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Daily App: Stack the States is a must-have educational game that quizzes you on US Geography
Stack the States by Freecloud Design is a geography game that makes learning about the 50 states fun for children and adults. The app quizzes you on a variety of information about the states including capitals, borders, flags and notable landmarks. The main part of the game challenges you to enter a fact-based question about one of the 50 states without any time constraints or pressure. In fact, I allowed my children to use a US geography book to help them look up answers to the questions they did not know. If you answer correctly, you win that state and are allowed to add it to a stacking pile that is situated on a platform at the bottom of the screen. You need to place each state carefully as you can lose it if it tumbles off the edge. The placement is a challenge as some states are oddly shaped and don't fit easily into a pile, or are large, such as Alaska, and tend to knock your pile to pieces if you are sloppy in your placement. As you answer additional questions, your pile of states grows until it crosses the finish line. Once you cross this line, you are awarded a permanent state that you can add to your US map. Your goal is to eventually fill the map with states that you have earned. As you earn permanent states, you also unlock mini-games such as Map It!, Pile Up!, Puzzler and Capital Drop. Each one these mini-games reinforces the facts that you learn in the main part of the app. Stack the States is a wonderful tool that makes learning US geography an enjoyable experience. The graphics are cute, the music is catchy and the gameplay is exceptionally fun. It also supports multiple users, allowing my children to learn at different rates. I've used it as a prelude to a comprehensive geography class as well as refresher for those who are studying geography and need a break from the traditional pen and paper coursework. Stack the States is available for US$0.99 in the iOS App Store. It is compatible with both the iPhone and the iPad.
Daily App: Piano Tiles adds music to popular Don't Step the White Tile game
Don't Step the White Tile is a reaction game that challenges you to tap all the moving black tiles, while avoiding the white ones. It rocketed to the top of the App Store charts when it debuted earlier this year. The app's success has spurred a handful of clever clones that build upon the basic premise of the game, with my favorite being Piano Tiles. Piano Tiles keeps the basic gameplay of Don't Step the White Tile, while adding a music component to the game. The game requires you to tap only the black tiles and not the white tiles that are scrolling down the screen. Each black tile plays the note of the song in a manner that is reminiscent of Magic Piano. The more black tiles you tap, the more music you play and the higher your ending score will be. The game offers 5 different modes of play including the following: Classic mode: tap 50 black tiles in as little time as possible. Arcade mode: Tap as many dark tiles as you can and do not miss one. Zen mode: You have 30 seconds to tap as many black tiles as you can. Rush mode: Another Arcade mode that requires you to tap as many dark tiles as you can. Relay mode: Complete 50 tiles in 10 seconds to earn another 10 seconds of frantic tile tapping. Similar to Flappy Bird, Piano Tiles is an arcade-style game that is easy to play and difficult to complete. You won't be able to put it down after you pick you it up, so you have your fair warning now. The only criticism I have is that the song tracks are too limited, with only a few songs to play, you will get tired of playing them over and again. Piano Tiles is available for free from the iOS App Store. It includes ads at the bottom that do not interfere with the gameplay.
A roundup of last week's app reviews on TUAW
Last week was a busy one for app news and announcements, giving your favorite TUAW writers a chance to post some great reviews of the apps that grace their home screens. Here's a quick roundup of our recent reviews -- and a few app roundups -- you may have missed: Weekend App: Keepy is a private Facebook-style platform for your children's memorable moments I've fed this Human-Faced Fish 17 frogs and he's still hungry Daily App: Cubits! mixes Tetris with Rubik's Cube in a new tile-sliding game Bridge Constructor Medieval doesn't fix what isn't broken Take pictures in very low light with NightCap Pro Alfred 2.3 adds external triggers and more Fantastic Library lets you easily catalog books, movies, music and games Adobe Voice for iPad creates audio, video presentations quickly and easily I was having a lot of fun with this iOS game, and then it rained Would Apocalypse Survival Guide help keep you alive? Disney is hiding an excellent Podracing game inside this Star Wars storybook app AlienTube lets you replace YouTube comments with Reddit threads Daily App: Fjuul is a unique activity tracker for your iPhone FaceSnap has Galileo support for hands-free selfies Daily App: Watch Over Me protects you from harm even when you can't help yourself Sumotori Dreams is how my wife and I will now settle disagreements Picplace is a free app that helps you store your photo memories by location TUAW will be back next week with another round of app reviews, so be sure to drop by to see what's new and what's cool.
