matching posts

Tripolar makes a big point of saying that it's not a match-3 game, and though the grid looks similar to that matching genre, it's really not. But it is a puzzle game. The idea is that you have pieces coming in on top of the board, and touching anywhere on the grid will insert that piece and delete any like-colored pieces around it. Any pieces of a different color will switch to the next color in order. It sounds a little confusing, but in practice, it works pretty well.

There's a timed mode, which challenges you to score as many points as possible in a certain amount of time, and a puzzle mode, which requires you to clear 50 different boards by putting the right pieces in the right places. Unfortunately, the gameplay is a little simple. Because you're dropping one piece in at a time, there are no real opportunities for building up combos, which is where the real fun is in these types of puzzle games. And unfortunately, there's no Game Center integration or leaderboards, though there is a high-score board for your phone itself.

It is well-made and entertaining for what it is, and it's worth the US$0.99 price if this kind of game appeals to you.

While it's been in the App Store for the last few days, Pantone is officially launching its color discovery and management app for iPhone today, called myPANTONE.

The Pantone Matching System, among other Pantone products, is the indispensable color system for printers and graphic designers, and it offers a wider gamut of color than traditional process color printing. myPANTONE lets iPhone and iPod touch users discover new and interesting Pantone color combinations, share them, and create palette files suitable for importing in desktop applications.

You can start one of two ways: You can scrub through one of Pantone's color sets, including PMS coated, uncoated and matte colors, Goe, Pastels, and Fashion + Home. You can then drag individual chips into an area below the fanbook display, and build a palette of five colors. You can view each color full-screen, and add tags to colors, too.

Alternatively, you can take a picture with your iPhone (or select an image from Pictures on your iPod touch) and build a palette from the colors in that image.

myPANTONE exports HTML colors and .ase files (suitable for importing in Adobe CS products). You can also share palettes directly with other myPANTONE users nearby, and also upload them to the mypantone.com website (annoying sound warning), which is very similar to Adobe's Kuler (though it uses Pantone swatches, naturally).

This is all well and good, of course, but for the technical color professional? Meh.

Fortunately, World of Warcraft didn't exist while I was in school, otherwise I might not have finished my venerable BS degree at the storied Ithaca College at all. But if there was one game that almost kept me from finishing all of those essays and homework... well, it was Civ. But if there were two games, the second was Snood. And now that game is due in iPhone form soon as well.

It features the same creature-matching gameplay (with both new and old graphics, as you can see above), which means it probably has the same addictive quality that kept me playing long after I was supposed to have read those excerpts the professor gave to us in English class, and three gameplay modes, including Story, Classic, and even a Time Attack mode. "Coming soon" is the word on when it'll be out, though the main webpage actually says "play now," so it probably isn't that far off. It's not the only "Bust a Move" style game out on the App Store, but it is Snood, and that itself is enough to take me back to the days of pizza and beer in the dorm room.