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If you love adult coloring books, you'll enjoy 'Hidden Folks'
Hidden Folks is a deceptive game. It appears simplistic, featuring black-and-white line drawings of industrial plants, dense cities, and forests populated by campers and critters. But, its black lines hide multitudes of secrets: It's an interactive hidden-object game with intricate, animated environments that players on iOS, Apple TV and Steam will soon be able to explore. Players interact with certain aspects of these scenes, tapping to open a garage door and reveal a hidden person inside, or discovering secret words in a tiny letter factory. The stark aesthetic of Hidden Folks makes it seem like a giant, digital, adult coloring book. Because of this association, it seems like an inherently soothing experience. That's on purpose, according to veteran independent game designer Adriaan de Jongh.
Splash Brush Colorbook app beats the mess of a real one
Splash Brush Colorbook is an educational coloring book app for pre-schoolers and Kindergarten kids that incorporates letters and numbers into the coloring. Each letter and number is linked with a visual representation, like A for ant, and it's up to the child to color in the entire page. Splash Brush Colorbook is available for both iPhone and iPad universally and is free with in-app purchases. The app offers two coloring "books," one containing the alphabet and the other containing a number pack. The alphabet pack has an image representative of a word beginning with every letter, plus the letter placed within the image. Everything is in black and white and in need of color. Luckily, Splash Brush Colorbook offers a generous assortment of 35 different paintbrush colors for kids to scroll through and tap to select. This is a big plus as it allows kids to get really creative with the coloring. There's three brush sizes to work with and three eraser sizes. Even the smallest brush size seemed a bit too big as it was hard to color into edges of borders. Additionally, the app seems to be more tailored for iPad use. Even drawing on my iPhone 6 feels cramped. Underneath the paintbrush and eraser are buttons to save and share the colorful creation or clear all progress and start from scratch. Parents be warned: the sharing feature means your children can share their paintings to your social networks if they're using your iOS device. An ant accompanies the letter A, a bear accompanies the letter B, a cat is with the letter C, so on and so forth. For free, the app gives you six different canvas: A, B, C, D, E and F. To unlock the rest of the alphabet requires an in-app purchase for US$0.99. The numbers pack is also a separate purchase for the same price. The app lets kids to save their work to the camera roll, but there isn't a way to save it within the app or even just save progress to return and complete later. That's a bit disappointing. Kids will have to complete their work within one shot. It'd be nice if Splash Brush Colorbook offered a save-progress feature, but I could also see the alphabet pack being a 26-day project for kids to complete, assuming you're willing to shell out a buck to unlock the full set of letters. I also took my iPhone off silent to discover the app apparently plays music too. It's no Bach or Beethoven, though thankfully it's no Nicki MInaj either - just your average clichéd but always pleasant ice cream truck songs. My biggest feature request is actually smaller brush sizes to make coloring easier, especially on an iPhone's comparatively small screen real estate. Still, Splash Brush Colorbook is definitely worth a download in my book. Even if you opt to spend the $2 for both in-app purchases, that's likely cheaper than buying an physical, educational coloring book...and it's much less messier too. Get Splash Brush Colorbook for free in the App Store.
The Daily Grind: How much time and effort do you spend on your character's appearance?
Guild Wars 2 has an interesting way of handling dyes, with a pool of colors that you can alter at any time that propagates to all of your present and future equipment. It also makes me stop dead in the middle of my leveling and spend about an hour trying out color combinations and then start over when I got a new chestpiece and a nice new pale green dye -- something that I will no doubt do all over again as soon as I replace the existing chestpiece. This isn't unusual. I spend a lot of money in Guild Wars on dyes and mixing them for just the right look. I've spent huge chunks of time in Star Wars: The Old Republic hunting for just the right modifiable pieces of armor. These are times spent looking for things that look the way I want, not actually spent playing the game or improving my character in any other way. But what about you? How much time and effort do you spend on your character's appearance? Is it a major part of the game for you, or just something that you barely consider? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
Patch 1.20 bringing Final Fantasy XIV changes to dye for
When patch 1.19 brought major revisions to item recipes in Final Fantasy XIV, it also brought about a big shift in dyeing items. While it was easier to color items with several universal dyes, it was also near-mandatory to have certain colors of equipment, as dyed variants provided additional statistical benefits for characters. Players were a little miffed about this, even if the stat changes weren't that huge -- which is why patch 1.20 will be taking the change a step further and uncoupling stats from color. Under the new system, there will be ways to create specific variants of equipment with improved stats, but color will no longer be linked to the final stats for the item. Items currently possessing multiple color variants will still have multiple variants, but the main differentiation won't be whether they're brown or black. It's not an earth-shattering change, but it's certainly one that will make Final Fantasy XIV fashion police much happier.