Daily App: Cubits! mixes Tetris with Rubik's Cube in a new tile-sliding game
Cubits! is a smart tile-sliding puzzler from Rocket Mobile that mixes the spatial shape awareness of Tetris with the sliding row strategy or Rubik's cube. The developer pulls it off nicely to create a challenging puzzler that offers more opportunity for creative thinking than most of its rivals. Cubits! is a tile-slider at its heart. The game opens with a grid of colored tiles, called "Cubits," that you can slide in rows or columns. The goal is to slide the tiles and align three cubits of the same color together in a row or a column. You earn points and clear the tiles off the board whenever you make a successful match. As you remove tiles, new ones appear to fill the board. The game ships with three different modes to match your mood: TIME - A Race-The-Clock mode for adrenaline junkies MOVES - The default mode that emphasizes strategy and making every move count ZEN - Unwind and enjoy the open-ended gameplay that allows you to match tiles without a discrete goal at the end. The app includes rewards such as Power-Ups to boost your score when you match four or five Cubits together and the bonus removal of all Cubits of one color when make six matches in a row. You also earn points called "bits," which can be used to buy extras within the game such as extra moves, a cubit blast that blasts the area around a cubit and more. Bits are also available via in-app purchases. Cubits! offers a fun array of colors, catchy music and simple yet addicting gameplay that challenges you to think. The UI has a fresh, modern feel that makes the experience that much better. Cubits! is available for US$0.99 from the iOS App Store. There are no ads, but the game does include in-app purchases that are optional for gameplay. You only need to buy them if you want to speed up your progress. It is available for both the iPhone and iPad and requires iOS 7.
Daily App: Watch Over Me protects you from harm even when you can't help yourself
Watch Over Me is a safety app with an interesting story -- it was born out of a real-life abduction situation that left app co-founder Xin-Ci Chin uninjured, but badly shaken up. After her ordeal, she realized the futility of "panic button" apps that require you to open and press an alert button the middle of an attack. She became involved with Watch Over Me to provide people, in particular women, with a better alternative. Watch Over Me sets itself apart with its automated tracking that allows you initiate tracking when your safety is a concern. You can select an activity like "jogging" and set an estimated duration for the activity. The app will then track you until you check-in safely. If you fail to check-in on time, the app will then send out alerts to emergency contacts with information to help them locate you. The app also offers a "shake to alarm" feature that activates emergency alerts and turns on the camera to record what is happening to you. Watch Over Me also offers protection before you are in a crisis using crowd-sourced crime data (available in New York City, London, Leeds, Melbourne, Sydney, Kuala Lumpur & Bangkok). The app will alert you when you are entering a high crime area so you can be more aware of your surroundings. It also allows you to report any crime you witness, allowing you to warn others about a possible threatening situation. Watch Over Me is available for free in the iOS App Store. The basic features are free and include up to 20-minutes of tracking, one emergency contact, Email & Facebook emergency messages only and no video recording. You can expand the available alert methods, the number of emergency contacts and add video with a monthly subscription of US$3.99.
Daily App: Vango brings an art gallery to your iPhone and iPad
If you are looking for original artwork created by artists and not some off the shelf prints, then you should check out Vango, formerly ARTtwo50. The iPhone and iPad app allows you to browse and purchase artwork from independent artists who post their work for sale on the art network. Vango is more than just a database of paintings, its offers personalizations that are tailor-made to your tastes. The app has a recommendation engine that learns from the art that you favorite. The more paintings you like, the better the app will become at selecting pieces to match your taste. The recommendation engine also takes into account the colors of the room you are looking to decorate, eliminating outlying art work that may be beautiful, but just doesn't suit your current needs. Vango also offers a visualization feature that'll take a piece of art you are viewing and allow you to use your camera to virtually picture how it would look in your home or office. It's a very useful feature for getting a rough approximation of how the piece will match your decor. If you enjoy supporting local artists, Vango also has a localization feature that grabs your location information and shows you artwork from nearby artists. You can use this feature to find artists in your hometown as well as find local talent when you traveling away from home. For artists, Vango allows you to list your artwork starting at $100 and $250 price points, with higher amounts available as you begin to sell your work and build a satisfied customer base. A "following" feature allows your customers to follow you and receive notifications when you upload new pieces of art, sell your work, or move up to a new price level. Vango is available for free from the iOS App Store. The latest version of the app adds support for the iPhone, making it a universal app that supports both the iPhone and iPad. It requires iOS 7.
