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TUAW's Daily iPhone App: Touchgrind BMX
Illusion Labs' Touchgrind was one of the first iPhone games I ever saw in action. Honestly, it wasn't very successful as a full game, but using the iPhone's multi-touch screen to control a fingerboard was fun. Now, Illusion Labs is bringing the brand back with Touchgrind BMX, a game that changes your mode of transportation to BMX bikes, and opens up the view a bit. One of the big issues with Touchgrind was that, because the camera was top down, you had a hard time seeing exactly where you were going. Illusion has fixed this in Touchgrind BMX by moving to a more from-behind view, and setting the bike along a path rather than letting you freely explore. But you still control the bike with two fingers, flipping the handlebars around with one, and spinning the bike's body with the other. It still takes quite a bit of getting used to, but it's much friendlier than the original Touchgrind interface. There are plenty of extras to find and explore, including goals and scoring medals and challenges, along with a nice replay mode that even lets you send videos off to YouTube and Facebook. There's no Game Center integration, strangely, which would have been nice for leaderboards and achievements. But if you're interested, the app is now available for US$4.99 on the iPhone.
WWDC 2010: Illusion Labs' Foosball HD
I finally got to meet up with the guys from Illusion Labs at WWDC last week. I've been writing about their apps for a little while (their most popular title is Touchgrind, but I really enjoyed Sway as well), so it was great to meet them in person and talk about what they've been up to on the App Store. Their latest app is Foosball HD, a very well-polished and intuitive foosball table for the iPad. It's their first original iPad venture (they brought Labyrinth and Touchgrind over right at launch), and they said that foosball was an idea that vibed well with their theme of making metaphorical games -- "we make more simulators than games," they told me. The app is clean and easy to play, and there are even little touches like projected shadows below the figures and some physics on the ball that Illusion was very proud to implement. The app's available now for US$2.99 as an introductory price. We also talked about social gaming networks, both third-party networks and Apple's Game Center. The developers said that they'd never been interested in adding third-party code to their apps, just because it usually required that they split branding, and that they couldn't integrate the UI in a way that appealed to them. They did admit that they were "more likely to use Apple's Game Center," but even so, their ideal solution is probably just to build something in-house rather than rely on anyone else. Finally, we chatted about handset compatibility, and how they'll react to yesterday's iOS 4.0 release. At the time we talked, they hadn't determined what to do yet, but they said that yes, they would probably end up dropping support for the first generation iPhone and iPod touch, just because it wasn't worth the trouble. Especially with the free updates, Illusion says it's a reasonable expectation for users to be upgraded from the original version. Again, very good to speak with them -- we'll look for more from this standout iOS developer in the future.
From iPhone to iPad: Revisiting Labyrinth 2
How do old favorites hold up on the iPad? In our "From iPhone to iPad" series, TUAW revisits iPhone applications that have transitioned to the iPad. We look at their latest incarnation and see how the new measures up to the old. Today, TUAW looks at Labyrinth 2. I loved Labyrinth 2 when I first tested it for iPhone. So I was delighted when developer Carl Loodberg of Illusion Labs offered me the opportunity to try out the updated version for the iPad. As I wrote about the iPhone version, Labyrinth 2 offers a beautifully designed and fun-to-play classic wooden labyrinth with metal ball game that's fun to use, even for the manually uncoordinated like myself. Labyrinth 2 for iPad is all that -- and more. Loodberg has brought all the visual appeal that made the iPhone version a treasure and upgraded the graphics and interaction for the iPad display. Unlike many accelerometer games that are hindered by the iPad's larger form factor (that no longer quite matches the size of your hand), Labyrinth 2 HD actually benefits from the size jump. In fact, the iPad version more closely matches the real-world size of the original wooden toy. Labyrinth 2 HD hasn't sacrificed the great electronic touches that made the original stand out. You can still use magnets, shooters, ball doublers and other fancifully delightful elements to transform a simple game of balance manipulation into an arcade. I particularly love the pin-ball style bumpers and the little buttons that unlock obstacles. Labyrinth 2, in both its original iPhone ($4.99) and updated iPad HD ($7.99) form, offers a great iPhone OS game. It is priced slightly above the market but provides value for that cost. TUAW is commonly provided with not-for-resale licenses or promo codes to permit product evaluations and reviews. For more details, see our policy page. Promo code requests are not guarantees of review.
Illusion Labs shows off multitouch 'Touchgrind' gaming demo on a MacBook
One of our favorite iPhone games is Touchgrind. Sure, we're terrible at it, but at least we feel like we're accomplishing something "totally street" and "badass" with the multitouch input that the iPhone allows. Well, Illusion Labs is looking at bringing some of that magic to the Mac. They've got a demo up of the game running in a jumbo manner on a multi-finger-friendly MacBook. It looks pretty much like a straight port at this point, but hopefully the added horsepower and screen size of the Mac can make this into something a bit more magical -- and maybe even trick us into thinking we're decent fingerboardists, if only for a moment. Right now this is just a tech demo, and there are no firm plans of a release. From the noodlings of Illusion Labs' Twitter account, it looks like they also wouldn't mind porting it to an "iSlate" if the opportunity presented itself. Hear that, Cupertino? You might be able to get someone to build an app for this mythical device! Big sigh of relief, we're sure. Video is after the break.
