Welcome to the official blog of My Owl Software, creator of the excellent Apple Jack games!



Monday 23 July 2012

Stuck? Youtube has you covered!

I think we can all agree now that Apple Jack 2 is the best game ever made. A Gameranking of 83.33% is proof enough of that.

However, it HAS received criticism from some quarters for its high degree of difficulty, and while I'd never dream of making it any easier (man up, pussies), a chap called hwogrillo on youtube has helpfully decided to play through the whole game level by level, which may help you out a bit if you're stuck.

Here's his video showing him completing level 30 : Stacking, and one of the more problematic puzzles in the game:


Very useful!

If you need help on another level or just want to watch the ending credits (he uploaded them too) his channel can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/user/hwogrillo?feature=watch

I assume it's a him.

Monday 9 July 2012

Review Roundup Vol.2

Apple Jack 2 has had several more reviews since that post a couple of weeks ago, and here they are:


First up, the pleasingly named CHUD.COM do an indie round up every week and their reviewer Robert Ottone was very fond of the game, calling it 'an absolute masterpiece' and placing it alongside Botanicula as one of his favourite indie games of the year. Read it here.

Wesley Copeland at VideoGamesInteractive starts his review with ' Apple Jack 2 is: Zany, funny, beautiful, weird, pulse-racing and most importantly fun!, and continues to rave about the game throughout the rest of the review. And I didn't have to pay him a penny! Read it here

Long term Apple Jack supporters Armless Octopus weren't quite do effusive in their praise, raising concerns about the game's difficulty and hit detection. That said, they still call AJ2 one of the best games in it's genre and award it four stars, which will do me just fine. Read it here.

TheXBLIG had similar concerns about the game's difficulty, although their reviewer Tim Hurley felt that the rewind feature helped in softening it slightly. He then goes on to call the soundtrack 'Coldplay-esque', which I'm not so sure about. Does it sound like Coldplay? I don't immediately want to punch someone when I'm listening to it, so on balance probably not. Read it here.

Lastly, Keza MacDonald gave the game a full, front page review at IGN, calling it 'One of the loveliest things on the Xbox' and awarding it 8/10. Apparently my personality shines through 'in every piece of artwork or puzzle setpiece' so it's almost as if she awarded ME 8/10. I'll take that, frankly! Read it here.


EDIT: Since I posted these reviews, both Eurogamer and Edge have reviewed the game:

Eurogamer loved it, giving it 9/10 and comparing the variety and invention of the levels to Bangai-O, which pleased me greatly (I love Bangai-O). Read it here.

I hope the Edge review ends up in the magazine like the first one, but I can hardly turn my nose up at an online review that calls it 'every bit as inventive and challenging as the original'. 8/10! Read it here


Good eh! A ton of positive reviews overall, including three from major gaming sites. Special thanks to intro artist and professional copywriter Neil W for preparing the press releases.