French Women Don’t Get Fat, The Okinawa Diet, The China Study, Dr. Atkin’s New Diet Revolution, and The Best Life Diet are but a few of the the most notable diet books from the last decade, each one acclaimed in its own right, each one later lambasted, and each heavily featured on various bestseller lists. Anyone can argue that one such diet will make you lose weight rapidly, but that another is better for your heart, that this other diet will give you the clearest complexion, but no one can truly say that one diet is better, overall, than another – or, at least, not any one of the modernized diets we see lining our bookshelves today. Many physicians today agree that some generalized form of a Mediterranean diet is the healthiest one to subsist on, if we define healthy in terms of a localized population with a low incidence of cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and a host of other modern conditions. The principal aspects of this diet include a high consumption of olive oil, legumes, grains, fruits, and vegetables; a moderate consumption of dairy products (mostly as cheese and yogurt), wine and fish; and a low consumption of meat and meat products. Of course, dietary jargon like moderate consumption often fall on deaf ears – how do we define moderate? Everything, after all, both diet and people, is relative to one’s own health and experience. Dietary factors, really, are only part of the reason for the health benefits enjoyed by these cultures – genetics, lifestyle (notably heavy physical labor), and environment are also involved. The putative benefits of the Mediterranean diet for cardiovascular health are primarily correlative in nature: while they reflect a very real disparity in the geographic incidence of heart disease, identifying the causal determinant of this disparity has proven difficult. Here is where my dad would pump a fist in the air and exclaim, with all the enthusiasm of a closet theorist, the correlation between cholesterol, cardiovascular disease, and Vitamin D.

One diet book bestseller that has been captivating people around the country doesn’t so much advocate a diet, in the traditional sense, as it advocates a simple substitution method when eating out. Their motto? Eat This, Not That! Rather than require readers to plow through literature on why certain foods are better than others, or vaguely telling readers to eat only moderate amounts of something, Eat This Not That instead takes a visual approach, inundating readers with pictures of food commonly eaten at fast food establishments, or during holidays, common snacks, breakfasts and more. The idea of the book, and its recently released app by Men’s Health Magazine, is to familiarize people with the concept of which foods are healthier – mind you, on a modest scale – than others of seemingly equal caloric value. If anything, the idea is pared down to the simple, but everlastingly true dogma of “calories in, calories out” – if you eat less, you will weigh less. Obviously, this isn’t a diet book that focuses on health, per se; if it were, then it wouldn’t advocate eating at fast food establishments. The meal substitution principle is a good one, though, because many people do dine at these establishment on a frequent basis, and if you can’t deter them from eating there, you may as well steer them toward the better choices.

The Eat This Not That app takes the visual principle a step further by plugging it into a game – a transportable one, at that. I’ve often lamented at how little people read, but the fact of the matter is people are highly visual creatures – when it comes to diet books, or recognizing portions and alternate food options, images are key. There won’t always be nutritional information available for everything you eat, and even with the caloric information now required by law for many places, there’s still no solid verification that people will always be interested, or patient enough to read this information and make better choices. With the Eat This Not That game, users will slowly become adept at recognizing which foods offer them the best bang for their health; they’ll learn, along the way, that mashed potatoes, while heavy in their own right with cream and butter, still make a more well-rounded choice than a slice of sweet potato pie. A shortbread cookie, while smaller in size, and seemingly innocuous and unassuming, has nearly three times the saturated fat of a chocolate raspberry brownie, which clocks in a modest 5 grams with 370 calories. The game presents you with two images, and you must decide, based on appearances alone, which is the better choice based on potential levels of saturated fat, sodium, and calories. As the clock ticks down, nutritional info starts popping up, to help you make a more informed choice, but you’re only docked points if you play in the speed round.

Yikes, the calories.