Hands on with Labyrinth 2 for iPhone
Illusion Labs has just released Labyrinth 2 in App Store [iTunes Link]. Beautifully designed and fun to play, Labyrinth 2 transforms your iPhone into a classic wooden labyrinth/metal ball game, but it's a lot more than that. Labyrinth 2 isn't just about manual coordination and keeping the ball from treacherous holes, it offers clever tricks and twists including gates with button-based controls that limit access to certain parts of a given maze, magnets, limited-access twirling discs, bb shooters that displace your ball, and more. I am not normally a big fan of coordination-based games. I personally have the coordination of a dyspeptic llama doing heavy pharmaceuticals. I love that Labyrinth 2 offered many levels without the "avoid the hole" dynamics that I could play and enjoy. The visual and sound design for this game are superb. I loved the care that went into it, from the diagonal main menus to the clicky feedback sounds to the ability to download additional levels after buying the game. That's not saying that the GUI was perfect. I do wish that the clicky interaction was universal throughout. UI sounds for the back button and tab bars were notable in their absence. Also the tab bar buttons ("Official","Downloaded", "Faves") were way too tiny in height for practical use. Also, I have no clue what the little Pac-Mac ghost button at the top-right of the screen was for. Those quibbles aside, the game design is really tight. The simulated physics were fabulous, the game twists (like magnets, rotating wheels, and so forth) welcome, and the entire app (retailing for $4.99) a very good value for the money. Even with my limited motion control abilities, I found Labyrinth 2 to be an enjoyable game to explore -- and my kids gave it thumbs up across the board.
Illusion Labs goes to the big screen
This is only slightly Mac-related but it is really cool. We've posted about two of Illusion Labs' popular iPhone games here on the site: Touchgrind is a 3D simulation of a touchboard, and Sway is a really fun little platformer-esque swingathon that has you swinging from side-to-side using the touchscreen. Both games are pretty original in how they use multitouch controls, and so when Illusion Labs got their hands on a big tabletop touchscreen, there was only one thing to do: blow the games up and play them in a big way.You can see how it looks above -- seems like a lot of fun. And it makes you think, too -- multitouch seems to be where its at for the future of user interfaces, and the iPhone is really a breeding ground for testing out the technology and coming up with new ways to use it. It may be a long time before we all have huge multitouch screens like this in our kitches and living rooms, but considering how ubiquitous the iPhone already is (and the fact that almost anyone with some time, $100, and an idea can publish an app on the App Store), we can start seeing the kinds of applications that will live on those screens right now.
Sway releases a free version
If you haven't yet tried Sway, the game from Illusion Labs and ReadyFireAim, now's the perfect time to do so. They've released a free version of the game that limits you to three levels and just two characters, but it's enough to try out the really unique control scheme. Back when I first posted about the game, I hadn't tried it yet, but it's now been on my iPhone for about a month, and it's excellent. Each of your thumbs is a "hand" on your characters (i.e., to grab something with your left hand, in game, you just touch your thumb to the left side of the screen), and then once you've grabbed something, you can swipe that thumb back and forth to sway the character around. It gets pretty complex, but practice makes perfect, and a few stages in, you'll be swinging from grip to grip with the greatest of ease.The full version still costs $4.99, and if you enjoy the free version, I highly recommend it: there are many more characters that you can pick up and choose from, and the stages actually get really tough, as there's a lot of precise swinging that you'll have to do to explore the whole area and find everything there is to find. Sway might be a sleeper hit for the iPhone -- it took me a little while to figure it all out, but once I did, I found a control scheme that's delightfully original. If you haven't tried it out yet, definitely take advantage of the free version.
Touchgrind in the App Store
I remain a complete non-fan of "fingerboarding," or skateboarding on a miniature skateboard with your fingers, but on the other hand (so to speak), I'm a huge fan of physics, especially on a touchscreen, so I'm torn about the release of Touchgrind, which has now made its way into the App Store for $4.99. Playing with a tiny skateboard in real-life seems kind of silly. But playing with a virtual skateboard that responds realistically to your fingers flipping and tapping on a multitouch screen could be really, really awesome -- like a skating game with the best controls ever.Unfortunately, there's no free demos here -- either you jump in for $5 or you don't. But if you do, there's actually a lot on offer -- 3 game modes, 12 different boards each with their own abilities, and a set of tutorials to get you started. I'm intrigued: I'm not quite sure a mini skateboard will keep my attention for all that long, but it might be worth $5 just to see the physics in action.
Touchgrind: Multitouch fingerboarding for the iPhone
I really never got the idea of fingerboarding (though I never really got the idea of skateboarding either -- as much as I played Tony Hawk on the Playstation, the actual thing never appealed to me), but this little app is still fascinating to me, if only as a test of how precise the multitouch controls can be in 3D gaming. A company called Illusion Labs (same folks behind iPint, apparently) sent us a note about their new iPhone game, Touchgrind. As you can see above, it's all about using the two-finger multitouch to flip and switch a virtual skateboard from the top down.Pretty interesting, even if you're not up for doing something as silly as pushing a tiny skateboard around with your fingers. It looks kind of fun, actually -- flip your finger out at a certain angle with a certain speed, and the little board responds. I'm curious to see, however, if it's an actual physics engine (which would be awesome), or if it's just responding to certain gestures and then running prerecorded flips. The game's set to come out in October. We asked Illusion Labs about a price, but they said they hadn't figured it out yet.
