Jan 022013
Live Jigsaws – Gallery of Illusions
- Puzzles come alive!
- 20 Breathtakingly beautiful images
- 3 Difficulty modes
- 33% off launch sale
List Price: $ 1.99
Price: $ 1.99
Son of Rogues Gallery: Pirate Ballads, Sea Songs & Chanteys
Producer Hal Willner has made a specialty of matching maverick artists, often in unexpected pairings, with surprising material; in 2006, he offered up a supreme example with the first volume of Rogues Gallery, hatched up on the set of Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest with actor Johnny Depp and director Gore Verbinski, who serve as executive producers of both volumes. Son of Rogues Gallery: Pirate Ballads, Sea Songs & Chanteys features exclusive performances by Tom Waits, Keith Richards
List Price: $ 19.98
Price: $ 13.87
Perhaps the best jigsaw puzzle app that I’ve seen,
My wife and I have been avid jigsaw puzzlers for many years, working at least a couple of hundred puzzles. Putting the puzzles together on our dining table, with foamboards holding the puzzle pieces all around the living room was our idea of fun. Now, after several spinal surgeries, I can’t bend over and pick out puzzle pieces like I used to, so I’ve been looking for a good jigsaw puzzle app for tablets. So far, they’ve all fallen short of matching the experience of putting a real puzzle together. “Gallery of Illusions,” however, comes as close to that experience as any app that I’ve seen so far for a tablet.
The puzzle pieces can be scrolled along the bottom and dragged into place. That means that there’s no way to see every unused piece at a glance, but that’s an inherent limitation of the tablet. Also, the pieces are in the correct orientation – they never have to be rotated. Those are the primary differences in a real jigsaw puzzle and this tablet version.
Having said all that, I have to say that I really enjoyed the twenty puzzles in “Gallery of Illusions.” The artwork is stunning, and the engine that allows you to view the pieces and drag them into place works very smoothly. I loved the very positive locking indication when the correct pieces came together. I solved several puzzles at the Easy level (20 pieces in a 5×4 grid), the Medium level (48 pieces/8×6), and the Hard level (96 pieces/12×8). The Easy level is great for kids and puzzle novices, but the Hard level is very solvable for dedicated puzzlers. And unlike many game apps, there’s no time limit.
One tip for puzzle novices: Always start with the puzzle pieces that have one or two straight sides, and put together the outside border first. Once you’ve done that, you’re off to a great start.
I have only one negative comment: It would be a big help – especially at the Hard level – to be able to refer to a picture of the completed puzzle. There should be an onscreen control to pop-up a picture of the completed puzzle, then return to the puzzle being worked on.
Kindle Fire HD 7″
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Beautiful,
The artwork is already great and the animated parts in the images just push it over the top to amazing! The jigsaw gameplay is very good and its super satisfying to lock the pieces into place, and also when you finally complete a picture.
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Really cool jigsaw game!!,
A ton of fun for any puzzler enthusiast or jigsaw puzzle lover – this is a great game with some fantastic visuals!! Well worth the price of entry, if not more!!
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Who said variety was dead, shipmate?,
I really enjoyed the first Rogues Gallery record, a very interesting collection of disparate artists and songs that somehow worked – it was also a favourite with my grandchildren (although I didn’t let them hear Loudon’s version of the “Good ship Venus”. This second volume is understandably not quite as good but it also has an unlikely collection of artists including Macy Gray, Tim Robbins, Iggy Pop and Shane MacGowan, who again interpret a similar collection of chanteys and ballads.
This certainly isn’t real ‘folk’ music and in many cases almost theatrical cabaret-style presentations from the likes of Marianne Faithfull, Dr. John, Iggy Pop and more understandably Anjelica Huston. Elsewhere there are really good musical performances from Richard Thompson, Marc Almond, Michael Stipe and Courtney Love, Petra Haden, Sean Lennon and Todd Rundgren. I also really enjoyed the contributions from Ed Harcourt, Patti Smith, Ivan Neville, Macy Gray and especially the combination of Tom Waits and Keef Richards singing “Shenandoah”. Don’t worry though, as on the first volume there is also plenty of the oddball and the weird here as well, including a nightmare rendition of “Barnacle Bill the Sailor”.
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Not what I was hoping for,
I had been waiting for this album to release for months. My girlfriend and I had made a plan to relax and spend the entire evening listening to this album on it’s release date. Well, we heard the Tom Waits and Keith Richards rendition of “Shenandoah” online and loved it. I guess I was hoping for acoustic versions of sea faring songs done in a traditional fashion. Instead it is a mixture of cabaret, sixty’s pop, and honky tonk piano backdrops that do the lyrics no justice. Don’t get me wrong, there is a handful of decent songs on this collection, but they are few and far between. I was expecting to hear powerful songs to the caliber of David Grisman and Jerry Garcia’s “Off to Sea Once More,” and felt short changed at the end. Oh well. Hopefully someone will get it right and create a compilation album of sea songs and ballads that has a real traditional nautical vibe. We will see.
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Great sea ballads,
I had purchased the first Rouges Gallery and loved it… This is additional to it and has some great songs. Keep it up..
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