Daily iPhone App: Give A Smile helps you spread some cheer
Give a Smile from Nobilebits is a charming little app with a noble intention -- to spread love and happiness by sharing as many smiles as possible. The app is not an emoji library, rather it uses the familiar smiley face that we all know and love. Give a Smile is easy to use. Just pull down on the ribbon to enter the "Smile Maker" mode and start customizing your smile. You can change the color and add personalized text with a handful of different fonts that allow you to spruce up your smile. When you are done, you can share your happiness on social networks as well as via email or messaging. The Give a Smile app is available for free from the iOS App Store. It is compatible with the iPhone and requires iOS 7. There are advertisements that stay at the bottom of the screen and go fullscreen after you send a smile.
Daily App: Duet challenges you to stay alive while you dodge walls
Duet from Kumobius takes a simple action of spinning two dots in a circle and turns it into a challenge by adding some upbeat, yet eerie electronic music along with a impending sense of failure that hangs over your every move. In Duet, you use your thumbs to control two circles that are placed on the opposite sides of a ring. The ring is there for visual purposes and serves only as a reminder of the track that the circles spin on. The circles interact with walls that fall down the screen, and your challenge is to spin the circles to avoid the walls. If you hit a wall, you die and are tossed back to the beginning of the level. The wall that you hit also is stained with the "blood" of your circle and these blood stains increase every time you fail. The game admonishes you to "keep calm and avoid everything," and that is sage advice, even if it is difficult to follow. It's only through a carefully choreographed series of movements that you will be able to survive a level. With the background music and the graceful back and forth movements of the circles, the game has a dance-like feel -- a dance that you inevitably die in, but a dance nonetheless. Duet provides a curious mix of simplistic gameplay, panic-inducing impending failure, and coordinated controls that when combined is surprisingly pleasing. Duet is available in the iOS App Store for US$2.99. It is a universal app, compatible with both the iPhone and iPad.
Daily App: Tipcognito is a tip calculator masquerading as an email client
Let's face it, many people are horrible at calculating a tip. Not only is the math sometimes challenging, there also is the added pressure of trying to quickly calculate 18 percent of $17.23 while your dinner party stare you down because everyone but you is ready to pay the check. Don't sweat it the next time you go out to dinner, come prepared with Tipcognito, a handy tip calculator that is disguised as an email app. Tipcognito has the visual appearance of an iPhone app but cleverly uses the search field, navigation buttons and fake email entries to display the tip and the total amount you should pay. To use Tipcognito, just enter in the bill amount in the search field and use the "+" and "-" buttons to adjust the tip percentage. The tip amount and your total payment (bill + tip) will replace the date and time stamp in a normal email. Tipcognito is a wonderful app for those times when you want to calculate a tip quickly and discretely. It is available in the iOS App Store as a free app with advertisements or a paid app without ads (US$0.99). It is compatible with the iPhone and requires iOS 6 or later.
Hitman GO is really killing it
If you've ever played a Hitman game, your eyebrow probably immediately raised at the prospect of a new Hitman game for iOS. The stealth action titles for PC and consoles focus on picking off guards and taking out assassination targets, and in that way Hitman GO stays true to the franchise. Everything else about the game, however, is completely different. Hitman GO is a board game of sorts, with turn-based puzzles taking the place of actual sneaking and hiding. You control your character piece, the titular assassin Agent 47, on a board where your movements are restricted to pre-determined grids. Each level has its own layout, with guards who either stand still or patrol, and either an assassination target or an exit slot you must travel to in order to proceed to the next level. You can trick guards with noise generating items like cans and rocks, and either make your way around them or take them out in order to clear your path. The puzzles range from very simply early on to mind-bendingly challenging, forcing you to memorize guard patterns and use the rare pieces of cover to your advantage. Besting a level is very satisfying, especially when you take out your primary assassination target -- who are always dressed in red -- with Ave Maria playing in the background, and GO manages to feel like a real Hitman title despite a complete change in format. The most striking thing about the presentation of GO is how gorgeous the faux board game looks on a Retina display. You feel like you're actually moving pieces around the board, and the ability to tweak your viewing angle adds to this greatly. Hitman GO is available for US$4.99, and the only in-app purchases on offer are in the form of hint packs, walkthroughs, and early level unlocks, but each board is so much fun to play and beat that you'll have little reason to consider it.
