Introducing The Black App! What is it? Umm… no one’s sure. Whoops. But space is limited, so sign up today!
Just how much stock should you put in a company that has “This is not a stunt (we promise)” as their tag line? Yeah… ’bout that.
I signed up just for kicks. Supposedly the service is launching June 5th.
That’s the total value of the 11 games I put up on eBay this morning. I had an epiphany last night when I was staring at my shelf full of games. I was thinking, “Boy, it’d sure be nice to turn all that into cash.” It was about 2 AM at the time, which is as everyone knows the perfect time to post mass auctions on eBay (ok, maybe not).
I listed all but one of my games at or above the price I paid for it, so assuming they sell I’ll be making a healthy profit off letting them sit on my shelf for a few weeks. The first game sold 8 minutes after I listed it, and I had another one sell about an hour ago.
I guess this means I ending up agreeing with you Aaron, I need to start selling stuff on eBay instead of just buying. 😉
I’m happy to announce that after much pain and agony, the Hijinks Inc. Repo is now online. To access all the sweet goodness (which currently only includes my eGlass Redux theme) just add http://i.hijinksinc.com to your Sources list in Installer.app.
You’ll find the eGlass theme listed under Hijinks Inc. in the category list.
If you have any problems adding the source, let me know in the comments. Seeing as there is little to no documentation on how to create your own repo I had to guess/copy & paste/edit and try again/cross my fingers and pray… so please bear with me while I iron the kinks out.
Pros: The pretty colors and shapes make it into this port of the indie classic.
Cons: Nearly impossible to play anything but the easiest levels. Lacks the music and polish of the actual game.
Developer: Original game: Kenta Cho. Ported by: Lazrhog.
Version Reviewed: 1.0
Platform: iPod Touch and iPhone
Noiz2sa is a Kenta Cho game. If this means nothing to you, you’re not alone. Kenta Cho isn’t exactly a household name for most people. He is a, and prehaps the, premier indie shooter developer. A quick look at his website reveals an extensive library of his games (mostly vertical shooters). From a design standpoint, I like his games. He captures that colorfully eclectic style that seems to be all the rage in Japan, and keeps the gameplay simple and fun.
Why then did I give it a 2 out of 5? Because either by design or by mistake in Lazrhog’s translation this game is impossibly hard to play. No amount of finger sliding can keep me alive for longer then 30 seconds. But I’m getting ahead of myself here.
Gameplay in Noiz2sa revolves around shooting brightly colored squares that revolve around bigger squares over a vector graphic cityscape. Shooting them causes them to explode, releasing a small spinning blocks of four grey squares. Collecting these segmented blocks is how you score points and how you stay alive. For every block you collect you get a certain number of points and +10 to your shield to a maximum of 1000. Theoretically, if you could continue to collect blocks faster then you’re getting hit. This theory gets blown to bits almost as fast as you do in this game. Projectiles seem to hit for anywhere between 200-800 points, and in the harder stages its just flat out impossible to stay alive.
Accepted design philosophy would dictate that you should create a game that people want to keep playing. After a few minutes of watching “Game Over” pop up every 30 seconds I was ready to quit and go back to playing Pool.
I had a pretty good time playing level 1. I could dodge the projectiles and keep my shields up while enjoying the cool landscape I was flying over. By level 5 it was a lost cause. On the ‘Endless Hard’, ‘Endless Extreme’, ‘Endless Insane’ stages I’m lucky to stay alive 20 seconds.
Out of curiosity I downloaded the actual game from Kenta Cho’s website and played that for the purpose of comparison. I’m glad I did, because it’s definitely not the same game. For one thing, the music is fantastic and adds a lot to the experience (no music in this port). It’s still not easy, but it makes me feel like I’m playing a game and not some LSD junkie’s fantasy gone horribly wrong. I say that to make one thing clear: Noiz2sa is a great indie shooter. This port to the iPhone and the Touch is not.
Here’s the first of (hopefully) many themes I’ll be releasing for the iPod touch/iPhone. This is a updated version of the eGlass theme by exg5, this version is optimized for the iPod touch.
Preview after the jump.