Our 5 favourite new Windows Phone apps of the week
Happy (day after) Halloween, spooky smartphone ghouls!
Keep your wits about you and hold onto your broomsticks, because we’ve got a veritable coven of terrifying apps to show you this week! Well, when we say ‘terrifying’, we really mean terrifyingly tech-tastic, and if you’re frightened, it’ll only be at how monstrously amazing these developers are… Ahem. With a final clatter of our ghostly chains, we present….
Goldimummy & The Three Vampires
What is it? An interactive kids’ story
Why we love it? Okay, we confess: this is our only actual spooky app this week, and it’s been out for a little more than a week, but hey – it’s seasonal! Read the story (Goldilocks, but jazzed up for extra-scariness) and tp on the highlighted text for added extras to keep the little ones engaged. Simple, but effective, and a nice app for the tinies.
Who it’s perfect for: toddlers (and their grown-ups)
The Machine
What is it? A physics-based puzzle game
Why we love it? There are plenty of smartphone games available for WP users that work off a similar basis to this one – you’ve got an object that you have to bounce/catapult/slide past obstacles towards a target to progress to the next level. Two things, though, make this version particularly interesting: one, the object is a blob of ink, and the more moves you take to get from A to B, the more ink you waste, which really affects your score; and two, the animation is just gorgeous, in an inky, steam-punk, mocochromatic kinda way. It’s almost as beautiful to watch as it is fiendishly difficult to play. (Oh, yeah – it’s way harder than it looks.)
Who it’s perfect for: puzzle fans and graphic designer
InNote
What is it? A new note-taking app
Why we love it? Take notes using the typing tool and the handwriting tool – it’s as good as your own finger-control – and add photos and audio notes, too. Select one of three different background (plain, lined, gridded) and save your notes to different ‘notebooks’. Export them as PDFs or images and share to social media or via email or SMS. It’s a beautiful app; the handwriting tool is very intuitive and the whole effect – text and images – looks like a page from a sketchpad. Well worth a go if you’re always scribbling things down.
Who it’s perfect for: Creative folk who want to capture those thoughts pronto.
Rdio
What is it? An on-demand ad-free music streaming service
Why we love it? It’s not our favourite music service (our hearts belong to Nokia Music) but since the newest version of Rdio has been totally overhauled for WP8 we thought we’d check it out, and we’re impressed. The interface is right and easy to navigate, though we’d prefer a more customizable search option as well as the popular albums, new releases and basic search. Still – there’s a lot of tunes on there! The free trial lasts two weeks and then you’re onto various payment packages, depending on how much you think you’ll use it.
Who it’s perfect for: music fans
Medieval Math Battle
What is it? A turn-based educational fantasy game.
Why we love it? Take one hack-and-slash RPG with all the requisite trolls, potions and armour you could want, throw in some mental arithmetic, and you’ve got Medieval Math Battle. You, the game’s hero, must solve a basic sum before you’re allowed to take your turn, and the quicker you solve it, the more time your character will have for beating on the enemy – which means the slower you are to solve the maths question, the fewer hit points you’ll be able to whack from your fearsome foe. Ignoring the naff damsel-in-distress intro, it’s a pretty nifty way to force your kid into working on some key mathematical skills. It’s not a hard game, but it’s not exactly aimed at adult of hardcore gamers, either, so there’s no point quibbling. (Note: addition comes for free, but you have to cough up to throw subtraction multiplication and division into the mix.)
Who it’s perfect for: Young kids (of the nerdier variety)
As you can see we’ve no tricks, but plenty of treats for you this week. Hopefully, you’ll find something here for the weekend but if you have any other scarily good new or updated apps, let us know down below.
Image credit: Clearly Ambiguous