Apple recently announced the best apps and games of 2022 in the Apple App Store. Also the
DH had the opportunity to interact with three of the top iOS app developer winners: Drydock Studios (Wylde Flowers), XD Network Inc. (Moncage) and GoodNotes (GoodNotes 5).
Wylde Flowers
Wylde Flowers was the most popular game on Apple’s exclusive Arcade gaming subscription. It has a pretty good story origin. Amanda Schofield, co-founder of Drydock Studios, who started the project in 2019, wanted to develop a game that when people play, they should feel happy and relate to the game’s characters in a meaningful way.
More importantly, Schofield and the team were able to come up with a good story and an even better visual gameplay experience. The protagonist Tara and other members of the Wylde Flowers are representations of marginalized people.
Within a short time frame after its launch in February 2022, Wylde Flowers managed to take top honors this year.
The game revolves around Tara, who moves to a small hamlet to help Granny and the family farm.
As they continue playing, gamers will be introduced to a cast of fully voiced characters with intriguing backstories – find friendship or even romance.
The characters and players must get used to an active farming lifestyle as they tend crops, care for animals, fish, craft and more throughout the day.
However, there is a twist in Wylde Flowers. In addition to doing the village chores during the day, the player can nurture his interest in witchcraft by learning to fly with his broomstick, brew potions, control the weather and seasons, or even turn into a cat.
Yes, there are a lot of farm related games in the industry, but what makes Wylde Flowers special is that all the characters are voiced from start to finish, and that’s almost 18 hours of voiceover. And the characters are well represented across all types, including age, body type, sexual orientation, gender, race, and religion. This is probably why Wylde Flowers has been so well received by gamers on Apple iPhones, iPads and Mac devices.
Monk cage
Moncage is developed by XD Network Inc. and is a fascinating puzzle game with optical illusions.
The game is very unique and curious. It has a booth that offers multiple viewpoints of objects such as an old factory, a light tower, an amusement park, a church and more. It ensures that we use our brain efficiently and make us think. The game takes place in a mysterious cube, where each side of the cube houses a unique world: albeit. At first glance they may seem random and unrelated, but look closer and you’ll be captivated by the subtle and intricate ways in which these worlds are connected.
Developed by Dong Zhou and Yijia Chen, Moncage is their very first project and yet it has generated huge interest among gamers.
“We wanted to demonstrate gameplay built entirely on the visuals. We wanted to provide a new and different perspective to view the world around us,” they said.
“The cube is a cage of their (players) mind, the simulation endless gameplay parallels the endless suffering of the veterans (army). The ultimate goal of the game is to break out and find redemption. Also, we want the drawing people’s attention to PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) among veterans,” they noted.
Moncage co-developers added that feedback from Apple developers helped them fine-tune the UI and we can see the effect in terms of visually appealing gameplay.
Good notes 5
Like the other two winning teams, GoodNotes creator Time Base Technology Limited, also founded by Steven Chan, commends Apple for the tremendous success and improvements made to the app over the last four iterations of the app.
Chan actually said the idea for the app came after the launch of the first-generation iPad in 2010, when he was just entering his senior year of college. Chan found the iPad’s notebook size perfect for taking notes and reading. He found it tedious to take notes and keep papers.
With so many papers lying around, there was a chance that they would get lost and even if they are found, it is difficult to put them back in order.
So he decided to develop an app and missed several lectures to perfect it. But over time, he managed to balance the time and finished only in 2011.
Things got better with the introduction of the Apple Pencil stylus in 2015, which offered a better real-world experience of writing on a notebook and made changes accordingly in the new iteration of the GoodNotes app.
In the past three years, the app’s user base has increased by 10x and now Good Notes 5 has more than 50 lakh monthly active users. And on average their users spend almost 109 minutes per day.
And this year alone, people have made more than 1.6 billion notes on the GoodNotes 5 app.
The handwriting recognition algorithm can read most normal handwriting and this is very important for people to come back and read their notes.
In the coming months, the company plans to release more value-added features, including full page typing, audio recording, and integrating study sets that allow the user to drag and drop handwritten notes, images, and diagrams in flash card format, which provides visual visual effect. pleasant reading experience.
The GoodNotes team has plans to introduce the transcription feature, but it will take some time, Chan told DH.
Must Read | Best of 2022: top rated apps and games in the Apple App Store
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