Category: Digital

Apple Arcade’s Must-Play Mobile Games

Apple Arcade’s Must-Play Mobile Games

Originally published at CBR on January 20, 2020.

In September, Apple launched Apple Arcade, a $5-per-month subscription service that provides unlimited access to a massive library of video games, exclusively on Apple devices. Joining the heavy-hitting likes of the PlayStation Now and Xbox Game Pass subscription services was never going to be easy for other companies, but Apple had a particularly massive hill to climb. The company has spent the past decade earning a bad reputation for its deep catalog of largely terrible iPhone games, with only a handful of truly great titles. Apple combated that by restricting who was allowed to make games for the service.

Arcade is a curated selection of games specifically commissioned for the service. Some games are simply available on Apple Arcade, but for others, the tech giants shelled out the big bucks, purchasing the mobile rights for indie games from popular companies like Simogo and Capy.

At launch, Apple Arcade provided members with about 60 games, but that number has quickly elevated to well more than 100, consistently offering more and more reason to come back to the service. Many of these games, like Oceanhorn 2, Marble it Up: Mayhem and Shinsekai: Into the Depths offer fully-fledged gaming experiences that are best with a controller, showcasing the service’s versatility. But on the other hand, most of the games finally deliver on the promise of the App Store in 2008: fun, delightful, bite-sized experiences optimized for a small touch screen, making any commute pass by in no time. These are just some of Apple Arcade’s can’t miss entries as of January 2020.

GRINDSTONE

Grindstone is, quite easily, the perfect encapsulation of Apple Arcade. Featuring all of the fun, addicting trappings of any great mobile game, but unburdened by ads or microtransactions, it represents the massive promise of the service. And on top of that, it’s an absolute blast.

The core of Grindstone is very simple and will be very familiar to most players. It is a color-matching puzzle game, similar to Candy Crush or Bejeweled, but with plenty of its own flourishes. To start, it has some of the best 2D hand-drawn art in any video game from last year, focusing on a heavily muscled brawler (you, the player) as he slashes his way through a dungeon of monsters (which are, of course, the color-coded pieces of the puzzle). Each level asks the player to destroy the monsters and make their way out of the dungeon, with optional collectibles along the way. And just when it feels like Grindstone will ask the player to wait to recharge before they can continue, or buy a pass, or watch an ad, or do some other menial task to monetize the game…it doesn’t. The 150 levels fly by in a flash, thanks to a Nintendo-level commitment to keep introducing new elements to keep gameplay fresh.

WHAT THE GOLF

There are very few games that understand humor on the level of What the Golf. Rather than relying on text-based humor like Donut County or the situational humor of Untitled Goose Game, What the Golf uses the language of video games to continuously surprise and delight players.

Ostensibly, the game is about golf. For the first few levels, it’s a 3D golfing game. And then, at the drop of a pin, it’s something much more. The wildly subversive game offers surprise after surprise, using the basic premise of being a golf game to deliver minigames that include hockey, platforming and, uh, driving? I won’t spoil anything else from the game, but trust that it’s a touch-screen wonder, bringing hours of fun, surprise, and laughter to your iPhone.

LEGO BUILDERS JOURNEY

On paper, LEGO Builder’s Journey doesn’t make a ton of sense. The popular toy brand has already planted its flag in the games industry by making a brand out of fun, quick-paced, child-friendly brawlers based on a popular IP. From the early days of LEGO Star Wars to the most-recent LEGO DC Super-Villains, there is already a clear template for LEGO games. LEGO Brawls, which was available at Apple Arcade’s launch, shirked those expectations slightly, but still featured that same fun, funny LEGO atmosphere.

LEGO Builders Journey completely bucks this trend and goes all the way in the other direction. Much closer to a meditative, quiet mobile puzzle game like Monument Valley, Builder’s Journey is tremendous. It follows a father and son, made out of abstract legos rather than the usual minifigs, as they go on an adventure. The slow, haunting music perfectly accompanies their story, as the player uses their knowledge of the decades-old toy to build the environments and help the pair along their way.

SAYONARA WILD HEARTS

Sayonara Wild Hearts is one of the best albums of 2019. Full of fun, poppy earworms, the game’s soundtrack absolutely must be heard. On its own, the game sort of defies description. Partly a level-based runner game, party a rhythm game and party a story-based drama, it’s something new entirely. Though some of the touchscreen controls can be sort of unresponsive, the game’s beautiful, colorful visuals and absolute banging soundtrack easily make up for that.

