MaemoMagazine.com

Software Spotlight is a series that will be debuting on MaemoMagazine.com that will take a detailed look at exceptional community and/or commercial software available for Maemo-based devices.

This week we will be taking a look at SPB Brain Evolution by SPB Software.

Brain Evolution bills itself as:

…an intellectual software game that helps to train the brain and improve memory, logic, arithmetic, and puzzle-solving skills. The application is a suit of 12 games, which have to be played in sequence: only good results in a game, unlock the next one.

Sounds more like a mental marathon than a game, but let’s see how it plays.

After launching the game you are presented with this menacing screen:

Clicking “Next” will ask for your game-name (this is what will appear in high-score lists and such). Continuing on, your current “Brain Status” will be determined by playing five simple games. It appears that doing this allows you to know where you are before doing any training. I was at the “Schoolboy” level.

Once you are finished with brain marking, you can go on to brain training. Brain training allows you to have some fun playing (and getting better at) the games themselves, which will unlock other games.

At first you are allowed to play four games: Arithmetic, Quadronica, Sudoku, and Memorics; while the other 8 are locked away, only to be rewarded after brain progress has been made! Starting off, brain training consists of playing two different games, but this number goes up as you unlock more. When brain training is complete, you are presented with an interesting fact, while the difficulty of an unlocked game or the unlocking of a new game may also happen (depending on how well you have done).

A Look at the Games Themselves:

The first game in the list is called “Arithmetic” and, as the name suggests, tests your ability to do simple computational mathematics.

The game itself is timed — the faster you are and fewer wrong answers entered, the higher the score achieved. Like all the games, Arithmetic has levels of difficulty. You start out at “easy” which tests only addition and subtraction, and can work your way up until multiplication and division are introduced.

The second game, titled Quadronica, is also very simple, but so far my favorite (however, I still haven’t unlocked them all yet). It is based on the simple principle of finding same-colored blocks which form a rectangle. The larger the area the rectangle forms, the more points awarded.

The amount of time given is limited, so it a race to find the most and largest quads formed. Advancing in difficulty adds more block colors.

The ultra-popular puzzle game, Sudoku, is third on the list, and as always, provides some entertaining gameplay. This version of Sudoku is fairly bare-bones, but fortunately does provide pencilmarks.

The score you receive is based on how fast you can finish. Advancing in difficulty reduces the amount of given numbers and makes the placements more difficult.

The fourth and final base-unlocked game is Memorics. This game will put your short-term memory to the test by having you remember a field, then asking you a feature of that field.

You only have a fixed amount of time to memorize the field, and higher scores are achieved with more accurate answers.  As it advances in difficulty, more shapes, colors, states and objects are added to the field. This is another extremely fun game that can provide quite a challenge to the player.

Games that are locked at first are: Pairs, Numbers, Balltracker, Guess Who, Minesweeper, Geometry, Encyclopedia, and Matches. I will leave it up to your hard work to find out about these games.

The game also features online high score lists that you can publish-to and read-from. I found myself repeatedly trying to outdo myself and others on the high score lists.

This really adds a fun factor to the game. Another cool feature that you may have noticed from the screenshots is that the game runs entirely in portrait mode.

Summary:

All-in-all, I really enjoyed Brain Evolution by SPB Software. It packs a whole ton of fun games into a small package, and that is very welcome for a platform that is starving for some quality gameplay.

Pricing and Availability:

SPB Brain Evolution is available from the OVI Store for Free, so there is nothing stopping you from giving this a go on your N900. And who knows, after playing, you might just get a little smarter as well — or at least use that as a great excuse.

Games, Reviews, Software, maemo.org

Software Spotlight is a series that will be debuting on MaemoMagazine.com that will take a detailed look at exceptional community and/or commercial software available for Maemo-based devices.

This week we will be taking a look at Angry Birds by Rovio Mobile ltd.

Angry Birds is a physics-based strategy game that offers a unique description:

The survival of the Angry Birds is at stake. Dish out revenge on the green pigs who stole the Birds ’ eggs. Use the unique destructive powers of the Angry Birds to lay waste to the pigs’ fortified castles. Angry Birds features hours of gameplay, challenging physics-based castle demolition, and lots of replay value. Each of the 21 levels requires logic, skill, and brute force to crush the enemy. Protect wildlife, or play Angry Birds!

With such a colorful and interesting description, how will the game itself stack up?

When you first launch the game and select “Play” you are presented with a short cut-scene depicting the birds sitting around their empty nest wondering where their eggs have gone.

The next shot shows the perpetrators of this horrible theft: the pigs!

This is the basis of the whole game and provides the games goal — destroy the pigs and anything that stands in your way!

You accomplish this by slinging the birds at the pigs and their accompanying fortress with an over-sized slingshot.

That may sound simple enough, but it isn’t. The game features awesome real world physics that you need to take into effect while playing. You can adjust the angle at which you sling the birds, you can choose to bounce the birds off something first (like the back of a rock) or specifically target a weak point in the pigs’ fortress so that it’ll collapse.

There are many different materials that the pigs will build their fortresses out of, including stone, wood, and ice, and each has a different strength and weakness.

Fortunately, the game provides you with different types of birds that attack each differently. The blue “ice bird” will easily destroy ice fortresses but will barely touch a wooden one while the yellow “wood bird” will chew through wood but struggle breaking down ice, and so on and so forth. This must be strongly considered when trying to break down a fortress that is comprised of many different materials and you are provided different types of birds. This, in addition to the very real-world physics can make some levels very challenging which just adds to the fun.

Even after you finish a level by destroying all the pigs, you can try for another goal: getting three stars on every level.

The game keeps track of your high scores for each level, 5000 points for each pig destroyed, 10000 for each “unused” bird and various additional points for destroying the pigs’ fortresses.

So even after you complete all the levels, you still have the goal of getting 3 stars on each one. Since there are 21 strategically-designed levels in the base game, this leaves literally hours of gameplay.

If you are like me, though, this still won’t be enough — once you are hooked on this game you won’t be able to put it down. And even when it is finished you’ll want to install more levels. Fortunately, Rovio has created an official levelpack that can be purchased. The levelpack adds two additional “worlds” (21 levels in each) for a total of 42 levels.

The level pack adds lot of cool things to the game; you now have two additional type of birds at your disposal: a black bird that will explode after a second or two on the ground (this is my personal favorite) and a bird that drops egg bombs.

In addition to that, the levelpack adds some new items to the game, for example, crates of TNT. I’ll leave it up to your imagination what happens when you hit one of those.

(OK, I lied)

In short, if you liked the levels in the base game, you’ll love the expansion pack levels.

Summary:

Overall I really liked the game. The graphics are terrific, the real-world physics are absolutely awesome, and the storyline is fun. I have to say, it is usually a good sign when a professional blogger goes to review a game, and in the process, totally gets hooked playing it.

Pricing and Availability:

The base game is free (along with the first 21 levels) and the levelpack won’t exactly blow the budget either, at only $3.

Unfortunately, due to some issues with Nokia’s OVI Store, the levelpack is unavailable for purchase. Hopefully, these issues will be ironed out shortly so you can enjoy a great game and support a high-quality game developer for Maemo 5.

Update: it appears that the issues with the OVI Store have been sorted out and that the levelpack is now available for purchase. Happy gaming!

Disclaimer: All images and materials used with permission of Rovio Mobile Ltd.

Games, Reviews, Software, maemo.org rovio, software spotlight