Neat photographic toys

I'll start this out by saying I don't have any of the tools I'm going to mention here.  I was looking at some focus-stacking software, and saw a reference to cognisys' StackShot.  It's interesting, and I wonder how well it works, but I don't think I'm terribly likely to buy it.

But after poking around, I also found their StopShot and RangeIR, both of which look very intriguing (odd that they don't have a kit with two RangeIRs and one StopShot, though.  I'd like to see about getting these for bird photography).  More intriguing, and yet less interesting, due to price, is their insect rig.  I'd really love to play around with one of those, but it's far too expensive for my purposes.

Anyway, if you've got some money, that's some really neat-o stuff.  I'll be keeping an eye on them (and hopefully buying some of their gizmos).

Everything old is new again

With the releases of OS X 10.8.2, iOS 6, and the iPhone 5, it's no surprise that a lot of things needed to be updated.  so when I looked at available updates this morning, and saw quite a few, that wasn't exactly a surprise.

What made it a happy pleasure is that both jetpack joyride and tiny tower had updates.  Mostly it was support for iOS6 and iPhone5 screen dimensions, but both had substantive changes as well.

Well, mostly cosmetic for Jetpack Joyride, as far as I can tell.  The lasers' pre-blast looks a bit different (and cool), and there's a new background (a lava cave).  There seem to be two new outfits (I say seem to be, because it's been a long time since I paid attention to clothing selection.  I'm pretty sure the basketball outfit is new, but I'm less certain about the hazmat suit).

One thing that was probably there already, but which I hadn't noticed, is that the profile screen now includes a whole section on gadgets.  Nothing particularly useful, but certainly amusing.  There are also two achievements I hadn't noticed, but I again suspect these were already there (Rejected, for missing the token gift, and walkies, which is secret but surely involves Flash).

The more interesting side is Tiny Tower.  It added eight new floors again.  It also made a way to select from available floors, which takes a lot of coins.  Early on, that might be useful; I'm not sure.  I started building all eight, but it'll be a few days before I get any completed.  The only one I know the identity of is the Italian Restaurant.  I'm anxious to see the others.  Gonna be a bit crazy when everything matures at once.

Gadgeteering

Those playing a lot of Jetpack Joyride have probably noticed that certain gadget combinations have names. I've finally made a list of all of them. Here they are:

Air Barrys and Grav-Belt: High Mobility
Air Barrys and X-Ray Specs: Futuristic Fashion
Air Barrys and EZ-Dodge Missiles: Air Dodger
Nerd Repellent and X-Ray Specs: Nothing to See Here
Nerd Repellent and Free Ride: Disaster Averted
Nerd Repellent and Flash: Not So Lonely
Insta-ball and Grav-Belt: Serious Bounce
Insta-ball and Freeze: Just a Little Further
Insta-ball and Flying Pig: Fantastic Contraptions
Missile Jammer and EZ-Dodge Missiles: Mild Missiles
Missile Jammer and Dezapinator: Quality Control
Token Gift and Magnetic Tokens: Spin Doctor
Token Gift and Free Ride: Instant Satisfaction
Token Gift and Lucky Last: Beat the House
X-Ray Specs and Free Ride: Transport Tycoon
X-Ray Specs and Lucky Last: Fortune Teller
Gemology and Flying Pig: Glazed Ham
Gemology and Coin Magnet: Kaching
Gemology and Flash: Petty Cash
EZ-Dodge Missiles and Flying Pig: Miss Piggy
Magnetic Tokens and Coin Magnet: Magnetic Personality
Magnetic Tokens and Lucky Last: Great Odds
Flying Pig and Coin Magnet: Smash and Grab
Flying Pig and Flash: Odd Couple
Free Ride and Turbo Booster: Speedy Steakfries

So, mostly funny. Some seem fairly obvious, and some are quite clever. Regardless of what you think of any of the specifics, a cool idea to name them.

Also, to update an earlier post: it appears that one of the subsequent patches removed the ability to ignore missiles at high speeds.

And two extra tidbits on specific gadgets. It appears that doing a Free Start (either kind, and whether won or purchased) when you have the coin magnet gives you all coins before the end of the Free Start, not just those that you're close enough to attract. Oh, and yes, that's even true when you're also using Gemology. It isn't the case with Final Blasts (again, purchased or won), although you do get some amusing eye candy when you are close enough to attract them.

The other involves the Nerd Repellent. While it does turn off Flashing Lights, that part of it is inactive if you have a Flashing Lights mission. Even to the point of the Lights being on at the start of a game, and turning off when you finish the mission. I would imagine the same is true of High Fives, but I've never tested that one.

Update: It turns out that High Fives do not work with Nerd Repellent at all.  There's also one oddity with flashing lights and NR.  The first flashing light doesn't light up, but still gives the visual effect of having been touched, when NR is active and you have that mission.  Weird.  Bug, I guess, but not a big one.

Gadget Central

I mentioned, previously, that the new version of Jetpack Joyride has a feature called gadgets. I've now had a little time to play with them, and have a few thoughts.

