Screen Four Software

For the past year, Screen Four Software's focus has been on it's productivity app, Audio Footnote and future apps will likely fit into the same category. While I may never seek to develop a game (although it might be good for profitability) I do have a deep appreciation for well designed, casual gaming.

For at least ten years, I've followed the work of Ferry Halim at his Flash gaming website, orisinal.com. If you've never been to orisinal.com, kill a few hours there by exploring over 40 of Mr. Halim's games. You'll find his games share some common traits with each other:

• Unique Design Style
  Mr. Halim has a soft and cuddly sort of design aesthetic that is not only nice to look at, but does a fantastic job branding his work.
• Ultra Simplicity
  Each of the games at orisinal.com are simple in their play mechanics. Some games focus on jumping on targets, others focus on avoiding baddies. He's even got what I would consider to be the O.G. of Doodle Jump-type games called Winterbells.
  
  
  
  
  So simple, yet playable are these games that I could see teachers of game design pointing students to these games as case studies.
• Chill Music
  Mr. Halim makes use of simple tracks that are easy to listen to. I don't know if he composes these himself, but I like them.
• Unexpected Surprises
  Just when you think you've got the knack of a certain game, as you advance, something new happens. This coupled with a great attention to detail results in a game that truly feels like an experiential art form.

For a while I've waited for Mr. Halim to release something for the iOS devices. I'm happy to say that the wait is over. A couple of weeks ago, Mr. Halim released Flight of Fire for the iPhone and iPod Touch.


 This 99¢ gem is a simple, side scrolling shoot-em-up where you play a character on a flying carpet, soaring over an Arabian city blasting bats out of the sky with flaming projectiles.



The controls are tilt and tap based and respond well. You also have a selection of power-ups to help you along the way. One of the best features of the game is that, instead of a finite amount of lives, you have a timer that counts down until the end of your game. Extra time is taken when you hit an enemy. Time is added as you destroy enemies. The result is a game that has the survival element of a game like Canabalt (anogther favorite of mine) as well as a scoring element (you get more points for combos). All this is set to a middle-eastern sounding, vocal music track that fits the setting.

Friends, if you want a great casual game with high production value, enough challenge for you but an easy pick-up for the kids, pick up Flight of Fire and don't forget to lose yourself at orisinal.com.

-Eric

Did you know that you can use Evernote to back-up your most important audio footnotes to the web, sort and share them with friends? All you need is an Evernote account and Audio Footnote for iPhone or iPod Touch to get started!  

In your Evernote account settings, take note of the email address you can email your notes to. Save this email address as a contact in the Contacts app on your iPhone. Now, when you want to send a note to Evernote, just choose this special email address as the recipient. Your note information and audio file* will then be sent to your Evernote account! You can even tag your note and place into a specific notebook by following these instructions.

Give it a try today and get more out of your audiobooks and podcasts with Audio Footnote and more out of your audio footnotes with Evernote!

*sending audio file to Evernote requires an Evernote premium account, but we're working on a fix for free users

Screen Four Software is holding a contest on Twitter! Here is what's up for grabs:

•  A free copy of Audio Footnote!
  You'll be recording voice notes for you audiobooks and podcasts in no time! Click here to learn more about Audio Footnote.
  
  
• An Audible.com 6 month Gold Membership!
  That's one free audiobook per month for half a year. A $90 value! Neat!

To enter, all you have to do is post a tweet saying:

Win 1 Audible Gold Membership and a copy of Audio Footnote for iPhone from @screenfour! RT before 3/16 to enter! http://bit.ly/9XlZqa

I'll draw a random user from those who retweet before 12 a.m. CST on March 16th.

Audio Footnote 1.0.1 is available for download [iTunes]! This release fixes bugs that were causing the app to crash when loading certain podcasts as well as other tweaks and fixes.

-Eric

We've got an update to Audio Footnote [iTunes] waiting for review now! This new version fixes some bugs that were causing certain podcasts to crash, prevent the audiobook or podcast lists from updating and a few other tweaks.

Please visit http://www.audiofootnote.com/support.html if you have any additional bug reports, feature requests, etc.

-Eric

I'm proud to announce that Audio Footnote is now available! Now you can finally record voice notes while listening to your audiobooks and podcasts on your iPhone or iPod Touch.

My developers and I have some fantastic features planned for future releases of Audio Footnote so if you like it, please support us by leaving a review.

Thank you to everyone who has supported me through this project so far. It's been exciting:-)

-Eric

Last night I demoed Audio Footnote to the public for the first time at OpenBeta3 in Oklahoma City. I'd have photos, but I was too busy pitching the app to take pictures. If you missed it, you missed out because in addition to showing a video of how the app works, I presented "The Master Plan" for Audio Footnote. What is "The Master Plan?" I can't tell you. You should have been there. It was neat.

Jake Behrens and the rest of the judges saw fit to present me with the Best in Show Demo award. Many thanks to them all and Derrick Parkhurst, Chad Henderson, Tommy Yi and the rest of the OKCCoCo crew (thanks Maeghan) for helping to usher in the technology renaissance in Oklahoma. It really is exciting around here these days.

Other highlights from my time last night:

• Saw some old friends (good to see Rex, James and Derek)
• Made some new friends (Mr. Patel, R.B.)
• Got geeky in the back row with Sam and Rick.
• Was inspired by a talk by Mike Jones (yes, that Mike Jones)
• Met a fellow Art of Manliness reader
• Met the guys from Gowalla. (wish I had an iPhone so I could play, too!)
• Heard some really great lightning talks by some wicked smart people in OKC.
  

So what does winning this award mean for Screen Four and Audio Footnote? Well, I think it means I'll get to share some space with the other OpenBeta Best in Show award winners at the InnoTech conference in OKC on November 4th. That's fun! Development will, of course, be further along so if you want to come by and check it out, please do! It'll be keen. I might even give something away.

Not sure about this whole Audio Footnote thing? Still don't know what it does? Visit AudioFootnote.com and check it out! I'm hoping to get it into the iTunes App Store in a few weeks.