On top of this, it’s also a very beautiful love story between two women, which unfortunately is a type of love story that doesn’t get told often enough. This subtext isn’t new to gaming but Sayonara Wild Hearst finds brilliant ways to use gaming to tell a story that otherwise might not have found an audience.

CRICKET THROUGH THE AGES

Much like What the Golf, Cricket Through the Ages uses a very basic gaming premise as the set up for surprise, delight and plenty of laughs. The central conceit is that you, the player, are playing cricket in ages since the dawn of man. A posh British narrator explains how cricket has impacted the course of human history, which is all, of course, fictional.

It’s a short, fun journey from dinosaurs to cowboys and everything in between, and though it doesn’t live up to the true inventiveness of What the Golf, it’s still a small delight.

SUPER IMPOSSIBLE ROAD

Super Impossible Road, like Grindstone, has the basic structure of a dreadful mobile game. The player controls a ball on a track, with neon visuals and an annoying EDM soundtrack. But there is a basic reason why “ball on a track” games have been successful on flash sites and app stores for so long, in spite of bad design and obtrusive ads—they are simple and fun. Super Impossible Road is no different, in spite of that dreadful name.

Players can upgrade and modify their ball, but the progression system is slightly tacked-on. The real meat of the gameplay is driving on the road, or rather, off of it. The hook here is that you will never win a race if you simply stay on the track, so you have to jump off and let gravity be your shortcut, reading the track and landing back on it before falling into an abyss. The game really isn’t all that different from previous games of its kind, but it has a few very important things going for it: no microtransactions, no ads and plenty of content to keep you busy.

The Great Film vs. Digital Debate

What is the difference, who supports each side, and which is actually better?

A large debate rages on in the film industry as professionals take sides on whether to shoot movies with either digital film or “true” film.

What may appear to be a slight difference actually affects how filmmakers create movies and the way they appear in theaters. With new technology rising in popularity across the world, the film industry is searching for a way to keep up.

The Facts

Many facets of this debate remain rooted in subjective questions: What format do you prefer? What feels more “cinematic?” They can make approaching the situation daunting, but facts lay hidden within the conversation.

The History of Film and Digital Film

In the 1890’s the Lumière brothers invented the first projected film. Invented in France, it used strips of film to project pictures at 16 frames-per-second, creating the illusion of movement. After being captured, the strips of film had to be developed in a chemical process.

Over time, the industry standard became 24 frames-per-second, still projecting physical strips of film onto a screen. Cameras and projectors both developed and became higher resolution, as well as adding sound and color. Despite these changes, the fundamental tools which captured film and projected it remained largely the same.

Two primary types of film emerged, known as 35 millimeter film and 70 millimeter film. 35mm became the standard, with 70mm reserved for movies with a grander scale and larger budget, such as “Ben-Hur” and “2001: A Space Odyssey.”

Once the 21st century came around, studios and filmmakers began looking into digital cameras and projectors. These digital systems took quite a while to catch up to the film industry, but George Lucas ushered in the “digital age” with “Star Wars: Episode II –  Attack of the Clones.”

Lucas was one of the first directors to ever shoot an entire movie on digital film, and “Star Wars: Episode II” helped it gain popularity. Movie theaters began take notice of the technology, and see it as a financially viable option.

By 2016, 98.2% of theaters have converted to digital projectors, according to technology.ihs.com. Many directors, like Christopher Nolan and Quentin Tarantino, still shoot their movies on film and offer benefits to theaters which project film prints of their movies.

The Difference Between Film and Digital Film

The first distinction to know is between cameras and projection. The most “pure” experience is to shoot a movie on film camera and project it on film. However, movies can still be shot on film and converted to be shown on a digital projector, so the way a movie is shot does not impact how many theaters it will play in.

The objective difference between these formats comes down to two values: cost and resolution. In general, physical film costs more time and money to capture and project, but have a far superior appearance.

Both film cameras and digital cameras have a similar price, but film cameras require purchasing expensive film stock beforehand. Including processing costs, a 35mm 120 minute film with three takes per shot will cost about $25,713. On 70mm, the same film would cost $46,881.

Projecting a movie on 35mm film requires a projectionist dedicated to one to two projectors at a time. Projection of a 70mm film will require two dedicated projectionists on a single projector. Both also need time for preparation and setup of the projector.

Projecting a digital film requires only a digital server which an employee selects. A single employee can run every projector in a theater at once with little to no time between showings.

The debate itself does not revolve around the extra costs themselves, but whether they are worth it. Appearances and preferences can be deeply opinion-based, but also have factual components.

Movies shot on film can be stored more reliably, simply placed away rather than relying on a computer. On the flip side of this coin, film can sometimes age poorly, losing its color and acquiring an overly grainy look.

