Adding to the app’s expressive features, this new version includes the ability for users to control the amount of rain falling on the screen, from sprinkles to a heavy storm. This audio-visual volume control works in tandem with Schlarb’s new music to provide greater possibilities for shaping the emotional character of the experience, as users can change the intensity of the rain to mirror, or contrast with, the intensity of the music and story.

Finally, Strange Rain’s raindrops have received an upgrade, gaining a more realistic, transparent look, as well as the decidedly strange tendency to take on the tint of the sky from time to time…

We’d love to hear what you think the new additions! Enjoy.

What makes rain strange? When it’s falling on your screen—from the inside.

Strange Rain turns your iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch into a skylight on a rainy day. Raindrops fall and splatter on your screen, shifting perspective in 3D as you tilt your device like a handheld camera. Touch the screen and guide the path of the raindrops, stepping through the notes of an eerie melody as you go. It’s a relaxing, intriguing experience that feels as if you’re holding a living window in your hands.

The more you touch, however, the more strange the rain becomes: layered skies, visual anomalies and shifts in speed and color, even the occasional cataclysm if you’re not careful. Before your eyes and beneath your fingers, the familiar becomes strange, and the strange, familiar.

Get Strange Rain now on the App Store!

Please note that the video preview below is from a pre-release version of Strange Rain, and differs somewhat from the current product. Please click the screenshots shown below see what the current version of the app looks like. We’ll post a new video as soon as we can.

Strange Rain Preview from Erik Loyer on Vimeo.

Screen shots

Strange Rain has three play modes. In wordless mode, you can simply enjoy the sights and sounds of the falling rain on their own terms. In whispers mode, touching the screen causes raindrops to turn into words as they fall—words inspired by the qualities of rain.

In story mode, every touch triggers a thought as text on screen. These thoughts tell the story of a man in the midst of a family crisis who has wandered into the rain to collect his thoughts. His world, too, has gone from familiar to strange, even as his beliefs are following the opposite course. Your interaction helps determine when and how he decides to come in from the rain.

Strange Rain features interactive music that responds directly to your touch. In addition to the default music included with the original release, additional scores by composers Chris Schlarb (NightSky) and Michael Gordon Shapiro (Empire Earth 3) can now be downloaded for free within the app.

Strange Rain supports the Retina Display for the highest quality visuals, and Game Center achievements so you can track your progress through the story, comparing notes with your friends.

A unique combination of touchscreen play and interactive storytelling, the living sky of Strange Rain awaits your touch.

Features:

• Your very own portable rainy day
• Guide the rain with touch
• 3D perspective shifts as you tilt your device
• Music that responds to your touch
• Three play modes: wordless, whispers, and story
• Story mode lets you trigger thoughts with every touch
• Three unique musical scores (one included, two free downloads)
• Real-time hints available to help you get the most out of the experience
• Supports the Retina Display
• Supports Game Center achievements
• Universal app for iPad, iPhone and iPod touch

Get Strange Rain now on the App Store!

Cloud image based on an original photo by Benny Mazur.

Shake to make them angry. Stroke to make them sad. The future of their relationship is in your hands.

Experience a new kind of interactive storytelling with the critically-acclaimed Ruben & Lullaby, a digital comic/game (we call it an “opertoon”) that lets you shape the emotions of a quarreling couple with a touch.

Tilt left and right to advance the story as it unfolds through the faces of the characters, without words. Rub the screen to calm someone down, or shake the phone to make them angry—an interactive jazz score responds to your every movement.

You can try to keep them together, try to break them up, or just enjoy the music you can make out of their circumstances as they react to each other… and to you.

Features:

• A story you play like a musical instrument
• Control the moods of the characters with touch and motion
• Dynamic jazz soundtrack you perform while playing
• Multiple endings
• Illustrations by graphic novelist Ezra Claytan Daniels

Get Ruben & Lullaby now on the App Store!

Screen shots

Demo video