iPhone Game Review: SmartGo Pro

围棋 (weiqi), or "Go," is an ancient strategy game of Chinese origin. It has been played for thousands of years and has a diehard following to this day. Recently, a friend challenged me to a match. I subsequently became intrigued by the game and have spent my spare time practicing and learning about its strategies.

Go has no shortage of iPhone applications, with roughly ten appearing in the App Store as of this writing. While I have not tested all of them, I believe that I have found the premier Go application on the iPhone. Albeit rather pricey relative to other App Store offerings at $12.99, SmartGo Pro contains everything that a Go learner or expert could ever want out of an application. Below, I will discuss some of my favorite features in SmartGo Pro.

CPU Play

SmartGo Pro allows for play against the computer across all gameplay modes and settings. This is convenient for practicing when human opponents are not available. It is also a good way to test out new strategies and improve on basic skills. The computer is quite talented and will challenge even the most experienced players.

Adaptive "Career" Mode

Although SmartGo Pro allows players to create their own games with an array of settings at any time, it also includes a nice adaptive learning feature. A new player can set up his or her account and begin play on a 9x9 board with a large handicap. As subsequent matches are won or lost, the computer appropriately becomes more difficult or less difficult to defeat. Once a player has enough victories against the computer, he or she "graduates" to the 11x11, 13x13, and eventually, 19x19 board sizes. All the while, the computer is becoming more and more challenging. This progressive approach to playing Go is excellent for new players who want to hone their skills and adapt themselves to the game in a logical manner.

Saved Games

Multiple users can create accounts in SmartGo Pro. Each time a game is played in the application, it is saved in its entirety. Thus, players can review their moves step by step to assess their performance. Matches can also be modified at any point to experiment with different outcomes. This is a useful tool for Go players who want to meticulously scrutinize their strategies.

Pro Games

Along similar lines, SmartGo Pro includes over 12,500 historical professional Go matches ranging between the years 1800 and 2009. Similar to a user's games, these matches can be viewed move by move and modified at any point. This is yet another useful feature for serious Go students who are seeking insights from professional players.

Practice Problems

Lastly, my single most favorite part of SmartGo Pro is working to solve the more than 2000 practice problems. These are categorized by difficulty and game situation (i.e. "life and death," "best move," "endgame," etc). Not only can they be played through in minutes, but each puzzle conveys valuable learning points. These allow players to acquire, refresh, and enhance their knowledge by focusing on a wide variety of scenarios that they are likely to encounter during regular play.

Conclusion

SmartGo Pro is one of the most in-depth and feature-rich games that I have ever seen. It goes above and beyond what one would expect, especially in a mobile application. It undoubtedly meets or exceeds the needs of Go enthusiasts, regardless of skill or experience level. I have found Go to be an enthralling and rewarding strategy game. I recommend SmartGo Pro to anyone who is interested in learning about Go and improving their abilities. It is the application that I eagerly pull out on my iPhone when I have a few moments to spare.

Flash Gear: Where Metal Gear Meets Flash

Flash Gear was my first foray into the world of non-serious game development. Normally, my design purpose is to create games that educate or increase awareness, while still maintaining interesting play. This time, with entertainment in mind, I sought to create something that would be marketable to online Flash gamers.

My inspiration came from the much beloved Metal Gear series, which has seen many iterations over the past 20 years. Yet, much to my surprise, I could not find any well-crafted Flash games that held true to the stealthy, strategic nature of the series. Thus, I saw this project as an opportunity to create something that would be both fun and interesting to make, while also satisfying a void in online gaming.

Game Description

In Flash Gear, the player takes on the role of Spherical Snake, a green, gelatinous, hero of sorts. Snake's mission is to infiltrate an enemy base in order to discover and disable its doomsday device. While weapons like lasers and remote mines are available, the game is designed to encourage players to avoid confrontations. Alerting the guards one too many times may prove to be fatal and result in mission failure.

Fortunately, Snake has a number of sneaking abilities at his disposal. For example, smoke bombs can be used to prevent guards and security cameras from detecting him. Likewise, noise can be made to lead enemies away from their patrol routes long enough to slip into the next room. Snake also has access to special abilities and powerups that he finds throughout the base, such as speed boosts, rations, ammo, and body armor.

