IPhone game you can play without unlocking your phone – Steve The Jumping Dinosaur

Smartphones are pretty good for killing time – but what about when you are so lazy you can’t even be bothered to unlock your phone?

Relax, we’ve got your back.

Rather bafflingly, there’s a game you can play on iPhone without unlocking your handset – working as a widget in your Notifications screen.

Obviously, we’re not talking Destiny here – it’s a running dinosaur, similar to the one you can see in Chrome’s browser, and you tap to hurdle over stuff, in search of high scores.

It’s free, though: you can download Steve The Jumping Dinosaur here.

He runs along your screen, and you tap to make him jump – whoop whoop!

You can also unlock extra characters, including, inevitably, Nyan Cat.

Alto’s Adventure (It’s Finally Here!).

Alto’s Adventure($1.99), an endless running (snowboarding) game, hits the app charts today. I have been testing the game for weeks, and am thrilled it’s finally available to the public!

The background art is gorgeous as you ride your snowboard through an ever-changing alpine landscape: first snow and sunny skies, then rain and thunderbolts, with everything in between. The scenes change seamlessly. First, you’re shredding pow during the day, then you’re flipping over some chasms by moonlight.

Check out a sunset scene to the left. The scenery, minimalist yet dynamic, reminds me of Monument Valley.

The gameplay has been compared to Tiny Wings, but the mechanism to jump is much more simple—just use your finger to control Alto the snowboarder. Time your press just right and you’ll fly off a mountain, landing your trick combination and racking up points. Time it wrong, and you’ll crash and burn! Don’t ever worry about getting bored, because the background music combined with ever-changing surroundings will keep you occupied.

You can collect coins and llamas to get points, which you can spend in Alto’s workshop. Use coins to buy power-ups or the Wingsuit. Work through goals to make the gameplay even more fun, or just downhill snowboard until the llamas come home, if you’re into that kind of thing. If you do choose the goal route, you can unlock Alto’s friends (my favorite is Izel.) Each character, a total of six, have different attributes, like being able to flip better or double-jump.

Snowman took the plunge and offered the app as premium right off the bat with no ads and no in-app purchases. It’s worth it. For $1.99, you can play on your iPhone, iPad, and iPod. With iCloud support, you’ll never lose your place because your goals will be synced across all devices. Alto’s Adventure also offers Game Center perks so you can try to save more llamas than your friends.

As awesome as this game is, I’d like more clarification on how to use the Wingsuit upgrade, which Snowman said they will provide in the Thursday app release.

You can spend that $1.99 knowing Snowman made Alto’s Adventure with us, the snowboarders and avid game players, in mind. Developer Ryan Cash said in his blog that the team, snowboarders themselves, “weren’t satisfied with any of the snowboarding games in the App Store. Most of them are cartoony, have bad controls, or are trying too much to be like console games.”

Cash said “We wanted to capture the essence of snowboarding. That feeling of a great flow. Something fluid, fun, and natural feeling. That feeling you get when it’s just you against the mountain, alone in nature.” I’d have to agree, and Alto’s is the whole package.

The game is full of seemingly endless quirks. Outrun the elders, grind along a villager’s roof, and do some back flips off of mountains. But look out for that rock!

You Can Now Play Nintendo DS Games On iOS Without Jailbreaking.

It seems that Nintendo has no plans to bring its extensive back catalog of games to the App Store, but fans looking to play Nintendo DS titles on their iOS devices can now pick up a new, jailbreak-free emulator.

Called NDS4iOS, the emulator picks up where Game Boy Advance emulator GBA4iOS left off. Like that emulator, NDS4iOS users must tweak their “Date & Time” settings before installing the software — changing their iOS device’s date to February 8, 2014 after initiating the download process. Users are free to change the date and time back after the installation has been completed.

Full instructions are available at the link below. While the developers of NDS4iOS acknowledge that it is still a work in progress, feedback on individual games has so far been pretty good.

It may not quite be the equivalent of official Nintendo ports, but it’s the best most people will manage for now.

Until it gets taken down, of course.

Source: Cult of Mac.

Is Monument Valley The Most Visually Stunning iOS Game Of The Year?

The year might only be three months old but there’s already a contender for ‘most visually striking iOS game of 2014.’

Launched today, Monument Valley looks to combine the gameplay of hit indie game Fez with the brain-twisting art of M.C. Escher.

As can be seen from the above trailer it looks stunningly beautiful, and with developers Ustwo (the team responsible for Whale Trail and Blip Blup) behind it, hopefully the gameplay will be every bit as great. The trailer depicts Princess Ida climbing through landscapes of shifting geometric shapes, optical illusions, and hidden paths — all the while avoiding and outsmarting the enigmatic Crow People.

Designer Ken Wong calls it “a beautiful, exploratory experience, somewhere between exploring a toy shop and reading The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe.”

We’ll be back with a full review as soon as possible, but for now gamers can check out the trailer below, or follow the link at the bottom of the page to download the game to their iOS device.

Monument Valley is available for newer iPads, iPhones, and iPod touches. It cost $3.99.

Source: Cult of Mac.

Smash Hit Is Our iOS Game Of The Week.

 

Breaking ALL THE THINGS!

Feel like smashing some glass? How about throwing pinballs to do it?

Well, you can do both in this week’s pick: Smash Hit by Mediocre Games, a free-to-play glass-shattering endless run through some of the prettiest yet most fragile obstacle courses we’ve ever seen.

Here’s a quick video of our play through, along with our thoughts on the game.

