Author: Ryan Ballard

Knock-Knock-Android-Game-Review
Reviews

Knock Knock Review: An enjoyable yet frustrating game to play

Knock knock is an odd game. This makes for a difficult review. The first review that I had lined up was a glowing one as I was quite impressed with the effects the developers designed, as you’ll read below. The second one I was going to write was much more negative, almost scathing, pointing out things that I felt the developers should’ve included in explaining the game better, after I encountering a sudden and unexpected “Game Over” that was without cause. This is my third take on the game, which will be a bit more balanced and include elements of both.

Zombie-Gunship-Reality-Android-Game
News

Zombie Gunship Reality and Google’s Project Tango come together

Project Tango is a venture that Google is undertaking by designing hardware that is able to render models of its surrounding environment. Tango’s sensors take over a quarter of a million measurements every second to update the position of the phone. It then takes all the information and fuses it into a single 3d model of its environment. Why would that matter to gamers like ourselves? I’m glad you asked! Here’s why: for example it’s able to scan a room to create a 3D rendering.

Chaos-Ride-Android-Game
News

Chaos Ride is an upcoming 3D Racing title from Sc0tt Games

Sc0tt Games,  who created The Ingenious Machine, Rocket Drop,  and Tri-Strip, is about to release a brand new game called Chaos Ride. Set in the future, this racing game isn’t like most others as “[b]raking, drifting, and cornering are all irrelevant”. So in lieu of those things, racers will shift their weight (via careful positioning) and attempt to maximize the track to their advantage through things like the downhill gradients of the tubular track accelerating the speed of their hover bikes.

Google-IO-2014
News

Android TV is Google’s newest journey into your living room

Yesterday Google announced and previewed a new product called Android TV. Android TV is coming soon, both in set top box form, as well natively integrated in television sets. Among its other features like search and voice input, it is also capable of playing games. Google mentioned that this isn’t a new platform, so much as they’re now going to give televisions the same level of attention as phones and tablets, and there should now be a single SDK for all form factors, including TVs. This should allow developers to create games that play on Android TV with relative ease.

Google-IO-2014
News

Recap of other Android gaming news from Google’s Keynote

Yesterday was the keynote for Google’s 2014 developer conference, Google I/O. They’ve touched on several topics, some of which have gaming relevant ramifications. For starters, with the next OS upgrade (currently called “L”), they touched on two things that will benefit gaming: graphics and battery life. With the former, Google demo-ed some game footage running on the Unreal 4 engine (which currently is for PCs). For the latter, Project Volta was announced to help slow down battery drain by showing users more information about where battery drain is going. While this isn’t directly game-related, more juice means more gaming.

the-last-express-android-game
Reviews

The Last Express Review: A good point-and-click adventure game with some shortcomings

The Last Express is a murder mystery that was originally released for Macs and PCs in the spring of 1997, and has since been ported to Android. It’s set in the days leading up to World War I, and you play the entire game on a passenger train passing through a large portion of Europe, on its way to Constantinople. On the whole, it’s quite unique for for a game. In some ways, it’s a bit like the game Clue, as both games have players confined to a space full of colorful characters that each have their own agenda. You need to navigate those agendas to accomplish your own in solving a murder.