Many of the foods contained within this game are establishment-specific, like a Wendy’s Frosty or a Double Whopper with Cheese and Fries from Burger King. The game is particularly exceptional in this regard, for sorting out the caloric, sodium, and saturated fat values for these foods because I, personally, find it very difficult to weigh my options at these places. A burger is a burger, to me, so how do I know which one actually has four times the amount of already catastrophic sodium… and why? It never ceases to amaze me the disparity in calories and fat between two, seemingly identical entrees. Other foods featured in the game, however, are a bit more vague in origin, labeled simply as “slice of pumpkin pie” or a “blueberry cheesecake.” A blueberry cheesecake from Lindy’s in New York may very well be a heart attack on a plate, but not all cheesecakes are made in the same ilk. Portion sizes, too, remain vague in the slice arena. A quarter of a pie slice of pumpkin pie could very well rival a small slice of cheesecake; of course, this is making the argument against standard pie slice sizes, which frankly, I’m sure most people are unaware. Some choices make me scratch my head, it being completely obvious to anyone which is the healthier choice, but then I have to remember the general state of the nation: we’re obese, on a cattle scale, and most people probably will choose that deep-fried crab cake with 19 grams of fat and 300 calories over the 12 shrimp cocktail with sauce, averaging around 165 calories and zero fat. Sometimes, you just want that turducken.

Regardless of personal choices, Eat This Not That is a host of information on things we really don’t want to know about. The true success of this game, and book, lies in the scare tactic when users realize, with horror, that a salad from Wendy’s, with all its innocent iceburg lettuce, can range up to 700 calories, making a burger the unforeseen better choice. It may not be a revolutionary diet plan, and it may not be the most accurate in its representation, but it does fascinate you (albeit in a somewhat horrific and masochistic way) into making wiser decisions… and for a nation that scares itself silly over trite, inconsequential things, that isn’t a bad thing at all.

The game opens with a swingy rockabilly number that makes you want to dress in four inch heels, skintight black pants, and pizazz your way around a dimly lit red room, with all the rancorous excitement of a zoot-suit wearing, fedora-donning band, of course. The music conveys well the rush of the game, because all BirdStrike entails is you shooting a bug-eyed blue bird through the sky – flung, at first, from a tightly bound trapeze wire, and then literally skyrocketed up, up and away, into the clouds and beyond, collecting seeds and other points along the way.  The blue bird, with all his unassuming birdie air, is completely willing to put his pea-sized birdie brain into danger, slamming into objects both on the way up and down, and just generally willing to put his life in your hands. I thought his name funny, and in some odd way, fitting for a classic bird who might otherwise be named the cliche Birdie, Petey, or Chickie – his name is Gerald.

When Gerald is launched from the bottom of the screen, you’ll notice a row of red and white striped rockets right above him. As you fling Gerald into the air, he straps on one of these rockets to launch himself quickly up, where the rocket eventually fizzles, and you must make the quick decision to either steer him toward another rocket plugged stationary up there, or steer Gerald as he’s falling down to one of the rockets left below. Steering Gerald is just a matter of tilting your iPhone left and right, and to make matters easier when a rocket fizzles, he flutters stationary for a moment, before pitching his head down and plummeting in a nosedive toward the ground. Gerald, for all aristocratic, dated names, is one daring fellow.

After turning into a flaming, green inferno.

Just when you think you’ve successfully maneuvered Gerald into the safe, upper reaches of the sky, you encounter a UFO, with green lights and one, extendable, robotic arm, that shoots Gerald with one ZZAPP, turning him into a burning ball of green and yellow flames. But, take no pity on your keen, feathered friend. Gerald takes this as an opportunity to destroy any hindrances on the way down, a bit like an act of revenge – you earn points by colliding the burning Gerald with scaffolding, and other things that he would, in his normal blue-feathered state, bump his head upon. 300 points are earned for each object you destroy, which rewards you more than all the eggs you collect, which are 200 points apiece. The best way to earn points in this game is to steer Gerald clear of any obstacles – the game awards you a whopping 2600 points for a certain chunk of time spent in clean flight.

Oh no!!

Other than the flying around, the rockets, the bumping of Gerald’s head, and his transformation into a ball of fury, there’s not much to this game. If you’re looking for more levels, more action, more complexity, please look elsewhere. Birdstrike is straightforward meaningless, in the best way possible. You launch a bird, you pay attention, avoid obstacles, try to rack up points, and enjoy the highly pleasing graphics and sound effects. It’s silly, frivolous, and giddy wrapped in one blue bird. Didn’t I tell you it was a good way to start the morning?

