Be Excellent To Each Other

Aren't they just basically releasing the same game but in a different environment and graphics. I suppose it is working for them but not sure why anyone would want to play more than one of them. Maybe my boredom threshold is set too low.

I haven't bought any of these. Are they actually any good?

I've been using Noom Fitness for a couple of months, it combines a couple of separate apps, namely Calorific (calorie counter) and Cardiotrainer (workout), and is free. The Calorific part is interesting because it's more of a calorie estimator than scientific counter, although my use falls somewhere inbetween in that. If i have a calorie count for something I'll base what I stick into it from that, and if not I'll use best guess based on the info in the app. Anyway, it's helping me be more aware of what I'm eating, and calories in it etc, and tracking when I go wandering around in the same place.

I've found it really useful, as I've said elsewhere I've pretty much lost 2lbs a week for the last 3 weeks using this.

Because I have a science brain I refuse to pay weight watchers or similar a monthly sub to provide a complicated system for eating less and eating better. Eat less calories than you're using = lose weight. Noom has done me very well the past couple of months. I forgot to add above that it takes your weight, the amount you want to lose and your activity level (for example in my case I know I'll walk at least mile and a half every weekday going to and from the station) and it will recommend a daily calorie limit. Mine is set quite aggressively so even if I do have the odd day off where I exceed target I'll still have lost overall for the week. If I meet the target, or do more exercise than the regular I have built in it all happens more quickly.

Sounds like you are using it in the same way as me.

An App that can locate your phone, even if you haven't installed it yet.

http://lifehacker.com/5828197/plan-b-lo ... beforehand

Unless the nice thief has reset your phone, and if they haven't you've been robbed by a retard (or a semi-fit chick while you were drunk).

For those old enough to remember it Rtype is now available on Android and it is still as bitching hard as it ever was. Not cheap at $2.99 but for those who love their classic side scrolling shoot em ups well worth it.

How are the controls? I'm struggling to believe I'd be able to put my hands all over the touchscreen without them getting in the way.

Touch or on screen direction pad. Have to admit I am doing a lot better on my tablet with the touch controls than I have managed on my phone as it is hard to see shots from behind with your finger in the way. Not tried the on screen pad yet but I will do so tomorrow and let you know. On screen button for charging super beam which works well on both.

Edit: On screen pad is horrible so tablet is definitely best for this.

Okay, I have a. Android phone now. I have installed word feud. Nuke do I play against you people? Also, which browser do people use?

You need a better keyboard apparent it seems

I think he has the same one as Dave.

Tell us your word feud username and then people will start to invite you. I think the names are in the word feud/wwf thread if you want to hunt people down.

I use dolphin browser, but I'm open to suggestions for anything better.

My wf name is bobbyaro. I haven't installed wwf because your review says it isn't as good.

I installed a poker game (pokerist.com Texas poker), it is quite good. You play against real people.
I also went to install an alarm clock that would light up on my screen at night. I found one, that required more permissions on the phone than I have! why does an alarm clock need access this:

Which alarm clock app?
I can't see why it should need to know where you are (except for ad purposes), some of them will notify you of messages, so I guess that explains the SMS permissions.
Internet access would either be for the aforementioned ads, or maybe it has some sort of weather function (which would explain the location permissions as well).
I use Kaloer Clock, which you can set to be silent when it's on, but also white list calls from certain contacts, so it would need to be able to read your contacts and know when phone calls are coming in.
Preventing the device from sleeping should be fairly self-explanatory given that you want to use it as a clock, not really sure about the last two.

And that's my main objection to Android. How many consumers are going to read and understand that lot? And as a result, how many are going to ever say no when malicious software requests permissions that you don't actually want it to have?

Hard Lines from that there iPhone just got an android release. £1.99.

Tis a very good version of snake, with great graphics, loads of games modes, and plenty of Tron/Geometry Wars style neon prettiness.

More than would read it if it wasn't there?

I'm not arguing that it shouldn't tell you, I'm arguing that it should either:

1) Be a damned sight more granular than having a setting of "MODIFY GLOBAL SYSTEM SETTINGS". Which is basically "Do what the fuck I like", and apparently so commonly requested that even putting it in an alarm app doesn't raise eyebrows

or

2) On a device that's a telephone, and should reasonably be expected to, y'know, carry on working, don't let 3rd party apps fuck about with whatever they want.

I know that 2 is unpopular from those that want a phone that doesn't have restrictions on what you can do with it, but that's not 90% of the android customer base right now. And the 10% that are those people have already rooted anyway.

In fairness, time-based stuff is in the Global System Settings, so that makes perfect sense.
No idea why it wants to read your messages, though.

