iPhone Game Review -- Donut Games -- Icy Escort

By Bill Martens



Product: Icy Escort
Version: 1.10
Size: 4.4mb
Requires: iPhone OS 3.0
Languages: English
Website: http://www.donutgames.com/

This past week, I began to look at games for my iPhone 3Gs and of course, there are plenty out there. However, the distance between the good, the bad, and the downright ugly is tremendous. One diamond in the rough was a game I ran across from Swedish Game Development AB, also known as Donut Games. Icy Escort is a puzzle style game with a twist.



You are a mother penguin trying to gather up all your chicks in this game and between jumping from frozen platform to frozen platform and figuring out the pattern of the current screen, you have to gather the chicks while being aware of the ever present timer which is counting down to zero.



On each level, you try and gather the chicks while at the same time gathering all the ice creams on the level. The ice creams and the chicks give you points, the chicks follow you around, and the obstacles present interesting results, sometimes making the levels even tougher than they appear to be.

We played through level 20 of the 30 levels in just about an hour of play. while not the most difficult of games over all, there were a couple of levels that gave us a fit or two due to the pattern required to finish the level or the lack of time available to complete it. One more than one level we finished the level right as the clock reached zero. This type of game reminds me quite a bit of the old Flappy game on the Nintendo Gameboy in the respect that it required more than just the typical mindless game play.



The only aspect that I would like to see improve on the game is the number of levels included. Hopefully the next release of the program will address this. The fact that 20 levels took less than an hour and there are only 30 levels means that one would be finished the entire game in less than one day.



Summary
While Icy Escort is not the most original game or even the most advanced program ever produced, if you are looking for an entertaining game that will not only allow you to pass the time but make you use your brain with the puzzles, then Icy Escort is the game for you. The best part of this game for us was that Donut games was offering the game for free for download from the Apple App Store. There is also a flash version of the game which is very similar on their website.

Also, if you are looking for a free game once in a while, check out the Donut Games site for the latest free-bees. While this app was free when we downloaded it, it is currently available for $0.99

Rating: 4 out of 5 Apples

March 2010 Issue coming this week

We are in the final stages of production for the March issue of Call-A.P.P.L.E. Magazine. This issue will have a lot of new articles about Apple II items as well as iPhone App reviews among others.

We have also begun to release Apple User Group information in the magazine in the form of the public strand of the announcements. The secure items such as discount codes and such will continue to be available from the A.P.P.L.E. website at http://www.callapple.org

Stay tuned for the release announcement coming up on twitter at http://www.twitter.com/callapple

February Issue now available

The February 2010 issue of Call-A.P.P.L.E. Magazine is now available on the A.P.P.L.E. website for public consumption. Be sure and check it out today at http://www.callapple.org

February 2010 Issue available to A.P.P.L.E. members

The February 2010 issue of Call-A.P.P.L.E. Magazine is now available to A.P.P.L.E. Members in the members magazine section. Check it out today!
http://www.callapple.org

Next issue of the magazine

I will be releasing the next issue of the magazine some time in April. I will start work on that issue in the first weekend of the month. If anyone has articles they wish to submit then please do so at least a week before.

Mike Pfaiffer to take over Magazine production

As of 1 February 2008, Mike Pfaiffer is both the production editor of Call-A.P.P.L.E. Magazine and the President of the group. Bill Martens, the former president will remain as the UG Ambassador but will have no dealings with the day to day production of the magazine or the group itself.

This change was brought about due to Bill's commitments elsewhere which have taken him away from having the time to perform the duties required by the production editor position. He also vacated the Presidency for the same reasons.

Online Catalog

We will be updating the online catalog this week to its final format. We have decided that all of the items sold by A.P.P.L.E. must be online in digital format. This will include auto delivery of ISO's for CD's and DVD's containing the clubs content. Come February, which will mark our 30th anniversary, there will be a big announcement concerning the group. Stay tuned for more on this one.

Virtual Apple gets upgrades

Seattle Omniworks web team has been busy upgrading the Virtual Apple 2 web site and you can seem the result of some of their work on the website now. They will be adding more disk images to the web site in the coming days as well as going to a complete PHP based database system to run the site.

