Search Results for “label/Music/index.html” – Page 2

Number of Results: 13

Jazz: Trump’s Journey – 2.99 (Bulkypix + Egg Ball)

Recently, Bulkypix has been on a hot-streak. Their newer publications of Save the Furries, Funny Hell, Another World, Mamba Nation Battle, Terra Noctis, and more, have thrown them right back into the hot seat, letting iOS gamers know that they know exactly what a top-notch, high-quality title is. Carrying on this streak of awesome releases, Jazz: Trump’s Journey, a co-production between Egg Ball and Bulkypix, just went live this week, and it does not disappoint.

You’ll play as Trump, a famous jazz musician who takes you on a journey through his memories of how he managed to get known in the 1920’s New Orleans Jazz scene. And not only is the game influenced by the music of the time, but also by the art, with the environments, characters, buildings, and backgrounds all influenced by paintings from 1920’s New Orleans. Another influence for the game is the biography of Louis Armstrong, whom the main character, Trump, even slightly resembles. There’s several aspects within the game that directly match Armstrong’s life; being raised by his grandmother, spending time in a prison where the in-mates were able to play music, and of course, playing the trumpet. The music you’ll hear throughout the game was recorded by live studio musicians, and with each band member that you team-up with throughout your journey will add to the soundtrack. Cut-scenes, which play out like old silent films, are also found within the game, with the characters talking to one-another, and then being taken to a screen where you can read the dialogue. Sadly though, the dialogue is filled with grammatical and capitalization errors. I know that there are quite a few gamers who feel that imperfect grammar is something that takes away from the immersion of games, which is very understandable. It can get very frustrating having to stop and re-think what it is that you‘ve just read, or missing out on a dialogue section because you were trying to understand what a character was saying, which is a problem during the silent film influenced cut-scenes, because the dialogue screens don’t stay on the screen for long.

As far as the controls are concerned, you’re given your typical platformer layout; left and right movement buttons in the bottom left corner, and a jump button in the bottom right. The left/right buttons are spaced pretty far apart, it would have been great if there was an option for gamers to set all the buttons wherever they wanted them, especially for playing on the iPad, which, right now, I can only assume would be fairly difficult with the spacing as it is now. There are other buttons that come into play as you progress through the game, and come across different environment pieces. When you get onto a ladder, or a rope, up and down movement buttons will appear above the left and right buttons, along the left side of the screen. There’s also a button for playing your trumpet once you find it, and doing so stops time for all objects with a musical icon outlined in green on them. There are other objects which are not effected by the time stops, and those have the same icon, only it’s outlined in red.

You can change direction mid-air, but only if you’re not wall jumping. This can lead to some frustration when needing to perfectly time your jumps, or when trying to cut back after jumping off of a surface you didn’t mean to. But the wall jumping does open up a lot of level design options, and here, the developers have done a great job utilizing that. Actually, the level design, and how each of the objects work together throughout the game to give players a bit of challenge, as well as adding in puzzle elements to the mix, has made for some of the best level design I’ve seen in an iOS platformer. All 13 of the levels utilize the wall-jumping, and are fairly large. Even though there’s only 13 levels, the game is decently sized for an iOS platformer.

Each of the levels has quite a few checkpoints, which you are able to backtrack to if you feel that you’ve missed something, or want to reset a puzzle. This can be done by pressing the icon in the top left corner. However, there are some checkpoints that do not register, and you could end up being sent back more than one checkpoint. It doesn’t happen often, and has never happened during spots where there was a sign in the background saying that you could go back to a checkpoint, but it does happen occasionally.

Even with it’s flaws, Jazz: Trump’s Journey, is a fantastically done, well made platformer. The art and music help to create an immersive environment which, as you progress through the game you’ll be able to very clearly see, was handled with extreme care. The inclusion of puzzles, especially later on in the game, makes for some pretty challenging sections, but also expand the gameplay quite a bit. With Jazz supporting GameCenter achievements, being Universal and only $2.99, it’s a great purchase for fans of the genre. It’s definitely a game that will stick with you for years.

