When I think of real estate, I think of people figuring out down payments, and leases, and mortgages, potentially second mortgages, and even foreclosures, given the recent times. Being a realtor doesn’t sound like much fun to me, particularly when your income reliability goes up and down with the housing market, which in this country, as we all know, has been pretty depressing.

But, all seriousness aside, Mansion Expansion by Vindicate Games is just good practice in folly and fun, putting you in the shoes of a plucky real estate agent who tries to satisfy the expensive whims of wealthy looking people, one being a woman decked out in your prototypical New England, Hampton style of dress, with pearls, coco chanel frames, and even the ever unflattering tennis visor. She entreats you, seemingly with a whiff of her upturned nose, with finding and buying her an extravagant mansion upwards of $100,000, which in this game, may as well be $20 million.To do so, you first start off with a meager sum of money, with the mission of buying properties and then selling them in the hopes of making a profit off your investments. On the playing field – shown as a grassy knoll with a giant mansion in one corner – houses and apartment complexes begin popping up, indicating their readiness to be purchased. They

9 Stages in the game

start off at a reasonable price, but due to the “housing market” in this game, their value quickly increases; if you’re not quick on your toes, you may buy a property at a more expensive price than you could have, reducing your end profit once you sell. To turn this misgiving around, you must wait as the property’s value increases, and then sell at a price you perceive to be high enough to reward you with a substantial profit – otherwise, if you wait too long, the housing market will again fluctuate against your favor, decreasing the property’s value. All fun and games, right?

You may wonder, how do I figure out when to buy and when to sell? In the real world, it’s pretty hard – a bit like gambling, or just regular old stockmarket investing, two things I’m trying to learn more about – but in this game, these handy markers in the shape of green and red triangles indicate when prices are going up, and when prices are going down, respectively. Obviously, you want to buy low, and sell high – that’s a general rule of thumb, and just plumb common sense. If you buy high and sell low, you won’t just be out of the job, you’ll be homeless. The way Mansion Expansion makes the game a bit more challenging is by having homes rapidly pop up all over the screen, each with their own individual price fluctuations; the price changes are never ubiquitous across the board. When I first played, this did seem to pose a challenge – I’d often forget about a small home and sell it when it was

Buy and sell homes - but watch out! They lose their value right under your nose.

worth next to nothing – but then I realized that if I just glazed over, letting my eyes fasten onto all the little green and red flags, all I had to do was buy a home the instant it appeared (guaranteeing the lowest price), and then selling it as soon as its green arrow turned red (insuring me that it’s as high as it can get before it lowers). Frankly, there’s no strategy involved, just quick reflexes. If the game wanted to make the fluctuating housing market more “believable,” it shouldn’t have the properties rise in value once, and then completely devalue. It should be a random ebb and flow of rising in price, then lowering, then rising again, etc. This way, it’d be harder for me to predict just how high the property could achieve in value.

The levels take some time to beat after the first level, so plan on buying and selling a lot of homes before you’re able to purchase that ridiculous, oversized mansion for your client. There are 9, unique stages in this game, cute graphics and music, and 12 achievements – in future updates the developer plans on releasing more stages. Apparently, there are even hurricanes in the game, but in a few solid hours of play, I have yet to experience one – it just reeks of doom, so I hope I see one onscreen soon. While Mansion Expansion may not be a go-to game for me, I found it surprisingly entertaining, zapping up a solid hour of finger taps from me. I would definitely vote it for most original game, most serious double-take game, but I do wish there was a little more to the game. Then, it might just be a permanent, quirky fix on my phone.

Manga comics are still a thriving business today, and anime will forever be an underground favorite – allegedly mainstream in some circles – and so today I present you, oh ye faithful readers, with Dress Up Studio by MoseCode, a manga style dress up app for kids – more specifically, for little girls. Let’s face it, all girls love to play dress-up, either with mommy’s clothes, auntie’s clothes, or dolls, and there has even been a popular series of Barbie computer games that focus on that one, ever-present talent of Barbie’s: fashion. I never liked dolls very much (I was taken to decapitating my Barbie’s heads and putting them on pencil stakes – very Lord of the Flies meets Ravenous, I know), but I did enjoy these paper dolls my grandmother would give me – I had to punch them out from their paper backdrop, and their clothes would be fitted by centering them over the body, and folding back tabs to keep them in place. I realize how very 1950′s this sounds, but somehow I found these dolls more endearing than the rubber, plastic kind. Artwork compared to toy, I suppose.

In any case, Dress Up Studio takes that paper doll type mystique and applies it to a digital setting, with three characters to choose from, and an endless array of outfits specific to each. Each girl seems to represent a classic Manga archetype: Kami is the prototypical outgoing one, with fingers held up in a quasi-peace symbol, one eye winking, and mouth open, presumably in a laugh. Her demeanor is one of flirty childishness, and her vibrantly colored blue hair and pink eyes are cosmic and alien, but completely typical, desirable even, in the Manga universe. Reese, meanwhile, is the angelic blonde, the pretty one, with wide open blue eyes, long golden tresses, and hands clasped near her face, as if in some warm, female invitation to fall in love with her. Emma is the bashful one, as indicated by her long, dark tresses with choppy, straight-across bangs, and contrasting pale face, all of which give her a mysterious allure, a quietude beneath those eyes staring straight into yours. Her hands are clasped in front, to complete that youthful glow of innocence, and her clothing matches her slightly dark demeanor in the manner of emo stripes and dark patterned shirts.

Of course, these are only the default looks for each girl – you can change their looks in countless ways once in the style section. A menu along the bottom will show six buttons that let you change her shirt, her pants, her hairstyle, her shoes, her eye color (a must for Manga aficionados – can’t live without that pink eye color), and her accessories. A home button takes you back to the main screen and a camera icon lets you take a picture for your every-growing compendium of Manga characters. I chose Emma and made her into a sweeping blonde, with blue eyes, wearing what I consider an outfit exhibiting country chic: a wide, flowing, a-line skirt, probably made with a thick cotton or canvas; big, clunky leather boots, made for trekking around open soil and cattle; a casual, striped long-sleeved shirt meant for protecting the skin from blustery wind with a chilly nip; and a long, skinny scarf, to complete the outfit, and for some added neck warmth. I was amused to note that one of her many accessories included a handbag with a cheerful Pomerian poking his head out – where would any girl be without her little lap dog?

