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Welcome to the latest entry in our Bonus Round series, wherein we tell you all about the new Android games of the day that we couldn't get to during our regular news rounds. Consider this a quick update for the dedicated gamers who can't wait for our bi-weekly roundups, and don't want to wade through a whole day's worth of news just to get their pixelated fix. Today we have a freaky point-and-click adventure, a classic board game, a spatial puzzler, a casual astronomic juggle game, and two challenging platformers. Without further ado:
Nova Launcher remains the go-to alternative launcher for power users, customization fanatics, and plain old everyday Android fans. The developer continues to iterate the app with a ton of new features and options, and the full version bump to 5.0 is all about emulating the look of Google's official (and so far unannounced) Pixel launcher. It's available in beta form now from the Play Store program, but the developer also makes the updated APK available as a direct download.
The smart home revolution doesn't seem to be coming as quickly as some had hoped, but whenever it does break out, Amazon intends to be on the ground floor. To that end, the latest addition to Alexa's growing list of voice control connections is Control4, a semi-proprietary collection of home automation tools. The company announced a new Alexa skill that works with the Echo, Echo Dot, Amazon Tap, and any other device that can connect to the voice service.
Jide's Remix OS has turned a lot of heads in the last couple of years, thanks to an interesting initial tablet offering and subsequent easy-to-install software for both PCs and a few Nexus tablets and even some retail hardware. The modified Android software, which uses a desktop-style window system for apps, is surprisingly robust and easy to use. Jide's latest move is to offer Remix as a virtual machine package, allowing Windows desktops, laptops, and tablets to run the Android ROM in a dedicated window alongside desktop applications.
There are a lot of PC and console games that have made their way to NVIDIA's SHIELD set-top box, but I believe that Pavilion is the first to get an exclusive launch on the platform before making its way elsewhere. The 2D puzzle-adventure game from Visiontrick, which mixes elements of old point-and-click adventure games with more modern fare like Monument Valley, is now on the Play Store for ten bucks. It'll make its way to the PS4, Vita, Steam, and Humble stores later this month.
Pretty much any adult has probably had this conversation at some point: "The drivers in [my city] are so much worse than the drivers in [your city]." The truth is that you can find shitty drivers everywhere, but empirically, some places are definitely worse than others. Waze, the Google-owned software company behind everyone's favorite Google Maps Navigation alternative, has decided to quantify that data. The results are posted to the Driver Satisfaction Index, and they're as slick as they are disappointing.
Google sells fiber Internet access and television service through the Google Fiber brand. Yeah, you might have forgotten that, since the rollout process is about as fast as continental drift, and even if you live in the US odds are overwhelming that you don't have access to it. Google also makes set-top box software called Android TV... which you might also have forgotten, since it's still pretty limited in terms of actual users. Fiber started in 2012, with Android TV starting in 2014, so they've never been running the same software, but they're getting a little closer now.
Android manufactures have flirted with dual rear cameras for years. Previously it was for quasi-3D tech (see the ill-fated HTC EVO 3D), then for tricks like enhanced bokeh effects (see the slightly less ill-fated HTC One M8 and others), and now phones like the LG V20 are combining different lenses for different applications. Qualcomm hopes to capitalize on this trend with its Clear Sight dual camera processing tech.
One of the core principles of video games is that they're aspirational: we beat the invincible bad guy and drive hovercraft race cars in lavish fantasy worlds because we can't ever do it in real life. Video games are now so amazing that they're intersecting with the real world in the form of VR, but our aspirations have softened a bit as we've gotten older - now some of those impossible dreams include "owning a really nice house." FOX Sports VR has embraced the death of the American dream by virtualizing that nice house and letting you watch football in it.
Google's Project Tango, that awesome tech that allows a gadget to map out three-dimensional spaces, is really cool. But it's taking its damn sweet time getting here: Tango was first announced over two years ago and offered as a developer kit tablet last summer, and the first Tango-capable smartphone was supposed to arrive from Lenovo this month. That seems less than likely now - the store page for the Phab 2 Pro has been adjusted from "coming this summer" to "coming this fall."
