Tech Talk

For those still waiting for that elusive action role-playing game (RPG) Diablo III, there is one pretty nice action RPG  on your iPhone now – the Dungeon Hunter.

You play a young king on a quest to eradicate the dark forces from his land. It’s a cliched storyline that gives you the excuse to hack and slash through dungeons and crypts, killing evil denizens and picking up plenty of loot along the way.

You get to choose your character class – a sword-wielding Knight, a stealthy Rogue or the magical Mage. Personally, I prefer to hack and slash my way through in true Diablo style!

The game plays very smoothly without any drops in frame rate and the controls are simple and intuitive. The graphics is fantastic for an iPhone game, and the audio track is great as well.

There are a few side-quests you can complete other than the story-driven main quests in order to get more experience points. With more experience, you level up and get more abilities to strengthen yourself for the quests ahead. Basically, it feels like playing Diablo II on an iPhone!

Fallen foes will drop plenty of loot for you to pick up, like weapons, rings, armour and potions. In fact, managing your inventory takes up as much time as your hack and slash. However, there’s no way to teleport to town to sell your loot, but you can transmute your loot into gold at a lower price.

Another quirk I have with the game is that its viewing angle sometimes gets blocked by the surroundings. In addition, although your character level is saved automatically, you can’t save your progress. In other words, if you exit when you are in the middle of the quest, you have to play again from the last checkpoint.

These quirks aside, Dungeon Hunter is one hell of a game for anyone who loves Diablo, or for anyone who loves a nice piece of action while waiting to catch your flight, or your spouse to show up or just to kill time during lunch breaks.

So, what are you waiting for? Get it at US$6.99 from iTunes Store now!

Tags: gameloft

I have been hoping to write about interesting iPhone apps on a regular basis but work just seems to take up too much of my time. Now that I have time for a slight breather, I’m going to make my first iPhone app recommendation!

There are tons of apps on iTunes Store and it is becoming increasingly difficult to differentiate the good apps from the bad ones. I also find it troublesome to download all those “lite” versions to test out the games or utilities.

Well, get AppReviews from iTunes Store. It is a simple app that draws all its content from iphoneapplicationlist.com – a site that provides information about the latest discounts, the hottest apps and reviews of apps. It really is a gem as it helps you to keep track of all the latest apps and discounts available.

The best part: AppReviews is free!

So, what are you waiting for?

Tags: Apple, iPhone, Mobile

Every now and then, you will hear stories of some struggling programmer who suddenly became rich because of an iPhone app he or she created.

Some have even earned hundreds of thousands! But for every successful iPhone app developer, I bet there’s a hundred iPhone developers who didn’t make  even a hundred bucks for their apps.

Still, there is not much monetary risk involved. As long as you have a computer and you know C language and programming, you are able to create something from nothing.  Well, not exactly nothing – you have to pay US$99 (Standard) or US$299 (Enterprise) to join the Apple’s iPhone Developer Program.

But this startup cost is minimal compared to  the cost of starting  a company, renting an office and hiring programmers to code the apps. At the end of the day, it’s all about your own creativity and an incredible amount of luck. If you are able to hit the right codes, you can find yourself a ticket out of your day job (that is, if you charge for your apps)!

Apple and Stanford offer free iPhone Application Programming lessons for free on iTunes, with many universities around the world offering similar courses  due to huge demand.

Back home, Singapore probably has the world’s youngest iPhone app developer in 9-year-old Lim Ding Wen, who developed the free painting app “Doodle Kids”. There are also several cool local apps, like buUuK, in App Store. However, if Singapore iPhone app developers are to make it onto the world map, they are going to need a little bit of help.

Thus, International Enterprise (IE) Singapore has tied up with Apple to conduct an iPhone Developers Briefing Session for local iPhone app developers on  April 27 from 8.30am to 3.00pm. Registration is $50 per head on  a first-come first-served basis. There will be a presentation by Apple about the right tools, resources and networks to grow iPhone app projects. 

Interestingly, the briefing also includes sharing with participants on the upcoming IE mission to Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco in June. It seems like our government is also jumping on the bandwagon in double quick time after spotting a potential gold mine.

Maybe I should start learning how to program iPhone Apps, too!

Tags: iPhone

Last month, Apple happily announced that more than 500 million applications have been downloaded for the iPhone since App Store’s inception in July last year.

However, a study by Pinch Media released a few days ago found that less than 5 per cent of iPhone users still use an application actively a month after downloading it. Only a paltry 1 per cent of total downloads are used long term. Unsurprisingly, paid applications retain users for a longer period of time than free applications, though the drop-off in usage is still pretty sharp.

As I don’t have the full copy of the study, I don’t know for sure how representative the sample size (30 million applications) is of App Store. Still, results of this study run contrary to the news we hear everyday, that independent iPhone developers are chalking up hundreds of thousands of dollars working out of their garage or basement.

I’m wondering if these developers are earning their fortunes from impulse purchases of App Store users, or did they just plain get lucky? Probably lucky, I think.

From personal experience, I would concur with the study results, as I’ve quickly grown tired of playing some of the games I buy from App Store. On the other hand, utilities are generally better worth the purchase as you tend to use them longer.

For example, I bought the application Things to keep track of deadlines and things I need to do, and have been using it regularly ever since. In contrast, I quickly grew tired of Real Soccer 2009 within two weeks of purchase, and soon started looking for new games to buy.

I find myself slowing down the pace I was playing games in order to enhance their longevity. In fact, I have stopped playing Hero of Sparta for fear of completing it too soon! It’s my favorite iPhone game right now, but if I complete it, I don’t think I’m going to play the whole game all over again. Yes, there will be a higher difficulty level unlocked, and you can retain all your weapons, but I still refrain from playing it.

Hero of Sparta

As a result, I’m more picky in purchasing items from App Store these days. Some of the games are either too short or will not sustain interest long enough for me.

Thus, for those lucky developers who struck gold, their pots of gold might not be full for long if they don’t come up with updates or additional contents for their iPhone applications or games. For example, new free levels for Hero of Sparta will be greatly appreciated and might attract new purchases, too.

If not, port some of the most addictive games in gaming history to iPhone, and you are sure to retain users for the long run.

Now, can I have Diablo on my iPhone please?