While I may not have a particular fondness for Manga-related madness, and I found the in-app music to be grating and cloyingly sweet, the app managed to be cute and interactive enough to provide entertainment for little girls. Dress-up and playing house is so instinctual for girls, that I’m sure they would love toying around with pretty girls, giving them purses, and switching their pants for a skirt with polka dots. It’s too bad the Kami character is centered a bit offscreen, situated too far to the left, because her animal companions, when turned on, aren’t fully visible, half their bodies cut off by the screen. To add variety, the developers added 23 backgrounds and a few animations (bubbles when you move your finger across the screen), but none of these really add anything to the game. The backgrounds are changed by zipping your finger in a down or up motion, and they’re all of the bubble, girlish type motifs we would expect from Manga. But, dressing up dolls is dressing up dolls, and Dress Up Studio is worth a second look if you have any little girls. They may just like it.

Your girl is bored, brotha!

Okay, so MyGirl isn’t porn. It isn’t even softcore porn (read: there’s no nudity). But, after playing around with the app, I definitely felt a lightbulb go off inside my head, especially after reading some of the suggestive comments users left on the iTunes Store: porn could seriously take off on the iPhone. Let me explain. MyGirl by  is a curious app. It’s curious because it’s not a dress-up doll for little girls, but is instead a make believe, interactive girlfriend for adolescent boys and grown men the world around, made, no less, by the suggestive sounding developer LookandFeel. The star of MyGirl is a busty and deeply tan woman with kohl-rimmed eyes, mascara out to there, long, dark tresses teased into a wavy, wild mane, and a open preference for tight, low cut t-shirts and tanks that show off her impressive assets. She’s the cliche hot woman that guys will draw eagerly into blank corners of notebook pages, the girl with an exaggerated hourglass figure, huge knockers, a shelf sized booty, and crazy hair – only she’s a live model. She has a flirtatious wink to her, and every move she makes is carefully calculated so as to better show off that radiant smirk, that cheekbone and cat eye. Don’t get too excited, though, because despite all alleged interactivity, this girl is just a tease.

On the opening page she sways around, bored, a question mark appearing above her head as she twirls her hair, an expression of both impatience and indifference drifting in between her brows. She’s waiting for you to make a move, buddy boy. But, before you start thinking of dirty deeds, and of interactively touching those two, round, beauteous bounties, reign yourself in, take a cold shower, whatever it takes for you to realize that the only way you can interact with this nameless

Blowing the bubbles you gave her

hottie is to use the menu at the bottom of the screen. In the Lite version, a present and a mouth eating a strawberry are shown, allowing you to give her a present or to feed her food, respectively. While you make your decision, she undoubtedly will be amusing herself onscreen (read: once again, totally not dirty) in some nerdy provocative way. She waves her iPhone around, while wearing glasses (geeks, rejoice), thinking of teddy bears and indescribable scribbles, while undulating around, blowing you kisses, and otherwise just moving way too much. It’s actually pretty silly, and hardly sexy at all. You can mush your stubby fingers onto her all you want, but she’ll continue smiling like an idiot, blowing kisses, and demonstrating how exactly a Neandertal would react to an iPhone.

Give her objects in a very lifelike way

If you tap the Present icon, you’ll be shown a list of the different things you may tickle her every desire with, including a necklace, a flower, perfume, soap bubbles, and a teddy bear. You may give these in any order, for however many times you like – don’t worry, her reaction will be the same each time, for those needing a stroke of the ego – you may as well, because you’re not going to get stroked in any other way. It was hilarious to note that her outfits changed for each category, to keep you interested I suppose – mind you, the outfits may as well not change at all, because they’re all of the same suction-fitted, cleavage-enhancing, slightly trashy type. But, I digress, because here is where the cool part of the app comes in. To present the model with your gift, you must drag it to her, and as you do so, her hands come up to meet the item, in a surprisingly believable way. Once you let the item go, the actual item will appear in her hands, and she’ll go about her business, liking it or rejecting it. For some of the presents, you must interact with her more, like opening the soap bubble jar, or attaching the clasp to her necklace. It’s all done in a very lifelike way, which makes me curious, if a little squeamish, to think of the interactive possibilities this app could have.

Pouting - she likes to pout.

MyGirl isn’t all sweet and sugar, though – she’s actually kind of high maintenance. I expect this app was developed by a male (no woman would ever concoct this up, heterosexual or otherwise), and this male obviously thinks it’s sexy, or expected, for a woman to childishly refuse a gift with a pout, and extravagant turning up of the nose. I half expected a holding up of the hand, a tsscht sound, and tossing of the hair, arms either crossed across the chest or resting akimbo on the hips. If you’re going to make MyGirl an ungrateful, high maintenance bi***, why not go the whole way? She dislikes perfume so much she throws it at you, cracking the screen in the process. Woowza, she has a temper that one.

At least she’s all smiles and apple cheeks when you give her a teddy bear or a necklace. Better yet, give her some coffee right after a cocktail and she’ll go into some sensual, psychedelic zone of dancing and what I’m sure below to be gyrating. Apparently, there are other ways to get her to do interesting, and bizarre things, depending on the order you give her things. But, after everything has been given, and the only two things eaten, this app is just flat and disappointing. Mind you, I felt it was disappointing to begin with, maybe even a little perverse, but if anyone is going to bother buying an interactive girlfriend, then there better be plenty of ways for the user to interact with her. Of course, since only men will be buying this app, that means she better be able to blow you.

But, let’s not forget the genius behind the apps. After all, they don’t simply appear out of thin air. Someone had the insight, the talent, and the capacity to create these iPhone apps so that we may use them to their full power.