Daily iPad App: Monster Coloring Book
Monster Coloring Book is so adorable that I had a hard time putting it down long enough to write a review. It's an iPad coloring book that has a series of monsters you can "color" using your finger as a brush or tapping to fill an area. If you find that the iMarker/Crayola ColorStudio HD combo is a bit too costly, this is Monster Coloring Book is a much cheaper alternative without the stylus. There's quite a few options that can be chosen including different colors, brushes, stickers and patterns. You can change the size on the brushes to make sure you keep inside the lines. You can share your creation in a gallery on the app, email, print or export it. You can listen to music while you or your child (come on, we know you'll use this too) color, including some classical tracks to introduce new composers. The free app comes with one brush and the option to purchase more with an in-game currency called Monsterbucks. You start off with 1,000 Monsterbucks in the free game, so you can add on a couple of brushes or purchase an extra monster or two before you're prompted to buy more. Also, performing some activities will net you a few extra Monsterbucks. All of the starter monsters are free, so there's plenty to experiment with before deciding if you want to purchase more. There are 150 pages in all that can be acquired. There are a couple of caveats. When you try to purchase Monsterbucks in the app, it doesn't let you know how many real-life dollars the purchase is. As seen from the fiasco over the Smurfs Village app, this could potentially cause a problem. However, if you want full access to all the features without dealing with the in-game currency, get $1.99 paid app. All of the app content is unlocked, so it's much cheaper than purchasing in-game currency. The tools work well, except I have a difficult time rotating some of the stickers using the 2-finger rotating gesture. A cheat sheet pops up when you use stickers so it's easy for new users to figure out how to reshape and rotate them. Monster Coloring Book is definitely an app to have on your iPad for kids of all ages -- and the adults who still have the desire to try to color inside the lines.
Lost Pages of Taborea: Customization in Guild Wars 2 and Runes of Magic
It took me a little while, but you should know by now that I was going to do a Guild Wars 2 comparison. It's a little later than I previously said I'd write it, but there's no time like the present, right? Runes of Magic has been chugging along for over two years now, while GW2 is -- sort of -- just around the corner, and Guild Wars is the veteran of the bunch at six years of age. What do these MMOs have in common that would provoke me to attempt a comparison? I'll give you a hint: It has nothing to do with jumping. What they do share is character customization, which, really, many MMOs have. It's a pretty standard feature. In this week's Lost Pages of Taborea, I thought it would be interesting to take a look at how RoM could have taken some customization cues from GW, while GW2 might be taking some from RoM -- sort of like a movie based off a show based off a movie.
