Kraut - sweet magical match puzzle

Kraut is a unique sweet magical well crafted polished pattern matching game.

Rating: 5 out of 5
Controls: touch
Sound: excellent
Graphics: photo realistic
Playability: pick up casual to deep campaigns
Audience: all ages
Developer: Monsterkodi
Brain training: pattern recognition, creativity
Paid: $1.99

A floral theme pervades the game as you manipulate a set of flowers in matches of 4 or more.
Unlike other matching games like Bejeweled, where individual elements are moved on a grid, Kraut turns that concept around.
Instead you make your own grid of matches by putting triads of flowers together.

Like another game, Smiles, there is a jump area where the triad is available to rotate in for play. The triads can be rotated along the middle flower axis.
The help is extensive and some of the best tutorials I've seen for a match puzzle game - definitely great for kids and grandparents.

The flowers are photo realistically gorgeous and there are many types to choose from, further customizing play.

The floral theme continues with insect power-ups or helper units. They add more variety and depth to the game play and are generated by pollen points from matches.
The integration of incredible sound effects from the startup screen, menus and the game play is superb.
There are race the clock arcade and campaign challenge modes along with awards. High score signatures are hand drawn by the player.

Kraut is great for casual pick up and play with a family friendly theme, but has durability and depth with campaign and awards. The unique twist of building your own grid of matches paired with pattern recognition exercises creativity makes this game well worth the value and play.

The level of polish and detail from the slow movie motion of flowers in the menu backgrounds to the righty/lefty considerations really shows the care from the developers and should be rewarded.

If you are looking for a special game in the sea of matching games, Kraut is highly recommended to bring out that inner child and make you happy!

We love this game.

Similar matching apps we play: Trism, Frenzic, QuardrumColors, Bejeweled2, Burning Monkey Puzzle Lab, Gaia Lite, Collapse!Chaos, ScribBall, Pinch n' Pop!

Other apps to consider: Booty Blocks, Chain3, Smiles

Headspace - 3D dreamy mind mapping

Headspace is a mindmapping app from animation and software company, Flat Black Films

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars; on sale for 99 cents while it lasts...

Reading the Big Lebowski intro, made me a bit hesitant at buying this new app thinking it might be from a fly-by-night no updates dev. But cred was established after checking out the screenshots at their main site and the price can't be beat!

You can add items or nodes that are grouped in a virtual headspace.

Headspaces are files akin to mindmaps.

Item nodes can have colors, links and can be stacked in groups.

The usual multitouch pinch -zoom, resize all applies here.

Flicking around with 1,2, or 3 fingers have different effects. You can rearrange items up and down the group hierarchy. Double tapping a group, pulls the camera view focus to that group.

Innovation:
Brings to the table mindmapping unlike any other app tot he iPhone, not your usual Freemind-central-node. Think PersonalBrain on your iPhone; well the closest thing to it.

Usability:
There is a bit of a learning curve with all this power, but having the freedom to zoom in and out of groups of headbits is worth the price of admission.

Sucks: NO SEARCH, yes you heard that right, with a slew of headbits floating around in your headspace, don't even think of popping in a query. Like just scroll around, man.
NO EXPORT, yep, you and your emptied monkey brain guts are stuck in Headspace. There is not yet a way to get all those typed up nodes out to the desktop or web for backup. No email, webdav, saving to local dir for exchange via DiskAid.

Still Headspace is an awesome reach into the mindmapping appstore category that is often a re-tread of existing desktop ideas and for that 5 stars, baby.