Air Barrys: I like these. When you touch the screen while walking, you jump into the air very quickly, high enough to jump over any obstacle (I think). They're fantastic for any mission involving high fives or walking. They're probably also awesome for 'go Xm without using the machine-gun jetpack', if you only have that jetpack, although I haven't tried that.

Nerd Repellant: Graphically amusing (all scientists disappear, flashing lights are turned off, and tumbleweeds blow across the bottom of the screen), but useless. Annoying that this seems to be the only gadget required by a mission.

Insta-ball: Meh. Get a bit more distance. Think I've only used this one once.

Gravity Belt: Would seem the converse of the Air Barrys, but I find them really annoying. The changing physics (falling faster) makes the whole game play differently, so they hurt more than help. Annoying side effect: you can knock over scientists by falling, forcing failure on 'go X distance without harming scientists' missions.

Missile Jammer: Looks like it makes a certain percentage of missiles fail. Seems pretty useless, but this is the only one I haven't played with at all.

Token Gift: Get a free Token at the start of the game. Nice, useful. I use it on most missions that require finding a certain number of tokens (or certain number of spin wins).

Freeze-o-matic: Meh. Get fair bit of extra distance the first time you hit the deck. Would strongly contemplate using them if they worked more than once (after a blast or after dying from a second chance).

X-Ray Specs: Visually cool, but mostly useless. Only real use I can see is if you need a certain vehicle for a mission, but are mostly focused on another mission that's hurt by having a vehicle (such as X high fives). Even then, I think they're pretty iffy.

Gemology: Small percentage of coins are turned into gems, which are worth more (although I haven't yet worked out how much more; I've forgotten how big most of the coin groups are, making it difficult to calculate). Generally useful.

Ezy-dodge Missiles: Missiles move much more slowly. I think there might also be a side effect of a larger proximity for near-missile calculation, but that's totally a guess. I use them occasionally for near-missile missions, but am not thrilled with them.

Magnetic Tokens: Tokens are attracted to you, and thus, much easier to get. They're less likely to kill you, so it's a generally useful gadget, but I think less useful than many others. I've used this only a few times.

Flying Pig: A piggy bank, at random intervals (which can be close to zero; I've seen two on the screen at once a couple of times) appears, scattering coins. If you run into it (or it gets plowed by a missile, which is awesome), it drops a load of coins. I use it occasionally, generally in tandem with the coin magnet.

Free Ride: Start the game (unless you "won" a head start the previous game, in which case it appears as soon as your head start wears off) in a vehicle. Allows the 'Another Way In' Achievement (I think only if you start with the teleporter, although I haven't paid close enough attention to be positive about that). Doesn't allow you to use a bought head start. This is one that I use all the time.

Coin Magnet: Just like a magnetic vehicle, except without the vehicle, and not as strong. Very generally useful. This is my 'go to' option when I don't need anything specific.

Lucky Last: You win on your final 'final chance' spin. I'd like this better if it were possible to have it happen more than once (ie: if the final spin is a blast that hits another token, or gives a second chance that yields one or more tokens). As it is, I only use it when I have a mission based on number of times winning final spin. Even then, I think it's rather iffy.

Flash: A dog runs along the floor, knocking over scientists and picking up coins (sometimes jumping for them). Cool to watch, but not especially useful.

Dezapinator: Has a small chance (one in ten, maybe? Maybe even less) of disabling any zapper. This is another generally useful one that I use fairly often when I don't have two other, specific needs (or have a mission like 'fly over X zappers'; if they're disabled, flying over doesn't count).

Turbo Boost: Every so often (once every 1500m or so, I think) a little machine will fly out from behind you, and leave three rings in the air in front of you. These rings will blow up missiles, disable zappers, and make you go faster for a bit. I like this one, but it does make a bad distraction sometimes. Mostly gets up-marks, though.

That's all of them, and they're enabled in groups of three. The first group is immediately available, and each other group is enabled, in order, when you buy two more gadgets. So you need to buy ten before the last three are available.

I go back and forth over whether I like them or not. Choosing them is strategically interesting, but almost all of them change the way you play. They do have interesting effects, though, and go a long ways towards making some missions easier (or harder, come to that).

Joooyyy-riding across the universe...

Boldly going forward 'cause we can't find reverse..

I wonder how well the rest of that song would work...

Anyway, I stopped playing Jetpack Joyride a while ago, because my iPhone lost the record of all the missions I'd accomplished on it (over half of them).

But after some updates, and finishing Tiny Tower, I decided to take a look at it again. And it looked different before it even started up, as the loading screen had some silly status messages (I think one of them was something like 'Growing 5 o'clock Shadow'). And going to the stash had another big difference, as it had something called Gadgets.

I still don't know about all of the gadgets, although I immediately played with a bunch of them. Essentially, you can equip up to two of them, and each one gives you some advantage. An ability to jump a certain height, which might be good in a first pas through the game, or bouncing further than usual upon dying, getting additional coins, breaking a certain percentage of zappers, etc.

I don't yet know a whole lot about them, but they're rather intriguing. I did note that quite a few of them are extremely good for particular missions.

I'm still trying to get used to the play of the game again, though. But it's still fun to play. Most importantly, I hope they fixed the bug(s) that caused losing mision progress. I'll probably talk about the game a bit more later.