Readers’ App Reviews – April 2013

More great apps by fellow readers!

More great apps by fellow readers!

Just because Apple didn’t announce anything this month, that didn’t stop you guys! There were a ton of apps submitted this month.

This month we’ve got:

• A bird that lost his girlfriend
• Ninjas with rocket launchers
• An app to help you with your guitar lessons
• A dog approved baseball game (woof!)
• And much more!

Keep reading for some app reviews for awesome apps made by your fellow readers!

Super Bird Adv.

Don’t you hate it when you’re on vacation and an evil Kong kidnaps your girlfriend? Super Bird does!

Super Bird Advance is your classic platformer polished to shine. Super Bird has three unique forms, nine special abilities, and more add on items in the shop. There are three worlds with 32 levels featuring 30 different obstacles in your way.

Super Bird Advance is a very well made game packing universal and GameCenter support with graphics and music you’d expect from this classic style game.

• Author: Karl Yu
• Most useful tutorial: How To Make a Simple Multiplayer Game with Game Center Tutorial: Part 1/2
• App Store Link: Check it out!

Ninja Vs Demons

Ninja’s have been missing out using swords instead of pistols and rocket launchers.

Ninjas vs Demons is a side scroller that pits your pistol carrying ninja against swarms of zombie and demon ninjas out for blood. Luckily you can update to machine guns and rocket launchers to really bring the heat.

Make sure you track your zombie ninja blasting rank on the GameCenter leaderboards.

• Author: Andreas Riegler @AndreasRiegler
• Most useful tutorial: How To Make A Simple iPhone Game with Cocos2D
• App Store Link: Check it out!

Angry Bards

Angry Bards was not at all what I expected.

In its 8-bit glory, Angry Bards surprised me with fun, tap and blast gameplay. Fighting knights and wizards using music notes doesn’t sound effective, but I was racking up some points!

I felt like I barely scratched the surface of this game after 20 minutes of playing. There are 8 beards and 15 costumes to unlock. As well as plenty of levels to keep you going.

The soundtrack was by far my favorite part.

• Author: Zachariah Hintze
• Most useful tutorial: How To Create a Multi-Directional Scrolling Shooter Part 1
• App Store Link: Check it out!

Smart Riddles

Smart Riddles caught my attention before I had a chance.

Just opening the app, I was presented with a riddle. And I was immediately hooked. Swiping through riddle after riddle. It didn’t hurt that the app was very nice to look at.

You can favorite riddles for later, share them, and search through your catalog. There is an in app purchase to unlock an extra 500. Well worth the $0.99 if you’re into riddles.

• Author: Jon Cox @OchoApps
• Most useful tutorial: How to Add Search Into a Table View
• App Store Link: Check it out!

Frog Bog

Frogger meets sliding puzzles.

Frog Bog is was immediately addicting for me. Its similar to a normal sliding puzzle where you try to solve it in as few moves as possible. However its got cute graphics and a few twists.

It has a few extra elements in place that can really open up some unique solutions to each puzzle. Such as instead of simple moving frogs to can tap them to use their tongue, drag and release to aim them, tapping on bugs themselves squashes them, and leapfrogging can really create some complex sequences.

• Author: Aaron Cammarata
• Most useful tutorial: How To Make A Simple iPhone Game with Cocos2D
• App Store Link: Check it out!

Slash Slash

Division and geometry have never been so fun!

Slash Slash is a frantic game of slicing. Each level presents you with a shape and a time limit. Your job is to break the shape down into small enough pieces it disintegrates and gives you points. The goal is 100% disintegration.

As levels increase in difficulty, obstacles are placed within the shapes making accuracy more and more important.

• Author: Valentin Lapchevskiy
• Most useful tutorial: How To Create Cool Effects with Custom Shaders in OpenGL ES 2.0 and Cocos2D 2.X
• App Store Link: Check it out!

Chord!

Chord! is by far the most comprehensive app I’ve seen for learning chords and scales.

Chord! has every possible chord calculated as well as every major scale. Its unique in that rather than a database, it generates possible chords and matches them to scales. You can search or just browser a list. It offers several views from chord sheets, to sheet music, to a full guitar neck.

Saving and Favoriting are built throughout the app no matter how you find or make the chords. This app is excellent for beginners and experts alike.

If you’ve ever been curious how Django managed to play with two and a half fingers, this app is for you! :]

• Author: Thomas Grapperon
• Most useful tutorial: Introduction to CALayers Tutorial
• App Store Link: Check it out!

Cat Baseball Pro

Cat Baseball allows me to fulfill my secret desire – smashing cats with baseball bats! j/k I would never do such a thing – except in a game that is :]

Cat Baseball is a fun game where cats are lobbed at you and using your finger from the strike zone, you swing to hit them. A good hit can result in a homerun. There are all kinds of coins floating above the field, waiting for your flying cat to collect them.

Game play is simple and addictive. And the artwork is hilarious. That poor cat LoL >:]

• Author: Mark Tassinari @CatBaseball_
• Most useful tutorial: Intermediate Box2D: Physics, Forces, Ray Casts, and Sensors
• App Store Link: Check it out!

Reversi King for iPad

I’m a big fan of Reversi and this is a beautiful rendition of it on the iPad.

This is classic Reversi style gameplay with some great graphics, pass & play multiplayer, and computer play. Reversi, sometimes called Othello, is a simple board game with white and black pieces.

Placing your pieces to sandwich the opposing players pieces converts any middle pieces to your color. When the board is full, the player with the most pieces wins.

Want to learn how to create your own iPad board game like this? Check out our iPad Board Game App tutorial, linked below!

• Author: Thang Tham Duc
• Most useful tutorial: How to Develop an iPad Board Game App: Part 2/2
• App Store Link: Check it out!