Apple selected 9 particularly outstanding apps in 2019

I've never been to a "press conference" where I had to shout to talk to the other party.

However, Apple's celebration of the year's featured apps and games is more like a party than a press conference.

Developers around the world have always inspired us with innovative apps that impact and change our culture and lives, and this year is no exception. The winners of the 2019 App Store Best Apps and Games reflect the global desire for communication, creation, and fun.

Phil Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing, said in a press release.

Perhaps for this reason, this year's annual selection of apps and games was released in a two-story space in downtown New York, changing the previous online release practice to present this year's selected games and apps with a fun experience.

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The most selected games of the year with various "healing"

▲ At the event, the "photos" of the selected games were exhibited like works of art

In the upper space, Apple has set up an experience area for the annual featured games. As I played through them, I found that although the visual styles of almost every game were very different, most of them were very "healing". The works that won the annual games this year are as follows:

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• iPhone Game of the Year - Sky: Children of the Light
• iPad Game of the Year - Hyper Light Drifter
• Mac Game of the Year - GRIS
• Apple TV Game of the Year - Wonder Boy: The Dragon's Trap
• Apple Arcade Game of the Year - Sayonara Wild Hearts

"Sky: Children of the Light" and "GRIS" are relaxing and "healing" to play. The visual language of both games is light and bright, giving players a feeling of flying. Interestingly, when talking about visual design, the teams of both sides unexpectedly listed Disney and Pixar as inspirations, hoping that players can immerse themselves in the emotional experience brought by the animation in a relaxed mood.

The iPhone Game of the Year, Sky: Children of the Light, is another work by Journey producer Chen Xinghan. In this game, players can fly through the sky as a child character and cooperate with friends to explore a fantasy world.

During the experience, the person in charge often emphasized that this is a game that emphasizes cooperation. There is no tit-for-tat competition in the game, and only by holding hands together can we unlock the friendship of a wider world.

The Mac Game of the Year, GRIS, is actually about the protagonist's gradual recovery from pain. "Gris" means "grey" in Spanish, which represents the character's state, and the first level of the game is also black and white.

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Although the dominant color tone of each level represents a different psychological state during the recovery process, the development team did not state it explicitly in the game, believing that only the feeling that players actually experience in the game is the most important.

"Hyper Light Drifter" and "Goodbye Wild Heart" respectively tell the stories of self-redemption of a seriously ill traveler and a heartbroken girl.

The iPad game of the year, "Hyper Light Drifter", is a 16-bit pixel-style adventure game. Developer Alex Preston said the game design was inspired by "Zelda" and "Diablo". It tells the adventure story of a traveler with a serious illness.

Although it was first released in 2014, the iOS version of Hyper Light Drifter was only released this year. In addition to changing the handle operation to touch screen control, the iOS version also added some new content.

Apple Arcade Game of the Year: Goodbye Wild Hearts is a music game. Although the main storyline is about a heartbroken girl finding herself, the game's visuals and music are both very cool.

Currently, Apple Arcade has not yet been launched in China. It is suitable for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch with iOS 13+.

Apple TV Game of the Year Wonder Boy: The Dragon's Trap is a remake of the 1989 game of the same name.

In addition to adding more modern and exquisite animations to classic games, one of the major features of this game is the ability to switch between "modern" and "retro" with one click, taking you back to your childhood with nostalgic 8bit and music.

In the annual app experience area on the lower floor, I once again felt the sense of being overwhelmed by the creativity of "everyone uses iPhone, but they can take blockbuster movies". The works that won the annual app this year are as follows:

1. iPhone App of the Year – Spectre Camera
2. iPad App of the Year – Flow by Moleskine
3. Mac App of the Year - Affinity Publisher
4. Apple TV App of the Year - The Explorers

In the crowd under the dim light, there are two boys who are always the most eye-catching, because they are always holding fluorescent light beams or bright lights and waving them around. When you take a closer look, you will find that this is the experience of the annual iPhone application "Spectre Camera".

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▲ The two most excited people in the audience

"Spectre Camera" is a photography application based on artificial intelligence algorithms that allows users to take interesting long-exposure photos with just one hand.

Do you think long exposure can only be used to capture the river of city lights? As soon as I walked over, one of the guys said to me, "Do you want a pair of wings?" and then used the lamppost to draw a pair of halos behind me.

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The iPad App of the Year, "Flow presented by Moleskine", won the Apple Design Award at this year's WWDC, and it was also one of the most popular apps tonight.

I have always narrowly believed that this app is mostly used for taking notes, but I didn't expect that it would become a creative tool in the hands of illustrators, leading everyone to line up to draw portraits.

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App designer Ben Hamey told me that when designing Flow presented by Moleskine, they were more about subtraction, trying to create a less threatening creative experience in as intuitive a way as possible.

The Mac App of the Year, Affinity Publisher, is a professional typesetting tool that is often called a “typesetting magic tool”. It can complete photo editing, vector graphics editing, and book typesetting in the same software, and the interactive interface is more user-friendly. Of course, even if you don’t type publications, you can use it to design a party invitation.

Apple TV App of the Year, The Explorers, is a collaborative app that allows anyone, whether photographers, scientists, institutions or amateurs, to contribute and build a visual library to record the Earth.

Apps and Games Trends for 2019

In addition to the annual featured games and apps, Apple has also released annual app and game trends in recent years that reflect current life trends.

The gaming trend in 2019 is "rebirth of classics".

Classic games are those good games that dads love and their sons want to play. This year, many developers around the world have injected innovation and recreated those unforgettable classic games on iOS devices. The works selected for the annual trending games are:

• "Romance of the Three Kingdoms: Strategic Edition"
• Langrisser
• Xuan-Yuan Sword: Dragon Dances Over the Clouds
• Fallout Shelter Online
• KartRider Rush+ Official Racing Edition
• Final Fantasy: Brave Exvius
• Assassin's Creed: Rebellion

The application trend in 2019 is "Stories told by you".

When we try to express ourselves, nothing is more frustrating than finding out where to start. Fortunately, more and more apps are helping users lower the threshold for creation, allowing everyone to comfortably tell their own stories. The works selected for the annual trend application are:

• 《VUE》
• 《WIDE short video》
• "quick worker"
• Spark Camera
• Polarr 24
• FlipaClip: Cartoon Animation Studio
• Tayasui Sketches
• Unfold

How many of these apps hand-picked by Apple have you used?