In addition to living enemies, the base poses its own set of obstacles to Snake. It has a number of security cameras, auto-firing weapons, and hidden laser systems in place. Moreover, the layout makes it challenging for Snake to navigate the various rooms without being detected or harmed. There are even a few secrets built into the base. Players will have to be cautious and sharp if they hope to discover them.

Lastly, should Snake successfully navigate the base and complete his mission, he will be confronted with a surprise boss battle. If he defeats his enemy, the player is rewarded with a place atop the leaderboard and a detailed statistical analysis of the mission. Yet, however successful he may have been, Snake recognizes that this battle is far from over...

Game Features

Below is a listing of the major features included in Flash Gear.

• Sneak your way through a 14 room enemy base
• Face off against a diabolical boss in the final battle
• Use 3 different weapons, including bullets, lasers, and remote mines
• Find 3 special abilities that increase your foot speed, firing speed, and firepower
• Collect 5 powerups, including ammo, mines, smoke bombs, health rations, and body armor
• Create diversions to evade guards or conceal your movement using a smoke bomb
• Use the map zoom feature to plan your sneaking strategy
• Practice your skills before your mission using the interactive training room
• Choose from one of 4 difficulty levels
• Set your own custom controls for the game
• Receive a detailed 12 item statistical analysis of your successful mission
• Submit your high score to be displayed on the "Top Snakes" leaderboard

Sponsorship

Along with being my first entertainment game, Flash Gear was also my first that received sponsorship! The game's initial release took place at AddictingGames.com. I would also like to thank FlashGameLicense.com for helping me find my sponsor.

Your Mission Is To Play Flash Gear

If you are up to the challenge, Spherical Snake is waiting for you in Flash Gear!

Tutorial: Splitting Clips And Adding Actions In ScreenFlow

Today, I bring you two basic tutorial videos on how to edit a recording in ScreenFlow. ScreenFlow is the premier screen recording software on the Mac and it features a smooth user interface with powerful capabilities and aesthetically pleasing effects. It has greatly simplified the tutorial process for my clients and myself.

How To Split A Clip

The first video demonstrates how to split a video clip in order to remove it from the timeline, and thus, the final output of a project. This should look familiar to anyone who has used video editing software, such as iMovie, in the past. The written steps and tutorial video follow below.

How to Split a Clip

1. Select the video segment in the timeline.
2. Click and drag the playhead to the beginning of the segment that needs to be removed.
3. Go to Edit > Split Clip.
4. Reposition the playhead at the end of the segment that needs to be removed.
5. Repeat Step 3.
6. Select the segment that has been split.
7. Go to Edit > Delete.

How To Add An Action

The second video demonstrates the process behind adding an action to a clip in ScreenFlow. Video, audio, screen recording, and callout actions are all included in the software. Each has its own unique property settings that can help to give your videos an interesting, purposeful, and professional look. These individual actions are not addressed in the tutorial. Rather, the process behind adding an action is shown. Fortunately, all of ScreenFlow's actions can be applied in the demonstrated manner. I recommend experimenting with the individual settings for each action to discover the visual effects that work best for your recordings. The written steps and tutorial video follow below.

How to Add an Action

1. Select a clip segment in the timeline.
2. Click and drag the playhead to the location that you would like to add an action.
3. From the appropriate properties tab, click on the "Add Action" button.

Note: After an action is applied, all subsequent portions of that clip will retain those properties, unless a new action is found.

4. To end an action, repeat steps 1-3 using different property settings.

Note: Although a video action was demonstrated in this tutorial, these steps can be followed to employ all of ScreenFlow's actions.

Aviary's "Falcon" Image Markup Editor Is A Lightweight

Image annotation is all the rage these days. It makes conveying tutorials, instructions, and FAQs a breeze, without having to pull out the heavy screen recording software. Image annotation programs also fulfill the need for many users to make simple edits, such as cropping and resizing, quickly and easily. While there are superb full-featured solutions already on the market - Snagit for Windows and Voila for Mac - many users like me feel compelled to give free software a test run before considering a purchase.