Daily App: GoodGuide helps you find green, healthy and socially responsible products
GoodGuide is your guide to all things that are good for you and good for the environment. The guide is available on the web and in a pocketable version that you can carry on your iPhone. The GoodGuide app for iOS contains ratings for over 210,000 products in a variety of categories, including food, health and beauty aids, pet food, baby care and more. Each item is rated on a scale of 1 to 10 based on its social, health and environmental impact. You can quickly view an item's overall rating as well as detailed ratings for health, safety and environment. One of the most useful features of GoodGuide is its scanner tool that allows you to scan product barcodes to find out more about the items that you are about to purchase. The app lists information about the brand that makes the product, its ingredients and alternative products that you may be interested in buying. GoodGuide's biggest drawback is that its product catalog includes only those items that are commercially available in the US. You can use the app outside the US, but the product information will be limited to those items that are available in the US. GoodGuide is available for free and is compatible with the iPhone. It requires iOS 7.
Daily App: Cinefy brings Hollywood-style FX to your iPhone or iPad at a cost
Cinefy - Special FX Studio promises to deliver over 100 Hollywood caliber special effects and animations to your iPhone. The app is easy to use, but it is crippled by in-app purchases that take the fun out of movie-making. Cinefy is very easy use, allowing you to pull a video from your camera roll, add an audio track from your iTunes library to the project and then select an overlay effect to add some action to your clip. Once these elements are combined, you can export the clip to your camera roll and share it with others via the standard social networking tools. Editing the clips within the app is minimal. You can set start and end points in a video and move the overly effect so it appears at the right point in the clip. You cannot change the details of the effect, for example a helicopter missile will land in the middle of the screen and you can change its landing point to hit an object on the side of the screen. Adding audio was hit or miss with app crashing on a few occasions when I selected an audio clip to import. Other times, the app would no import the track, which may be related to the track being stored in iCloud and not locally on my phone. Cinefy is free and works for creating quick videos with Hollywood-style effects, but there are limitations which sour the experience. Though the app promises over a hundred effects, most of them are available as an in-app purchase. Of the hundred, only 17 are free. The rest will cost you 99-cents per pack, and there are over 20 packs in the app.
Daily App: Trials Frontier comes to iOS with solid mechanics, freemium features
Ubisoft acquired game development company RedLynx in 2011 and promised to bring the company's popular Trials series of video games to the iOS platform. Platform racing video game Trials debuted in 2000 on the desktop and made a name for itself on Xbox Live Arcade with Trials HD. Now, the iOS version, Trials Frontier, has made its way to the mobile platform. The iOS game brings a new dimension to the Trials series by introducing a story line of sorts. You play as a biker who must race a rival biker who is terrorizing the residents of small frontier town. As a result, there is a cast of colorful characters and new missions that reward you for their successful completion. The iOS app keeps the same four button controls as its predecessors, allowing you to accelerate, brake and flip in both directions using on-screen directional controls. The controls are similar to other versions of the game, even if they are sometimes finicky on the touchscreen. Though the underlying mechanics are solid and the tracks quite fun, Trials Frontiers graphics are bit different on the mobile side, being more cartoony than realistic. The biggest change from earlier versions of the game is the introduction of freemium style elements like a fuel canister system that limits how much you play before you need to refill your energy levels. If you are successful at completing races and leveling up, then the fuel canister will easily replenish itself. Struggling bikers, though, will feel the sting of their failures by having to wait to play. Trials Frontier also allows you to upgrade your bike, collecting parts as part of a mini-game after each race. If you win the part you need to move on to the next level, you can pay right away to get it or wait for the required amount of time to pass. If you don't collect the part, you'll need to replay the level over and over again. Fans of the original series may not appreciate this aspect of the game as it ties your progress to the spin of a wheel and not your performance. Trials Frontier is available for free from the iOS App Store.
