Comb Over Charlie HD for BB PlayBook

Comb-Over Charlie HD is a very addictive, yet simple game for the Blackberry PlayBook. It is one of those games that you can play for hours and have not really accomplished much by the time you have to stop.

 

 

Comb-Over Charlie begins with a simple opening menu that lets you access everything you will need to access to enjoy the experience of the game. I really liked the font and design of this game as it gave it a childish yet at the same time mature look to it; very clever design. Anyway, on the first screen you are given four buttons to choose from: Play, Help, Scores and Thanks. Hitting the Play button obviously take you to the next screen from which you can start playing, but I shall get back to this later. Help takes you to a little image-by-image tutorial that you can slide through that gives you simple instructions on how to play the game. Scores brings up your highest offline scores (no online scoring enabled as of yet.) And the Thanks options brings up an image that shows who the game was created by and who they owe additional thanks to.

 

Now, when you click Play you are taken to a different screen that lets you select which level to wish to play. However, as with most games, you can only select the levels that you’ve already played and therefore have already unlocked to play. There are eight levels to beat in the game which isn’t a lot, but it took me a good couple of hours to complete them all (mainly because I am appalling at the game.) You also are given star ratings on each of your levels (similar to Angry Birds) based on your score. The controls for the game are very simple, you tap on the screen to make Charlie go up and you click the fire button to fire in a straight line.

 

The downfalls of Comb-Over Charlie are quite evident from the beginning; although I’ve raved about its simplicity, in a way it’s all most too simple. There are no transitions in this game, the screens just feel like pictures that have links on them instead of pages that interact with one another. Another downfall is the mere lack of actual levels; even though I said that there was enough to keep me entertained for hours; this was merely because I am terrible at this game. I couldn’t see somebody who spends a lot of time on tablet games taking very long on this game at all. It would also have been nice to see other game modes other than just the basic, also some new weapons and a lot more content in general. Basically the big downfall of this game is that it is too simple for my liking.

 

Comb-Over Charlie HD is a very addictive game however, it is addictive in that you don’t have to really push your mind to play it, so even when you fail, it doesn’t feel like you’ve lost a lot. This game wins for me because it’s a game you can easily pick up and get straight into playing with the simple navigation to a new game and the ability to select a level you’ve already played. Check out this game if you’re looking to kill off some time in a long car journey or in a waiting room.

 

Written by Luke. Twitter @l_harkness • YouTube Channel

ScrapBook on the Blackberry Playbook

The Scrapbook application for the Blackberry PlayBook is a beautiful pictures application in which you can create nice collages of photos that you've taken.

When you open up the Scrapbook app, you are introduced with a washing line which your completed colages will get pegged to when saved. Also, there is a 'create' button in the bottom right of the start screen to begin creating your collage. This homepage is possibly one of the nicest start screens of any application out there for the PlayBook. It is a physics-based homepave in that when you scroll through your collages left to right, when you reach the end they swing out as if you were really sliding pieces of paper on a washing line. The image previews also look 3D which adds to the beauty of the animations and the idea of it being a washing line of pictures. When you click on one of your images, it simply pans in to show an enlarged preview of your image. Which, when you tap again, it pans out to the washing line view again.

When you click create, this is where the countless fun begins. You are brought to a very basic screen that shows a canvas as the main attraction of the screen. On the right you have three tabs that open up your images, stickers and wallpapers. In the bottom right hand corner you have a bin where you drag items that you wish to remove. And on the bottom left you have a camera button that is your save button; which you should be careful when hitting because, once saved, you won't be able to edit your collage. Anyway, clicking on the images button will bring up all the images that you have taken with your PlayBook's camera and you drag these onto the screen and once released they drop onto the piece of paper. It is exactly the same with the stickers, you pick a sticker, tap and drag to where you wish to place it. With the wallpaper, you choose which one and it will change to that wallpaper, simples.

 

There are a few features that keep this from being a simple and dull application. Such features as the ability to readjust and twist images using multi-touch pinch-to-zoome. The multi-touch is a little off and laggy sometimes, but it isn't so bad that it stops you from putting the image how and where you want. Another feature that the Scrapbook application has is the ability to connect the app up to Facebook; this enables you to post the finished product to Facebook when it is finished. 

However, this beautiful application does have quite a few downsides and there are plenty of things I would add in to make it a better application. The first downside I noticed was the lack of ability to edit your collage once you have saved it, as I mentioned earlier. Another downside to this app is that you can only have a certain number of your images in a single collage (I believe the limit to be seven). However, you can still add in stickers after your image limit. Things I would add to improve this application would be the ability to add in some form of text, such as bubble writing or maybe even just a text box. Also, seeing as Facebook is connected, maybe the ability to use your Facebook photos within the app would be a nice feature.

The Scrapbook application for the Blackberry PlayBook really shows off the PlayBook's graphical prowess. It shows off how good of an application can be made on the PlayBook; which makes me doubt other applications that have no transitions or animations. I cannot praise the developers of this application for the clear amount of time they have spent making this a beautiful application. It lacks some features that would make it a more useable application, but then no application is perfect. And for what this app has set out to do, it does extremely well.

Written by Luke. Twitter @l_harkness • YouTube Channel