The game is one of carefully calculated maneuvers, coupled with feline reflexes, a predictive range of sight, and just some general know-how when it comes to pendulum swings and the ensuing momentum and velocity. Sound intriguing? Well, it’s not quite that in depth, but it’s still really engaging, and does employ some of the aforementioned characteristics. The game opens, without warning, to a scene of magma encrusted rocks with gray spheres dotting the screen at random locations, with your ascent ball centered at the bottom. The music is melancholy sci-fi, swimming in a thudding, murky mystery, and getting you lost in the ether – it’s an odd combination with the game’s setting, but somehow works at getting you more engrossed. At first, it might take you awhile (less, though, now that you’re reading this review) before you figure out that your ball takes ascent by latching, by magnetic tractor beam it seems, to the randomly assorted gray balls that hover onscreen. According to the tutorial – a tutorial that actually makes the game easier to understand, unlike most games – these gray balls are mines, currently unarmed. To ascend to the upper echelons of the the magma filled center of earth, and then beyond, you must hoist yourself up with the assistance of these mines, taking care to let go, after building the proper momentum, so you can fling yourself away from any proximity to the mine, to avoid colliding with it. Why? Because once you grapple onto a mine, that particular mine becomes armed, and we all know what happens to an armed mine once touched – KABLOOIE! Should you ever forget that mines are dangerous, the game reminds you by affixing a giant, red, warning target around the mine in use. Yes, I highly recommend not touching any mines, if you can help it, otherwise it’s game over, and start from the bottom again you must. To make matters more difficult, there is more than one kind of mine, because mines that simply explode upon contact, apparently, isn’t interesting enough for both the consumer and developer. No, there are mines that fall once you attach to them, mines that aren’t affected by your grapple, mines, thankfully, that give you a much needed upward boost, and mines, even, that will chase you for a bit after using them. Scary. Power-ups will help you in your route, things like Sticky Ascenders that make your ball stick to the wall, and Ascender Shields that protect you from explosions.

Based on this convoluted description, you may be leery of the game, thinking it too confounding to handle. Well, trust me, it is a difficult game – I have yet to see any scenescape other than the magma fields – but it’s well worth your time, and yes, even frustration. Ascent could very well be the most captivating, simple game I’ve come across, and this is no small feat to accomplish. It has all the addictiveness of Doodle Jump, with just as much difficulty, requiring you to develop a keen awareness of the sensitivity of your every move, your every decision. The movements are fluid, and the physics realistic – depending on the velocity of your ball’s upward projectile, you may find that grappling onto the a faraway mine may result in your ball crashing at the bottom, the downward momentum too much for your stretchy tractor beam to handle, and your weight bearing too much a load on the mine, gravity pulling it down with you (not all of them are statically positioned). It’s a bit like a bungee cord, your tractor beam, so you would be wise to think in terms of relative distance and how it affects your speed. Then again, don’t always rely on using nearby mines because you may just underestimate the speed at which you’re pulled toward them, resulting in a surprising collision and game over. Ascent certainly keeps you on your toes, and that is its most compelling feature.

Well, that and you’re playing as a geodesic ball hurtling through the nether regions of the planet by magnetic fields surrounding mines. That’s pretty compelling, too.