Daily App: 15 Coins challenges you to collect coins while being chased by clones
Thanks in part to the success of Flappy Bird, minimal arcade games with high difficulty are all the rage right now. One new addition to this category of games is 15 Coins from Engaging Games. You guide a ship in space, collecting coins and avoiding collisions with clones of your ship. The game challenges you to collect 15 Coins before you are killed by your clones, which increase in number. It sounds easy, but it can be surprisingly difficult if you play beyond the easy mode. To make things easier, the game includes "freeze blocks" that temporarily freeze your clones, allowing you to obliterate them while they are at a stand still. Do it quickly as they will jump back to life without warning. With a reasonable amount of skill and the prudent use of freeze, you can beat 15 Coins in about 30 minutes. The app uses minimal graphics that are flat and blocky. It supports the use tilt or touch controls to control your ship, which work well in the easy levels, but are a bit jerky and not precise enough in the faster levels. 15 Coins is easy to play, a challenge to beat, but once you get the hang of it, you can finish it off in less than 30 minutes. It's fine for the casual gamer who wants something new to play, but doesn't want to play a title for the long haul as there is not a lot of depth to the game. 15 Coins is available in the iOS App store for US$1.99. It is designed for both the iPhone and iPad.
Daily App: WeathrClip brings the current weather conditions to your Mac's Menu Bar
What better place for a weather app than your menu bar, allowing you to see the current outside temperature with additional details available at a click. One simple, but effective weather app for your menu bar is WeathrClip by Gavin Wiggins. WeathrClip sits in your Mac's menu bar, displaying the current temperature along with a weather icon that reflects the conditions outside. Tapping on the icon displays a popover that contains the current weather conditions, a four-day weather forecast, and an animated radar with details from your current location or a specified location. Weather data is pulled from Weather Underground and arranged so you can digest all the important weather details in under a minute. WeathrClip's layout may not be stunning, but it is functional and to me, that is more important overall. Personally, I prefer WeathrClip to the web version of Weather Underground as I find it easier to just click on my menu bar instead of opening a web browser and navigating the Weather Underground site. WeathrClip has a handful of options that allow you to add multiple locations, change the weather refresh time and the units for your temperature. There also is the ability to store favorite locations, manually refresh the data as needed and change the Wunderground maps information. WeathrClip is US$1.99 from the Mac App Store.
Daily App: Rormix brings indie music videos to your iPhone and iPad
Aspiring musicians have several ways to promote their music. One tool new to the scene is Rormix, which focuses not on music but on music videos. The app recently received a major overhaul making it easier to find new artists that match your taste in music. Rormix's biggest change is a new music scanning feature that combs through your iTunes music library and picks Rormix videos based on your preference in music. A tagging feature makes the music curation even better by allowing users to add tags for well-known acts to their favorite indie music video. For example, an indie acoustic performer can be tagged with David Gray, while an alternative band could be tagged with Red Hot Chili Peppers. Other new features include a new bio page for artists that allow them to share their background and musical aspirations with their fans. This makes the experience a bit more personal, allowing users to see the person(s) behind the music video. Rormix has all the common features you would expect in a music discovery tool. You can follow artists on Rormix, like a music video, and browse through a feed of fresh or trending content. About the only thing missing is a "related artists" option that pulls together artists that are similar. Rormix instead uses categories and tags to aggregate similar content, which you can use to find related artists that you may enjoy. Rormix is available for free from the iOS App Store. It's available for the iPhone and requires iOS 7. There are no ads, but it does require a login if you want to use the social features of the app. A non-login option allows you to browse through the music videos without creating an account.
Daily App: PiggyBot is a colorful allowance tracker for both parents and kids
PiggyBot is a new allowance app from BancVue that landed in the iOS App Store earlier this month. Unlike other piggy banks that track real money in your child's physical piggy bank, PiggyBot is a ledger sheet that tracks virtual money. The virtual currency of PiggyBot is wonderful for busy parents who don't always have a five dollar bill in their pocket when it comes to paying out allowance or dispensing cash for an extra chore well done. Instead of handing over a paper bill, PiggyBot allows a parent to create an account on an iPhone and add money to that virtual account as needed. The account options in PiggyBot allow each child to have an allotment of money for savings, for sharing and for spending. When parents add money to a child's account they can determine where the money will go and then child can decide how to share or spend it. When a child is ready to make a purchase, the parent will know immediately how much the child has in their bank and can deduct that amount on the fly. The app is meant to be used by parents and children, with the parents controlling the accounts and dispensing the money, and the children adding in items they want to buy and people with which they want to share their money. Each account is locked by a pin, so children can't access the parent's account and each sibling is locked to their own account. PiggyBot has a colorful interface with enough customizations that the app can be personalized for each child, but the options are not overwhelming. Each child can change the color of their virtual bank account as well as add an image, for example. There are no syncing options, so the data resides only on a single device. PiggyBot is associated with Kasasa, a national brand of free checking and savings accounts that offers rewards. The app is meant to be a utility for parents and a learning too for children to help them manage their money wisely by allowing them to spend, share and save their cash. There are no logins and the app is not tied to any checking account services. Other than the "Powered by Kasasa" logo at the bottom, there are no ads in the app. PiggyBot is available for free. It is compatible with the iPhone and iPad and requires iOS 7.