Posted in: 2.99, Adventure, Music, Platformer, Puzzle, Syntheticvoid, Universal

app January 18, 2012 UncategorizedPosted in: 0 Read more >

Blowup!! – 0.99 (Cravemob)

Developers have been trying to integrate music into their games since the birth of the AppStore. Not many have been able to successfully do this, but those that have found a way generally provide a very entertaining gameplay experience. Cravemob’s latest title, Blowup!!, a puzzle game based on match-3 type gameplay and integrating music, is a very good example of how to add music to gameplay smoothly and professionally.

You’ll start off with a screen full of mixed up different colored blocks. These blocks can be removed from the play area by double tapping on them. You’ll have a certain number of “Nibble” taps, which let you remove one single block, while removing groups of 13 or more adds to your number of Nibbles. If you remove a grouping of 8 or more, you’ll add energy to your energy bar, adding time to your gameplay. Once your energy bar runs out, it’ll be game over. Where does the music come in to this, you ask? Well, as you remove the groups of blocks from the gameplay area, you’ll be able to level up. Each time you level up, a section of music is added to the track playing, which also makes it so that you’ll earn more points with each group of blocks you remove, adds more energy to your energy bar when you do remove them, and causes your energy bar to drain quicker. The amount of music you have added to the song playing is shown at the top of the screen with a percentage. Once you hit 100%, you’ll be hearing the full music track. Sounds complicated? It kind of is. But all you really need to know is, pick a color to not remove from the blocks, try and remove every color but that one color, while groups of 8 or more blocks will be given robot faces so that you can tell them apart from the other blocks, and watch your energy bar, not letting it go too low unless you have a huge group of blocks you can remove from the gameplay area to fill it up again.

There are 3 different difficulties, Nerd Punk, which is Easy, Robo Crunk, which is Normal, and Megachip Rave, which is Hard. The increases in difficulty change how quickly your energy bar drains and how much energy you get from removed blocks. There are objectives shown on the Stats screen, which are really the GameCenter Achievements, with 26 total.

The minimal integration of music into the gameplay is pretty much the best way to mix music into games that are not tap based Guitar Hero type titles. Have the gameplay revolve around the music too much, and your game suffers, and generally, will get a lot of “the music has no effect on the actual gameplay” comments and reviews, and it’ll usually be the same with games that don’t have the music integrated enough into the gameplay, for instance, WAVE Against Every Beat’s Free Play Mode, which a lot of people thought would have the gameplay go with their own music, when in actuality, it was just a gimmicky promotion of “listen to your own music while playing the game”.

Cravemob has done an extremely good job of meshing music with gameplay, and having it be more than just a gimmick to sell more copies. The matching gameplay is great for casual and hardcore players, and can be very addicting, with the difficulty going up as your skill level rises. At $0.99, it provides smooth, entertaining gameplay with a high replay value. Different Modes would have added quite a bit to the game, but as it is, it’s still very much worth checking out, and as Cravemob’s first iOS game, it’s definitely a title that will catch the attention of gamers, and hopefully provide a solid fan-base of players eagerly awaiting to see what these talented developers will come up with next.

Blowup!! gets a score of 4 out of 5.

Posted in: 0.99, Action, Arcade, Match-3, Music, Puzzle, Syntheticvoid

app November 2, 2011 UncategorizedPosted in: 0 Read more >

Radballs – 2.99 (Glow Play)

Radballs is a new block matching puzzle game from Glow Play. In it, you’ll need to match up Radballs in groups of 4 or more, making a Mega-Radball. When the Beat Wave, a bar that moves down the screen in time with the beat, hits your Mega-Radball, you’ll need to tap on it, and swipe up and down “scratching” the bar against the Mega-Radball, building up energy, until it’s glowing brightly, then release, and build the Radness Meter at the top of the screen. Filling up your Radness Meter is how you beat the level, and progress through the game.

