The scrolling single player gameplay synonymous with Mario has been tried, tested and still beloved. Why? Because it’s simple, easy to understand, fun to play, and sticky beyond comprehension. But after you defeat every game’s “Bowser Level” that feeling of I can make a better game undoubtedly begins to creep up. But how are you going to do it? Learn native programming and hope for the best? That sounds great but what if coding isn’t your thing and design and creative conception is? Then head over to Kickstarter and back the Pixel Press project so it gets off the ground and helps turn design into actual scrolling games for you to share and play.
All you need is the app, a pencil or pen, and a good ol’ sheet of paper with your swirling brain of game mechanic ideas. Programming not required it’s already included. That’s the thought behind Pixel Press that makes game design an opportunity instead of a mountain of a task.
Projecting art onto a building isn’t limited to high budget production companies developing interactive art and entertainment environments. OMAi, a Vienna-based agency has taken its DIY project and evolved it into an app described as “animated projection painting”.
Tagtool turns your iPad into an intuitive live instrument for projection art. Think of it as projecting in the night sky your finger-painting process. The app is filled with glorious opportunities to utilize the blank canvas of a tablet and display on walls, buildings and other surfaces via controls, “paper” and colors for right and left-handed artists.
Designed to keep your valuables close, hipKey is an advanced wireless proximity and movement alarm-tracking accessory for the iPhone and iPad. Developed by Denmark-based, hippih, they will soon make available their app and app-enabled accessory to the U.S. and Canada exclusively at Apple.com
Danny van der Poel, CEO of hippih says: “While other devices may track your belongings, hipKey is the only device on the market that provides four unique functions, in a practical, aesthetically pleasing device. We aim to make the lives of Apple customers easier with hipKey always by their side.”
Most developers wouldn’t consider working on a tablet as an efficient method to code for anything. The inefficiencies of selecting text on iOS devices, syntax preview options are limiting and hindrances on keyboard deficiencies can be paramount.
Kodiak PHP is changing all of that with its release of an intergrated development environment PHP coding app. The software development tool is loaded with useful features and the code written within Kodiak can be tested within the app, allowing developers to test their script without having to switch applications or platforms.
Condition One, recently featured at the Techstars Demo Day in NYC, have created a thrilling innovation in the form of an embeddable immersive video player for the iPhone and iPad. The technology enables viewers to bend the perspective of the video they are watching nearly 180 degrees with a simple swipe of their touchscreen. Let’s say you were watching a basketball game and wanted a glimpse of some of the action taking place in the peripheral of the camera view – thanks to Condition One you can swipe or pan your iPad/iPhone in the direction of the view you want and get up to speed on whatever was taking place. Imagine, for instance, watching a live Google Street view and you should have a pretty good idea as to what kind of experience the technology can offer
The potential applications of the technology are as numerous as they are intriguing. Condition One’s value in offering an immersive video experience to an extent not previously observed could be harnessed by conflict journalists (in fact Condition One’s founder Danfung Dennis has been covering wars in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2006), sports television broadcasters, concert documentarians, and even music video directors looking to produce videos that offer the viewer a greater degree of interactivity and what some have described as a new form of augmented reality.
We’ve been looking very closely at how children’s apps have been developing and keeping tabs on those that are re-inventing how stories are told. While some incredible designs, today we wanted to share just one of them: the Dragon Brush App – A new, beautiful and engaging storybook app based on a traditional Chinese folktale that takes interactive storytelling to a new level.
Developed by Small Planet Digital, Dragon Brush is the story of Bing-Wen, a young boy who loves to paint, and when given the chance to use a magical brush his drawings come to life. Bing-Wen must then use his art and wits to defeat the greedy Emperor.
We use a lot of different tools to do various tasks and different platforms to make working easier, but “A better tool doesn’t make a better craftsman, but a good tool makes working a pleasure.” iA Writer is an iPhone, iPad and Mac app that makes writing a focused experience instead of a tools heavy application wonderland. Focused on minimalism, the app – which has already sold over 300,000 copies, finds the pleasure in writing and “lets you keep your hands on the keyboard and your mind in the text.”
If you’re like many of us, getting an app on the app store calls for either a lot of money to pay a developer or picking up a book and learning to become a ninja with XCode for iOS or Javascript / Android development – both can be definitely daunting. Luckily there are exceptional companies like Mag+ developing tools to make iPad and Android programming easier to build media rich and interactive app store ready products. Mag+ gives InDesign users the power to publish to iPad or Android tablets without having to know or be a programmer, for free.
Everyone at New-Startups.com is simply addicted to DrawSome by OmgPop, the game development company that was recently acquired for $200 million by Zynga, and it got us thinking: what is the best drawing / sketching app on the iPad? After testing a multitude of great ones, the one that stuck out from the rest was Paper by 53.
We’ve been uncovering a lot of children’s based apps lately around our office because of the sheer enjoyment and inspirational interface development coming about in that genre. It truly is fascinating how developers and those with imaginations are developing ideas to capture the spirit of children in the interactive playground of a tablet. Shilo Shive Suleman, an Indian illustrator, animator and visual artist based out of Banglore created a beautiful animated storybook for the iPad that invigorates children to use their imagination and all five of their senses called Khoya.