The lads and lasses on the open source CyanogenMod Team continue to bring their Android nightly ROMs to phones and tablets that have long been abandoned by uncaring manufacturers. This week a handful of new devices get builds for CM13, based on code from Android 6.0. All of them are nightlies (so possibly not ready for primetime), but I'll bet their respective users are happy to get the attention anyway. Here they are:
Calling all hackers and security researchers: Google wants to pay you money. Quite a lot, in fact. The top prize for finding a new critical flaw in Android in the new Project Zero Prize competition is a whopping $200,000, with the second prize at $100,000 and $50,000 split among additional entrants. The contest is being run by Project Zero, the company's own internal team of security researchers that documents critical flaws and bugs in wide-reaching software.
NVIDIA is pretty good about regular updates for its SHIELD line, and the Tablet twins are the recipients of the latest bumps. Update version 4.3 for the original SHIELD Tablet (the one with the stylus) and 1.4 for the newer SHIELD Tablet K1 are basically identical, and in both cases the biggest addition is an update to Android 6.0 that brings the security patches to July of this year. The rest of the changes are pretty minor bug fixes and other small adjustments:
There's no denying that the Galaxy Note 7 recall is a big deal, but as with any big story, a little caution is called for when reporting on it. There are in fact other things that can catch fire besides the Note 7, including - gasp! - other smartphones. Such is the case with one of the more dramatic reports of a Galaxy Note 7 malfunction. As it turns out this New York Post article about a 6-year-old injured by an exploding Note 7 (which still hasn't been updated or corrected (update: see below)) is in fact about a Galaxy Core Prime, an entirely different Samsung phone model. This local NBC affiliate gets the story right, including video of the device in question and an interview with an expert who notes that the accident wasn't specific to the device.
The international recall of the Galaxy Note 7 is becoming a full-fledged disaster for Samsung, with millions of early devices (and consumers) affected. But even with the negative press and a direct hit to revenue, Samsung would prefer its customers send their faulty phones in for a replacement rather than face even a small possibility of said phones bursting into flames. In the company's home territory of South Korea, it's going to use some more direct methods of encouragement.
Welcome to the roundup of the best new Android games that went live in the Play Store or were spotted by us in the previous 2 weeks or so.
Android users (or at least the ones who read this site) love a good beta, because it means that they get to check out all the new bells and whistles before anyone else. So it goes with the beta version of Google Maps. Multiple readers tell us they're seeing a new user interface when opening Google Maps' Explore menu, which is an alternate view for finding local businesses and attractions. The new look, which is heavy on Google Now-style cards, is above. Compare it to the current version (on the standard non-beta app) below.
You can't swing a dead cat on the Play Store without hitting half a dozen point-and-click adventure games. That's not a bad thing, of course: between the relative ease of porting old adventure games to the platform and the way touchscreen controls are eminently suited to the genre, it's hardly surprising that they're getting a renaissance in the mobile age. The latest original adventure game to make its way to Android from Steam is Randal's Monday, a crass sci-fi romp that's heavy on humor and even heavier on pop culture.
Remember when the fanciful dessert codenames for Android were an inside joke rather than an actual marketing push? Ever since version 4.4 "Kit-Kat" (and the tie-in promotional campaign with Nestle), it seems like Google has been making a sincere effort to make users as aware of the codename - which is now more of a slogan - as the release number itself. So when the French town of Montélimar asked Google if they were interested in some kind of promotional event for Android 7.0 "Nougat," the company jumped at the chance.
Every year console sports fans get a new NBA-branded basketball game from mega-publisher 2K. And for the last several years running, Android has been blessed with an official companion app. Sort of. See, MyNBA2K isn't just a companion app that tells you when your buddies are ready to play, et cetera. It's also a free-to-play mobile game that, oddly, depicts computer-controlled battles between digital playing cards. Oh, and there's a big currency system behind it all, driving $100 in-app purchases. Of course.