Apparatus - Android Police - Android News, Apps, Games, Phones, Tablets

Apr

Award-Winning Game Rigonauts Coming To Android In May, Bringing Fighting Machines With Some Assembly Required

Posted by Ryan Whitwam in Apps/Games, News

You might want to clear your schedule for a few weeks in May because that's when the game Rigonauts will be appearing in the Play Store. An early version of Rigonauts from Engient took second prize in Activision's Independent Games Competition last year, and now an updated version with improved graphics and gameplay is on the way to Android, iOS, and PC. This is a physics-based fighting game with a healthy dose of strategy, and that's not something that comes along everyday.

In Rigonauts you play the role of Rigo, who has to lead his hobgoblin minions to freedom with their evil masters, the Komandants, hot on the trail.

Dec

[Updated: Here Is The Winner!] Mega-Holiday Giveaway #8: Win A Galaxy Nexus (GSM or CDMA) Courtesy Of BitHack For Doing Next To Nothing

Posted by Cameron Summerson in Contests / Giveaways, Galaxy Nexus

Last Updated: February 3rd, 2012

Who wants a free Galaxy Nexus? You do? We thought so, and we've one to give away - CDMA or GSM, it's winner's choice this time.

Before we get into the giveaway details, though, we want to give some love to the guys at BitHack, without whom this giveaway wouldn't be possible. BitHack is the dev team behind the game Apparatus, a title that you've probably heard quite a few times 'round here at Android Police.

This contest is now over. Here is our winner, selected by BitHack from almost 2,500 comments:

Ben Warren with this 1-line review: "The only game I've played where I can quite happily spend 3 hours trying to come up with the most ludicrously complex way to move a ball an inch and a half to the left."

Congratulations - you will be contacted for your information in the near future!

Aug

Apparatus Finally Leaves Beta, Unveils A Bunch Of New Features (Including Rockets!)

Posted by Matt Demers in Games, News

I feel a little bit of an attachment to Apparatus - we were one of the first blogs to review the game, which was a nice discovery while browsing Reddit one day. I've seen the app grow and add a whole boatload of interesting features; it truly is one of the Android platform's best games.

So when we got word today that it was finally leaving beta and stepping into the world of "finished" products, I couldn't help but smile a little bit. It's good to see games go through an entire development cycle and remain interesting and relatively bug-free all the way through.

Aug

Lodsys Flags Another Android Developer - Bithack, The Creator Of Apparatus. Here Is One Of Their Ridiculous Infringement Claims [Pictures]

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in News

Lodsys, the king troll of all patent trolls, has been attacking developers of both Android and iOS apps for a few months now (yeah, even Rovio) with their claims of owning a patent to the free->paid upgrade process using in-app purchases.

Their latest victim is Bithack, the developer of Apparatus. Yup, the same Bithack who raised hell about the Amazon Appstore last month and whose game is currently averaging 4.6 stars in the Market. Lodsys is not currently suing them, but did sent a heap of documents with patent license requests, looking for a quick settlement rather than going to court.

Jul

We Sit Down With The Head Of The Amazon Appstore And Talk Refunds, Reviews, Device Filtering, And More

Posted by David Ruddock in Android OS, Apps/Games, Development, Interviews

When we published a piece reporting on the recent decision of game developer Bithack to pull its popular title Apparatus from the Amazon Appstore, we contacted Amazon asking for comment on the whole situation.

Earlier this week, Amazon got back to us and wanted to sit down and discuss the Appstore and some of the issues that developers and customers alike have had. While Amazon could not specifically discuss the complaints of Bithack for confidentiality reasons, they were able to generally talk about some of the concerns Bithack raised.

Today, I spoke with Aaron Rubenson, Category Leader (essentially, head of business) of the Amazon Appstore.

Jul

Apparatus Developer: "Amazon Appstore Is A Disaster"

Posted by David Ruddock in Android OS, Apps/Games, News

You might have heard of the fun physics/Rube Goldberg machine game Apparatus. It's actually pretty popular, and quite well-loved - over 800 reviews on the Android Market putting it at an average score of 4.5. For a game, especially, that's a very difficult feat to accomplish. It goes without saying then, that the developer of Apparatus is very concerned with customer feedback and providing support for his application.

Recently, he decided to distribute Apparatus through the Amazon Appstore. Today, he decided to remove it.

Initially, Apparatus was rejected by the Appstore for an extremely minor (even insignificant) mis-step: it used HTTP rather than HTTPS for a cookie when the app was accessing the community forums.

Jun

[Review] Apparatus Wows Us With Little Big Planet-Like Gameplay And Creativity

Posted by Matt Demers in Applications, Apps/Games, Game Reviews, Games, Reviews

Last Updated: July 24th, 2011

Apparatus will remind players of Playstation game Little Big Planet. The objective: get the silver ball into the blue bucket. You're given a number of pieces to play around with, like boards to fasten to each other or weights to create catapults. Pieces can be placed on one of three layers, allowing fasteners to work their magic.

Fastening pieces comes in one of two varieties: nails are "hard" connectors, giving a rigid connection. Screws, however, allow pieces to rotate independently of what they're connected to. Combining screws, circular plates and the game's engine capabilities, you can make pistons, engines and whatever else your mind comes up with.