Review: Crayola ColorStudio HD and Griffin iMarker pair up for coloring time
When Griffin and Crayola announced their collaboration back at CES in January, the idea of a combined stylus and drawing/painting iPad app for kids -- with the power to distinguish between finger touches and the tip of the stylus -- sounded fantastic. The flexibility of the iPad for keeping kids engaged and entertained, especially on long trips, is remarkable; something like the iMarker could supercharge it substantially. We were curious, though: how (and how well) would it actually work? Now shipping in both the App Store and at Best Buy, the iMarker and ColorStudio HD combine a well-designed, kid-friendly app with an innovative stylus technology, but is the bundle US$30 worth of fun? And does it meet the demands of both parents and kids? There are plenty of painting and coloring apps already out for iPad, so let's talk about what sets this package apart: the hardware. Griffin's iMarker stylus -- a black and silver unit labeled as "Assembled in China; Designed in Nashville" -- is different from other capacitive pen-like accessories, because it's powered (by a single AA battery) and because the free ColorStudio HD app can differentiate between finger-touches and the stylus tip. The trick, apparently, is all about speed. A small electric motor in the iMarker 'buzzes' the electrostatic tip, making and breaking contact extremely rapidly; you can hear this vibration in action if you hold the stylus close to your ear, although it's not particularly audible at arm's length. There's also a lighted oval on the side of the stylus to let you know it's on. Since the app is watching for a vibrating touch, it can tell when you're using your finger to operate in-app controls like crayon color selection or brush size and when you're using the pen to actually draw. It sounds technically complex, but like all good iPad-related products, in practice it "just works" -- even for small kids. I found initially that it took a somewhat firm press of the stylus to get it to register on the screen, but a check of the Griffin FAQ for the product suggested that I'd get better results by removing my iPad from its case. That worked well, and the pen became somewhat more responsive when I was holding the back of my iPad in my hand. (Back-case skins or front screen protectors will also decrease the pen sensitivity.) With the distinction between pentip and fingertip being handled in software, it feels very natural to switch back and forth from app controls (color/brush selection, undo, email/save, etc.) to drawing with the stylus. If you leave the stylus at home, however, the activated version of the app (you unlock the full feature set by drawing a pattern with the purchased stylus) lets you switch into fingers-only mode at will. Annoyingly, the iMarker comes with a protective cap that doesn't fit on the back end of the stylus, so you have to tuck it away somewhere else or risk losing it.
Colorware now painting iPad 2s
Our friends at Engadget report that the fine folks at ColorWare are now ready to color your iPad 2 however you'd like. ColorWare's skinning process is super-high quality, and you can basically customize your iPad 2 however you want: coloring the Apple logo, back panel, or even front home button with any shade from their extensive palettes. Just like the other ColorWare customization, this is a polymer-based coating that looks great and stays on firmly. But it'll cost you. You can either buy an iPad 2 straight from the company all dressed up for US$900 (or more than $1000 if you want to go for the 3G version), or send them the one you already own and pay $400 and up for just the coloring process. That ain't cheap, but then again, this is pretty much the best color customization company around. Don't have an iPad 2 but still want a colored iPad? The company is still accepting "send-in" orders on Apple's previous tablet, but they won't be able to sell you one anymore. The price is slightly cheaper, though -- only $350.
Bring a little color to your ride in Fallen Earth
As you scour the wastelands in Fallen Earth, most likely you're taking advantage of the situation by getting yourself a vehicle. Not just any vehicle -- you want something that's flashy, functional, and durable. A fair amount of storage would help, too. Yet for all the options given to players, you've been largely restricted to the main colors of the game world for your new roadster until now. The first phase of color customization is hitting the live servers tomorrow, and it brings with it the option to pay a Garage Manager a fee and pimp your ride with a nice new paint job. Four paint and dye kits are being added to the crafting of dyes, with each one working on a different range of vehicles and offering the same selection of colors. On top of that, there are eight additional kits of higher rarity -- three of which are found out in the world, and five of which are crafted from new rare components. While our preview gallery doesn't seem to include Safety Orange, Hot Pink, or Powder Blue among its selection, you can take a look to see just how slick your Fallen Earth wheels will look after the patch. %Gallery-98329%
iPad apps: defining experiences from the first wave
There are now over 1,348 approved apps for the iPad. That's on top of the 150,000 iPad-compatible iPhone programs already available in the App Store. When Apple's tablet PC launches, just hours from now, it will have a software library greater than that of any handheld in history -- not counting the occasional UMPC. That said, the vast majority of even those 1,348 iPad apps are not original. They were designed for the iPhone, a device with a comparatively pokey processor and a tiny screen, and most have just been tweaked slightly, upped in price and given an "HD" suffix -- as if that somehow justified the increased cost. Besides, we've seen the amazing potential programs have on iPhone, Android, Blackberry, Windows Mobile and webOS when given access to a touchscreen, always-on data connection, GPS, cloud storage and WiFi -- but where are the apps that truly define iPad? What will take advantage of its extra headroom, new UI paradigms and multitouch real estate? Caught between netbook and smartphone, what does the iPad do that the iPhone cannot? After spending hours digging through the web and new iPad section of the App Store, we believe we have a number of reasonably compelling answers. Update: Now includes Wormhole Remote, TweetDeck, SkyGrid, Touchgrind HD, GoToMeeting, SplitBrowser, iDisplay, Geometry Wars and Drawing Pad.
