Lucky Frame have been making interesting apps and games for a while now. In fact their first app
Mujik, was released in 2009.
Mujik is in fact a good example of why I really like what they do and how they do it as a development studio.
When it came out I thought it was such a great idea and such a novel approach to making music, and I don't think that any other interface has ever really done anything like it. It is unique.
One of the best things about
Mujik, is that it is so playful. I mentioned this in a post a day or so ago, that playfulness was something that is so important for apps, and
Mujik embodies this.
But Lucky Frame didn't stop their, they went on to make lots of other app a few of which I'm going to mention, but by no means all of them. In fact, the next few I'll mention are in fact all games, but there's a very good reason for mentioning them.
When they started making games, or at least when I started noticing that that's what they were doing, they released
Bad Hotel, which had a generative music element to it, and, even though I'm not a gamer, I thought it was quite good fun to play. Although I have to admit that I was never very good at it. I think the idea of introducing generative music into gaming is a great one, but difficult to pull off, and I'm not sure that
Bad Hotel did, although it was very close
However, their next app I think did make it. It is in fact, by far my favourite of Lucky Frame's games, and it's called
Wave Trip. This is a game in which you create generative music as an integral part of the game. So you can see why I'd love it. I personally feel that it works brilliantly and that the game play and music creation is really well combined. But an app like this is hard for a lot of reasons over and above the obvious ones like music apps are actually hard to make anyway.
Trying to appeal to two fairly distinct groups, i.e. Games and Mobile Musicians isn't easy, and whilst I love
Wave Trip, I'm not a gamer, but it worked for me.
Since then Lucky Frame have continued to make great apps, but predominantly games (for the moment, who knows they might sneak out another music app). That's not a bad thing at all. I've enjoyed their games a lot. In fact, I was at their studio last year and got to see them and have a chat about the game they'd just released,
Gentlemen, which is utterly manic to play.
However, their latest release,
The Nightmare Collective, has caught my eye recently. I'm not sure what it is about the look of the app, but I find that I'm quite drawn to it, and even though I'm no good at strategy games I'm really looking forward to getting into it.
I think I just really like the style and originality of Lucky Frames apps. I think that they have a really fresh approach to whatever kind of project they embark on, and that keeps me coming back to whatever they do even when it isn't something that I'd normally be interested in.
So I'm going to spend some time with
Nightmare Collective, although I'm fairly sure that I'll end up play
Wave Trip again, then sneak off to make sounds with
Mujik. All of these have two overriding characterics. Firstly, their fun, lots of fun to play around with. Whether the app is a game or not. Secondly, the approach to these apps is refreshingly unique.
On that basis I'd recommend you the apps I've mentioned here. Lucky Frame have made quite a few others, but these are the ones I really like. I hope that they keep going, keep making great app, and hopefully one day in the future they'll make another music app like
Mujik, or rather, nothing like it at all.
