The Magnificent Five: Fall 2015 Part Two

This episode features an arcade reactor, a Material Design icon set, a 140 character bypass tool in Twitter, a stylish and 'lightweight' music player, and a nice VPN client.

Starific – Infinite Reactor
(Beveled Edge)

Perhaps, at this stage of my life I cannot call myself an avid gamer, especially when it comes to mobile devices. Yes, sometimes I play on a tablet, but this happens mainly on trips for more than an hour and a half. Nevertheless, occasionally there are quite interesting games that do not require a lot of time / money to play and offer an exciting gameplay. Starific is one of such games.

The playing field, enclosed in an octagon, is a reactor containing many particles. Launching a 'star' tap on the screen, the player initiates its collision with particles, which can be either empty or contain certain enhancements / obstacles for the gameplay. The player's goal is to prevent the star from flying out of the reactor, for this a special platform is provided, which is controlled by moving your finger along the highlighted circle. It is desirable to collect useful bonuses knocked out by a 'star', they can significantly increase the final number of points, affecting the number, size and speed of 'stars', platform parameters, etc.

At the end of each round, the player is awarded points that can be lost in the lottery. The prizes in it are new themes, game modes, new types of 'particles', which are also unlocked during the game. In addition, there are tasks in the style of “blow up 750 bombs”, as in the screenshot. Starific has a very dynamic gameplay, accompanied by dynamic, but sometimes annoying EDM-style music. It is not immediately possible to get used to the controls, but for this there are three modes to choose from in the settings. To advise casual gamers and those who, like me, used to love playing Ricochete Extreme on PC, reminded me of something.

Cost: Free (IAP)
Requirements: version Android 2.3+

Dives
(Vertumus)

I really liked the new set of icons from the well-known developer; I wanted to move away from the dark design and try something brighter.

According to Vertumus, Dives was inspired by Material Design. It turned out pretty nice, in my opinion. The set includes over 3000 icons and 50 wallpapers in QHD resolution, as well as many nice little things that may be familiar from other developer products. Advise advocates of customizing the standard user interface.

Cost: ~ 50 rubles.
Requirements: version Android 4.0.3+

Xcerpt for Twitter
(Transcendent Labs)

My personal favorite in this collection. The utility allows you to share materials from the network by creating an image with text. In this case, it turns out to bypass the standard limit of 140 characters and, plus everything, immediately insert a link to a source on the Internet. Additionally, you can set the color of the border around the image, a nice plus.

An example of a tweet using the utility can be viewed here in my feed. Xcerpt has solid pluses: simple, 'light', convenient tool without any ads, developers – a solid five. Advise to those who have something to say, and 140 characters are not enough.

Cost: Free
Requirements: version Android 4.0+

Pulsar
(Rhytm Software)

We continue the theme of simple and beautiful, and most importantly, functionally pleasant applications and get acquainted with Pulsar – a player with a familiar design and the absence of any advertising in the free version.

The list of available settings in the free version cannot be called extensive: playback without intervals, managing tabs, displaying album art on the lock screen, choosing one of three themes, and, perhaps, that's all. But a paid subscription (219 rubles) will add 15 more themes to this list, a tone control with nine presets, a bass amplifier, a reverb, etc. However, the free version is enough for the eyes. Advise those who prefer the old-fashioned way to listen to music downloaded to the device to newfangled music services.

Cost: Free
Requirements: version Android 4.0+

TunnelBear VPN
(TunnelBear Inc.)

After reading the material by Artem Lutfullin about the Spotify music service, I decided to register and try it out. However, Spotify does not officially work in Russia, so I had to virtually change my location, which was helped by my old friend, TunnelBear bear. Simple and visually pleasing, the application allows your internet traffic to pass through servers in different countries, thereby tricking tracking sites. Not that I am an apologist for tin foil beanies, but in some cases such clients can help, as in the case of signing up for Spotify.

TunnelBear impresses with its simplicity: in two clicks we select a country from the list and wait for the connection, then you can use it. Of course, someone may be scared off by registration, but in vain, because when a tweet mentions the developers, an additional 1 GB of traffic is assigned to the account, plus the standard 500 MB per month. In general, a friendly animal, it works well. Advise those who are afraid of surveillance or who need access to sites / services closed in our country.

Cost: Free (IAP)
Requirements: version Android 4.0+

Do you use analogs of the applications listed in the overview? Feel free to comment!