Pimp your ride, Lord of the Rings Online style
Ok, ok, so the contest isn't called "Pimp Your Horse," but Codemasters does want you to submit your own designs for a new horse in Lord of the Rings Online. Here's the chance for aspiring artists to really customize a game that they love by submitting original designs for horse coloring, saddle color, and blanket design. Or you could do what we did and find the worst possible design to put on your horse, followed by a flame decal. Oh yeah, totally rockin'.The winner (which will totally be our lightning fast purple speed mount we named "Schuster's Shooter") will receive a Codemasters goodie bag, a unique forum title and avatar, and their design appearing in the live game as a player mount. Two runners up will also get the the goodie bag and forum prizes as well.So what are you waiting for? Get in the saddle and start designing!Update: Turbine just got in contact with us, and apparently the contest is for United States and North American audiences too! Go, design, let one horse rule them all!
World of WarCrafts: Color the Wendigo
Every Thursday, Shelbi Roach of The Bronze Kettle guides you in creating WoW-inspired crafts using real world mats with World of WarCrafts.Between the high possibility of servers going down, potential queues, or just general lack of mobs to kill because of the massive influx of Northrend nubs you're probably going to have some downtime. Yeah, you could probably join in with the Barrens Chat-esque Chuck Norris jokes that will inevitably plague the general channels of the two starter zones, or you could bust out the Crayolas and color this awesome Wendigo.Here is what you will need: White Cardstock Printer Colors (Pencils, Crayons, Markers, etc.) Scissors Glue Click on the images below to view a gallery of step-by-step instructions. %Gallery-36756% Want to print the step-by-step instructions? Copy and paste the instructions below.
Colorware concocts competent console coloring
Although we fully expect Nintendo to announce new Wii colors in the next year, why not take matters into your own hands and get your Wii custom colored. You can also get your Xbox 360 and/or PS3 done at the same time. ColorWare will let you choose the custom color you want for your console and ship it back to you in 8-10 business days, the cost starts around $100, but to do it right with the controllers and other tweaks it's more like $200. You can purchase your console directly from ColorWare as well and cut out the shipping time (of course the Wii are out of stock).For those who just need their console match the drapes and scream personality, this looks like a relatively inexpensive and painless solution. Although the colors above look like '80s jacket, '50s refrigerator and hospital green, there's actually a great assortment of colors to choose from. You can always attempt to do a custom paint-job yourself, but for those who would go ahead a purchase another console just for a color, spending the $100 - $200 here might be just a little more economical.
Merchandising, merchandising, merchandising [Updated]
Over at Casual WoW, Delaney talks about some of the merchandising choices Blizzard has made with World of Warcraft. Sure, there's the card game, the board game, the action figures, and a variety of amusing t-shirts and hats, but it seems like we're still lacking. As an example of what Blizzard's missing, we're presented with some utterly charming screenshots that have been photoshopped into coloring book pages. And now, if you'll just excuse me, I think I need to fire up my printer and find my box of crayons...Update: Delaney's made a follow-up post with not only more coloring book pages, but instructions on how to make your own using Photoshop Elements.
Crave opening big box of virtual Crayolas
The washable-crayon-stylus hybrid thing seen here may still be a dream in our somewhat odd fanboy minds, but it is true that Crayola is bringing its unique brand of waxy, brittle pigment to the DS in electronic form. The company has made an agreement with publisher Crave to release a Crayola-themed DS game.Apparently, the game will be a minigame collection, with all of the minigames involving drawing and coloring with a wide selection of Crayola crayons. We're excited about this if only for the possibility that we may get to color a dinosaur. And because this way we won't lose 33 of our 64 colors within a week.
Taco HTML v1.7.2 is Universal
If Dreamweaver is a bit overkill for some web work on your desk, Taco HTML might just be the editor for you. It's a small yet feature-packed web editor with tag coloring, HTML preview, syntax checking, code snippets and more. It's my favorite editor for HTML pages or tweaking a WordPress PHP page file or two.As far as I can tell, Taco HTML is provided free, and is a Universal Binary. Check it out if you read this post in less time than it takes Dreamweaver to start up.