But, on to the game, shall we? The game impressed me upon its opening screen and title pages, which are all artistically drawn in a slight cartoonish manner, with well chosen colors, fonts, and sounds, cute maps of the like that reminded of SpongeBob SquarePants. This only made me curious as to why they didn’t extend this pretty design into the actual gameboard, itself, which dulls the senses with its dark brown motif, bamboo borders, and dark, wooden blocks falling at a slow pace, in front of a dim background. I suppose it isn’t too bad, but I was hoping for something a bit lighter and more airy in design, ignoring, of course, that most jungles tend to be dark given their expansive, sun-blocking canopies. The next level, The Desert, is set in what I presume to be a tomb, though it has a slightly metallic, mechanized feel to it, like a robotic chamber, with falling letters that clink together like coins. I do really like the music, though, in The Jungle it being something I can only describe as happy, vibrant tribal music, and in the Desert the music being subdued Eqyptian flute music.  The object of the game is to form words of at least 3 letters, connected either horizontally, vertically, or diagonally (or a combination of these), to earn points – gold, in this game – and succeed to the next level while avoiding enemies on the board, and trying to form five letter or longer words to earn bonus points per round. There are alsomechanisms in each round that help you, such as blocks that will switch letters, time enhancers, bombs that rid the screen of letters you want, and more. Much like Tetris, you don’t have a choice in deciding which letters will appear at what time, but you can move the letters as they fall onscreen – once they strike the ground, however, they become immobile, and it’s up to you to strategize where to place the next letters so you may potentially form words, and eliminate them from the screen.

Normally, this would result in a fantastic game – and it does, to a certain extent. The one, glaring problem with Captain Glyph is purely technical: the interface isn’t quite up to snuff. In other games, like Scramble 2, connecting letters is a breeze, no matter what the angle or order, but in Captain Glyph, it’s nearly impossible to select only the letters you want, without tacking on several other unwanted letters along the way. The blocks aren’t so ridiculously small that your finger wouldn’t be able to squarely tap dead center on them, so what’s the problem here? Why can I not select S-E-R-E-N-E when they’re diagonal to one another, my finger path instead forming a zigzap of S-P-E-Z-T-R- and so forth? It’s especially infuriating because while you’re concentrating on selecting letters, other letters continue to fall onscreen and before you know it, the letters stack to the top of the screen and it’s game over. At one point I was fuming so much I started forming very inappropriate words on the gameboard, only I wasn’t even able to form those correctly. *tears out hair* Foiled again.

For this reason alone, I have been unable to complete Captain Glyph. It’s unfortunate, because I really would like to explore the game further, see the other levels, and just enjoy the game. I could, potentially, just try my luck at forming only horizontal and vertical words, with maybe one or two letters jutting out in a different direction, but even then it’s too challenging to be fun. I did have success with using my pinky finger at an odd, slated angle, but that too takes the joy out of casual gaming. I do, however, see a lot of potential in this game, and I don’t know of any other word game that gives you the option of playing in 6 different languages, so Mars Toad is definitely on the right path. I hope in a future update this gaming issue will be resolved, because I really look forward to more adventures with Captain Glyph.

Thankfully, there’s not much to say about the app. Trust me, this is a good thing. History is too vast, even, to define – have you ever noticed how the most complex things are often the most simply defined, as if we know a whole subject matter cannot be easily winnowed down to scalable proportions, and so a scant, almost trite selection of words are paired up to give meaning, a “study of past events” representing the whole, overwhelming mass that is history? There is no way to contain the entirety of history within a definition, let alone an iPhone app, and so On This Day wisely pares down the information contained within to Births, Deaths, and the vague category of “Events” that generally covers only the most highlighted, or most obscure of factoids, for the purpose of entertaining frivolity.  The again, plenty of the history given in this app is amazingly random, which prompts me think, how did they choose what to cover? For today, April 07, one fact given in that in the year 529 the first draft of the Corups Juris Civilis (a fundamental work in jurisprudence, i.e. the theory of law) was issued by Eastern Roman Emperor Justinian I. Well, that’s plenty interesting, but what am I going to do with this little tidbit of information? It’s been a few years since Western Civ in college. Thankfully, On This Day is a step ahead: for each historical listing in the app, there are several highlighted bits that link you to Wikipedia articles should you wish to know more. This is assuming, of course, that you already have Articles – The Wikipedia app – a recent release – but in case you don’t, the app offers you the option to add it.