Radballs controls like most match 3 games, needing to swipe orbs with one another in order to make groups of them. Here, you don’t need to make a match in order to move the orbs, so you’re able to move one orb across the screen to make a match. Once you’ve created a Mega-Radball, you can keep adding to it by putting more orbs on the ends or sides of it, so long as you have enough like orbs there. For instance, if you have a Mega-Radball that’s 3×3 orbs big, you’ll need 3 orbs on top to extend it, or 3 orbs on the side to extend it and make it 4×3 orbs big. The larger the Mega-Radball, the more Radness will be added to your meter. Also effecting Radness is the brightness of the Mega-Radball while you’re scratching the Beat Wave over it. If the Beat Wave just moves over the Mega-Radball without you scratching it, you’re given very few Radness points, hardly filling up the meter at all.

The graphics are done in a very vibrant, 80’s/early 90’s type style that always makes me think of the Saved By The Bell show opening. Everything is very smooth and stylish, and gives the game a real retro feeling while staying modern. The animations are very well done, and the menus look great too. The music in Radballs is pretty nice electronica that’s not too cheesy, not too harsh, and really does play quite a big roll in the game with the Beat Wave bar moving to the beat, and when scratching with the bar, the music moves forward and backward depending on how you let go of it. You’re also able to use your own music to play the game, so if the in-game music isn’t really to your liking, you can still enjoy the game quite a bit. However, the Beat Wave bar will not always move to the beat with your personal music, but it‘s not so far off that it‘s distracting, which is a plus. Music also changes filter frequency when pausing the game, which is a nice little addition, and yet another attention to small detail that the developers have thrown into the game.

The gameplay itself is split up across 3 different game modes, Arcade, Survival, and Time Trial, with 8 different levels to play, each with a different theme, and 4 difficulties, Easy, Normal, Hard, and Insane. While moving radballs around, and trying to make Mega-Radballs as big as you can, there are power-ups that you’ll encounter; Bomb, Zapper, and Freeze. Each of which you’ll need to put your finger over, and hold it there while it starts to glow, and pulse, then let go when the glow is at it’s brightest. The Bomb will clear out a pretty large section of radballs, while with the Zapper, you drag your finger around the screen while a bolt of electricity pops radballs, and the Freeze power-up freezes the Beat Wave and stops radballs from falling, but you’ll need to wipe the screen clear of the frost that covers the entire screen before you can move radballs around again. The Bomb and Zapper result in pretty large Radness Meter jumps, while Freeze helps you create large Mega-Radballs that will give you big Radness point in return.

In Arcade Mode, you’ll need to fill your Radness Meter in order to move on through 8 waves in each level. If you fail to continuously build up your Radness Meter, it will drain, and if it empties, you’ll need to replay that wave. Survival Mode lets you play the same way as Arcade Mode, but lets you play through unlimited waves until you fail. Time Trial requires you to fill up your Radness Meter before 60 seconds is up, seeing how fast you can fill the meter all the way. You will also run into Radness Multipliers. These happen when you make a Mega-Radball, bust it with your Beat Wave, and the cascading radballs end up making another Mega-Radball. It will automatically explode, giving you 2x, 3x, even 4x the radness points.

Glow Play has done an extremely good job at mixing the block matching genre with the music/DJ genre, and this mesh works exceedingly well. Giving players the option to play with their own tracks, having Survival and Time Trial Modes, 4 difficulties, GameCenter support with 3 leader boards, and 40 achievements gives Radballs an endless amount of replayabilty. The graphics are awesome, there’s tons of action, and everything about the game is extremely polished and professional, while screaming fun at every turn. $2.99 for this Universal game is a great price. You’re also given the option to listen to the music tracks in-game if you enjoy the music, and having the soundtrack available to just listen to is something I personally think all music games should do. This is one game that will not leave my device in the near future.