Ten Minutes of Peace

Geared gets brain engaged

Gameplay with Geared is fun.   So fun, in fact, that the seven year old was entranced for more than ten minutes, and the five year old made it for about six minutes.   Adults love playing. At least adults named Julie.  

Why?   It's a spacial puzzle, similar to Blocked or Touch Physics.   Put gears between the spinning yellow and the stationary blue and make the blue wheel turn.  If gear can be placed its color changes from red to green.  Inactive gear shows gray. Requires precision, cunning, planning, trial and error.   May inspire occasional cursing under one's breath, with ultimate victory in the form of a congratulatory note and an invitation to replay (good for two player games) or continue to the next level.  There's a free version with five levels to whet the appetite for the full version at 80.

Making Pogg - Delighting a Toddler

Ricky Vuckovic spoke with me about his inspiration for the iPhone App Pogg

 

What was the inspiration for your iPhone App?  After completing my practice app, The Bell, I wanted to create something “proper” – a game, a tool, a piece of interactive art, whatever. I jotted down heaps of ideas but nothing really gripped me enough to want to make it.

Pogg wasn’t any of the ideas on that list. It just kind of popped into my head one day when I was taking a quick break from all that thinking. The idea of having a character on the screen and being given the open question of “what should this character do?” was instantly appealing to me and it felt like a great mixture of fun, exploration and creativity. I also had a moment of reliving the fun memories I had as a kid of playing similar games on the Commodore 64 and Apple II, and thought it would be great to create something on the iPhone that could evoke the same amazement and entertainment, plus add a learning aspect to it.

 

What was the hardest thing about building the game?

The hardest thing about building Pogg was knowing when to stop. The spelling mode is a completely open-ended question, "what should Pogg do now?". This allows kids to type in anything, like “jump”, “drive a car” and “sing”, and Pogg will do it. Naturally, these are all actions that I need to have thought of and created in advance. My initial brainstorm of potential unique actions had around 130 different things for Pogg to do, and that list only grew after talking to the kids in my family. All of the actions in Pogg are high quality movie sequences, with a mix of animation styles, sound effects and original music. Each action takes a day or two to create, so my greatest challenge was to come up with a shorter list - something with enough actions to fit the more common things that kids might want to see, but small enough that I could actually finish and have something ready to release.

How does your iPhone help you with your kids?   Initially, the iPhone was purely to help entertain my toddler Sam and buy me a few extra minutes of peace at a restaurant, or to help distract him out of a bad mood at home. Now, I also use it as a learning tool, recognising animals, vehicles, sounds, plus of course all the words and actions that he has learnt from Pogg.

I have a huge passion for computer games, so creating and playing iPhone games with Sam is a special type of bonding for me. He was also really useful in testing out the interface for Pogg to help me finetune it for young fingers. Watching him have so much fun with Pogg as I built it gave me a huge boost of confidence and motivation to keep working the long hours on it.

Get Pogg from the iTunes App Store.

Quordy - build vocabulary one letter at a time

Who loves Quordy?  A kindergartner who reads  will enjoy this word find game, as would a crossword puzzle fanatic or a devoted player of Bananagrams.   The goal?   Create as many valid word combinations in the time allotted as possible by drawing links on the screen between the letter tiles.   Quordy can be set up to time increments of 1, 3 or 5 minutes or with no limit - just like the game Boggle when the egg timer was lost.

As long as the letters touch in some way, they can be used together to make a word.   Longer words are praised and prized, and at the end a list of all possible combinations can be viewed. In addition, there is a possibility of playing against a friend either in person ("Pass and Play") mode or online.   Points are given based on word length, and the game will remember a previous score to keep track of personal records.  Adults have been known to play for a while, but even elementary school players may find it exciting for ten minutes.

Quizzler Family iPhone game inspired by real life

Linda Perkel wanted an easy and fun way to bond with her elementary school aged boys.   She'd had trouble getting more than one word answers to her questions at the end of the school day and she'd found herself at loose ends more than once while waiting in a doctor's office or restaurant.   The boys loved playing with her iPhone, and she always had it with her, so she created an iPhone game that the family could play together.

How does your iPhone help you save your sanity with the kids? 

One way it helps is when we are out somewhere and I need to keep my kids from getting bored and tugging on me pleading  "Can we go yet?" while I’m trying to have a conversation with someone or I’m out shopping and need to concentrate for a minute without the kids asking me a ton of questions. So I use it to keep them occupied while I’m busy doing something else and need a little peace and quiet.

Another way I use it (which is where Quizzler comes in) is when I want to engage with my kids while keeping them happy (like when we're on a road trip, at a restaurant, waiting for a movie to start, on a plane, in the waiting room for a dentist appt, or even dinnertime at home or sitting at the park, etc.). It turns downtime into quality time for us to bond. I enjoy talking with my kids and finding out what makes them tick, but I have boys that won't always talk about things straight on if I just start asking them questions. My kids love games. With Quizzler, thoughtful questions are mixed in with goofy ones and I've been surprised at the insights I’ve gotten my kids from simple questions like “What was the best and worst thing that happened to you today?” or “Tell the person on your left something you think they’re good at.” Other parents have told me the same thing.

What's been the hardest thing about marketing the game? 

Getting visibility has been the hardest--there are over 40,000 iphone apps and it's hard to get visibility within that crowd. I started a blog, I twitter about Quizzler, I post information about it to my Facebook page and I included it on my LinkedIn page. I have learned things along the way that will make it easier next time—even small things like post-dating your app when you submit it so that on the date it is approved and hits the store, it will be right at the top of the "new" section. I created a demo video and I have also started submitting the app to publications and websites that review iphone apps and/or anything family related. The Moms Review website reviewed Quizzler Family and gave it an excellent review and I was thrilled about that

What do your kids say about your game?