So, what else happened today, on April 07? In 1860, Will Keith Kellogg, that famous American entrepreneur who created Corn Flakes and other favorite Supermarket cereal brands, was born. El Greco, one of my favorite, undefinable artists, also died on this day in 1614. In 1788, American Pioneers to the Northwest Territory arrived at the confluence of the Ohio and Muskingum Rivers, establishing Marietta, Ohio as the first permanent American settlement of the new United States in the Northwest Territory, and thereby opening westward expansion of the new country. In 1906, Mount Vesuvius erupted, devastating Naples. For every day in this app, it seems as if there are at least 50 entries each for Births, Deaths, and Events, so there’s plenty of reading to be done, should you be of the factoid kind. All of this reading is made easier from the app’s excellent navigation – simple, with the option to rifle through the calender and dates, or just tapping through arrows, day by day -  and handsome design, which bears an homage to antiquity with its weathered, yellowed pages, and notepad interface.

It’s not be the most exciting app, or even, arguably, the most productive – I’m sure plenty of people will be miffed about how it needs internet to work, though I think that’s a minor quibble. In all honestly, I probably won’t use it very much, if I use it at all. I’m not sure what I was expecting with this app, but after checking it out, it’s probably the very best it could be. It’s just a collection of facts, in a well-designed package, and if that’s what you’re seeking, then this is the app for you. It won’t win any awards, and likely has a shelf life as dated as the facts contained within, but hey, at least it’s not a thinly veiled attempt at recycling an existing app under the guise of an original one. I actually kind of like it.

*Lets out primal scream*

GGRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAWWWWRRRRRR!!!

Okay, maybe that’s more of a animal roar, equivalent to me morphing into some hairy creature, with large, glistening fangs, and tearing off my shirt to make way for my expanding, beastly chest. Why the screaming? The panting and pounding of the chest, the wrath? Fly-Flap, a new game by AstalaVista. Trust me when I say those flies can be so pesky.

Of course, frustration isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Frustration can indicate either a ridiculously impossible scenario, or something that proves challenging enough to force you into repeated plays. Fly-Flap falls into the latter category: the game is solidly difficult. It challenges your reaction rate and finger speed by challenging you to kill flies and avoid beetles, at increasingly manic speeds. In some levels spiders appear, to your much-needed aid, and provide you with a means to double your points by slurping down any fly you drag to their mouths. They gobble them down and zip away off screen, but be careful not to tap on the spiders by accident, or you’ll send them falling to the ground, a slight scream escaping from their spider mouths. Their screams, along with the other sounds in this game, are apparently manufactured by the developers, themselves – and by manufactured I mean straight from their mouths. Oh yes, those screams and buzzes, and, yes, even the irksome,

Spiders will eat flies for you and double your points.

snickering, slightly evil and beckoning “mehehehhehehehehe” sound the flies make are all brilliantly contorted from the developer’s vocal chords. I must give them a lot of credit for this because the sounds are all top-notch, if slightly eccentric.

Fly-Flap offers two game modes, Arcade and Campaign, the first of which entertains you silly with more and more flies, at faster and more blinding speeds, and the second of which offers a more structured gameplay, with levels and specific objectives. I preferred Campaign mode right off the bat, on principle alone – levels with explicit directions give me focus, a well-established goal to work toward. And, trust me, the objectives are not easy. Starting off on the second level, you must feed 10 flies to a hungry spider in one minute, while killing other hordes of flies that appear onscreen. In any other game, this would be an easy feat, but in Fly-Flap you have something called a lifemeter that loses life whenever you miss squishing a fly and tap the air, instead. That’s right, you’re actually punished for missing, and the game will end if your lifemeter runs out. Secondly, to actually earn the points you deserve for squishing the flies, you must also tap the point bubbles they release two seconds after the fact. Given the mad speed at which you’ll be squishing flies in this game, it’s not always an easy task to pop all the bubbles – you’re almost guaranteed to lose out on 500 points per round.

Whatever you do, DON'T TOUCH THE BEATLES. Period.

As you progress through the levels, you’re given various aids and bonuses to help you in your quest to rid nature of flies – poison, anti-bug spray (kills a multitude of flies at once), horns (frightens enemies), blinding (makes flies stop), slowdowns (no explanation needed), and more. Beetles are also introduced, and these are bugs you want absolutely nothing to do with. They’re only good for making you lose the game, erupting in a flurry of purple and pink gas that encases surrounding flies, and basically calls the Game Over title to appear. Definitely avoid tapping on these suckers.