We had the fortune to interview Adam Skaates of IDEO Toy Labs, a company that has created two apps I hold in high regard, Balloonimals and Grover’s Number Special. Not only are these kids apps beautiful to behold and masterfully executed, they provide children with an unprecedented educational experience that takes full advantage of the iPhone’s touch and gesture-based interface. I expect to see many more excellent ideas and apps stemming from IDEO Toy Labs in the future.

As I said in the review, Balloonimals has been on my iPhone forever, is one of my favorite apps, and I tend to show it off like some mad person. Who came up with the idea? Was the idea instantly cherished by everyone on the team? Upon its release, was Balloonimals a hit?

Balloonimals was first conceived at a brainstorm based on some human centered research we did. Research is core to our design process at IDEO – so when we started thinking about apps we went out in the world and talked to parents with iphones looking for insights into how they use the device with their preschoolers. One of the things we learned is that kids often use the device to perform for their family members – with apps like Light Sabre and iMilk. We thought about this behavior and looked for more ways to facilitate this natural “family theatre” type play in a positive, fulfilling way. So that was the brainstorm topic. We invited a bunch of designers from IDEO to participate in the brainstorm and balloonimals was one of the ideas from that session.

Who makes up the Toy Lab team? Where are you based?

The Toy Lab is a small group within IDEO that focuses primarily on toy invention. We come up with toy concept ideas, build prototypes of them, and shop them around to toy companies. We started thinking about and researching apps a the end of 2008 because we see them as little digital toys – which fits nicely with the other work we do. We are part of IDEO’s Palo Alto, CA campus. IDEO is a 500 person company spread across 8 offices around the world.

You are part of IDEO, a design and innovation consulting firm. How did Toy Labs originate? What made your team stem out from IDEO?

The Toy Lab has been a part of IDEO for over 15 years. It stemmed from the personal passions of long time IDEOer Brendan Boyle – who had a desire to focus his design and innovation around creating great products for kids. Brendan is a Partner at IDEO and has led the Toy Lab since its origin in the 90s.

One of the biggest pitfalls, I think, of kids apps (and apps in general) in the iTunes store is their lack of longevity and creativity. You’d be surprised at how many kids apps center on brightly colored objects or sound device machines. The obvious but mundane. Both of these are good, in principle, but the beauty of an app like Balloonimals is that the entertaining surface belies just how engaging and educational the app actually is. The simple acts of following directions, shaking a phone, taking part in the creation of something, and then interacting with that creation are incredible mental exercises for young children, ones that can reap great rewards. Can you tell me about the research and the labor that went into the creation of Balloonimals?

I’ve spoken to some of the research at the concept phase of balloonimals – but we also did a lot of testing during development to inform and refine the design. We spent a lot of time trying to make the messaging for how to interact intuitive and visual so kids could figure out how to play without reading – which most kids in our target age can’t do yet. We also wanted to understand how kids would react to some of the moments in game. For example, we didn’t know if it would distress kids to see their precious balloonimals explode. Turns out they pretty much all thought this was hilarious – and was most kids favorite part of the experience.

The graphics in Balloonimals really stand out. They nearly stand out from the screen, the balloons are so, balloon-like. How did you achieve these results?

It wasn’t easy. We hired a professional balloon animal performer to come in and build a bunch of balloon animals for us. We used these as a starting point to create our 3D models. We then found some great designers to do the 3D modeling, lighting, and animating – trying our best to make the digital balloons appear as balloon-like as possible. I also employed one of our secret weapons – one of our toy inventors in nicknamed “the master of cuteness” – she helped make the balloonimals super-cute!

I recently tried your app Grover’s Number Special, your latest advent, and one forged from a collaboration with Sesame Street. I must say, there aren’t many names bigger than Sesame Street in the kid universe, so I commend you on this development. What attracted you to a creating an app with the creators of Sesame Street? I assume you’re attracted to their style of education.

Well we’ve been creating toy concepts featuring Elmo and the other Sesame characters for years – and of course we all remember the characters fondly from childhood – so we couldn’t resist the opportunity to work with the folks at Sesame. Its been a great working relationship that has led to some innovative and fun apps.

Grover’s Number Special, by the way, is fantastic. I felt nostalgia for my childhood and remembered old episodes I would watch. I also see you have two more in the works: Elmo’s Monster Maker, and Sesame Street 123. It’s brilliant how kids can interact with their favorite characters on a small, mobile device like the iPhone. What went into the creation of these apps? It’s almost like watching a video.

Thanks for the complement! If looks like watching a video because it is! We scripted and shot the sequences in Grover’s Number Special live with the real puppets and puppeteers at Sesame Street’s studio in New York. The same holds true for our upcoming Sesame releases. There’ll be new original Sesame footage integrated into silly, fun, and educational game play with each release.

Your team must feel a deep affinity for childhood if your lives revolve around making apps that really speak to kids. Are you all kids at heart? I am, for sure.

We try to be

Do you guys have balloon fights? Please tell me someone on staff actually knows how to twist a balloon animal *crosses fingers.*

Our office warfare usually involves finger blasters – a toy we invented. A Finger Blaster is basically a giant rubber band with a foam rocket attached to the back. There are probably hundreds and hundreds of blasters stuck in the rafters across all our buildings and on top of bookshelves at IDEO from years of stray shots. Its a tough job but…

Is the Toy Lab team engaged in any other lines of work?

Yes, Toy Inventing. Our team specializes in creating and bringing to market new toys. Apps is a growing part of our work but toys is still our main business.

Will there be any future updates to Balloonimals? Possibly some more balloon animals? Some of the comments in the iTunes store indicate people just want more, more, more.

It’s on the list to do – but there’s so many other projects to work on too!

The iPhone is nearly limitless in its potential, as I’ve noted in a few articles for Appstruck. Where do you think the future of kid apps lies? Will they always be cheery and brightly colored, with silly noises to accompany? Or do you think there will there be more serious ones focused on a child’s productivity? Somehow I think they would see less success.

