Tag: Prizes »

How do you make an Endless Running game more than just another Endless Running game? By adding real life prizes to it, of course! That’s the thinking behind StupidFast: a game designed for football enthusiasts, and the brainchild of former college football star and current NFL free agent, Taylor Martinez. It all came about due to his career path changing quite drastically and suddenly.

“This past season was my senior season. I tore a ligament in my foot and separated my shoulder - both in the first game. I ended up not finishing the season as Quarterback. After the season, I entered into the NFL draft. I did my pro day at Nebraska and waited for draft day," explained Martinez, "I ended up going to the Philadelphia Eagles. I went down there and they took a MRI and X-Ray on both [injuries]. They said that they weren't going to take me any more. My dream was crushed and I didn’t know what to do. I decided to make a football app, and this is what I came up with.“

“I [have] been building apps for four years now," he elaborated, "I love doing it and have a lot of passion doing it... Stupidfast is different than any other app because it allows users to earn rewards and prizes. This concept is the first of its kind and would allow users to compete and earn rewards.”

Taylor’s lined up some fairly big companies too, with the likes of Sol Republic, HobbyTown, Cutter Gloves, Shock Doctor Mouth Piece, and Black Fly sunglasses all currently on board. Martinez also explained how there will be different console games you can win along with other prizes, including a “GoPro Raffle for every time you share a Kamcord.”

Kamcord support should prove quite a hit with StupidFast too, given its fast-paced nature. Players tap as fast as they can to try to run away from the safety, as well as jump over pillars. A stiff arm can also be employed to break the pillars, ensuring there’s plenty to do.

Martinez explained that, “prizes will be won based on your daily high score, best high score, the achievements [via] Game Center, and playing the football game. Inside the game, if you land on a certain number, you will win that prize.”

Achievements are varied, with awards for getting tackled by the safety and knocking your helmet off, falling on your butt when you hit a pylon, falling on your face hitting a pylon, collecting stiff arms, and passing 50 and 150 points in game.

“Every time you break your daily high score you will have a chance to enter into a raffle," Martinez went on to explain, "Inside the main menu you can click Earn Rewards, and see what prizes you can win that day and what raffles you can enter into."

Thanks to Taylor Martinez for taking the time to answer our questions. StupidFast is set to be a freemium game with in-app purchases available for more stiff arms, lives, and ad-removal. It’s set for release September 7. We'll be sure to let you know when it's out.

This week at 148Apps.com, we got into the holiday spirit with a review of a gadget that might be on many people's wish lists this year - the iRig Keyboard. Site editor Rob LeFebvre writes, "IK Multimedia might be trying to take over the music peripheral world. The company has a wide range of apps, instruments, and support items that could, in theory, be used to build a band entirely out of iOS instruments. The latest offering from this prolific manufacturer is titled iRig Keys, a super portable iOS keyboard with 37 velocity-sensitive keys, modulation and pitch wheels, low power consumption, and core MIDI compliance. The iRig is aimed at the portable musician, the composer on the go, the backpack virtuoso, and as such, it succeeds brilliantly."

Think you might ask Santa for this? Check out Rob's full review at 148Apps.

The upcoming holidays were also on our minds at GiggleApps.com, as Amy Solomon reviewed Ice is Nice: All About the North and South Poles. Amy says, "As the name may suggest, Ice Is Nice does indeed give a lot of great information about the earth’s North and South Poles, as well as animals found in these areas that children and their adults will enjoy a great deal.

As with the other titles from this series, go on an adventure with The Cat in the Hat, Dick and Sally as well as Thing One and Thing Two, who are all here to learn such topics as the harsh temperatures found at the Poles or why there are six months of darkness or perpetual sun."

Learn more about the poles in Amy's review on GiggleApps.

Finally, 148Apps.biz writer Carter Dotson explored the improvements made in Tapjoy's latest SDK: "Mobile advertising service Tapjoy has announced version 9.0 of their SDK for iOS and Android. The purpose of this update is meant to expand out and improve their current set of features to improve user engagement with their ads, and to integrate daily rewards, a popular feature that developers can now easily implement. These are meant to provide advertisers ways to developer targeted ads in a better way, and for developers to generate revenue even from non-paying users through incentivized ad viewing, service signups, and app installs."

Want more info? Read all about it at 148Apps.biz.

And that sets us up for a week of pre-Thanksgiving hysteria here in the States. Join us on Twitter and Facebook to keep track of holiday app sales, news and reviews across all of our sites...and do yourself a favor and start thawing that turkey now.

