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TUAW's Daily App: Push Panic
Appular released Push Panic last November, and it got somewhat lost in the midst of big iOS releases. At its core, it's a Tetris-style falling block game, though it has elements of the old Same Game, too. Blocks fall from the top of the screen, and you have to tap and target same-colored blocks to delete as many as possible before the screen fills up. The action goes from simple to frenzied, and four different modes have you race to delete a certain number of blocks, chase scores and combos, or try to delete as many blocks as possible within a time limit. Push Panic version 1.1.1 is quite polished, with complete integration on both Game Center and OpenFeint for achievements and leaderboards. It also has an excellent soundtrack. Appular has told TUAW that the app is free to download today, so don't miss this chance to pick it up and play for free.
WWDC 2010: Brian Akaka of Appular
We last talked to Brian Akaka back at the Voices that Matter conference earlier this year, but both he and his company Appular were also at WWDC a little while ago. They've been busy. Hand of Greed, their first published title, has been released in an HTML5 version, allowing anyone with an iPhone to play it without downloading anything at all. And Appular has decided to publish two more titles: Attack and Destroy is a strategic combat game that has you leading cartoon units against bad guys, and iSlice, just released today, has you cutting of chunks of shapes to try and score as many points as possible. Both games are worth a look, and it sounds like Appular's publishing business is rolling along quite nicely. Follow the link below to see what Akaka had to tell us about creating a game in HTML 5, where these two new games came from, and what his team is looking forward to in iPhone 4 and beyond.
Interview with Brian Akaka of Appular and Hand of Greed
Brian Akaka is an old friend of ours here at TUAW -- he is a veteran of Mac gaming, and was a familiar name in our inbox back when he was working at Freeverse and promoting their Mac software and iPhone apps. A little while back, he stepped away from Freeverse to form his own company, Appular, and since then, he's continuing to work with iPhone developers, both marketing and promoting their apps. Just recently, however, Appular has moved from simply promoting iPhone apps into actually publishing them. Their first title is named Hand of Greed -- it's a game that actually first appeared on the App Store in January, and has now been repackaged and republished by Appular in an effort to give the app some visibility. I got a chance to play the game last week, and then met up and spoke with Akaka this past weekend at the Voices that Matter conference in Seattle. After the link below, find both my impressions of the game, and a quick interview with Appular about why they've decided to not only promote iPhone titles, but publish a few themselves.
First Apple tablet game announced ... kind of
Unwilling to wait until the rumored Apple tablet thing becomes a reality (probably tomorrow!), iPhone app developer Stand Alone Inc. announced that it's working on a version of its Crosswords iPhone game for the theoretical device's possible 10-inch screen. "We have been anticipating the Apple tablet as the greatest piece of hardware for App developers since iPhone itself," Stand Alone president Bob Gottlieb said in the announcement, "and Crosswords will be even better on the new device." The existence of a game for the tablet shouldn't be taken as confirmation of the tablet itself; though we've had plenty of that. Brian Akaka, of Stand Alone's PR firm Appular, told Joystiq that the game design is speculative. "Stand Alone hasn't received any hardware or specs from Apple," Akaka said. "However, based on the general consensus available publicly, the tablet device is almost guaranteed in our opinion. Thus, the developer has prudently begun work on a new design for the game, in order to take advantage of the expected increase of real estate. The game is being designed to fit a 10-inch screen." So, in the absence of advance info from Apple, Stand Alone has given itself a head start on tablet development -- it hopes. [Via Mac|Life; Kotaku]