Well, that rather makes my point that GLOBAL SYSTEM SETTINGS is pretty damned ungranular then. Surely a permission that gives access to the time stuff and nothing else would be fairly simple, would make sense when reading a list of what settings an alarm app should have, and would prevent it from fucking around with everything else in global system settings.

Contract Killer Zombies - It's a shooter with zombies, its free and the longer you play the better guns you can get. Oh and its free.

This time I have played on both tablet and phone and enjoyed it on both. Perfect game to play after watching some Walking Dead or just because you love killing zombies.

I'm sure I replied to this, but obviously not. Anyway, it's good fun, but does require a 350 meg download after you install it, and you might want to turn off the notifications about how you can buy stuff cheap.

In other news Wind-up Knight is another automatically-walk-to-the-right-and-press-some-buttons-'em-up, but it's good fun (and free).

Jewels deluxe is a decent jewel-in-a-row game, free and has a decent amount of depth; challenge mode, make a certain shape, and a couple of others, and is free.

Sounds good. How much?

Not sure, I'll check.

The below is copy and pasted from an email I sent to a mate of mine who was looking for Android game recommendations so if the tone seems a bit over-familiar then don't worry Beex; I'm not trying to get into your pants or anything*, I'm just too lazy to re-write it all. Note that he's not anywhere near as big a gamer as most Beexers so things I mention as likely to be impressive to him might not seem as much to you guys. Caveat emptor and all that malarkey. I've probably played more stuff since I wrote this email to him so I'll see if I can get a history from the Marketplace and maybe add some more recommendations.

*Not yet anyway.

Airport Mania 1 & 2
I'm not usually into these time management style games but these are just so polished that they've totally grabbed me and trying to get perfect scores on each level has resulted in me probably ploughing more time into these games than anything else on Android. I've linked to the full versions of both but there's a demo version available of the first one so you can see if you fancy it (and there's not much differerence between the two games aside from a couple of extra features and different graphical style in the sequel).

https://market.android.com/details?id=com.reflexive.airportmania
https://market.android.com/details?id=com.southwindsgames.am2s

Kona's Crate
Use the two boosters against gravity to try and transport a crate from one end of the level to another through various obstacles. Incredibly simple control scheme that suits a touch screen perfectly and very pretty graphics make this another good one to pick up. I've linked to the demo version there so you can try it out.

https://market.android.com/details?id=com.darkwindmedia.konascratelite

Karoshi
Not a very long game, but definitely one of my favourites; it's a twist on the usual puzzle/platform game rules where your aim is to kill your character off. Each level is just a single screen populated with various objects and platforms that you have to use in increasingly difficult ways in order to achieve the gory death of your suicidal character. There's a Flash version of one of the the original versions of the game here so you can get an idea of how it works:

http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/462774

The controls are simple so work perfectly on the touch screen and the difficulty ramps up quickly enough to keep things interesting throughout.

https://market.android.com/details?id=com.yoyogames.droidkaroshi

Turbofly 3D
Wipeout style racing game that's incredibly fast and smooth even on older phones. It's not a very complex game (you just steer left and right and have a single fire button) and there's only about two weapons so it won't keep you occupied for long, but it's engaging enough and impressive just to see running. There's a demo version so you can try it first:

https://market.android.com/details?id=net.osaris.turboflydemo

DynamoKid Touch
Initially appears to be just another Canabalt clone with your perpetually always running left to right leaving you to just hit the jump button every now and again. And at the core of it that does describe the game; but they jazz up the format by requiring you to draw in scenery and tap away enemies/obstacles in addition to the jumping. The furious level of activity this creates along with the excellent graphics makes it far more engaging that it should be and I got thoroughly addicted to it for the couple of weeks it took me to get through all the levels. For some reason it never quite clicked with me on my Desire but on the bigger and more responsive screen of the Galaxy SII it really grabbed me. Demo version is here:

https://market.android.com/details?id=com.dkrunlite.engine

Pocket Racing
Top down 2D racer with a twist: you're racing against yourself. On each track the game remembers a continually updated ghost of your last best race and every time you start that's what you're racing against. It means you're always aware of the tiny screw-ups you made on certain corners and every go is an attempt to iron out those imperfections (while trying deperately not to add new ones in!). You can also download ghosts of other players to race against as everyone's best laps are automatically uploaded to a central server. Demo here:

https://market.android.com/details?id=com.measuredsoftware.android.pocketracinglite

FireBall
A new game to Android but I think it's been around on iOS for a while. You've got to slice away a certain amount of each level without (a) hitting any of the constantly moving fireballs or (b) splitting the fireballs into more than one group. That's a really bad description of an incredibly simple concept but there's a YouTube video on the Market page that shows you how it works.