Weekend App: Doughbot brings you to donuts when you need them most
Doughbot is a clever new app with a singular purpose in mind -- to get you donuts when you need them the most. The app uses your location and displays the nearest donut shops either in a list or on a map. The app pulls its donut shop listings using data from Yelp, Yahoo and Instagram, providing you with directions as well contact information and reviews. With just a few taps, you can read what others have to say about the donut shop and view an overview map with highlighted driving directions to the store. Doughbot is only as good as its donut shop listings, which, unfortunately, were variable for me. The app worked superbly in cities, but was spotty in the rural area in which I live. I tested the app in two nearby cities, Portland and Lewiston, Maine, and had an abundance of donut shops from which to choose. In my rural hometown, though, the app did not pick up the local Dunkin Donuts or Tim Hortons, directing me instead to a location that was a few towns over. Doughbot is useful for the city dweller or traveler who wants to find donuts at a moment's notice. The app is easy to use, provides all the contact information you need to use to hunt down donuts and throws in some reviews so you can avoid clunkers that are selling stale wares. You can download Doughbot from the iOS App Store for 99 cents.
Daily App: 2048 by ketchapp is a perfect port of the popular web-based numbers game
2048 took the web by storm when it debuted last month. Created by 19-year-old Italian web developer Gabriele Cirulli, the sliding numbers game challenges you to combine tiles and build a tile with the number 2048 before you run out of moves. It sounds easy in theory, but it is incredibly challenging. The popular web app was ported to iOS and a version of the game by ketchapp has become an instant hit, climbing to the top of iOS App Store. The 2048 app adopts the same appearance and challenging gameplay of the web version. 2048 gameplay is simple and reminiscent of Threes!, a similar sliding numbers game. You have a 4x4 grid of number tiles based on the number 2 that you combine. You can only combine tiles with the same number, a 2 tile with a 2 tile, a 4 tile with a 4 tile and so on. As you combine tiles, they are combined into one tile, their values are added together and another tile appears on the screen. You keep adding tiles until reach 2049 or your screen fills up and you can't move anymore. I've been playing 2048 and I've not been able to crack 128. I'm not the patient type with strategy games and end up randomly combining tiles until I can move anymore. There are online strategy guides for 2048 if you want to beat in style. The 2048 game by ketchapp is available for free from the iOS App Store. It is compatible with the iPhone or iPad. The app includes ads, but they do not interfere with the gameplay.
Monument Valley is proof that games can be art
If you have a dog in the never-ending "Are games art?" debate, you know that there are good arguments to be made on both sides. I firmly believe that games can be art, and to anyone who disagrees, I would eagerly point you in the direction of Monument Valley, a new puzzler from developer Ustwo. In Monument Valley you are tasked with guiding a faceless princess named Ida through various structures. But these buildings are not like anything you'd encounter in the real world; They're all impossible, relying on 2D visual trickery and MC Escher-like illusions to add a confusing but enjoyable layer of complexity to even the most trivial tasks. Finding your way to the end of each level often means manually spinning platforms to connect paths in a way that defies logic, but in the end makes perfect sense. This mechanic is made even more challenging once path-blocking "Crow People" are added a few levels into the adventure, adding an aspect of timing to each puzzle solution. There's no real timer to speak of, and the game actively encourages you to think out each move rather than rushing blindly along any paths that might be available. And while some levels might seem hideously daunting at first become manageable through a little bit of trial and error. Monument Valley is gorgeous in is design, with colorful shades and hard lines that emphasize the geometry while at the same time giving you the impression that you're interacting with a priceless painting. There's even a camera feature built-in so you can take snapshots of any level you choose, and every one of them would make for a gorgeous wallpaper on your iPad or iPhone. To top it all off, the relaxing music reacts to every move you make, and even the troublesome crows, that squawk in your face while blocking the way, come off as more charming than annoying. Monument Valley is a game that will suck you in with its gorgeous aesthetics, and then bend your brain while you search for each puzzle solution, but you'll have a smile on your face the entire time. If you're even remotely interested in puzzle games, this US$3.99 gem is money well spent.