They have added some advertising in order to produce more revenues as well as updated the SEO related items. You will see more changes in the coming days, including content related to the disk images, some hard to find games, more educational programs and a new magazine dedicated to the website.

The objective of this venture is for the Virtual Apple II website to become a hub for Apple II and Apple IIgs information. You can find more information about the changes on the Virtual Apple 2 web site at http://www.virtualapple.org under the headlines.

Seattle Omniworks takes over Virtual Apple 2

Virtual Apple 2 was taken over this week by Seattle Omniworks, Inc, a Seattle based internet product research and development firm. The take over includes all of the content, maintenance and the server that the houses the web site. This take over was facilitated by the need to have someone maintaining the web site 24/7 and to bring it to the forefront of computer emulation.

While the proceeds from the site will continue to benefit A.P.P.L.E. and Call-A.P.P.L.E. magazine to some extent, the main focus and layout of the website will change based on the needs expressed in the takeover.

You can find more information on the Virtual Apple web site (http://www.virtualapple.org) as well as on the Seattle Omniworks web site (http://www.seattleomni.com)

Mail Plane 1.52

The latest version of the wonderful little GMail application, Mail Plane has been released. There is an abundant amount of work that has gone into the latest version and according to an email the author, Ruben Bakker, sent out this past week, contains the following new features and fixes:

MAC OS X 10.5 LEOPARD SUPPORT
Mailplane is ready for the upcoming Mac OS X release. The same Mailplane version now runs on both 10.4 and 10.5 releases of the operating system. I am still working on the iPhoto plugin, the screenshot function, and some minor (e.g. toolbar repaint) stuff. But, other than that all features work just fine.

FINNISH AND CATALAN TRANSLATIONS
Mailplane features two new languages: Finnish by Mikko Aarnio and Catalan by Albert Simo. Kudos to Mikko and Albert for their great work!
Use the "Help->Support and Feedback" window to send translation related feedback.

"DON'T OPTIMIZE" PHOTO DRAG AND DROP
Sometimes you need to send a picture without any optimization, and want keep size, file type, and picture quality. Just press the Command key while dropping the file. The mouse cursor will change to "Link" instead of "Copy" to indicate that no optimization will be performed.

LAUNCH HIDDEN MAILPLANE AT STARTUP
Do you like to launch Mailplane whenever you start your Mac or log into your account? Add Mailplane to your system preference account login items. If you check the "Hidden" option, Mailplane won't open any window when it starts.

CHANGES
- Download units changed from "k"/"m" to "KB"/"MB"
- Separate window progress indicator shows more accurate progress
- Removed Message Sent/Discarded alert when using Mailplane without Growl

BUG FIXES
- Initial main window position not in upper left corner
- Folder path layout problem
- No Growl: Annoying "Download started" message box
- Crash when closing an initializing compose window
- Double clicks instead of Single clicks in Talk window
- Folder path layout problem
- authentication of gmail email address with mixed case (e.g. MyName@Gmail.Com) interpreted as Google Apps domain. In case of Google Apps accounts, the inbox didn't load
- Some users experienced an offline indicator after successful authentication.

This application is one of the best little apps that I have seen come out for use with Google's online apps. It allows multiple accounts, moving from one account to the other with double click ease and addition of new accounts with a few short key strokes.

If you are going to use any application outside the Internet browsers, this would definitely be one you have to take a look at. The latest pricing scheme for the program also puts it well within reach of any computer user. With the Leopard release just around the corner, this application will be a nice accompaniment to your new OS.

You can reach the Mail Plane application web site at: http://www.mailplaneapp.com

Rating: 4.9 out of 5 Stars

Goings On

For those of you who were wondering what has been happening iwth us, we have been sorting things out in between illnesses and travels. It means that there have been no issues of the magazine, although there will be an October issue in about a week. We will be publishing a monthly issue again from this month. Stay tuned to the web sites.

WWDC 2007 Report

WWDC Report
Day 7: Saturday

I woke up today and got out of the hotel by 6am, heading for a flight at SFO trying to get back to Seattle as fast as I could. Unfortunately, the whole WWDC trip seemed to be a bit of a waste considering that we had health issues for part of it.

When I arrived back in Seattle, I was tired and didnt want to think any more. The trip from Seatac back to downtown was a nice time for reflection and for me to gather my wits. What did we accomplish this week? Not much other than meeting and greeting people in the industry.