I wonder. Its been interesting to watch the kids apps section develop – we’re starting to see a lot of real quality apps creep up as competition. I think there will continue to be more and more entertainment properties represented among the top kids apps. In general, It’s always interesting to see what ends up on the top of the list – you just never know what will work.

The Droid is the other phone with limitless potential, and it already has 10,000+ apps in its Android store, before its opening day, to boot. Do you see Toy Lab branching out into the Android app store?

Maybe at some point. For right now we’ve got our hands full with iPhone and toy projects.

Aside from your own apps, do you have any favorite apps from the iTunes Universe?

Recently, I’ve been playing Sword and Poker and Catan. I also love the simple fun of Doodle Jump. Of all the kids apps I like what Duck Duck Moose is doing the most – except of course, what we’re doing.

What is the best part about your job? This almost seems too simple to ask . What are some challenges you face?

My favorite parts are dreaming up new ideas to work on and watching the things we work on get released into the world.

Sports Week was another exercise in challenging myself to foray into the unknown, to take a whiff of the wild side, gamble with that of which I have little to no inkling. In other words, it was fabulous. I like learning and trying new things, and Sport apps are no exception. My fellow Appstruck writers and myself experimented with all sorts of apps, and we settled upon the ones shown this past week not because they were the most well-known or popular, but because they were the ones that got the job done, in the best way, with the best bang for your buck. And, most of them are really entertaining.

So, I encourage you, check out the apps below if you want to do anything from tracking your favorite player’s stats, to playing golf, to testing your tackling abilities.

Action Bowling Free





SportsTap





Real Tennis 2009





CBS Sports Mobile





Air Hockey

Tiger Woods PGA Tour

Sports Illustrated





BackBreaker Football

O M G.

I never thought I’d say this, but I love this sports game. And, it’s a football game. I’ve reached a milestone here. Of course, let’s be reasonable here: it’s not a true football game, in the sense that a true football game would actually require you to play football. BackBreaker Football by Natural Motion does not do this. It’s just the backbreaking part, which I think, is my main attraction to football. This game effectively skips all the positioning, the strategy, the score keeping, the fumbling, and fuming by just having you play as one football player, carrying a ball, sprinting down field toward the goal while avoiding, with a hop, skip and jump, the opposing forces that sprint toward you. Like I said, it’s fun, if a little simple.

The game immediately sucked me in with its hip, rock music fairly typical of any football movie or game (*starts thinking of those gritty, grainy film textures with yellow filters for adding dimension and grungy personality to sports flicks*). It’s too bad the music gave way to lame emo music of the kind where a man yells in some unflattering and mundanely generic tune, for you and me to ignore. It’s not a big deal – the music goes away once you’re in the game. When starting the game, a nice 360 view is given of the entire stadium, with all the fans standing and cheering you on. The graphics are definitely good enough to keep me playing this game – I have no qualms about admitting my addiction and high expectations for aesthetic quality. The objective? Make your way to the endzone without being tackled. Well, that’s simple enough, only for each level of difficulty there are 60 waves of increasingly tough defenses to beat. Thankfully, there are a few ways you can really amp up your scores, whether it be through juking, spinning, or showboating (150, 250, and 100/sec points, respectively), or, if you’re really daring, you can do combos of any of the above. These really help if you’ve been tackled a few times in a row and see your scores plummet. I particularly like showboating – it’s practically a rite of passage for football players – but I try to save it for when I’m a few yards from the endzone. I think the fans might think you a wee bit too cocky if you strutted a silly dance in the middle of the football field. At least optimism is on your side.

The controls are incredibly easy to use – I wouldn’t change a thing. Tilt the iPhone forward to start your player running, and then turn the phone to the left and right to move him in those direction; otherwise, hold up the iPhone to slow his speed, or even come to a standstill. The two buttons immediately to your left and right, the ones with arrows, let you juke in the corresponding direction, and the buttons adjacent to these are your spinning buttons, once again, corresponding to the direction they’re in. To make your player sprint, hold down the sprint button mid-screen on the right. Watch out, though, he you turn slower when sprinting, making you more vulnerable to tackles, and you can’t double up points by simultaneously juking or spinning. On the opposite spectrum, the showboating button in mid-screen on the left, for you to slow down, open your arms, and show the fans just how much of a pompous ham you are. Oh, it’s all in good fun.

Now, it’s on to play the game. Should the regular game mode ever get tired, there are two additional modes of play, Challenge and Endurance, that challenge you in different ways, with different scores and bonuses (things like gold helmets and the like). When playing, your character runs so smoothly it’s just a pleasure to behold, and the game has no discernible choppiness when being tackled heavily by opposing forces. When you do get tackled, a loud grunt and clanging of plastic is heard – very well done, I might add. For your added delight, BackBreaker includes instant replays from various angles that go on interminably until you hit the “skip” button. I rather like this. It adds to the enjoyment factor.

Running, spinning, showboating and the rough tackle or two really make these game enjoyable to play. It becomes more and more challenging, and there are plenty of levels, so despite the exceedingly basic premise, BackBreaker somehow turned out to be a quality game, with much more life than I anticipated. I’ll be playing this one for awhile to come.

Touchdown!

Yesterday I discussed how much fun bowling can be, but today, I’ve shifted my focus to tennis. Aside from golf, I can’t think of a more uptight, frilly, steeped in aristocratic breeding, white sport than tennis. The sport just oozes British accents and white shorts, polo shirts, matching terry head and wristbands, and an immaculately groomed appearance. Hmm, maybe I’m confusing tennis with polo. That’s tennis’ stereotype anyway, even when contrasted with Serena Williams’ often questionable and revealing fashion choices on court, and the rippling, bronzed god that is Rafael Nadal. But, I love watching tennis on TV. The women are always grunting, sweat is always pouring off the players’ faces, and then there’s Roger Federer, who with his ridiculous good looks, perfect coif, perfect form, and ever white uniform, should be branded the face of tennis – like Laetitia Casta being cast as the face of France. There are plenty of tennis games out there to put users in the shoes of these great tennis pros, but Real Tennis 2009 isn’t too shabby at all.

