iChalky – Review
By App Type: Uncategorized
Our rating: 
By: Eric Metois
Version #: 1.0
Date Released: 2008-09-16
Developer:
Price: 0.99
User Rating:
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A stick figure thats stuck in my iPhone? Original, and surprisingly, a lot of fun.
You rotate your iPhone, and he tumbles over. Then he tries really hard to prop himself up again. You grab him with your finger and toss him into the wall. He bounces off, falls, and tries to get back up again. You grab his head while holding his foot and stretch him halfway across the screen, then let the foot go and watch him spring back into shape.
It is a very creative app which is fun to play with. And the best part? Turn up the radio and watch him dance to the beat!
Only suggestion I have would be that the developer figures out a way to play the music through my iPhone rather than having to use a seperate music player. Other than that? How about letting me customize my iChalky?
Quick Take
Value: Medium, but lots of fun.
Would I Buy Again: Yes.
Learning Curve: None
Who is it for: Someone who appreciates an original idea.
What I like: Very cool physics and responsiveness from iChalky.
What I Don’t: Doesn’t work on iTouch.
Final Statement: $.99 for an original, entertaining app like iChalky is definately worth it. Get it, show your friends, and guaranteed, they will want it too.
Chalky is a simplistic stick figure whose posture and behavior result from the mechanical constraints that define him. He consists of a set of 8 masses connected to one another through a series of damped springs with various coefficients. Gravity and instantaneous acceleration are estimated from your iPhone's X and Y accelerometers and transferred onto Chalky's virtual world.
Friction was further added to the edges of his frame along with some rudimentary stepping heuristics to give him a fighting chance to maintain his balance as you rotate your phone around or take him on the bus with you. You can also grab, stretch and throw him with your multi-touch screen if you feel he's not getting enough abuse.
Chalky also thinks he can dance and he'll start busting his moves if he detects music though your phone's microphone... so crank up the tunes! Unfortunately you can't use the iPod application on your phone as I couldn't figure out how to make that work.
Chalky is not artificially intelligent and none of his gestures are choreographed. He illustrates the fact that humble perceptual measurements and simple constraints set in a physically meaningful environment can lead to interesting and sometime unexpected behavior.
NOTE: This application monitors your microphone audio input and therefore it will not run on an iPod Touch.O U R T A K E , , ,