Aviary, the maker of numerous, free, online, Flash-based creative applications, has just released "Falcon." Falcon is an "image markup editor" that includes some of the most basic capabilities of its full-featured counterparts. I put Falcon to through a simple test in order to explore its viability as a solution for basic image annotation.

Task: Modify the Aviary banner logo

To test Falcon, I decided to take a screenshot of the Aviary website banner and make a few basic changes to it. The original screenshot follows.

Below is a list of the modifications that I planned to make to the image.

1. Eliminate the green menu bar
2. Add ".com" to the name of the site
3. Add an underline to the word "Aviary"
4. Resize the image to a width of 500px
5. Save the image.

Results: Was Falcon up to the test?

1. Eliminate the green menu bar

In order to get rid of the green menu bar, I chose to crop it out of the image, retaining only the banner above. Unfortunately, I had considerable trouble executing a simple crop in Falcon. For one, there is no automatic snapping. By this, I mean that the edges of the crop area automatically "snap" into place around the edges of the image and/or to an invisible grid. This allows for accurate cropping down to the pixel. With Falcon, I kept having to undo (there is a nice undo feature) my crops that were either too inclusive or too exclusive and try them again. The crop area is difficult to line up using one's eye alone, especially since all of the interface items have a border and drop shadow around them. This makes it a challenge to determine where the exact crop point is - at the outermost edge of the crop area, at the border's edge, just inside the border, somewhere else? Eventually, I just had to settle for overcropping my image, which excluded more than I wanted to.

2. Add ".com" to the name of the site

I used a text-box to create the "com" for this step. Falcon puts an aesthetically pleasing border and shadow on each object that it creates. These can be adjusted (or removed) easily to improve the look of the annotation. To create the "dot," I used the circle shape tool. Alas, Falcon's shapes only allow for hollow centers, rather than filled ones. Also, there is no option to choose between a filled shape or an outline only. I was just stuck with the outline. Hence, the "dot" that appears in the final image was a bit of a trick. I basically resized the circle in such a way that its outline was so thick that there was no space inside of it, thus creating the appearance of a solid circle shape. Speaking of resizing, I am reminded of yet another disappointment in Falcon. It conspicuously lacks the ability to resize an object while retaining its aspect ratio. This is a standard feature in all editors that I have seen and is usually enacted by holding the "shift" key while dragging the corner of an object. Without it, one's objects are ensured to get warped vertically or horizontally as they are resized, even with the steadiest hand. Similar in effect to a lack of auto-snap cropping, this leads to less accurate and lower quality output.

3. Add an underline to the word "Aviary"

I used the line tool to draw an underline for the word "Aviary." This was very simple. A nice thing about the line is that it has the same color, border, and shadow options that other objects in Falcon have. The bad thing, as with other objects, is that there is no way to accurately or automatically ensure that a line is straight. It must all be done by hand and eye.

4. Resize the image to a width of 500px

Initially, I sought to resize the width of the Aviary banner to 500 pixels. I noticed a check-box for maintaining the aspect ratio of the image and assumed that Falcon would do so. So, I just typed "500" into the width field. Strangely enough, the width of the image changed, but the height did not. Thus, the image's aspect ratio did not maintain itself. I believe that this feature is either broken or not implemented yet. Next, I calculated the exact proportions that I desired for the image and set them, only to find that the image experienced a considerable loss of quality after being resized. Likewise, all of its objects did not look right as their borders had become out of proportion. In the end, I just decided to use the original image size.

5. Save the image.

Falcon has a nice "save to desktop" button that allows users to create a .png image from the canvas. While it would be nice to have other format options as well, this is sufficient. Regrettably, I ran into another problem with Falcon after saving my image. Upon inspection, it did not look like it had inside the editor. Quality had been lost in the objects that I added to the image and this was especially noticeable in their borders. Also, the "dot" and "com" mysteriously overlapped each other, whereas they did not when I placed them. Lastly, the line had a kink in it and was no longer straight, while it appeared to be so inside the editor.