Real Tennis 2009 is definitely a solid tennis game — if you’re not ready to be quick on your virtual feet, or are looking for something more casual, you might check elsewhere. But with eight players, seven courts and three surfaces (not to mention some interesting multiplayer options to try), it’s a worthwhile tennis experience. The full version is priced decently at $4.99, but if you just want a quick overview, try out the free version – the gameplay is still there, there are just limits on court options and, unfortunate for some, no multiplayer. The whole game is flashy and dazzling, with game replays, and intermissions where, for five or so seconds, you watch your player recoup his wits and muscles on the sidelines, drinking from his sports bottle. I really like these little details – it adds a lot of personality to the game.

The game plays pretty well, though the players are controlled with onscreen buttons rather than touchscreen gestures. One thing I’ve noticed about iPhone games with built-in touchscreen buttons is they’re not terribly responsive. Something about your sweaty finger getting stuck on the screen, or the grease from your finger obscuring the screen’s ability to tactily respond to and translate your every swipe and tap just makes for a poorer game than those that rely on gestures. Besides – having buttons onscreen, while malleable (they could be on the left, or right, of hey, why not in the center), are kind of a throwback to almost archaic methods, no matter how tried and true they are. Even if Gameloft had you move the characters by tilting the iPhone, it would improve the playability. Serving is the only activity that tries to take full advantage of the iPhone’s controls: you can target your serve with the accelerometer, and then tap the screen anywhere when the serve meter is full. But, at least the game is fun: The action is pretty fast, and sometimes too fast. If you don’t get moving in the right direction right off the ball, your player will most likely end up diving and missing. Or just missing in a silly, obvious manner. Don’t worry, you’ll be able to watch it in instant replay.

Perhaps the most interesting part of the game lies in its impressive four-player WiFi multiplayer. That could be pretty impressive – if you can find three other people with iPhones and the game to play (hopefully, you’ll have more luck with this than finding other Harry Potter fans to duel). Single player is good enough for me, though, and I easily passed the time volleying with the AI – who have a tendency to hit the mark exactly (all the time). It’ll be awhile before I rise beyond the Rookie status, if I’m even at that level, but this game is far more enjoyable for me than playing the actual sport. When I play in life, I sort of make it up as a I go along, diving to the left and right and striking the ball whenever possible. I tend to cringe and later fume, not so quietly, when my boyfriend offers suggestions on my form. I do have plenty of stamina (cardio is my friend), so the quick switch-around and momentous, pirouetted leap are but two of the reflexive techniques in my repertoire, but I digress – I’ve never been one to participate in competitive sports. For one, I’m far too competitive. With games I was always the one throwing the controller across the room, or, in one famous incident among my brothers and I, when Diablo killed me in the first Diablo, and I screamed, picked up my director’s chair, and threw it across the room, near where my brothers were perched. My brothers left soon after that. I’m so calm and collected in my daily life that sports unleash my childish temper tantrum, where I just let loose with the primal screams and pout in a very unflattering and unforgiving manner. Plenty of people thrive in this type of competition, but I’d rather team up and rock climb, or run together, or take a long hike. Those are sports too, in a sense, perhaps not as most Americans define “sport” (i.e. football, basketball, baseball, tennis), but they’re right up my alley. But, I enjoy playing most sports games – with Real Tennis 2009 I’m a step removed from the sport, and I can rest assured knowing my players onscreen will always have better form than me.

Well, no, I have plenty other apps up my sleeve, but let’s remember: bowling is a legitimate sport. Created some time in the 1800s, in the 1950s and 60s bowling alleys became immensely popular in the United States, so much that the LA Times described them as “small cities in themselves” in reflection over the millions of dollars (and people) allocated toward this burgeoning sport. Today, bowling exists with much less vivacity than it did in its golden days, but it’s still a local venue in many towns and cities peppered throughout the United States, and in other countries, like Australia, where its popularity once rivaled that of rugby and soccer. The AMF World Cup – arguably the Wimbledon of the bowling world – stands alongside the World Tenpin Masters and the Weber Cup as the largest, and most prestigious annual, international bowling competition; the World Tenpin Masters is, apparently, the world’s leading televised bowling tournament due to its dramatic setup of a single lane buffered on all sides by terraced seating. Now, bowling may seem a little dull on the surface, but once you watch those powerful curve balls and lightning quick tosses, topped off with that magical, clacking of the pins as they fall down, hopefully in a strike, then you can understand how bowling can be exciting. But, really, it’s just plain fun.

When I saw Action Bowling Free, I immediately remembered my most recent visit to the bowling lanes. No, I wasn’t eight – shockingly, I was 25, because it was a mere few weeks ago. A friend nostalgically wanted to bowl at the AMF lanes in Petaluma, and like any nighttime event, there were drinks, black lighting and offensively white teeth, loud music, and the echoing clatter of leaden balls striking wooden pins. Before the iPhone, it was hard to recreate the experience of live bowling – or any sport, for that matter – but now that we have the iPhone (and the Wii), miming the act of throwing a ball has become so much easier. In Action Free Bowling, you use your iPhone as a you would a bowling ball,  swinging it back and letting it go as you move your swing forward. Let’s be clear – don’t throw your iPhone. We at Appstruck encourage you to hold onto that expensive phone with an iron grip. I guess I should take note, since I already flung my phone across the room, in a frenzied, excited burst of bowling energy. No, instead, you press down on the screen with your thumb to start the swing, then simply lift your thumb as you “let go.” It’s great. If you want, you can take it to dramatic lengths, holding your iPhone right beneath your chin and squinting your eyes, imagining those pins several yards away, then stepping into your swing and letting it rip full throttle. Or, you could be lazy and take the touch gesture route, flinging your finger onscreen to make your ball roll. The motion controls make for a more difficult game, especially since you can twist your wrists to the right or left, mimicking the movement it would take to throw a curveball or hook. The game really encourages you to play around with the physics – and those physics are much better than other bowling apps I’ve tried.

