Lucky Dice Is A Super Fast / Super Addicting App!

Lucky Dice was originally a small, stand alone expansion/supplement to the Carnival board game Kickstarter Project (previously covered here and here). I sadly missed out on this, but I've seen the fantastic graphic design and read about the simple, yet addictive gameplay. You roll 9 dice in groups of 3, and line them up on a tic-tac-toe style grid. After all dice are rolled, points are scored on all 8 possible lines (horizontal, vertical and diagonal). Players get 5 points per pair, 10 points per set of three, and 15 points for a straight (3 in a row numerically).

Just this week, publisher Dice Hate Me Games released an iOS version of Lucky Dice, which oddly feels like it's natural home. I hate to say that about a tabletop game, but the ease of use mixed with the portability makes this app really shine. I must have played 30 times in a row last night trying to beat my high score of 75. It took me about 24 hours to beat that with my new high score of 80. 

Games can be as quick as 1 minute, so it's the perfect game for anytime you have a minute to spare. If you have 10 minutes, it's even better because you will need to play more than once. There's also a handy reset button for each time you get a bad roll and want to quickly restart.

Before and after screenshots

My only real complaints are minor and could easily be addressed in an update. You currently shake the device to roll the dice (I'm rhyming now...) but it's a bit awkward on an iPad. The portability feels like it's primarily built for iPhone anyway, but I would always like to see a touch option for the lazy folk. And the second thing is Game Center integration, which, according to the designer Cherilyn Joy Lee Kirkman, is coming soon. (She also hinted at a possible expanded competitive future version called Battle Dice, which is super exciting)

Oh and I forgot to mention... THE APP IS FREE!
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/lucky-dice-a-carnival-game/id523515788?mt=8

Fresh Push Play

Here's a promo of a new app that comes from the Japanese beatmakers, Hifana called "Fresh Push Play"

It comes with some already recorded samples from Hifana. It has a little turntable section that you can do your "wika-wika" plus another section where you can do your left, rights, tempos and some large orange thing that I'm not sure what it does but it makes the sound cwwazy (technical term). You definitely need some lighting reflexes to play live like these guys but you can also create a loop by viewing the overall pattern and choosing at what point the samples come in.

It is definitely going to take some time to get used to it as turns out the skills don't come with the app but it does have a sort of guitar hero section where you hit the buttons when they flash. THIS IS WAY HARD!!! I assume if you can master it (and it allows you to tweet how well you did for bragging rights) you'll feel like you are this rad

I'm not sure if this is the best of this type of app out there. I do know that I would probably use the Garageband app more than this but I do really like the Hifana guys and honestly they can make anything sound cool even a few pairs of Nikes

Oh what?!?! Now I just bought a pair of Nikes. Dam you Hifana and your beats

All I Want For Christmas Is Steve Jobs to Come Back, But NOT as a Freakin' Zombie!

If you've followed my personal blog, blogzilly, for any length of time, you pretty much know the full story behind a charitable foundation that sprang forth from an iPad contest gone disastrously wrong over the Spring and Summer earlier this year.

That organization, which came to be known as Mission: iPossible!, went on to complete its Mission One project at a pace I think everyone, myself included, was stunned by.

In some unreal number like 76 days or some such, the Special Needs Community pooled its collective resources, came together and raised slightly more than $11,000.00 to purchase and ship 20 iPads to 20 kids with communication-related disabilities.

Well, we're at it again. Wanna find out more? Then JUMP!

Batman Map App for iPhone/iPad

Batman Arkham City is quickly becoming an obsession. The game is crazy awesome but also insanely full of things to do and solve, including an epic ton of Riddler puzzles to solve. In response to this, there is now an official Batman Arkham City map app available. For $2.99, you basically get the solutions and interactive maps that you'll need to not got Bat-shit insane trying to solve. This is exactly the direction that games and companies need to go in order to keep the players guide still relevant.

The Goddamn Batman needs no maps, but you do.

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/batman-arkham-city-official/id472027508?mt=8

Dice Soccer - A Sports App For Indoor Kids

I've been playing this app all morning.

It's called Dice Soccer and it's free for iPhone and iPad. You create a soccer team (football for some folks.. probably most folks), and each player is represented by a unique 6 sided die. Instead of moving your players around like most iPhone sports games, you will just roll the dice and let the numbers take over. It's as far from physical activity as humanly possible. You'll roll the dice by shaking the phone, or for the ultimate in laziness, you can just tap the screen. (my preferred method of playing).