Outdoor retailer, REI, already offers a great app in the form of REI but they've gone one further with the release of Augmented Reality app, Find Out NYC, launched in honor of the opening of REI's first store in Manhattan.

Find Out NYC offers users the opportunity to explore a virtual landscape via REI adverts across New York. Six separate scenes are unlockable through exploring the city and discovering the special posters around the area. There's more than just fun to be had here though. With each scene that the user unlocks, there's a chance to win great outdoor equipment such as a Burton snowboard, a Novara Buzz One Bike and the grand prize of them all: a trip for two to Costa Rica.

It's a very neat move that's bound to encourage outdoor enthusiasts to check out Find Out NYC. The Manhattan store is set to open on December 2nd, located in the Puck Building at 303 Lafayette St. In SoHo.

Finding an unique idea amongst the huge wealth of apps available in the app store isn't always an easy task. Sure, the quality is there, but a neat idea that stands out from the crowd with its originality? Now that's a little harder. This is where Appysnap could well fill the gap.

It's an app that's also a game that can earn players points and ultimately win prizes.

The concept is simple enough. Appysnap provides players with missions that they must accomplish as quickly as possible in order to win things. These missions involve taking a photo of a place, theme or an item.

Points are for the most part allocated to those who are fastest but a select few reward players with prizes at random, depending on the city or neighbourhood that they play in. These prizes range from the likes of iPads, Kindles and Amazon vouchers. Ultimately though, much of the fun stems from simply racing to be first to complete a mission. Plus there's always the points or 'caps' which can be exchanged for deals and offers.

Sharing functionality allows players to check their rank and also share it and their activities via Twitter or Facebook.

Appysnap looks to be a pretty cool idea. Being able to play it anywhere and at any time of day is a nice idea and there's some great potential here for tie-in events too. I'd love to see this kind of thing used at a concert or cinema premiere for example as the prizes could be fantastic.

Users would be wise to keep an eye on it as I've got a sneaky suspicion this kind of thing could really go places. For now, it's still a pretty impressive package considering the fun that can be had and the chance of winning something huge.

Appysnap is available for all iOS devices and is a free download.

To celebrate the release of Star Wars: The Battle for Hoth LITE, developer FluffyLogic is giving away some sweet prizes. All you need to do is download and install the free Star Wars: The Battle for Hoth LITE game, review it in four words or less on the iTunes App Store, and then email that review to FluffyLogic. Click here for full details and official rule stuff. More details from the developers:

The top prize is an original 80s Star Wars action figure of Luke Skywalker in his Hoth battledress. Second prize is also an 80s action figure - but of a Snowtrooper this time. Both winners will also get a copy of the book Plug In & Turn On: A Filmmakers Guide to Internet - written by the game's producer and designer a long, long time ago in a galaxy far, far away - so they can get some hints and tips to use their new found action figures to make fan films! The best runners-up will also get a copy of the book.

The full version of Star Wars: Battle of Hoth is also out - and the devs have a handy help guide for the game if you get stuck. But wait, THERE'S MORE!

In the email we got today, FluffyLogic teased us with the fact of a near-future iPad version coming out. With even MORE sweet new features and levels. Stay tuned for them right here as they're revealed.

I think we're all expecting (and hoping) a new iPhone will be announced at the keynote presentation at WWDC in a few weeks. But the rumors as to what features that iPhone will have are all over the place.

Starting today and through the morning of the keynote, we invite you to guess what the features of the next iPhone will be. The three people with the top scores overall will win some great prizes from Griffin Technology with a total retail value of over $250!

Here's how the contest will work. We've gathered a bunch of the rumors we've heard and read about the new iPhone and put them in a pick list and assigned points to each based on how unlikely we think each feature is. To enter the contest, you guess which ones are correct. You will get points for each correct feature you guess and lose the points listed for each incorrect feature you choose.

Read on for the full list of prizes and more on how to enter.

After the success of our last contest, we decided to look through our email and sort out all of the promo codes that developers had sent us to give away to our readers. Apparently our last competition caught the attention of quite a few developers and we have a hefty pile of codes to give out! While the last contest took place on the site itself, due to the sheer number of codes that we have to give out, we've decided to use our Twitter account to distribute them.

We know that not all of you have Twitter accounts, but considering the fact that it's so easy to set up and some of the best iPhone apps released to date are Twitter apps, there's really no reason why you shouldn't jump onboard.

DEVELOPERS:
If you'd like to join the give-a-way, go to our promo code page to submit your app and we'll add them to our list.

READERS:
Register a Twitter account or login in to your existing one then make sure you're following @148Apps! You can check our timeline out here to see what we're giving away and how.

Best of luck to everyone!