The resolutions of the movies themselves heavily favor film. The clarity of the projection quality is measured by how many pixels lay along the horizontal, measured in “K.” The average digital projector and HD TV show images in 2K. Higher-scale projectors such as those used at Alamo Drafthouse theaters use digital 4K projectors.

When using 35mm film, the projected images would translate to a 6K image, and 70mm translates to about 18K.

These facts show pros and cons to each side, but it can be hard to see which side has greater pros than cons.

The Sides

Many famous and popular filmmakers have taken public stances on both sides of the issue.

Pro-Film

The pro-film side argues that the authenticity and clarity of movies shown on film outweigh the costs required to capture and show them. The projectionist at Austin’s Alamo Drafthouse Ritz believes the work required is worth it to show such an “amazing” image.

Recently, famous Hollywood filmmakers Christopher Nolan and Quentin Tarantino have come out in a very public support of the option to shoot and project on film. They offered incentives for theaters across the world to show their movies on film projectors.

“I’m not anti-digital in any way, but I’m absolutely committed to getting this choice back into the hands of the director,” said Nolan.

Others argue that film ought to be preserved for the sake of legacy. As the first movies ever made were on film, and continued that way for many decades, some believe it is worth continuing.

“Film has a history, and that history doesn’t begin with digital formats, it begins with film. So yes, I believe it is essential to preserve that choice,” said filmmaker Martin Scorcese.

In an official statement, the Directors Guild of America said they would be pleased if “film will remain a viable option for filmmakers for the foreseeable future.”

Overall, those who advocate for film do not wish for the entire industry to end digital film, but to keep the opportunity to shoot and show movies on film.

Pro-Digital

Advocates for digital film do not wish for the entire industry to shift to 100% digital cameras and projectors, but acknowledge the value of a digital industry.

Andrew Thomas, an AMC projectionist, supports the ease-of-use of digital projectors.

“I can just go up and press a button, or program them. It’s unbelievably easy,” Thomas said.

The cost of filming also opens up many opportunities for low-budget, student filmmakers. Recent UT graduate and local Austin filmmaker Joel Deeter plans to dedicate his life to making movies, but doesn’t believe he’ll ever receive a budget large enough to shoot on film.

Some Hollywood filmmakers even see little-to-no difference between what they can do with digital cameras and film. Academy Award Nominated cinematographer Roger Deakins sees nothing he can’t do on film with digital.

“Whether I’ll shoot on film again, I don’t know,” said Deakins.

The pros and cons of each format eventually outweigh one another, depending on the person.

My Opinions

This week, I saw Brian DePalma’s film “The Untouchables,” presented in a test screening on 70mm at Austin’s Alamo Drafthouse Ritz. The phrase “test screening” refers to the fact that the showing was a test, preparing to show it to the public.

Because it was a test screening in a hard format, the movie had three technical difficulties. While they do not expect to have these difficulties when screening for the public, it only underscored the difficulty of showing a 70mm film.

The projection of the film itself was absolutely gorgeous. Stephen H. Burum’s cinematography absolutely popped with a wider screen, darker blacks, and brighter colors.

A long tracking shot, following a person sneaking through shadows in a single take came to life when projected in 70mm. The foreground and the background appeared in perfect clarity as though it were seeking to singlehandedly prove the superiority of the format.

Some grain appeared on the screen, as well as lines and streaks which served to distract viewers every so often. These were not enough to detract heavily from the overall experience, but served as light distractions.

Having now seen modern and classic films in digital, 35mm, and 70mm, I have enough moviegoing experience to personally form a professional opinion.

Despite the extra money and effort required to capture, develop, and project a movie on film, it is absolutely worth it when a 70mm image is projected on a screen. The costs can be overwhelming, but given the proper budget, I believe the art justifies itself.

Full Disclosure for this section: I am an employee at the Alamo Drafthouse Ritz, which is how I was able to attend this screening. I am, however, only a food runner, and have no stake in the prosperity of the company and was provided no compensation for this article.

What’s Next?

Moving forward, the film industry will continue its general push further toward digital filmmaking. Some niche theaters in local markets will resist the trend and still show classic as well as modern movies on film.

Director JJ Abrams has headed up new “laser” projector technology, said to be indistinguishable from the appearance of film. With this, the ease of digital can combine with the beauty of film, but they are only in select locations.

As technology progresses and becomes more common, it is possible the film vs. digital debate will fade, but until then, it is worth looking into personally.

Sources: American Widescreen Museum, kodak.com, Cinelab, Directors Guild of America, The Austin Chronicle, indiewire.com, slashfilm.com