New iPhone apps worth downloading: LearnPhoto365, Daddy Was a Thief, Sorcery!

Head into the weekend with some fresh photography ideas with LearnPhoto365, which provides you with photography assignments that can help inspire you. We’ve got a couple of great games for your weekend, as well – Daddy Was a Thief, a vertical arcade game in which you must escape the police after a bank heist by dropping through the floors of a building, and Sorcery!, a choose-your-own-adventure style fantasy game that emphasizes story.


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LearnPhoto365 ($2.99)

What’s it about? As the name suggests, LearnPhoto365 is meant to help budding photographers learn the craft, providing them with more than 100 assignments.

What’s cool? LearnPhoto365 Photography Assignment Generator does exactly what the name implies: It provides you, a new photographer learning the ropes, with tons of photography assignments that can help you learn to be a better photographer over time. The app includes tons of assignments and can even create random ones to keep you guessing. LearnPhoto365 also includes 700 example photos that can help you see what each assignment is all about and how each category is represented, which can help inspire you to your ideas for your own shots. When you’ve fired off your photos, you can contribute them to the app’s Flickr group and share them with other photographers using LearnPhoto365.

Who’s it for? Photographers looking to push themselves with 365-photography challenges, or who just want good ideas to help learn new things, are the target audience here.

What’s it like? Check out Photography Tips and Digital Photography and Digital Cameras to learn more about the ins and outs of taking good photos.

Daddy Was a Thief ($1.99)

What’s it about? After being fired, a family man turns to a life of crime to take care of his family, and you need to help him escape after pulling a bank heist in Daddy Was a Thief.

What’s cool? With its focus on escape and smashing through floors, Daddy Was a Thief is a casual arcade title with only two controls – swiping up, and swiping down. After robbing a bank and escaping to the roof, the thief you control escapes to a nearby building and has to descend by smashing through the floors below him. You smash through by swiping down, and you can jump by swiping up – and you’ll need to jump as well, because your thief is always running either left or right uncontrollably, and you’ll want to get him around obstacles as you move downward. Enemies such as police officers have to be avoided, and you can earn coins to boost your score as you descend.

Who’s it for? This one’s pretty simple and casual, and its lighthearted feel and graphics make it great for all ages.

What’s it like? For a couple of games with similar mechanics but which move in the opposite direction, try Doodle Jump and Mega Jump.

Sorcery! ($4.99)

What’s it about? Storybook game Sorcery! has players choosing their path through the narrative and battling monsters and other enemies as they undertake an epic quest.

What’s cool? Storybook games on the iPhone and iPad are usually akin to what you might see in an old “Choose Your Own Adventure” story, in that players read through the text of the narrative and often make decisions based on it. What you choose influences where you end up, and Sorcery! is a game that’s all about its choices. How the narrative unfolds, how people deal with you, and what ending your each is all determined by the choices you make along the way. You’ll also fight some strategic, if rudimentary, battles along the way against various monsters, many of whom you’ll need to defeat by tailoring your fighting style to their weaknesses.

Who’s it for? If you like engrossing fantasies that are all about story, try Sorcery!.

What’s it like? Check out Gemini Rue for a story-based point-and-click adventure game that swings toward sci-fi, and An Assassin in Orlandes for another take on the game book genre.


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