In the full version, you can customize bowling ball colors, change your environment to any of 12 different bowling alleys, play in practice mode to improve your form, play with multiple players on one device (this is a real plus), and lastly, engage in a chipper, if odd, round of bowling history trivia. I only have the free version so far, but it suits my needs perfectly. I definitely wouldn’t mind a change in bowling ball color – the game’s default is a crummy brick red with the usual, cheesy, tiger stripe striations – but funnily enough, you can customize your bowling style in the free version to a small extent. If you access the Settings page, you can choose to favor either a straight, a curve, or a hook throw; or, you can select the custom field, and customize your spin and speed. Pretty cool, if I say so myself, but not as cool as having the option to turn the music to silent. The music isn’t bad, by any means – it’d be perfect in a techno club circa the mid 1990s, or just anywhere in Europe – but it does get repetitive, and is somewhat ill-fitting for the sport of bowling. With this kind of music, I expect the game’s bowling lanes to be decked in cosmic colors, with black lighting and neon strobe lights. Hey, now there’s an idea!

The game is straightforward enough: try to knock down as many pins as possible, have fun, and watch the game keep track of the score for you – to make it more lifelike, the screen is set up in a mirror example of a real bowling alley. My form greatly improved near the end of my first round, but I still only scored a pretty low 134. My next round through, I was up to 280. It may not translate to real bowling, but if I buy the full version, at least I can knock down my opponents, and then maybe one day knock them out on the real lanes. To my surprise, bowling still ranks as the number one participatory sport in the United States, with 54 million Americans ages 6 and over bowling at least once a year. How can that be?, you may ask. It seems bowling is easy for anyone to pick up – pay a small fee and all the equipment you need is immediately within your reach, and playing entails a simple swing and roll of a weighted ball. Even kids can master the between-the-legs roll and knock down a few pins. Anyone can love bowling, and Action Bowling Free just takes the fun home.

When I still lived with my parents, in my teenage years not too long ago, I once came upon a book my brother brought home from school, a curiosity, because he rarely brought home anything at all. It was a book like any other, of the young adult vein, and without so much as a whiff of indecision I opened the book and started to read. It was a book, after all. I can hardly refrain from touching them as I pass by sideboards and bookshelves rife with them. Little did I know that this book was Harry Potter – or, to be more exact, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone – and that the next three hours of my life would be spent with my nose interminably stuck to the flipping pages as I read the story in its entirety, from beginning to end. The feeling I had upon completing the book was sheer exhilaration, a rejuvenation of sorts, from this breath of fresh air in children’s literature, this excellent and imaginative evolution from the days of R.L. Stine. Over the next few years I became one of the many Harry Potter fans, eagerly awaiting the next books at midnight openings – with or without Hermione getup and Griffindor scarf wrapped around my bushy locks – and quivering with anticipation every time I read through spoiler columns of the upcoming Harry Potter movies. When the first movie of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is released, you can be sure I will be camping overnight, like Star Wars all over again. So, it goes without saying I was eagerly anticipating Harry Potter Spells for the iPhone.

The Harry Potter movies are not stellar by any means. Each director – it seems there are many – took his own creative liberties in interpreting both characterizations and the book’s events, oftentimes in ways the audience found highly disagreeable. The movie Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix made a huge error when it had Harry’s prophecy spoken aloud as soon as Harry touched the orb when he and his motley comrades were in the Hall of Prophecies. The whole point of the prophecy was only the person for whom it was predicted – in this case, Harry – could touch it, and only when the orb itself was shattered, could the prophecy be released and heard. That’s why the Death Eaters needed Harry to grab it and give it to them, they being unable to hear it for themselves. In the movie, the prophecy rings out for all to hear, eliminating the reason the Death Eaters needed Harry’s assistance. It was preposterous. Not to mention, the adventures Harry and his friends encounter in the Department on Mysteries are gripping to read, and yet none but the Hall of Prophecies were included, and even the director ruined that. But, my quibbles are my quibbles. It’s only too bad the Harry Potter Spells apps falls into this disappointing trend of digital interpretation.

The app starts off promising. A snazzy WB introduction followed by the typically hazy shroud that encases the title Harry Potter Spells put me in the right, magical mindset, and a voice saying “Welcome to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry,” with the Harry Potter theme music was just icing on the cake. Even better, the app showcases its raw Harry Potter fan-dom by putting its users through the Sorting Hat ritual. I was horrified to be placed in the House of Slytherin (“but, but… I’m a Ravenclaw!”), but if I really disliked this sorting, there’s an option to be re-sorted. It’s all in good fun, anyway, even if the Slytherins tend to be evil. Really evil.

Before even downloading the app I was impressed with the clever idea to use the iPhone as a wand, using motions to mimic the wand casting of spells. I mean, how utterly cool is that? My excitement reached a pinnacle of intensity after I checked out the spell chart, which included various offensive and defensive spells read about in the books, spells like the ever-popular (almost a household term) Expelliarmus, Stupefy, Confundo, Petrificus Totalus and Alohomora. A guide is provided with drawings of a vintage, yellowed design prompting you to the proper movements for wand casting. It seems simple enough in theory: hold your iPhone horizontally at all times, parallel to the ground, and cast spells by pressing your thumb onscreen and drawing shapes in the air, without too much wild gesticulating. You can even record your voice when casting a spell so your own voiced yells “Expelliarmus” instead of the stock, default voice. My boyfriend kept casting me aggrieved looks when I would cast spells, hear my voice, and nearly die from a fit of the giggles. But, my elation soon subsided because it was only until I tapped the Learning tab – used for unlocking spells – that I learned just how misleadingly easy these directions are.

