"If there is an app for that"

Rickle Review

June 11, 2021 by RSS Feed

Some games are supposed to consume your life, monopolising your consciousness and transporting you to parallel dimensions full of wonder and intrigue. Not Rickle.

Rickle sits at the exact opposite end of the spectrum. This hyper-casual mobile game involves making a pile of stones, and that’s about it.

Rickle is a tower-building game. It sees you trying to build the tallest stack that you can out of slabs that fly in from the left and right. To place these slabs on your tower you just need to tap the screen.

The aim is to place each slab flush with the one below, but Rickle is a game of attrition. Sooner or later you’ll falter, placing a slab too early or too late. This leaves an overhang, which gets chopped off, diminishing your tower and making the next placement harder.

You’re chasing two carrots in Rickle: your own high score, which is always displayed in the top-right of the screen, and the next world.

To help you keep each attempt alive you’ve got three consumable power-ups: one that automatically places a slab flush with the top of the tower, one that slows the incoming slabs down for a spell to make it easier for you to place them, and one that resets the incoming slabs to full size.

These power-ups are consumable but totally free. You buy more with the gems you earn through gameplay, and by watching videos. Rickle is refreshingly IAP-free.

The Good

While it’s not spectacular in technical terms, Rickle looks stylish and slick in an understated sort of way. It’s text-free, too, making it both universally accessible, if slightly confusing for the first few minutes.

And it’s a quietly addictive little casual game. There’s satisfaction to be found in building the highest tower you can and unlocking new worlds, though the dynamic shifts as you work your way through the game and the intervals between new worlds grow larger.

The number of points you need to unlock worlds increases exponentially, but the number of points you earn per attempt stays pretty much the same, creating ever-expanding deserts of progress where all you can do is inch forward one slab at a time.

In that sense, Rickle has more in common with Peter Molyneux’s Curiosity than, say, Rising Sushi - a fact underlined by the Sunflower Race that developer Polyworks Games is running this summer, which comes with a cash prize.

Outside the gameplay, Rickle lets you help make the world a slightly better place.

How? A portion of the revenue from Rickle goes to three environmental charities: the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Union of Concerned Scientists, and the Environmental Working Group.

We won’t give you the spiel on what these charities do, as you can find that info on Google in your own time. Suffice it to say that they all advocate for a safer, cleaner, more sustainable planet.

The Bad

While we’re totally down with Rickle’s charitable mission, and we’re onboard with its distinctive gameplay arc that emphasises long-term progress over the usual smash-and-grab casual gaming hijinks, there’s no getting away from the fact that it can be a little bit bland.

Most tower-building games contain an element of physics. It’s fun to build a tower, but it’s more fun if that tower lists and teeters, and if misplaced blocks dangle perilously, like the bus in The Italian Job.

Plugging away at the goal of winning a race is what makes Rickle appealing after a while. The basic block-stacking mechanic is fine, but it’s a tad too monotonous to hold your interest for long. Fortunately updates seem to be on their way to help mix things up and keep you playing. You can check out the game for yourself via the App Store and Google Play, and there’s an official site as well.

Overall

Rickle is a decent casual game with solid presentation and an admirable philanthropic mission. It’s worth a look in a block-stacking genre that is perhaps a bit overcrowded.

8.0

OVERALL

Game Controls 8.1

Graphics 8.1

Sound/Music 8

Gameplay 8

Replayability 7.8

$1.99

Rickle

Polyworks Games LLC

Source link: http://appadvice.com/reviews

Free Apps to Download TODAY ONLY 06/10/2021

June 10, 2021 by RSS Feed

King , AtmoBarometer , Face Moji Creator and more

iPhone:

King ( $0.99 → Free ) Adikus King is a popular trick-taking card game. In the course of a session, each player will play two trump and three negative contracts, 20 hands in all. The app explains it very well and is easy to pick up.

AtmoBarometer ( $0.99 → Free ) Dmytro Hrebeniuk This app acts as a handheld barometer. Barometers measure the pressure in the atmosphere and are used to predict weather. AtmoBarometer displays info in hPA and mm. The app lets you collect pressure during the day to create logs and charts.

Universal:

Face Moji Creator ( $0.99 → Free ) MULTI MOBILE Ltd Build your own emoji keyboard and create iMessage stickers with this fun little app. Create, save, and share customized avatars and emojis with family and friends. The app also lets you turn selfies into mojis. Face Moji Creator allows full customization, pinch to resize, move, layers, flip, and ability to add text.

