Best Windows apps this week
One-hundred and thirty-three in a series. Welcome to this week's overview of the best apps and games released for Windows in the past seven days.
The Windows 10 release is less than two months away, at least for home PCs and tablets. If you are running Windows 7 or 8.1, you may be interested in reserving the upgrade for your system, or removing the notification if you don't plan to upgrade.
This week saw the release of several quality apps. Yidio for instance lets you search more than a dozen different streaming services for movies and TV shows.
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.
The following applications and games are discounted by at least 50 percent this week.
- Cold Alley, an air combat game for $3.49
- Crimsonland, a great arena shooter for $3.99
- Machinarium, an award-winning adventure game for $1.49
- Frederic - Evil Strikes Back, a music game for $0.99
- Bridge Constructor, a construction game for $0.99
- Files&Folders Pro, a file manager for $3.99
Best app of the week
The application has been designed for the needs of Internet users who use services to stream TV shows and movies to their devices.
Use it to search for content across more than a dozen different services including Netflix, Hulu Plus, ABC, Fox, Crackle, YouTube and Syfy.
Simply type the name of a movie or show, or an actor's name, to find matching contents.
The application displays search results, then detailed results of individual titles or shows you select, including a season and episodes list.
A click on an episode shows information about it and the services that you can use to watch it at that point in time.
Please note that geo-restrictions may apply. The service seems to work best if you are in the US.
Other apps
Bomb Chain is an addictive puzzle game in which you try to clear levels by creating bomb chain reactions.
All you need to do is click on one of the elements on the screen, arrows or gummy bears for instance, to clear the level.
A click on an arrow for instance shoots a single bullet in the direction the arrow is facing in while gummy bears shoot bullets in all four directions.
Later levels introduce new game elements such as coconuts which stop bullets dead in track or cakes which explode in the surrounding area.
Wish -- Shopping Made Fun brings the popular shopping service to Windows.
The app displays discounted items based on interests that you select when you create the account.
For instance, you may select sneakers and get mostly sneaker related deals presented to you when the app starts.
While you do get mostly sneakers on start, other deals may be presented to you as well based on your gender and age, and select deals the service believes could be of interest to you.
Make it Rain: The Love of Money
The game belongs to the so-called idle/clicking game niche. You try to earn as much money as possible by swiping money from an endless stack beginning with $1 for each swipe.
The money you earn can be invested in upgrades that help you directly or indirectly. Directly by increasing the money per swipe, indirectly by adding money to your account passively.
There is not much to the game other than that but since the genre is highly popular right now, it deserves to be listed here.
Your main task in the game is to attack and destroy the enemy base and prevent the enemy from doing the same to yours.
You generate gold and other resources automatically while you are playing and use them to spawn units in your own base.
These approach and attack automatically so that you are left with making the right selections during combat missions.
The game features more than 40 different unit types that you need to discover, each with unique abilities.
You may customize your army using unlocked creatures and may gain bonuses from the tech tree.
Dino the Beast: Dinosaur Game ($1.99,free trial available)
This is a beautifully designed running-game in which you control a little dinosaur fleeing from larger predators.
The game features levels and an endless mode. The main difference between both modes is that levels are not randomly created while you play and that they have a fixed end point.
Controls work with keyboard and touch input. If you use the keyboard, tap the arrow keys to jump and go down
The game introduces all of the mechanics in the first levels of the story mode.
This is a SoundCloud client for Windows. Use it to find music of interest to play it directly in the client.
You may favorite music for fast access and cache it as well to access it without Internet connection.
The client works well but lacks features such as playlists or groups to sort interesting tracks into. There is also no option to access your search history which would be useful.
SokoBomber ($1.49, free trial available)
SokoBomber is a unique mix of the classic games Bomberman and Sokoban.
Your main task in each level is to get the diamond placed in it, and to do so, you need to move bombs around that are placed in the level to destroy walls that block access to the diamond.
This sounds simple but is quite challenging as you need to move bombs on fields with burning torches to get them to explode.