Learning a new skill is always hard. It requires finesse, patience, and constant practice, but I’m beginning to understand why Hermione is always so frazzled. Casting spells is rough. The Expelliarmus movement is easy enough in writing – just a simple dash to the left and then down, but after countless episodes in the Learning module, with the app yelling “Incorrect!” I was bristling with annoyance. First, I cast my wand and the app tells me it’s too slow. I pick up the speed and it tells me I’m too fast. Then it tells me cheerfully to, “Try Again!” three more times, and then I receive a failing grade and must try all over again. Next thing I know I’m throwing my iPhone across the room and yelling, “Oh look! My phone was flung from my hand and I didn’t even have say Expelliarmus!” followed by many expletives. If I were Harry Potter, objects would have started levitating around the room, papers would have mysteriously appeared out of thin air and started fluttering is a flurry, and electrical sockets would have started snap, crackle popping.

It was only after an hour or two did I realize the patterns drawn on the spell chart weren’t limited to a two dimensional plane (thanks, brain). For the Lumos spell, it appears that you have to shoot your wand forward and back, when really, you must lift your phone up and then down, abruptly. I guess the “hold your phone horizontally at all times” confusingly made me lean toward the inclination that your castings, as well, should only be horizontal. In other words, don’t look straight down at the spell castings, and mime that movement exactly. Think three-dimensionally.

For moments like these, the app directs you to the Practice “room” or tab, where you can wave your wand around to your heart’s desire without a set time limit or end result. To aid in your practice, the Spell Chart is visible in the background, giving you all the movements for each spell. While the freedom to wave as you please is a nice touch, it leaves much to be desired. You can wave your wand endlessly, but unlike in the Learning section, there is no feedback to your maniacal waving. For all you know, you could be performing each wave differently, without consistency, and think to yourself, “yea, okay. I have the hang of it,” only to get a pathetic 40% accuracy in your Lumos demonstration. Apparently, practice does not make perfect. There aren’t even spell castings like in the Learning Module, which is the whole point of Harry Potter Spells – we want to see the cool special effects, that cool jet of cool blue light shooting from our wand’s tip. The Practice section should be exactly like the Learning module, with all its Incorrects and Too slows and spell castings – just without a set amount of tries.

Once you feel confident enough in your skills (I’ve unlocked as far as Protego, with most of my rankings 80% and above), there’s the awesome option to duel. Even people who don’t like the Harry Potter series can appreciate an impressive wizard duel, with shooting beams of light and exploding objects (come on LOTR fans, Gandalf’s magic wasn’t nearly impressive enough in the movies). I recommend memorizing the spells, because looking through the spell chart is a pain, and will usually result in your wand being knocked from your hand. Oh, that Expelliarmus.

To duel, you may either play with someone nearby, online, or all by your lonesome (this could actually pose as the real practice space, more so than the Practice tab). At the top of the screen is your opponent’s health bar, with your health and energy bar at the bottom. Alerts at the top left of the screen warn you about incoming offensive spells so you can quickly retaliate with the appropriate defensive spell to counter it. If you’re good, you could have an epic battle of yellow, blue, white and purple lights (thankfully, the game has different animations for each spell. I would have immediately boycotted the app if all the spells looked the same). For those not in the know about spells in the Harry Potter world, here’s a brief rundown. Offensive spells include Petrificus totalus, Expelliarmus, Confundo, Stupefy, Incendio, Oppugno, and Confrigo. Defensive spells include Protego, Finite incantatem, and Aguamenti. Some defensive spells are better suited for one offensive spell over another, such as in the case of Aguamenti. I would recommend using this water spell against the fire spell Incendio, more so than against Petrificus totalus, a spell that locks you up like a stone, rendering you immobile. Water versus fire, okay. Water versus total body lockdown? Not so much. Don’t worry, you’ll get the hang of it.

Dueling online can be slow and very choppy, so I recommend just duking it out wizard-style with fellow, nearby Harry Potter afficionados. I’m dying to see two kids battle on the street, dodging behind trees and yelling “Stupefy!” at each other. I would be happy to be stupefied just to see a moment of this, but unfortunately, the spell casting is probably too frustrating and difficult for most children to handle. Which leaves me to wonder, who will be using this app? I mean, I certainly enjoyed playing with it, but am I really going to duel with other 25 year olds? I like Harry Potter, and I certainly like clever apps such as this one, but there’s a missing demographic afoot here. Then again, it will definitely appeal to those crazed fans who order wands online, visit gossip sites nonstop, and order all sorts of Harry Potter type knick-knacks for their collection. I have to admit… those wands looks pretty cool.

With its relatable moniker, Surviving High School is an appealing game for tweens, teens, and young adults alike. A pivotal milestone in anyone’s life, High School is more easily romanticized with that hazy glow of foresight and hindsight than it ever is whilst living it, and those four years have that irksome quality of being simultaneously exceptional and loathsome. I survived High School with my wits barely intact, having shied away from any quality social interactions until my senior year, and having tremulously walked the hall always with a fluttering heart, a sigh of anxiety and dread that really had no defined nature or origin. Of my memories, the most fond I have is of being unofficially nicknamed “Miss 15″ for my astute ability to deserve the AP English teacher’s highest marks on papers – and having him pin one of my papers to his wall of fame; the most strange I have is being nominated for and winning the title of “Most Fashionable” – a title, I suppose, my friends still remark on today; and the absolute worst memory I have is, well, all those times when I fumbled my words around boys, walked into glass doors, came off as exceedingly dorky, and all those other traits I now cherish today.

Surviving High School is actually pretty clever, taking a Sims-like premise of decision-making, without all that character customization, A.I., and those fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants choices that can make your Sim a complete sloth with no motives, or a crazy party hopper with a satyric nature. Generally, it does without the overdone, now hackneyed digital doll premise that leads to too much vicarious living. Surviving High School instead fuses together this Sims-like, character-driven game with a cartoon storybook, turning the game into a revival of those retired gamebooks that had you participate in the decision-making process of the main character for a more involved reading experience. I remember in the mid 90s, the popular R.L. Stine Goosebumps franchise released a series of customizable storybooks, called Give Yourself Goosebumps, where you chose the main character’s decisions, leading him to his eventual demise, or escape, or endless looping through horror after horror. These were influenced by a popular series in the 1980s called Choose Your Own Adventure; it seems they’re being revitalized yet again for a new generation.