The final result of my editing can be viewed below.

Conclusion

I found Falcon to be difficult to use and missing some essential features that are necessary to make it what it needs to be - that is - the simplest and fastest image markup editor. Falcon cannot compete with full-featured programs like Voila and I doubt that it is trying to. However, I found its initial release to be harder to use than any related software products. Things like auto-snap cropping and maintained aspect-ratio resizing are essential to make image editing fast and accurate. Without these features, Falcon is not only less usable, but produces lower quality output at the same time. This is not a winning combination.

The good news is that Falcon is free to use and capable of saving images. It has a very clean interface and can create aesthetically pleasing effects. Hence, if you do not already have an image markup program that you are comfortable with, it does not hurt to try Falcon for yourself. Personally, I am enjoying my early experimentations with Voila. It has everything that anyone could ever want in image annotation software and only costs $40 ($25 for education). If you are looking to create professional annotated images on a Mac, it is by far your best choice. However, if you are not expecting much out of your editor and only need to add basic markup to images, without detailed accuracy, then Falcon may be a viable choice.

2009: A Year in Mad Libs - July

I would like to thank my readers from the bottom of my hips for putting up with six months of Mad Libs.

July

Wednesday, July 1: Emmy Acceptance Speech

Thank you from the bottom of my hips. I truly didn't expect to win this spatula, certainly not with so many furious actors competing. What an ungrateful night.

Saturday, July 4: Fourth of July

Most Washingtons spend this holiday at home with family and Jeffersons. In the evening, there are displays of Franklins, such as Roman Van Burens and rockets that spoon the sky.

Monday, July 6: Confessions Of A Pizza Eater

Some people like rusty pizzas best. My favorite is the golden pizza. My mother says that pizza is junk food, but I think it is better than caviar. If I could, I would eat pizza 1,000,000 times a day.

Tuesday, July 7: Hot Weather Food

In the summertime, it's important to eat purposefully. A good aimless-weather diet should contain very little fat and lots of lemmings. Ice cream is very diligent for you. My favorite flavor of ice cream is ants.

Thursday, July 9: Description Of Wedding

The bride wore a drunk elder with drunk edging. At the end of the drunk ceremony, there wasn't a dry baby in the place.

Friday, July 10: A Baseball Broadcast

Here's the pitch... and it's hit to third orphanage. Michael Jackson scoops it up and throws it to first base for an out, and the game is over. And the Yankees move into first place in the pedophile league!

Monday, July 13: First Date Aid

Here are some easy tips on making your first date go thoughtfully. Make sure that you wear something lustrous. Try to plan something that you both like to do, like floating.

Wednesday, July 15: Airplanes

The last time I was on an airplane, a bubbly passenger next to me caused quite a ruckus. She demanded that the flight attendant jump over her seat belt and give her perky fruit flies to eat. Then, thank goodness, she slept for the rest of the lovable flight.

Friday, July 17: Madison Avenue Mad Libs

1. Bulgarian express - don't leave Australia without it.
2. When you block enough to send the very unsightly.
3. Cups, no one can eat just one.

Saturday, July 18: Opera

Thanks to the three salty tenors, Pavarotti, Domingo, and Lance Armstrong, opera is once again playing to packed shoe laces in every major bike shop in the country.

Wednesday, July 22: How To Spell E.S.P.

These days many bouncy scientists are studying E.S.P. The initials E.S.P. stand for Ephemeral Sensory Placard. Some people believe that if you have E.S.P. you can read people's gold.

Friday, July 24: Wedding Ring

When my gluttonous husband asked me to marry him, I said gadzooks! The only problem was that the engagement ring he gave me was too greedy. When he put it on my thighs, it was too hearty.

Saturday, July 25: Weather Report

Here's tomorrow's weather report for the moon and vicinity. Early tomorrow, a sunny front will collide with a mass of hot rocks moving from the north. The temperature should be 1/3 degrees.

Monday, July 26: Yankee Doodle Cat

I'm Yankee Doodle Cat. Yankee Doodle do or love. A real live Great Stepsister of my Uncle Carl Marx. Born on Sweetest Day.