Source link: http://appadvice.com/apps-gone-free

Free Apps to Download TODAY ONLY 06/09/2021

June 09, 2021 by RSS Feed

Watch Case , GameForm: Play Games for Money , Calculator Widget - WCalc and more

iPhone:

GameForm: Play Games for Money ( $4.99 → Free ) GameForm, Inc. GameForm allows you to put your gaming skills to the test. The platform includes a variety of easy to learn skill-based games to play. You’re able to practice first in order to become familiar with each game before entering a tournament. Then do your best to climb the rankings and earn a spot in the top 25 to obtain a cash prize. You’re able to earn bonuses by playing daily and referring friends.

Universal:

Watch Case ( $0.99 → Free ) Michal Lichwa Store your entire watch collection in one place with this app. Watch Case is designed to accommodate any and all information about watches. Log details like date, prices, history, measurements, photos, services, and warranties. The app helps you understand the value of your collection through graphs, charts, and maps. It syncs across all your Apple devices.

Calculator Widget - WCalc ( $0.99 → Free ) Supagarn Pattananuchart WCalc saves you a step. It puts a calculator on your lock screen, making it easy to perform quick calculations. Simply follow the tutorial video in-app to add the widget. You’re able to long press on the widget to copy the results, change the decimal placement, and toggle click sounds, vibrations, and the thousands separator. The app also supports dark mode.

Reminders Widget ( $1.99 → Free ) Crater Tech LLC Reminders Widget enhances the way you use reminders. It taps into the native Reminders app in order to pull any entries you’ve already created. You can then access all due or overdue reminders from a convenient Today widget. The widget also allows you to create new reminders, sort reminders, scroll through groups, and complete reminders.

Source link: http://appadvice.com/apps-gone-free

Favorite WWDC 2021 feature announcements [podcast]

June 08, 2021 by RSS Feed

Sebastien goes over his favorite features announced at WWDC 21. He also addresses a few concerns he has about some questionable features.

Subscribe on Apple Podcasts – Spotify – Overcast – RSS

Voice isolation in FaceTime

Grid view in FaceTime

FaceTime in the browser

SharePlay: Share your screen

Live Text

ID card coming to wallet

Maps direction / lane

AR in maps directions

On-device Siri requests

Siri coming to third party devices

Legacy contacts

Questionable features:

• Safari
• Multitasking on iPad
• Universal Control
• Focus is great but maybe too granular

Sherlocked app of the week: EXIF Metadata

Send us questions, comments, and feedback:

• Follow @SebastienPage and @melvco on Twitter
• Send a tweet to @Downtime_cast
• Send an email to [email protected]
• Send an audio message

Source link: https://www.idownloadblog.com/2021/06/08/favorite-wwdc-2021-feature-announcements-podcast/

Free Apps to Download TODAY ONLY 06/08/2021

June 08, 2021 by RSS Feed

Cs: Music Player , Miximum: Smart Playlist Maker , Windy White Noise Sleep Sounds and more

Universal:

Cs: Music Player ( $2.99 → Free ) Mike Clay Cs focuses on music playback. It taps into your locally stored music library and divides it into artists, albums, songs, and playlists. Swipe left and right across sorted listings to play music, add it to your queue, and shuffle it. The app also includes customizable tabs, a Today widget, night mode, and landscape orientation support. You can also get deeper into your songs with track details, metadata, and tagged lyrics.

Miximum: Smart Playlist Maker ( $1.99 → Free ) Mike Clay Make your own mega-mixes with this music app. Simply tap on the playlists you want to include or exclude to get started. Miximum will remove all duplicate songs automatically so you never have to worry. Navigate through large playlists with advanced search features, including 14 different ways to sort lists.

Windy White Noise Sleep Sounds ( $1.99 → Free ) Franz Bruckhoff Windy combines natural wind recordings with stunning artwork to help you sleep, relax, study, or meditate. It utilizes stereoscopic 3D audio that’s optimized for headphones, so you can drift off into your own little world. The six natural wind recordings can be mixed with rain, river sounds, birds, and crickets. There’s also a whimsical story embedded within the app, allowing you to follow Windy on her journey to breathtaking locations.

PlayTally: Apple Music Stats ( $1.99 → Free ) Mike Clay PlayTally generates lists in real-time, giving you accurate playlist history. Go back in time to see what you were listening to on any given day, and create playlists from your history. Sort through your library based on listening habits and share stats with friends and family. The app also lets you mark tracks that you don’t want included in your trends list.

DailyBill - Expense Tracker ( $0.99 → Free ) Jiantao Chen Manage your personal finances with a tap and a swipe. DailyBill lets you manage all your accounts at once. You’re able to check weekly, monthly, and annual statistics. The app follows the local setting on your device to show the date and currency appropriate for your region, you can also customize this at any time.

Source link: http://appadvice.com/apps-gone-free