App and Game Reviews
When I started writing app and game reviews, I had no idea what I was doing. So much seemed like magic, but I buckled down and found a way to do reviews with screenshots and a large amount of text. After trying hard to make that work, I was bogged down in the review cycle – apps were coming into and out of my life before I could give them a proper review. On my iPad, I had a folder containing almost 100 Applications that were waiting for reviews before I deleted them. Something had to give… After some hard coding and wading through the App Store API, I found a way to introduce a standardized rating system for my reviews and direct app store links. Instead of uploading a huge amount of screenshots I shoot a screen-recording of the App put it up as a embedded video. Now every review I put out is for games that are current, includes a video of gameplay, has screenshots, includes up-to-date pricing, and an overall rating. That is progress! My reviews are focused on five specific areas – although most applications will only get a review in three of those categories. I specifically look at the interface/usability of the app, how engaging that app is, and my final rating is a meta-score regarding the apps productivity value, overall gaming value, and/or educational value. All of the apps that I review will fit into one of those three major categories. You can see my full rubric by clicking on this link.
App Essentials: iStudiez Pro
There are a ton of planning apps out there for you to sink your teeth into. I have used a bunch of them as I tried to find the best programs in my productivity series. What I learned is that as a Teacher and a Student, you have different needs than a business professional.
As a student, I love using iStudiez Pro to manage my calendar, assignments, and grades. This application is a great purchase if you want to get all of the functionality of a physical planner on your iPad. As a technologist, I always watch for those apps that are an integration platform. iStudiez Pro is a great app because it syncs with the default calendars to give you a complete view of your schedule and what is going on. I used this daily in my graduate courses to ensure that I had every assignment marked out and broken down for me and my team to complete.
This is a great app for integrating your normal planning in your iOS devices.
App Essentials: Wolfram Alpha
Wolfram Alpha is the best resource app on the iPad. It has a very STEM tilt, but works great for language as well as math and science. As an education and productivity app, this cannot be beat.
In an educational context, you can have students do real time calculations with moving celestial objects, evaluate expressions, and of course do advanced mathematic modeling. It is a great way to give the power of science and math to students.
Game Review: European War 4
This series is the most similar to a board game that I love, Axis and Allies. On each turn, you create armies, manage your economy, and make strategic battle decisions. In European War 4, you manage a span of time from the American Revolution to the French Revolution.
Each step of the game allows you to progress through more and more history. The campaign itself lets you play the major battles of the Napoleonic Campaign. You can make this game more and more difficult for yourself as you play the game in online and pass and play multiplayer or individual skirmishes.
Game Review: NarcoGuerra
NarcoGuerra is a slightly scary Strategy Game produced by Game the News. GtN prides itself in making modern news stories approachable as games – and they do a nice job of creating the games.
Imaging playing risk with drugs, police, corruption, and lots of wars. If you can imagine all of that, with some great story lines and plot developments, you can picture what happens in NarcoGuerra. This is a realistic simulation about why the war on Drugs is so difficult to stop. When the game starts, you take command of the Police forces of Mexico. You help to develop resources, send men to battle and oust the Cartels.
Game Review: Plague Inc.
Plague Inc is one of my favorite games of all time. I remember sitting in a Drafting class playing the game for weeks on end (sorry Mr.Geesman – we still got our projects done though). Back then – almost 15 years ago, the game was called Pandemic 2 and was a great SWF. Now, Plague Inc. by Ndemic solutions is a fantastically complicated version of one of my childhood all-star games.
In the game, you take control of a plague. That plague then targets and eradicates the entire human race. While you play, you unlock additional game types, new plagues, scenarios, genes to mutate your disease, and of course a blood fever for killing the human race.
Game Review: Move the Turtle
Move the Turtle is a Kickstarter game turned app. It is designed to allow young students to approach object oriented programing through an easy to use graphical interface.
I have used the App as an extension of my basic programming course. In the elementary grades, this is a perfect app to teach elementary programming (hehe). Students use the interface to program the actions of a turtle. As the name implies, the students get more and more creative as they learn additional commands and processes that can get the turtle from point A to point B.
App Essentials: iTeacherBook
iTeacherBook is a great app to help manage the demands and scheduling needs of your classroom.
There are a few disclaimers to this app however. Unfortunately, it has not been updated for quite some time, reducing its value as it appears to be underdeveloped at this point. It also has no way to directly export your scores and attendance to other LMS and SIS platforms.
It takes just a few minutes to setup your class and students in the App, and then you can use iTeacherBook to keep records of your students and how they are progressing in class.
Game Review: Star Realms
Star Realms can be summarized in a single statement: Simple Drafting SciFi Card Game.
The gameplay of Star Realms is amazingly easy! You play cards which give you energy or combat points that you use to purchase more cards or damage your enemies. Where the game gets interesting is in the multiplayer online community. My win ratio only hovers around 50%, and I often get obliterated by other players. The game itself is not as robust as some of the other more notable card games on the app store, but it is one of the most enjoyable.
Game Review: Fist of Jesus
Judas, the enforcer of light, squares off against the undead Legions of Lazarus in this wonderful game by DreamFear.
I have to say that I feel like I am in some Religious High-Water when I play the game (pun intended). There is something satisfying about playing as Judas and liberating the Undead. Where the game really excels is in the small things: The Doves and Glorification of Levels, the Trainings from Jesus, the finishing moves of Purity, and the carefully crafted weapons. As a game, it is difficult to progress, and is a challenging fighting and puzzling game. It reminds me of Age of Zombies, but it has a more compelling story for me than AoZ did.