They love it--the genesis of it was honestly a labor of love because my kids and their cousins love playing the question game. And they love the iPhone. I thought it would be fun to combine the two in a fun interface that kids can shake and spin – and that is Quizzler. We played it last night at a restaurant. Kids love to talk about themselves and I find it so interesting to hear what they have to say. I feel like I gain a new insight every time we play--either something heartfelt and innocent that just makes you melt or something so unexpected and funny.

What has been surprising to learn about where and how Quizzler is played?

It has been really exciting to see the sales reports that show all the different countries where people are buying it. My kids and I locate the countries on the globe whenever a new one pops up. I have heard of people using Quizzler in innovative ways that I hadn't thought of, like as an icebreaker for networking at blogging conventions. I also heard of a second grade teacher in Miami that uses it in her class. She spins for a question and the kids write an essay about their answer. I get so excited to hear things like that. I am definitely thrilled and blown away by it all.

What would you tell someone who's thinking about creating an iPhone app?

If I can do it, anyone can. I heard of an 11-year-old kid that made his own app. It seems like there is an app for everything, but there's always a new idea that no one thought of. If you have an idea for an app, do it!

** note, this post was originally composed for Examiner.com.   Turns out my kids love Quizzler too - it IS fun to play in restaurants (we tested with Naomi Sushi in Menlo Park) while you're waiting for the food, or waiting for the check. 

Blocked - Addictive for all Ages

Joel Rosenberg's iPhone game "Blocked"

Similar to the single player game "Rush Hour", Blocked is a terrific iPhone game for the busy parent stuck in the doctor's office, boarding area,  or grocery store checkout line.   The premise is simple, move the blue block out to the left from behind the gray ones and off the board.   But what complicates matters is that horizontal facing blocks only move left to right, vertically aligned blocks move up and down.   The game works well for the preliterate crowd, and adults as well as children will enjoy the challenge. 

Multiple players on the same iPhone will appreciate the ability to start the game at any level, and choose to jump levels or go back levels as desired.

When the game is loaded for the second time, it returns to the level previously played, with the blocks in exactly the same position as they were left.

Think of it as a recess for the brain, a chance for you or your kids to work on spatial awareness and strategy for just a few minutes of peace.

-- this article was crossposted from Examiner.com where I write about iPhone games.

Touch Physics

Ten minutes for all ages!  Touch Physics. 

Looks simple - draw something on the screen to get the purple ball to hit the yellow star.   But the game gets complex fast.   While the description says ages four and up, I'm not so sure it's good for the pre-literate set.  My seven year old was entranced until she got to level 31, and my five year old lost interest at level 4.

Grown ups can get hooked too!  A friend brought his teenage daughter along to meet my husband and the game captivated her for, well, you know, about ten minutes.

What's for Dinner, Spinner?

		Make a great meal. Allrecipes.com Dinner Spinner: Free This new Lifestyle app gives you thousands of great recipes and time-saving cooking tips. You can even share your favorite recipes with friends via email.

- Photo and promotional text courtesy of direct mail from Apple.

The new iPhone app from All Recipes.com is a great starting place to discuss "what do you feel like for dinner?"   The choice of what to search for or "spin" on the spinner is limited to three options;  you can pick a category,  AN ingredient, and a time frame, but even these pared down parameters can be enough to get the creative juices flowing as you contemplate your next culinary masterpiece.   When the results come back, you can scroll through them just like scrolling through an album of pictures. 

For my first spin, I picked "pasta" and "dinner" and "45 minutes or less" and though I got chicken and mushrooms and easy beef stroganoff, I found some interesting choices that were closer to the mark, like angel hair vermicelli with prawns.

The same spin also turned up  a fun recipe for fried ravioli that brought back distant but good memories of a visit to St. Louis eons ago.

Why I like this app: 

1. Reviews and results come up in black on white with orange accents and good pictures.   Easier on the eyes than my standard emailed recipes blown up on my iPhone. 
2. It doesn't send me to the website for the recipe, photo or first 10 or so reviews.  I can stay in the app and browse.
3. The Favorites feature rocks.  It's easy to add to favorites and to retrieve them.

What I'd want in upcoming releases:

1. More ways to spin!  Specifically, I want to choose by starch by meal with protein, so that easy beef stroganoff could not come up with chicken with mushrooms.
2. More ways to use what I have.  For example, a breakdown of vegetables.   Either by type (root, leafy, cabbage family - cruciferous) or color (orange, red, green) or role (supporting - mac & cheese w/ edamame, leading (rutabega gratin - the picture on the cover of Food & Wine looked great!), team-player - say stir fry)
3. An integration with the favorites feature to publish to Tastebook and send to a friend, or myself.

How long is 10 minutes?

I

In my experience, ten minutes is about the attention span for a five year old with an iPhone app...say Spin Art.   The image above was created by my seven year old in about ten minutes, the time it took me to rid her of nits the second time she got lice -- only because I'd gotten faster at nit removal by then and we'd upgraded to the later version of Spin Art with the larger color palette so as to hold her interest.

Spin Art is just like you remember, use your finger to spin the paper, choose a color to apply.   You can also draw on the background of the image, save it to the photo roll, and clear it.   It's pretty much perfect for the 5-7 year old set.