Ana Simpa Labras: July 2011

1503

AAQR: Star Chart ($3.23)

Image via WikipediaSorta like Google Sky Map but with a lot more visual flair, Star Chart lets you explore the constellations in the sky and find out details about them.

In AR (augmented reality) mode, just start the app, then point the device up at the sky and look for matching things. It will highlight the constellations (complete with illustration and lines), as well as any significant astronomical objects such as galaxies, planets, and nearby stars. Pan the phone and let it act as a virtual portal. You can even engaged the red-tinted "night mode" to preserve your night vision.

In normal mode, just swipe / drag the view to desired spot. You can choose to hide or show lines, illustrations, and such.

Good app if you are an amateur star watcher, or have interest in the field. Good companion to a decent telescope. My only complaint? Size. Just over 2 MB download expanded to over 14MB app (according to Titanium Backup). Still, it's nice.

http://www.appbrain.com/app/star-chart/com.escapistgames.starchart

AAQR: Jamie's 20 Minute Meals ($8.11)

NOTE: This app was given away free for one day on Amazon Appstore

Jame's 20 Minute Meals is a series of lessons on cooking basics from Jamie Oliver, celebrity chef, that also teaches cooking basics and prep basics. It has video, pictures, and descriptions, as well as recipes that scales from 2 to 4 people, and even creates a shopping list for you. It is a well polished app, though the price seems to be a bit high.

App itself is almost 3MB. When you run it, it needs to download ANOTHER 80MB worth of data (photos and such), and even then, the videos are pulled / streamed separately.

The photos are nicely done, as are the instructions, which seem to be out of the cookbook. Videos are nicely done as well, clear instructions. Should produce some decent results.

I just don't know about having a phone or tablet in the kitchen with all that oil and smoke and all that. :D

http://www.appbrain.com/app/jamies-20-minute-meals/com.zolmo.twentymm

AAQR: GRave Defense HD (free, $1.99)

GRave Defense is a "fixed path" tower defense game. It has a cute story, and it has a few interesting features such as multiple entrances and exits, and some of the weapons are interesting, but that's about it.

(To clarifiy, I classify tower defense games into "grid" vs. "fixed path". This one is fixed path variant: multiple entrances and exits. )

The story is typical nuclear apocalypse, humanity survived by hiding in vaults. Outside, the landscape has recovered... except for all these nasties mutated into unknown forms. Your job is to build defenses to block the incoming hordes. Blah blah blah. There's X number of lives in the city and there are some militia as final defense. Your job is to make sure as little as possible (preferably none) reach the city/village/whatever.

The fun part about this game is there are usually multiple entrances for the nasties, and multiple exits, so you can't rely on just a few turrets, but have to space yourself out because you don't know which path the nasties will be using.

Your turrets are air only, ground only, or both. A ground-only turret won't engage air targets. Each turret can be upgraded several times (usually 5) and gets vastly improved firepower, and the upgrades are relatively cheap compared to the turret cost. Typical gatling is about $250, and each upgrade is like $25-30. Some of the more expensive towers can cost a LOT of money. A freeze tower is like $2500.

Later you see nasties that can damage your turrets, but you can place mines to block them.

Graphics are quite good. The sprites are detailed enough though not that animated. The scenery is cute, but the scale seem to be a bit off.

Music and sound... average. Techno track is boring, and sound doesn't mix so turrets all shooting just makes a cacophony of sounds any way. Turn it all off.

Hardware wise, it runs fine on my OG Droid, which is saying a LOT, as most HD games often don't run on OG Droid with only 256MB of RAM.

All in all, GRave Defense brings a few new wrinkles to the Tower Defense genre, and is a well polished game, and should satisfy your thrist for "another round" of tower defense.

8 out of 10

http://www.appbrain.com/app/grave-defense-hd-free/com.artofbytes.gravedefence.hd.free

last day of July

It's going to be the last day in July tomorrow. I'm very busy these days. I have many things to tell you. This month is full of new events to me. I'll report to you little by little since I have to be ready for my 2nd pastel workshop tomorrow. Then the next day, I'm going to Hakone to stay there for one night. I'm very looking forward to seeing the fireworks from my Ryokan(Japanese-style inn) room! The fireworks will be displayed over this lake!

Lake Hakone

However, the weather is not good these days. The sudden and heavy rain damages some areas in Japan.

When we see the world, lots of bad news are heard like terrorism in Norway, bullet train accident in China and heavy rain in South Korea. Some were done by Human and some were done by Nature. Human beings are powerless in front of power of Nature. I wish everybody remember the fact and view things on a large scale.

I hope the weahter will be perfect soon!!