Joe “Fairy Floss” Deminius is our local neighborhood cotton candy maker. He has an awesome, pimped out cotton candy machine that he rolls around the neighborhood, giving the delicious sugary spun treat to all the boys and girls ($3). His wife left him about six years ago after doctors told her that her daily diet of cotton candy was incredibly unhealthy. They had a child together, Gumpster, but he rarely comes outside of Joe’s apartment. Gumpster unfortunately is constantly sticky. Playing games like duck, duck, goose or red rover (not to mention any card or board game) is a persistent challenge for the poor boy. I spoke to him one time after Muffins had climbed into his tree chasing a bird. “Get your shitty cat out of my tree!” he yelled from his window on the second floor. “I’m trying to…just give me a minute” I said, as I reached for Muffins’ tail. Gumpster began counting, “one one thousand, two one thousand, three one thousand…”. By the time he got to forty six one thousand his father Joe had arrived, strolling his cart home from a hard day of work. “Son, why are you counting out loud in front of an open window?” he asked Gumpster. “Because that dipshit won’t get his stupid cat out of our tree”, Gumpster answered, pointing his small pudgy finger in my direction. “Hello, Mr. Deminius”, I said bashfully, “my cat Muffins is in your tree “. “Well ain’t that a booger bear” Joe said with a smile. “Here, stand on my knee and I bet you can reach him” he said kneeling down. Standing on Joe’s knee proved to be the perfect height I needed in order to reach Muffins. With a swift motion, I grabbed Muffins by his collar and took him out of the tree. Muffins gently landed on the soft grass and then, like a burst of lightening, ran across the street into Mrs. Hearing’s maple tree. “Thanks for helping me get my cat Mr. Deminius” I said. “Anytime, my friend. Here, have some cotton candy”. The delicious sugary spun treat softly melted in my mouth. Joe began rolling his cotton candy machine up the apartment steps when I noticed something different about his cotton candy. “Joe!” I yelled, “wait up! There’s something different about your cotton candy”. Joe rolled his cotton candy machine back down the steps. “Well son, I was hoping you didn’t notice. A lot of the children are complaining but I just don’t know what to do about it. I tried changing the color to blue but that doesn’t seem to help”. As the second bite melted in my mouth I realized a tiny crunch. “Summertime is always the hardest on my business. I enjoy a good winter freeze”. Again, I noticed a peculiar crunch with each bite I took. “You see, in the winter there’s hardly any bugs out. Summertime, all the bugs come out. Sometimes, I think they personally hate cotton candy. Like it’s some kind of enemy or something”. Looking down into Joe’s cotton candy machine, I realized a multitude of different bugs had gotten stuck inside the bowl. Politely, I spit out the last bite I took and handed Joe’s cotton candy back to him. “You know what I would do if I were you?” I asked, removing a bug’s leg from my front teeth. “I would put a canopy above your cotton candy bowl so that bugs won’t fly into it”. “That’s damn good advice, my friend, damn good advice”, Joe said with a confident smile. Dumpster shut his bedroom window.

Impulse Soccer (iTunes) is a turn based soccer (football as it’s originally called but for some reason Americans don’t understand this) game. Before the match begins, you select where you want your soccer player to go. The object is to obviously get the soccer ball in the goal three times to win. Some of the soccer players themselves can fall into the goal creating a better opportunity for your team to win, as there are less players on the field. The game itself requires a bit of strategy and personally, I’m not very good at it. I’m writing to tell you not necessarily about the game, but more about the developer. He approached me via Twitter (follow him!!!) and asked if I would like to give his game a shot. I complied and seven years later, I’ve written a review. The number one reason I like this game is because of the developer. He politely encouraged me to give him any feedback that would help make the game better and was open to constructive criticism. Why? Because he enjoys making iPhone applications. It’s a passion he has much like many small time developers who sadly, have been overshadowed by larger companies that have the bigger teams, more money and greed to take your hard earned buck. When I first started this website most of the games/apps I reviewed were from the “little guy” passionate about the possibilities the iPhone had to offer. I miss those guys. Today, it seems all the larger companies are taking the spotlight away from smaller developers who are just as fervent, if not more so, of creating an application. It sucks but I hope they stay strong and stick with what they’re passionate about. In closing, I’ll share some “food for thought”. A friend of mine has a deep love of photography. Not digital photography, but true photography. When asked why he doesn’t sell his photographs and make some big money he answered, “If I got payed for it, I wouldn’t love it so much”.

AppAttack

This entry was posted on Saturday, February 20th, 2010 at 5:00 pm and is filed under App Attack, Games. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.