But if that is the best we can say about the conference, than that does not bode well for attendance of any future conferences. We certainly would not go back if it was the same as this years. And if Apple, Inc is reading this, more meat please!

WWDC 2007 Report

Day 6: Friday

Woke up this morning and made the decision to focus on code today. now that the conference is just about over, I am looking forward to heading to Seattle again and getting back to the real world.

One interesting item of note today is the fact that Leopard is now available for pre-ordering on Amazon.com.

I worked on changing my flight today and found out that Travelocity will charge more than the airlines to change the flight. Apparently they are trying to profit even on peoples changes and misfortunes. But that is the way of business today. (And all of their agents are off shore in India)

WWDC 2007 Report

Day 5: Thursday

Another day and more presentations. Not much interesting to report today as I have figured out the the presentations are more attuned to those just starting out and not to the hard core coders. Next year we will just bring our code and hang out in the labs as that seems to be the most productive way of doing things here at WWDC.

WWDC 2007 Report

Day 4: Wednesday

605 and 607, 608

yesterday being a complete waste of time other than a bit from 614, I had little hope for today. But with the fact that we were talking about things near and dear to my heart, the accesibility items, I found that the 605 course was at least a step in the right direction.

But then I guess that is the way the WWDC experience is going for the media folks. Spoon fed baby food and not a lot of really meaty solutions. Hopefully that is going to change here tomorrow.

But for now I go on, sitting through duh presentations from people who "DID iT" but dont give any fundamentals of How or Why.

WWDC 2007 Report

For those of you who are interested in seeing photos of WWDC and the process that we have gone through to get here, you can check out the Douglas McLaughlin photo blog at:
http://web.mac.com/douglasm/iWeb/WWDC07/WWDC.html

WWDC 2007 Report

Day 3: Tuesday
614 - the iPhone

This was suddenly thrust on us as a last minute change to Tuesday instead of its original Thursday time slot. It meant that 601-Digital Media went out the window as far as I was concerned.

I sat there in the presentation and the only thing that seemed to come out of the presentation was that everything was already there for controlling websites on the iPhone. It was not only a no meat type presentation but it really gave me a serious thought of the poor idea Apple has of the future of third party vendors programming on their platforms.

But all in all, the iPhone is not bad except, it is not WI-FI, and it doesnt run Java and the limitations mean that any programs one would write for the standard Internet browsers would be useless. So what to do? Well, it will support HTML 4.01.

Not a good start but hopefully more will come as the days go on.

WWDC 2007 Report

Day 2 : Part 2

What a day. After the disappointment that followed the keynote speech, I went back to the hotel to work. It was probably the best move I made all day due to the fact that i was absolutely wacked by the tiume it came to go back over to Muscone Center. I did not make it back over and instead chose to work until midnight plus.

I guess tomorrow is another day. Hopefully it will be much more fruitful than today.

WWDC 2007 Report

Day 2: Keynote

For those who looking for the whiz bang of the usual Apple keynote, you will likely be disappointed. The lack of real meat to the keynote was apparent from the start. The only thing Steve introduced were features that they were hiding from the guys up in Redmond.

And many of the things were items that already were implemented in most of the Apple programs we already use. Now off to the afternoon sessions to see what kind of tidbits I can pick up.

WWDC 2007 Report

Day 1: Sunday

I arrived in San Francisco for WWDC 2007 just absolutely exhausted. Too many late nights of working on our new software sort of burned me out for the trip but all the same, it was well worth the trip.

After a 30 minute, 80 mile an hour ride from the airport to downtown, I found myself facing another 10 minute walk to Muscone Center. One there and registered, it was just a matter of going through what apple considers to be the annual goodies. One computer bag and one batch of maps and schedule for the conference.

Supposedly this year’s event has more than 1000 more attendees than the 2006 edition of WWDC. But that could just be fluff even though they have set up overflow rooms once again for the attendees.

But now we once again look forward to the new day and more goodies from "The Steve". But while there is much speculation on the things that he will introduce, there is little evidence of anything really big other than the little bits that are rumored such as the iPhone Developers Kit or some enhancements to the top of the line machines.

But since this is a developers conference, anything Steve Jobs puts forth will be like gold as it is preaching to the choir in this case.