups include Phoenix wing men, winged health fairy and power up coins which allows you to grow extra heads increasing your firepower.

The graphics are bright, colourful and imaginative as you will be shooting all sorts of ‘weird and wonderful’ creatures including flying pigs, minotaurs, griffen types creatures and a whole lot more.  The 14 levels each have 7 end of stage bosses which are REALLY weird such as rocket launcher hog, a spitting camel on a lilo and a strange lava Mexican throwing chilli’s at you… very odd… but at the end of each level you have to face down the dragon guardians.

The gameplay is good and the dragons moves well but there are a few times when it feels a little sparce and its hard to know how much health you have when you are bombarded by enemy bullets all the time.  The music and sound effects fit well and have a epic feel to them giving a relatively slow game an bit more excitement.  The levels don’t change so memorizing them and attempting to kill anything that moves is your best bet to completing it but we still found ourselves going back over the previous levels in order to collect the all important stars as these unlock three mini games.

We were only able to unlock two of the games at the time of writing which all seem to be pig related (weird i know).  The first is a plinko game in which you drop coins down a pin board to get them into a moving piggy bank at the bottom.  Its pretty simplistic but it has two game modes which is great for a quick game/distraction.  The second game we managed to unlock was a platform game like ‘Cliffed’ where you have to get a pig down a tower whilst a spikey bar drops from the ceiling… very fun, but quite hard.  The final game looks to be a tap game but as you needed 5000 stars to unlock we don’t see ourselves unlocking that for a while.

This is a great shooter with a retro feel which took us back to the top down shooters of the neo geo. You can tell its from an individual developer and not a proper software house but this is better than a lot of the apps out there. The build we had did have a couple of bugs which were some gaps in the background and a couple of colour inconsistencies but we hope the final build will have these sorted.  Overall, Dragon Fire is great fun, with creative enemies, colourful graphics and some interesting replay options. Coupled with epic music and plenty of options this is a refreshing game which is well worth a look.

VIDEO :

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There is a tonne of levels to work through each with different goals from simple ‘kill everything’ to ‘unblock the scanner’.  This scanner sits at the top of the screen to let you know where each of the enemies are in relation to you which does become very helpful in the later levels.  Each level has a story which links all the levels together until the final battle on the Kraken home world.

The graphics are bright and colourful if a little simplistic but there are a number of amusing nods to movies and TV shows from the island from ‘Lost’ to the obelisk in 2001: A Space Odyssey. The sounds and music all fit well and the game gels together nicely.  Where this game shines out is the gameplay, after the initial confusion of getting used to the controls it becomes great fun to move your ship around the arena, looping about and zapping the oncoming horde.

Despite the great selection of levels and fun gameplay, the game is completed quite easily and you are left wanting more.  However, it has been a while since I have wanted to play through the entire game so I recommend this game as its great fun and will appeal to both fans of the retro shooters and new players.

well worth 59p

[itunes link=”http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/attack-of-the-kraken/id335511023?mt=8&uo=4″ title=”US Link” text=”US Link”]    [itunes link=”http://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/attack-of-the-kraken/id335511023?mt=8&uo=4″ title=”UK Link” text=”UK Link”]

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