With 8 weeks to Homecoming, your character arrives new to BLANK High with a few different ambitions in mind – the first and foremost being football, it seems. A pretty girl named Beth introduces herself and takes a liking to you, flirting a bit with remarks on your good looks, and from the very beginning you choose where you and Beth stand. Before you start considering how awesomely progressive this game is with the introduction of lesbian or bisexual characters, you’ll be disappointed: you’re a guy and you will always be a guy. Right after Beth introduces herself, you get to choose your name and select a physical avatar from one of five, set character designs. The first time around, I chose the classic good-looking guy, with Leonardo DiCaprio blond locks from his Romeo+Juliet days, and a nice, olive complexion. Two other choices are classic stereotypes: the bad boy, with spiked hair dyed an odd mauve color and piercings (but not too many, that would just be way too punk); and the classic geek, with long, untidy hair, glasses, and earphones hanging from his neck (from, no doubt, playing WOW online). The two other choices – a black kid in bright orange shirt, and white kid with short, brown hair – are run-of-the-mill generic guys who could pass for either jocks or your average, faceless high schooler. Choosing your name is the best part – I enjoyed seeing “Dimitri” and – my second character – “Geoffrey” highlighted whenever another character spoke to me.

As you choose your character’s path day-by-day in this 8 week long story, you meet many characters along the way, some friendly, and some not so much. It seems whatever choices you make, Adam – the star quarterback – will always start off hating your guts and calling you “meat,” and Howard will always be your unconditional friend. Even after you fail at football, your teammates Chuck will always be the goofy comic relief and Jacob will always be the bright-eyed yes-man. And Amanda, the plucky red-haired ditz, will always have a sunny smile for you. However, if go the anti-popular way (hard to do in this game), then gossip girl Taylor will diss you rather than kiss up to you, and if you start skipping class, then the nerds in your various classes – Spud being the most noteworthy – will start to spurn you. Many of the scripted events in the game, such as rival Wilson High guys coming to assault you, and running into Adam walking home, are events that happen to matter what choices you make.

Your parents play active roles in the game, with a major decision factoring into whether you decide to maintain a 3.0 gpa or not (do you want a spiffy new car, or not). Curiously enough, the way this school operates, you can slide by without doing any homework (tsk) so long as you answer quiz questions correctly – all homework seems to be extra credit. For each class – Math, English, and either History or Biology – once a week you’ll be prompted to answer three questions of surprisingly educational value. The Math questions require some serious mental math skills, despite their easy multiplication nature, and the English questions require an adequate knowledge of some classics – such as the ending of Pride & Prejudice (freshman high schoolers may not be able to answer these questions – or at least, not California high schoolers). The Biology teachers asks questions on radial symmetry, mitosis, the Linnean classification, and other basic High school level science trivia, and the History class mostly revolves around World War II history and U.S. Presidents. It’s hard for me – even when I want to make a “bad boy” character who cuts classes – to dip below a 3.8. I start getting anxious.

Whenever there are more pressing concerns you’re faced with – such as getting snacks for your girl at the movie theater, or moshing like the regulars at Raven’s goth concert – you play a game to assess the outcome of your character’s plight. The game is always the same: a square tile board comprised on different letters acts as a Word Finder puzzle where you must successfully connect words to score points. Score enough points to reach the Target score, and your outcome will be positive – score less, and those snacks you bring back may be salty hot dogs instead of the Malt Balls Beth really craves. I wish there was more diversity in the games played, but the word connecting is effective and fun, if not completely unrelated.

It really irked me that no matter what, you have to play football. The first time around I enjoyed celebrating my closeted inner-jock (wait, does that really hold true?) and enthusiastically played the in-app football games that actually prove to be very entertaining. But, after creating other characters, I grew weary of this forced sport enthusiasm, and decided to play lousily, despite my character’s ever present desire to be starring quarterback. I guess you can’t get more cliche about High School than throwing football in the mix. Curiously, despite playing horribly, despite my every concerted effort to make the opposing team win, the Coach always found it in his heart to praise my efforts and continued putting me out in the field. I just let the other team have the ball, continuously, for an entire game, resulting in a score 0f 0-28, and he won’t bench me? Sigh.

Whenever your character isn’t playing football, he’s in class, or skipping class, going out with friends, or spending some spare time on Saturday choosing between watching tv, working out, and doing homework. In retrospect, these choices seem pretty limited, and character development is nonexistent – no matter how many times you choose the jerk answer, your character will always be the sweet, affectionate guy doling respect and words of wisdom to his girls and friends alike. The game is very cliche, in an almost aggressive way, with guys chasing girls and doing the male bonding thing, and girls gossiping together in a gaggle of giggles and lip gloss. In the words of a High Schooler, Gag me. However, despite these shortcomings, the game is maddeningly addictive. I played for nearly 3 hours straight in a car ride this past weekend, and it surprisingly wasn’t out of lack of anything to do. The interface and interactions are so clean, so smooth and enjoyable to behold, that you can’t help but giddly relish your inner-gossipy teen and see what awaits your character. Should I date Beth? Should I scope out the goth hottie? Should I see what happens if I slide in my grades and don’t get a brand, spankin new car from Dad? All these questions, so many answers.

After playing the FootBall season game twice over, I admit I began to bore of the game, but good news – the best part of Surviving High School is there are new downloadable episodes that air for free each week. New games, more fun, and the best part? You’re main character can be a girl. Huzzah! You can either spend $0.99 for episodes On Demand, or you can simply wait the seven days and download the latest one to come on air. The episode from last week, one about working in a pizza shop, didn’t strike my fancy, so I opted to buy the one for this next coming week, about building a High School float.

Yeah, I know, I’m way too interested in the quintessential High School ones for my own good. Maybe I’m making up for my very non-cliche High School experience.