Overall, the graphics are good, the sounds amusing, and the gameplay challenging and quirky enough to keep things interesting. I was actually pleasantly surprised at how entertaining the game was, and I will probably return for a few more rounds. I wish the game wasn’t quite so hard – sometimes it’s exceedingly difficult to aim for the flies, and sometimes it feels as if my finger taps aren’t registering – but in a way I relish the near impossibility. Far too many games are quick to play and over in a flash, so why not embrace Fly-Flap’s challenge and enjoy a little bug squishing?

Enter Twistrix by Avalon Alliance. Now, this is a puzzle game – it’s name is even a bit of a puzzle, spinning fumbles on your tongue. The concept is similar to a rubik’s cube in that there are moving bits and pieces, all involving configurations of sorts, that, once resolved, lend the puzzle to becoming organized by color scheme. However, unlike the rubix cube, there is no set algorithm for solving the puzzle – you must instead rely on a sequence of logic, moving pieces one slot at a time, and filling empty slots with other pieces. In this manner, Twistrix resembles more those sliding puzzles kids get for free in goodie bags from Chuck E Cheese, or as party favors, the puzzles scrambled in a small, 2 inch square with many squares within, that, once arranged in order, reveal a stunning, teenage heartthrob or puppy.

Twistrix is arranged in its own, unique fashion. If it resembles anything at all, it would be a traffic light, with its initial red and green colored dots, set inside a revolving gray-green turntable of sorts. The entire contraption may be spun to the left or right, or you may spin individual rows, once again, to the left or right. All the rows stacked upon each other (each level has varying amounts of rows) create columns, of which only one is facing you at a time, but each holds its own assortment of colored balls. An empty slot is available each round – sometimes more – to aid you in moving the balls around, and you must figure out how to move the balls – up and down, rotating the rows – so that each column holds a stack of like colored balls (i.e. a stack of 5 red balls). To make matters more challenging, as you progress through the levels, more colors are added.

The graphics may not be particularly stunning, and sometimes my finger will fail to illicit a response from the game, but Twistrix accomplishes its most important goal: it’s a brain twister, in a deeply furrowed brow kind of way. I admit to fumbling a bit on the first round – the first round - and I sheepishly twisted things, moved things here and there, before I finally developed a feeling for the game. It’s not that the game, itself, isn’t intuitive, it’s just the mechanism, the turntable, is a puzzle premise unlike any I’ve seen, and so it took a few moments for my brain to register the logical progression of things. Once I understood the mechanism, it was free-flying; mind you, I’m not saying it was easy, merely, the puzzles made sense. And, that is the best puzzle of all.

I grew up with a strong fascination for books, largely because my parents truly encouraged and insisted on fostering a love for reading. Well, that, and we were a disciplined bunch, with many rules and restrictions, and when such things tide over a young person’s rambunctious mind, I quickly learned the best outlet is through a book. Almost a year ago I reviewed a stellar app by the name of The Little Red Hen, one that I absolutely raved about and upheld as an example for all kids apps to follow. Back then, The Little Red Hen and its brand, Kidztory (a brand of Stepworks), where unheard of, just a diamond in the rock waiting to be discovered. Appstruck was just starting up then, so, needless to say, my adoration and rave review was largely unheard until more people discovered the app, and came to the same conclusion as me. I was surprised, actually, to find that if you type in The Little Red Hen app, our site is the second link shown. Fancy that. Since the inception of The Little Red Hen, Stepworks has been on an app-making spree with other classic tale releases like The Boy Who Cried Wolf, The Tortoise and the Hare, The Three Little Pigs, The Lion and the Mouse, and now, their most recent, Duck in the Truck, made in collaboration with HarperCollins Children’s Books.

