AppStoreGames
Latest
Trainyard's tale on the App Store
About four days ago, I was sitting in a waiting room about to board a train. Bored, and a little restless, I pulled out my iPhone 3G to take a look at the App Store and see if there was anything new that I could download to kill some time. Recently, I'd almost given up on visiting the App Store. With the frustrating performance of my 3G, downloading apps and using them had become more of an endured task than a pleasure. But, on this particular day, I went straight to the UK free download charts hoping for a gem. My eyes immediately scouted the star ratings, and I was quickly drawn to an app that I'd never seen before called Trainyard Express. I think, at the time, the app had a four star rating, well above some of its contemporaries that were similarly placed on the chart. Skipping over the blurb and taking a quick look at the pictures, I thought, this could be a game I actually might enjoy. I like puzzles, and I like trains. So, since I was about to get on one, I downloaded the app. To say the least, I was truly surprised at what a fantastic game I had found. I was totally engrossed for the duration of my journey, not to mention repeatedly returning to the game in the coming days. I enjoyed it so much that I got my wife to download it, too. Why was I so pleased with the game? Two major things struck me. The first being that I was bowled over by how good the game actually is. To me, it's engrossing, looks great, and is a pleasure to play. And secondly, I was delighted to have downloaded a game for free that has so much to offer. That is such a rarity these days that it only reinforced my positive perception of the game. On Tuesday, Matt from Struct.ca, the developer of the game, posted the story (so far) of Trainyard. Matt explains the journey he went through in developing the game as well as the highs and lows of getting Trainyard discovered on the App Store. Since I enjoyed discovering the game for myself so much, it's particularly interesting to read Matt's story of Trainyard being discovered. So, grab a cup of coffee and take five to read the blog post here. Then, go and try the free version of Trainyard Express for yourself. If you like that, go and download the paid version at just £0.59 - I just did. You can catch a demo video after the break.
Hands on with Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games
Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games [iTunes link] brings a mobile version of the Sonic franchise to the iPhone for this timely-themed product. It is officially licensed by the Vancouver Olympic games. With it, you can try your hand at curling, figure skating, snowboard cross, and skeleton, i.e. sports you probably never thought you'd actually be playing on an iPhone. If you're a big fan of Sega's Sonic the Hedgehog, and you like the way the Sonic games play on other devices, you'll be pleased that a lot of the same feel and gameflow have been ported quite successfully to the iPhone. As with other Sonic games, you select the character you want to portray and you are randomly matched against other characters in the Sonicverse. You can choose from single player one-sport events, multiplayer, and circuit mode, where you play all four events. The graphics are superb and the user interface development is top notch. A lot of care and programming have gone into the tiny details that make up this game. Between the animated icons (info is a book with flipping pages, settings are a rotating gear on top of a building, game selection is a happily bouncing stadium), sound design, and small interface details like how menus slide onscreen, I was really impressed; congratulations to Sega for developing an interface that really matches and works with the iPhone platform. I wish the actual game play could match the overall look and feel. Unfortunately, I found playing the events to be less thrilling and poorly conceptualized. Take the figure skating, for example. It was easily my favorite sport in the game, but the way the game you focus on tapping the right spot at the right time (you have to synchronize your tap to a shrinking circle) or tracing your finger along a given design (so you can perform spins and jumps), totally took away from actually enjoying the event. Great iPhone interactive sport apps put you right into the middle of the action. You submerse yourself into experiencing the game play and your device interaction gets outsourced to your motor control as your eyes drink in the visuals . With figure skating, I could barely see the (beautiful!) graphics, let alone enjoy the music, because the game mandates that my eyes and fingers had to be working on locating, tapping, and drawing in just the right place and at the right time. There was a big disconnect. And because of that disconnect, the actual skating seemed to be taking place somewhere else -- somewhere I couldn't really enjoy. The skeleton and snowboard cross events better offered submersive interaction. They more or less mimic every downhill iPhone game you've ever played. You ride downhill and collect gold rings. The controls are based on tilting the iPhone both side to side and front to back. For snowboard cross, you also get to ride through Mario-style cubes with question marks for special power ups. Both downhill events were pleasant enough to play. At the bottom of the pack, I found curling tedious to the extreme, which is a shame. Because if Sega had designed this event with faster gameplay and the ability to keep playing over and over in one go, it could have been quite fun. The problem isn't pushing the stone and sweeping (those parts are actually enjoyable), the problem was waiting and waiting for a turn, as the opponent operated in real time, and in all the setup/take down time for each match. The fun bits are simply lost within the administrative overhead. Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games offers a reasonable value for the money (it's a slightly hefty $4.99) but while the games were pleasant but none of them really made me want to play them again. I admired the work that went into creating the product but I can't really recommend it to anyone who isn't a big Sonic fan to begin with.
