Tag: Neon »

Eventbrite has today announced a new app for ticket organization for events: Eventbrite Neon, which is set to replace their At The Door and Entry Manager apps.

This new app allows event organizers and venue operators to act as their own box office, with the app able to monitor ticket sales and trends in real time, accept payments and issue tickets on the spot, and scan attendees tickets at the event itself. Furthermore, potential problems such as ticket reissues, cancellations, and refunds can also be dealt with from within the app.

The Eventbrite Neon app is available on the App Store now, for free.

Everyone has probably been fascinated by neon at some point in his or her life. There’s just something about the seemingly impossibly vibrant colors twisting and turning through a series of tubes to form all manner of images that’s quite pleasing to the eye. While I imagine creating real neon signage isn’t all that glamorous, creating fake neon signage in a virtual environment through Neon Blitz is quite glamorous indeed.

Neon Blitz is fundamentally a line-tracing game. Each component of a given neon puzzle has a distinct beginning, indicated by a star. It’s up to the player to drag that star across its assigned track and complete a specific piece of neon, then do the same to the others as quickly and accurately as possible. Consecutive successes without any screw-ups build combos and make the neon glow brighter, while dragging too far off track or failing to complete a given piece restarts the combo counter. I’d say it’s best to take it slow and steady but each puzzle jumps right into the next as soon as it’s finished, and there’s a session timer that’s always counting down to Game Over. Temporary boosts can be activated before starting a game using stars earned through play, but they’re no substitute for actual skill.

While Neon Blitz is obviously a fairly straightforward and simple game, that simplicity is what makes it hard to put down. Each session is randomized so it’s rare to encounter the same puzzle all that often, and there’s always the allure of trying to best the previous run. And of course it all looks wonderful in a Technicolor Dream sort of way. Especially when a big combo is in progress.

The only real downside to all the glamour of Neon Blitz is that it never really leads anywhere. All the daily challenges and special bonus game rules are great and everything, but completing them merely earns more stars that are simply used to purchase temporary power-ups. Nothing is really unlocked and there’s no real progression aside from high scores, and a multitude of unlockables is something many iOS gamers have started to grow accustomed to.

It’s a great simple game to kill time, but it’s not the kind of thing I could picture most iOS users draining their batteries over. Although it is fun, and sometimes people just want to have fun without a bunch of thinking or rules to hinder their enjoyment. In which case they should look to Neon Blitz.

Got a few minutes to kill? Why not spend it flipping some switches up and down? For most people, the prospect of flipping switches up and down for fun probably doesn't sound very entertaining. Bread Engine, makers of the iOS game Switch Frenzy, beg to differ.

In this game, a set of five switches appear on screen and brightly colored arrows direct whether each switch should be flipped up or down. A blue arrow means the switch should be flipped in the direction the arrow is pointing. A red arrow means that the switch should be flipped in the opposite direction. This may sound simple enough, but when there are several different switches lighting up on screen at once things can get hectic. Other switches need to be held down or flipped multiple times, which adds to the frenzy.

With each successful switch, a bonus button is filled. Once full it can be pressed for an increased score multiplier. There is a classic survival mode where players see how long they can last without flipping a switch the wrong way, and a time attack mode where players see how many switches the can correctly flip in two minutes. In both cases the action is intense and fingers will fly while trying to get to each switch in time. Multi-touch comes in handy here as it quickly becomes necessary to flip several switches at the same time.

Achievement and leaderboards (with Game Center integration) make getting that high score all the more important. This is the kind of game that will keep friends competing back and forth in pursuit of higher and higher scores.

The beautiful minimalism of this game makes it the perfect way to spend a few spare minutes, but don't be surprised if a few minutes turn into a few more, and a few more...