I’m thinking John Moore is good at playing music games and boy, have I got an addictive one. We’ll find out this week on Moore in the Morning where I’ll also be cueing up Sir Patrick Stewart to recite for us some Shakespearean love poetry and then, if I’m lucky, we’ll Level Up with a video game-themed health app.
Song Pop
Free
A social version of Name That Tune, Song Pop connects you with others online to see who can correctly identify five music clips the fastest. Players take turns choosing music categories, from love songs to 80’s tunes, TV show themes and even rap hits. As the musical snippets play you’re given five choices to quickly tap from on the screen.
Now you and the other player don’t have to be online at the same time, you simply sign in and take your turn when it’s convenient. The interesting twist is that the player who gets to choose the music category goes first and the other player can see what answers they’ve given (without saying if they are right), potentially helping them if they are stumped.
As you play you’ll unlock new songs and can purchase additional packs to expand the music choices. Slick and really well organized, Song Pop is addictive.
The Sonnets by William Shakespeare
$13.99
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Yes, William Shakespeare wrote that one. Touch Press and publisher Faber and Faber offer an in-depth view of The Sonnets with performances by actors both popular and Shakespearean. You can watch Kim Cattrall, Patrick Stewart, David Tennant, Stephen Fry, and many others as they hold you in their eyes and recite sonnets that contemplate feelings of elation, celebration, bravado, and even bitter-sweetness. You can follow along with the text on-screen or dive into expert notes, commentary, and analysis from The Arden Shakespeare and other experts.
With 154 performances to take in it helps that you can play them on your television through AirPlay, Favourite the ones you like, and even add your own notes. Although it certainly explores the subject of romance well, the focus here is more on appreciating Shakespeare than it is on improving your love life.
You can preview all of the video performances from The Sonnets for free here.
SuperBetter
Free
Video games have been very successful at motivating people to take on intimidating challenges, often made up of mundane, repetitive tasks, with psychological rewards that include the feeling of saving the world. For many years game designer Jane McGonigal has explored the idea of taking that same dynamic and somehow applying it to real life. SuperBetter is her first app to tackle these ideas and the aim is to help users with their personal growth.
The app offers you quests to perform, involving small tasks of fitness, stress relief, and social interaction. As you perform them it creates a video game-like narrative where you gain power-ups and go up in level. As you gradually increase towards harder or larger-scale goals you gain Epic Wins. It also helps you develop a perspective on your role in self-improvement that includes having a Secret Identity, recruiting friends as Allies, and seeing the big obstacles in life as the Bad Guys to face-off against and defeat.
At first glance the app may seem like another form of self-help hooey, you’re greeted by McGonigal in a track suit espousing the merits of the four types of personal resilience, but push on and you’ll see she’s formed her video game health system on a foundation of scientific research, identifying the areas people often struggle with in their lives, the regrets many have at the end, and the issues faced by those overcoming physical injuries. There’s a great deal of intelligence at work here.
For more on Jane McGonigal’s ideas check out her 2009 TEDTalk on how gaming can make a better world.
Song Pop is a pretty cool name that tune app. I bet this rocks on car trips