Lightning Assault

Title Screen

Three years ago my mom's cousin Timothy Chua began programming an iPhone app. The end product finally reached the App Store in early December 2012, and is now available for 99 cents.

Last year, Timo finally finished enough of the game so that he could let people beta test it, and I was part of the beta team. It was really cool being able to play a game that no one else in the world had played, and that my feedback would actually be taken into consideration to make it better. After years of hard work, the Lightning Assault was finally released in the App Store, and I was able to enjoy the final product on my brand new iPhone 5.

Weapons Room

Launch Pad

Lightning Assault is an intense, dogfight game. You pilot your own aircraft, armed with five different types of upgradable weapons and shoot down all of the UFOs and mother ships in order to pass each level. The graphics are amazing in this game, and for every five levels that you advance, you move to a different location on the world map - giving you an entirely new aerial view.

World Map

Although normally I don't play these types of "dogfight" games, this one really caught my attention - not only because my close relative made it, but because it was actually pretty interesting, and a game that kept me hooked. As I advanced in the leaderboards on Game Center, I became more and more determined to rise in the ranks, and now I'm #4 in the world.

I would highly recommend people to check this game out, and see what it's like. I decided against downloading many games onto my phone, and this was one of the few games that I felt was worth putting onto my phone. Here's the link to download the app on iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/lightning-assault/id561474052?ls=1&mt=8

A Science to Sleeping?

App Store Icon

Sleep is the key to success. If you get enough sleep, you perform better, in all aspects of life including sports and school.

Last summer, my friend told me about a sleep cycle alarm app. She said it woke you up at the time when you'd feel the most rested. I decided to give it a try. The app was only $1, and it turned out to be one of the best $1 investments of my life.

The Sleep Cycle Alarm Clock by Maciek Drejak Labs ingeniously calculates the optimal time for you to wake up. By putting in the time you need to wake up by, the app creates a half an hour time slot for when it will wake you up. It wakes you up in your lightest sleep phase, when you're closest to being awake. At first I was a bit skeptical. Could it be a fluke? Could it really be possible for this $1 app to accurately map out your sleep cycles? Weren't applications/software like that usually extremely expensive? Yet, as I read the reviews, tens of thousands of people were extremely satisfied with it.

Recommended Placement

When I finally downloaded it, the app immediately caught my attention. I put it under my mattress cover, like it instructed me to, and went to sleep. Not expecting much the first night (because it takes 5 days to calibrate), I surprisingly woke up at a time when I actually felt good, and not extremely groggy from the previous night's sleep.

As I continued using it, the app became more and more astonishing. Not only did it show you a graph showing your sleep movement, but it gave you a percentage of sleep quality. Depending on the calmness and length of time you slept, you would have a different sleep quality ranging from 0%-100%. It would also generate other graphs that showed what things affected your sleep quality and averages for the amount of time you spend in bed as well as what time you go to bed.

I would highly recommend this app to people who feel like smashing their alarm clock to bits when they wake up in the morning, as well as anyone else looking for an exemplary alarm clock.

Here is the link to download the app in the App Store/iTunes (it's currently only available on the iPod, iPhone, and iPad): https://itunes.apple.com/app/sleep-cycle-alarm-clock/id320606217