https://market.android.com/details?id=com.ielfgame.fireBall

Roboto
Incredibly polished 2D platform game with a lot of personality. I have to be honest that this one hasn't grabbed me as much as Cordy et al but I mention it because everyone else is going mad for it and it really is incredibly pretty; a proper showcase for Android as a platform so you might want to give it a go. No demo version sadly.

https://market.android.com/details?id=com.FFE.Roboto

Cordy
If you pick up just one game from these recommendations then make it this one. 2D platformer with beautiful graphics, excellent controls and a level of polish usually only seen in proper console games. The game is free to download which gets you the first two sets of levels then the further two sets are an in-app purchase. Just don't look at the item 'shop' in the game as you'll be (rightly) disgusted at the price they want to charge for each utterly useless hat or character costume.

https://market.android.com/details?id=com.silvertree.cordy

Captian America
Film tie-in games always suck; and you'd expect that to be doubly true for a phone version of a game, but surprisingly this Captain America game is excellent. The touch screen controls are innovative and fit the phone form factor brilliantly and the graphics are as good as the rest of the game's presentation. It's not a very hard game and I blew through the 20 or so level in a couple of weeks (playing purely while commuting on the train) but I enjoyed every bit of it and though it well worth the money.

https://market.android.com/details?id=com.marvel.capinstaller

Carcassonne
This is the official Android version of an apparently well-known tile-based German board game. It's been released on every format under the sun (I played a bit of it on the XBOX after hearing so much about it) and now finally Android. Playing it against the computer players is okay, but Helen and I have got the most fun out of playing against each other as we learn the rules. There's no demo version and it might not be your cup of tea so I'm just mentioning it in case you happen to already know of it and weren't aware there was an Android version.

https://market.android.com/details?id=com.exozet.game.carcassonne

Super Tumble
Another simple concept that becomes surprisingly difficult as the game progresses. You start with a pile of items on top of which is a metal star. When you touch an item it disappears and anything above it drops down appropriately. Your aim is to get the metal star right down onto the platform your pile is sitting on without dropping it down any of the holes surrounding the platform. That's a terrible description that succeeds only in sucking all the fun out of the game, but there's a demo version so just give it a shot instead of listening to my ramblings.

https://market.android.com/details?id=com.camelgames.supertumblelite

Live Wallpapers
This is the set I've currently got installed that I swap between:

https://market.android.com/details?id=fishnoodle.clouds_free&feature=search_result
https://market.android.com/details?id=com.joko.lightgrid&feature=search_result
https://market.android.com/details?id=fishnoodle.kaleidoscope_free&feature=search_result
https://market.android.com/details?id=com.maxelus.shadowgalaxylivewallpaper&feature=search_result
https://market.android.com/details?id=com.AOI.hqq.LiveWallpaper_FireFlieslite

Retro Camera
Obviously there's load of 'camera effects' apps on the Marketplace but this is the only one I've used consistently as it's capable of taking genuinely lovely looking images. It's far from perfect (the pictures it takes are square which is fucking stupid and nowhere near the full res your camera is capable of taking which is equally fucking stupid plus there aren't that many camera effects) but it's flaws are never enough to put me off using it.

https://market.android.com/details?id=org.urbian.android.tools.vintagecam

Mapdroyd
App that allows offline browsing of pre-downloaded maps. Even though it won't use any data, it does allow integrate with your phone's GPS so it can be a fucking lifesaver if you're abroad and lost and not willing to pay £300,000,000 to your telco for downloading 6kb of data while roaming. The cunts. The only thing keeping it from being amazing is a lack of search functionality so it'll tell you where you are, but it's not great at telling you where to go (as it were).

https://market.android.com/details?id=com.osa.android.mapdroyd

GetJar
GetJar's an alternative marketplace for Android and, while this app it's parent site are pretty fucking shoddy, it does have the advantage of offering 'Gold' apps. These are games and apps that cost money on the official Marketplace but are being given away (legitimately) for free through GetJar. Grab the app and just check the Apps tab periodically and see if there's anything on there you fancy. I've got quite a few games this way for free that I was interested to try out, but not enough to pay for through the official site. I've just realised that the app itself isn't on the Android Marketplace for some reason and I seem to remember you need to jump through some hoops on their own website to get the apk and then sideload it.

http://www.getjar.com

Lapse It
An app that lets you take time-lapse footage of anything you care to point your phone at. The demo is limited to sub-SD resolution images but even at that it looks pretty cool. You can also schedule it to turn on at certain times to start taking pictures so no need to set the alarm and blearily capture a sunrise at five in the morning. Not that you would need to at this point in time in UK, but you get the point. Personally I'm not sure whether to pay the two dollars for the full version because, as cool as it is, I'm not convinced I'll really use it but it's impressive enough to bring to your attention.