 

Smash Hit is free-to-play in the App Store, and unlike many other games using this business model, you can play for free as long as you like. Grabbing the $1.99 in-app Premium update will give you access to checkpoints and cloud saves, but that’s it – spend once and forget micro-transactions or forced waits.

This is free iPhone gaming at its best. Unless you’re playing on an iPad, which you really should try: it’s beautiful.

The soundtrack is as much of a draw as the smashing stuff, too, so plug in a pair of good headphones while you play to hear the incredible connection between the visuals and the music.

Source: Cult of Mac.

A young girl faces life’s troubles, in Oscar.

Oscar looks like a pretty, quirky, indie platformer, but according to Vancouver-based developer Team Sharkeye, there’s a lot more going on.

The game stars a girl who interprets real life problems through a fantasy adventure. She faces issues like bullying and parental stress, but the people in her life are oblivious to her problems. “Oscar is about what happens when we can’t express what’s wrong or when no one listens,” according to the game’s website. “It becomes better to mask our problems, both to other people and ourselves.”

Oscar is being made by Joshua Long, formerly multiplayer designer at Relic. He is currently seeking funding on Kickstarter, with a Windows PC, Mac, Linux and iOS release planned for later this year.

Long said that it is an attempt to make a game that addresses real life problems. “Oscarrepresents human experiences,” he told Polygon. “I think a lot of people in the generation that grew up playing games as entertainment are looking for something that makes a connection with our lives, which are complex.”

Source:Polygon.

Flappy Bird developer pulls the game: “I cannot take this anymore.”

If you haven’t grabbed Flappy Bird from the App Store yet and you’re wondering what all the fuss is about, you better grab it soon. Developer Dong Nguyen says that he’s done with all the attention the app is getting and he’s pulling it offline within the next 24 hours.

Nguyen, through his Twitter account, said that he’s done with Flappy Bird. The game inexplicably rose to the top of the App Store charts after word got out about it – the simple gameplay has you navigate a bird through a maze of pipes by tapping the screen to flap its wings. Each flap makes the bird rise, and the challenge is in keeping the bird from hitting the pipes above or below with each flap.

Nguyen rejects claims that he’s run into legal problems with the game – critics say that Flappy Bird’s art looks like it’s been copied from Super Mario World. Others have criticized the game for being insanely difficult – only true masters are able to get double, or even low triple digit scores.

Despite its free price tag, in-game advertising has scored Nguyen $50,000 a day in revenue, according to an interview the developer offered to The Verge. Our own Rene Ritchie calls the game’s viral spread an example of “rage-of-mouth” marketing.

Nguyen says he won’t sell Flappy Bird to another developer, but that he’s still in the game business, so if you haven’t smashed your phone to bits yet, something’s bound to replace Flappy Bird soon.

Source: iMore.

First iOS 7 game controller, GameCase, shown off.

At WWDC, Apple mentioned that it had been working closely with developers to design a new type of gaming for the platform: creating an iOS 7 game controller. While many had forgotten about the announcement months ago, ClamCase has been hard at work to develop what looks to be the first iOS 7 game controller unveiled. The company behind some pretty nice iPad keyboards has shown off its very own GameCase game controller for iOS devices.

Their website mentions that it will be available for iPhone 4S and later, although the current design shown off today shows a controller built for and around an iPad mini, which could make for a pretty cool gaming experience (especially if Apple adds a Retina display in the iPad mini 2!). The GameCase will work through Bluetooth and will have its own battery source, which means that it should allow for some solid gaming. The controller also has dual analog sticks, a directional pad, and four buttons on the back of the controller.

While this certainly won’t be the last game controller we see coming to iOS, it is the first, and it sure does look pretty sweet. Unfortunately, ClamCase has not announced any availability information on the device yet. Head on over to the source link to see more pictures, and check out the video embedded above!

Source: TodaysiPhone.

Rovio Launches Latest Game For iOS, Tiny Thief.

Rovio has just released a new game under its publishing arm, Rovio Stars. The Finnish entertainment company first announced RovioStars itself last May as a publisher of third-party mobile games, alongside the announcement of the new game, Tiny Thief, which launches today on the App Store.

Developed by 5 Ants Games in Barcelona, Tiny Thief is a point-and-click puzzle game that requires you to find hidden objects along your adventure, which is set in a medieval fantasy world. Each level of the game has three objectives that will earn you three stars: the main task, finding secret items, and finding Tiny Thief’s ferret friend. Completing the main task will earn you one star and an option to exit the level and move on to the next. However, if you want to earn all three stars, you’ll have to complete the other tasks as well.

As your a thief, you’ll also have to dodge the angry townspeople by keeping a low profile. There are wanted signs all over the place, and once you’re spotted there’s no escape so you’ll have to stay hidden from view.

Tiny Thief isn’t the first third-party game to be published by Rovio Stars. The first to be published was Icebreaker: A Viking Voyage, which was developed by London-based Nitrome Ltd. and is a physics-based puzzle game.

If Tiny Thief sounds like it’s right up your alley, you can get it from the App Store now for $2.99.

Play ‘Tetris’ on your Pebble smartwatch thanks to new SDK.

The team behind the Pebble smartwatch released a “proof-of-concept” SDK last week, letting developers create their own watch faces and rudimentary apps. A few are already available on the Pebble forums, but the most impressive so far is a surprisingly playable version of Tetris. Once you get your head around pressing down to move right and up to move left, it’s almost like you have a miniature Game Boy with a slightly better screen on your wrist. Installing Pebblis is a simple matter of clicking a download link on your phone, at least if you’re using your Pebble with an Android device — iPhone owners will need to wait for an official app update, however, or try a direct Bluetooth workaround.

Source: The Verge.