Five to Try: c-Man 256 is a remixed arcade addiction, Bing preempts ‘s Now on Tap

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Published 21 Aug 2015

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Another month, another great c-Man game? That seems to be the case. After c-Man Championship ition DX put a fresh spin on the old classic in late ly, this week sees the release of c-Man 256, an endless runner remix designed by the makers of the awesome y Road. And it’s free, so there’s no reason not to give it a shot.

Elsewhere this week, Microsoft beats to the punch with its Now on Tap-like feature in the updated Bing Search, while cable channel AMC launches its own streaming video app. Meanwhile, The Guides ( its companion app) should leave you plenty puzzled, Mozilla bmaker strives to enable easy content creation for just about anyone. Need some interesting new apps to dig into this weekend? Make these the first five on your list.

c-Man 256

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Can you keep pushing ahead without running into a ghost—or the glitch flood?

c-Man meets y Road? Sign me up! It’s not hard to get behind the idea of y Road maker Hipster ale putting a unique spin on a classic gaming franchise, the first impression here is a strong one. c-Man 256 sends you into the scrolling maze to eat dots fruit while evading ghosts— avoiding the ever-creeping mess of “glitched” code coming up from behind.

It’s a clever tribute to the garbled kill screen (level 256) of the original c-Man, plus that design gives the game a tense momentum as you push ever ahead. And now c has power-ups, like a laser that shoots out of his mouth, or a bomb that decimates nearby ghosts. c-Man 256 is a free-to-play game with regenerating credits, you can buy a full load for $1 if you run out. However, if the addictive pull starts kicking in, you might consider shelling out $8 for the unlimited play unlock. It’s a steep price for a mobile game, but that might prove cheaper in the long run than topping up regularly.

Bing Search

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Hold down the home button to access Bing’s new Snapshot feature, which delivers contextual information tied into what you are viewing.

One of Android’s best features will get even better when Android Marshmallow introduces Now on Tap, an expansion of ’s contextual assistant. th Now on Tap, you’ll be able to hold the home button anywhere to have Now analyze what’s on the screen intelligently provide information that might help you at the moment. But Microsoft already beat it to the punch this week with an update to Bing Search.

th the new Snapshot feature, it can do much the same: hold down the home button when browsing the web or using YouTube, for example, Bing will provide contextual options. For example, if you’re looking at a movie trailer, Bing will pull up a card about the film point you towards reviews tickets. Reading about a travel destination? Flight hotel links will appear. It doesn’t seem quite as polished or impressively nuanced as Now on Tap appears, but at least you can try this one out today.

AMC

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Cable satellite subscribers can access full episodes of AMC shows, but the selection is pretty limited.

AMC has produced some of the most captivating television of the past several years, with hits like Breaking Bad, Mad Men, The lking Dead leading the charge, now the cable network has its own Android app. It’s not quite an HBO Go-level offering, however: only a hful of shows are featured, the backlogs aren’t anywhere near comprehensive.

You’ll need a cable or satellite subscription to login access full episodes, but even so, you’ll find just three episodes of Breaking Bad, for example, none of Better Call Saul. I only found Mad Men by searching for it, even so, all the app has are behind-the-scenes clips. But if you’re watching an active show like Humans or Halt Catch Fire, it might be a good way to keep up each week. Sadly, as user reviews so helpfully point out, there’s no Chromecast support for now.

The Guides

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If you can work your way through the unexplained puzzles, The Guides promises a building storyline.

In stark contrast to c-Man 256’s arcade accessibility comes The Guides ($1), a puzzler that throws you right into the deep end with no clear idea of what you’re supposed to do. It promises hundreds of codes, ciphers, other visual puzzles to work through, albeit without an introduction or a h to hold: right from the initial menu, you’ll have to try figure out what’s going on.

It’s the kind of game that you might want… a guide for, no? ll, developer ford is happy to help there. Sort of. Releasing alongside the game is The Guides Compendium ($1) an optional companion novel-in-an-app that provides context for the experience perhaps even subtle clues. The approach is similar to that of the excellent Year lk on iOS, which also had a full experience that spanned two apps. Are you persistent enough to uncover The Guides’ secrets?

Mozilla bmaker

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bmaker can’t produce anything too fancy, but it offers an approachable platform for digital creation.

You may know Mozilla for its Firefox browser, but the company has a new Android app out this week: bmaker. It’s not a robust website design app, despite what the name might suggest, but rather a dead simple way of assembling sharable idea webs. You can drop in images, text, links, create new pages that spin off in any direction. 

It doesn’t have a lot of functionality within, but Mozilla says that’s the point: it’s designed to help Internet consumers become creators for the first time, particularly in developing countries. For now, there’s not much to find in the Discover tab, but over time, bmaker could provide an interesting glimpse into the everyday life of other cultures. And at the very least, it’s a good way for non-Internet-savvy folks to start sharing into the digital world.