The beautiful thing about this most recent collaboration is it takes the brand Kidztory and merges it with contemporary children’s literature, preserving all the original artwork from the books, themselves. I truly enjoy the digital artwork seen in the other Kidzstory conceptions, but it’s good to see modern tales upheld in their original light – and now, with the aid of the iPhone, they are given a voice and a bit of interactivity. HarperCollins truly picked a perfect brand with the now well-regarded Kidzstory brand, and after releasing Duck in the Truck, they plan on releasing more books by Jez Alborough, including Captain Duck and Fix-It Duck. Not too long ago I reviewed a storybook app called The Boy Giant by author Allan Penderleith, which I found emotional and entertaining – but, he doesn’t have quite the household name that Jez Alborough has. With Alborough’s  iPhone storybook app releases, I hope more people will become aware of, and embrace, the storybook idea for the iPhone.

As a book, Duck in the Truck is, without further explanation, an excellent read for the young mind. The characters are well-sketched, with individual quirks and looks, and this book, in particular, exhibits the moral of being a good Samaritan.The artwork is vivid and lush, with an almost old world look to it – old world in the sense of having that highly detailed drawing style usually not seen in more modern children’s books, which I feel mostly favor the scant and pared down look, a minimalist world. On the iPhone, Duck in the Truck bears that same fecundity, with bright colors jumping out at you from the screen, and slow animations that let you explore the world one mindful blink at a time. It’s amazing what designers can do with static images, taking a truck and just doing a simple clip clip on the computer, and then pasting that image onto the background, so it appears that when Duck’s truck gets stuck, it bucks back and then forth. To make the story even better for the young listener, who but Harry Enfield, comedian extraordinaire, should be the in-app narrator. The app is mechanized like the other intuitive storybook apps from Kidzstory, utilizing the flipping mechanism that mimes actual page flipping, with the page animation to boot. It’s overall, just a joy to behold, a joy to read, and a joy to listen to. If I were a child, who wanted to foster his own interest in reading, Duck in the Truck, and other apps by Kidzstory, are the best ways to develop that reading autonomy, in the guise of a modern, digital toy.

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.

After playing it, I’ve decided Numbl is definitely my choice in math games, for improving basic speed skills in mental math. No one wants to play a game of decoding differential equations and higher end calculus, except for those few and far between math majors, but nearly anyone can partake in a game of speedy arithmetic – and that’s essentially what Numbl is, coupled with the strategy of using the least moves possible to clear the entire board.

The game is shockingly good-looking. Good sound effects of the right pitch and digital cheeriness bring to mind a retro computer system, only it’s paired with a contemporary blue sheen that reminds me of the Chase credit card company. The setup reminds me of a calculator, with numbered buttons in a 5×4 area, an arrangement I suppose, is a good likeness to have when the game revolves around calculating a sum. The object of the game is to clear the board with the least moves as possible; in other words, it’s best to use the most numbers possible per turn, to faster eliminate numbers from the board. The number 11, for example, when shown at the top to be solved, could simply be solved by the addition of the two numbers 9 and 2. But, since 11 isn’t a terribly high number – as opposed to, say, 17 – then it’d be wiser to use an allotment of small numbers, like 3+2+2+4 – given of course, that you have these numbers available. Should you worry that you may receive a number that you cannot create with the remaining numbers at hand, fret not: Numbl takes into account such limitations and allows you to use a single number of equal value to the number at the top (e.g. use a 6 for a 6). Obviously, for the purposes of clearing the board, I recommend not to tap a number 9 to solve for 9 when you could instead use 2+2+5. Besides, when a pesky 17 shows up, you’ll want to have that 9 on hand.

Easy to pick up and easy to learn, Numbl also offers a nice split-screen mode for two-player. Also, both the one-player and two-player modes are timed, making speed a crucial element to the game. I prefer one-player, myself, because I enjoy improving my own mental acuity at my own pace (faster, Jackie, faster!), but to each his own. I hope in later versions Numbl will offer a similar version of play with subtraction, multiplication and division. You may as well cover all the preliminary bases, right? In any case, whoever is lucky enough to nab the sole promo code won’t regret downloading this game.

Promotion Codes:

MRFA3W369MWR

*When using the promotion code to download for free, it’s on a first-come, first-served basis. Out of courtesy, please leave a comment below mentioning you’ve used the promotion code.