Best Windows apps this week
One-hundred and twenty six in a series. Welcome to this week's overview of the best apps and games released for Windows in the past seven days.
Microsoft is bringing music and video to Windows 10's Store which users of the operating system can buy and rent directly once it becomes available.
The company is also reportedly planning to release major updates to Windows 10 in 2016.
This week saw the release of several high profile apps and games such as The Machine, a simple but highly addictive action game in which you control a drop of ink in a machine.
As always, if I missed an app or game that has been released this week that you believe is particularly good, let me know in the comments below or notify me via email instead.
Discounts This Week
The following applications and games are discounted by at least 50 percent this week.
- 4 Elements II Special Edition, a puzzle game for $1.49
- Dragon Portals, a match-3 type puzzle game for $0.99
- Reading Trainer, improve your reading speed app for $1.49
- MathBoard, match tutor application for school aged children for $2.49
- Daddy was a Thief, an action game for $0.99
- CanyonCapers, an arcade platform game for $1.49
- Time Mysteries 2: The ancient Spectres, an adventure game for $2.99
App of the week
The Machine is a platform game in which you move an ink droplet through a machine.
Jumping is the only option you have in the game to move forward. It is a simple game mechanic but the layout and items in each level make this a tricky affair.
There are spikes and chainsaws that you need to avoid, rotating machinery to jump on to and chasms to fall into.
Add to that a time limit to get maximum points and several other game modes like the unforgiving arcade mode in which you try to climb as high as possible before the chainsaws get you, and you get a wonderful game that will keep you entertained for a long while.
Other apps
Mocky ($7.99, free trial available)
Mocky is a wireframing tool to create and save mockups and wireframes on Windows.
The main interface displays all available shapes on the left and the mockup on the right of it.
Shapes are added via drag and drop, and can be customized once they are on the page. It is, for instance, possible to lock them in place, change textual contents or duplicate them easily there.
Mockups can be exported as pdf, png and jpg files and saved in the application's native file format.
Divide and Conquer is an abstract area control game in which you try to control more areas on the board than your opponent in the end.
You move items around on the board which give you control over areas that no enemy item is adjacent to.
Each item has a level associated with it which drops by one whenever it is moved.
One level, the second to last one, can capture enemy items of any strength while the last cannot be moved at all any more.
You can play the game against the computer or in hot-seat mode against human opponents.
Screenshare ($0.99, free trial available)
Share screenshots using Windows's built-in share functionality. The application integrates into the Share menu of the operating system.
When you select it, it creates a screenshot, uploads it to OneDrive automatically and provides you with a link to it that you can share online with others.
Splattershmup is a twinstick arena shoot'em up game in which you face an endless stream of enemy space ships.
The game supports gamepad as well as mouse and keyboard controls. One interesting aspect of it is that you create art while you are playing the game.
This is done by collecting color capsules that enemy ships drop when they are destroyed. Your ship picks them up and uses them to draw lines while you are moving around in the arena.
Artwork can be saved to disk, shared on Facebook or uploaded to Imgur from within the game.
The Tripwolf community application offers access to a selection of travel guides with maps.
Each guide is available as a preview for one hour after which it needs to be bought using in-app purchases.
The app features a trip planner to plan journeys and offers tips for each of the supported locations that include hotels, sights and restaurants among other places of interest.
Pick one of the available cars and try to beat the rally course before the time runs out.
The game features several courses and cars, some of which you need to unlock before they become available.
Rally Point 4 looks and plays great but lacks diversity as there are no other cars you can race against.
Preview the integration of real-time voice translations in Skype. When you use Skype's translator functionality one-to-one voice or video charts are automatically translated as you speak.
The app provides options to read translations or listen to them, and supports all core features of Skype on Windows.
The preview supports voice translations between English and Spanish only at this point in time. Chat messages on the other hand are translated in over 40 languages by it.