https://market.android.com/details?id=com.ui.LapseIt

Foldersync Lite
App that integrates with Dropbox, and similar services, to sync folders of your choice on your phone with an online account. The obvious usecase is making sure pictures you take on your phone are kept safe. I'm annoyed on principle that the official Dropbox app doesn't offer such obvious functionality (it only sync files in the specific Dropbox folder which is fucking useless) but it's not difficult to workaround using this app.

https://market.android.com/details?id=dk.tacit.android.foldersync.lite

GTasks
Widget that lists and syncs tasks to your Google account. Again, I'm sure there are loads of these things on the Marketplace but I've found this one to be reliable and well designed.

https://market.android.com/details?id=org.dayup.gtask

I think that Bamba should post more often.

Yeah, saves me a job.

on the getjar thing, you guys know about slideme.org/? it is an alternative marketplace.
don't really know tooucj about it, but...

I've no idea how to describe Orbital, so just download it, and play it (there is a trial version as well as the £3 one).

It's kind of like Puzzle Bobble, but without 95% of the gameplay mechanics and mixed with some other stuff. It's good though, honest.

This one seems pretty great so far:

https://market.android.com/details?id=c ... lite&hl=en

It's another GPS app but it'll use OS Maps and cache them for offline use.

Neon Zone

That rarest of beasts: an actually original puzzle game! Well, I've never seen the like of it before at least. It's difficult to describe but each level gives you an arrangement of platforms containing white dots and you need to collect them all. You can place your 'character' anywhere on the platforms to start and then need to navigate around collecting dots using a jump mechanic and the fact that you can manipulate gravity by physically rotating the phone. You lose if your 'character' falls off the edge of the playfield. You can finish the level just be grabbing all the dots in any way you can, but the real targets are to finish the level within set limits of (a) time (b) jumps and (c) turns (i.e. 90 degree rotations of the phone). Each target can, and usually has to, be collected separately. As usual I've managed to describe it in such a way as to not only make a simple concept sound confusing but also boring, which is excellent. It's got a demo so just go and try it out:

https://market.android.com/details?id=dk.houseonfire.neonzonedemo

Me and you with torches on glasses.

Ha!

The bullshit Tegra exclusivity has expired and fire-fighting physics puzzle game Sprinkle is now generally available for Android. I've only played through the demo but it's very pretty and fun enough that I'll certainly pony up for the full version once I've played through the other stuff I've got sitting there. A backlog that isn't being helped by my stupid broken finger making certain games impossible to play.

On a related note, the much-vaunted (from a graphics point of view at least) Shadowgun has also made from Tegra only devices to general release. I'm tempted by it just to see how pretty it is but I'm wary due to the relatively high price; and because I've a suspicion it'll look lovely but be a terrible game to actually play. Has anyone played it in either it's Android or iOS incarnations who could speak to the actual gameplay rather than the visual design?

Oh my, MightyText is good. Put it on your phone, plug it into your Gmail (or whatever) account, put it on Chrome, plug it into your Gmail (or whatever) account, and you can send and receive SMS messages on your PC (via your phone), and it tells you about incoming and missed calls and stuff, too.

Aces.

Seeing this thread popping up again reminds me that another previously Tegra exclusive game, Riptide GP, has been released for non-Tegra devices. Think Hydro Thunder/Waverace. It's very pretty and the water physics are impressive on my SGSII so if you're a fan of tilt-controlled racing games it's probably a good bet. Personally I'd rather eat my own cock than deal with tilt controls though so it's a bit ruined for me.

Hmm, I'm just trying this, are you typing in a name or number?

If you let it connect to your Google Contacts, you can do either.

I've done that and tried typing in a name (as it says) but then it won't send the message it asks for a number in the box instead. I must have missed a step somewhere, I'll have another look at it tomorrow.

World of Goo is out for android now. Normal price is £3, but it's temporarily £2.

Yay for World of Goo on Android... unfortunately it won't install on my Galaxy S running CyanogenMod I've purchased it but it says there is insufficient space on the device?!?! There is a shit load of space on the device according to the Manage Applications menus, over a gig internal and over 3 gig on the SD Card. WTF am I doing wrong? Help please!!

Are you still running the stable version? The cache partition is quite small, so you can try booting to recovery and wiping it, but you might want to install the latest nightly which increases the cache size.
*The cache is where market downloads are stored before they're installed, so if it's anything over around 30-40 meg, this is almost certainly your problem.
Edit - 47 meg. Latest nightly should fix it.