Sandbox Articles on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog

Pixbits announces Junk Jack X, coming later this year

by Mike Schramm (May 10th, 2013)

There are quite a few "sandbox" games available on iOS, including the uber-popular Minecraft, and Majic Jungle's great Blockheads. But my favorite so far is Junk Jack, a 2D sandbox title put together by Pixbits. It's excellent -- its little square tiles are perfect for the iPhone's interface, ...

Daily iPad App: Deepworld pulls off some very impressive multiplayer magic

by Mike Schramm (Dec 20th, 2012)

Deepworld is a very impressive title, and I told the creators as much back when I met them at GDC earlier this year. In fact, it was so impressive that I kind of doubted they could pull it off. A full 2D server-based Minecraft multiplayer game, running on the iPad? Sounds good, but good luck, ...

Mac Game of the Week: Galaxy on Fire 2 HD brings iOS' best space adventure to the Mac

by Mike Schramm (Dec 6th, 2012)

While some developers have recently gone towards a philosophy of making a bunch of smaller releases and dropping them on the App Store quickly, German developer Fishlabs has done the opposite. It's focused on one huge game, Galaxy on Fire 2, and spent the last year expanding and perfecting it. ...

Deepworld officially launches on Mac, coming soon to iOS

by Mike Schramm (Oct 11th, 2012)

I saw Deepworld in action in March at GDC in San Francisco. It's a Minecraft-style 2D sandbox game, with lots of fun steampunk elements and mechanical contraptions to make. A little while later, the game's developers held a Kickstarter to try and get a Mac beta off of the ground, and though ...

Minecraft: Pocket Edition gets furnaces

by Mike Schramm (Jul 18th, 2012)

Mojang has updated the mobile version of Minecraft (subtitled Pocket Edition), adding furances and smelting to the mix. Now you can either find or build block type yourself. You can also grow your own trees by collecting saplings from cut leaves, and find Diamond, Gold, and Iron ore. You can ...

Daily iPhone App: Junk Jack builds something special

by Mike Schramm (May 3rd, 2012)

I have flown over 6,000 miles in the last two days -- on Monday, I left Prague to fly back to London, and then yesterday, I jumped on a plane to come back home to Los Angeles. And through it all, Junk Jack was there for me. The game has been out for a while now, and you might have passed over ...

Core Security Technologies identifies Mac OS X sandbox hole

by Chris Rawson (Nov 14th, 2011)

Although Apple plans to require sandboxing in all third-party Mac App Store apps as of March 2012, it sounds as though Apple needs to get its own sandbox in order first. Researchers at Core Security Technologies have found a way to circumvent the sandboxing restrictions built into Mac OS ...

Minecraft iOS debut set for after Sony Xperia launch

by Michael Grothaus (May 26th, 2011)

Back in February we told you that the popular Mojang sandbox game Minecraft would be making its official debut on iOS later this year (there had previously been an unofficial Minecraft for iOS). While it's still on schedule to debut for iOS in 2011, today Gamasutra broke the news that Minecraft ...

Flickr Find: Say hello to the Mac-in-craft

by Mike Schramm (Nov 22nd, 2010)

You can make a lot of things in the gigantic sandbox game Minecraft, including a gigantic floating Macintosh computer. Flickr user Caius Durling put together this floating replica on his own Minecraft world, assembled pixelbrick by pixelbrick, along with a floating "Hi" to match. It's pretty ...

Garry's Mod out for Mac

by Mike Schramm (Sep 23rd, 2010)

Valve has released another Steam Play Mac title, and this time it's Garry's Mod, the wild sandbox physics editor that uses assets from Half Life 2 to create whatever you want. The mod is probably most famous for its Rube Goldberg-style creations, but it's also very handy for machinima and other ...

Apple lands OLPC security whiz -- more secure products on the way?

by Steven Sande (May 13th, 2009)

Twitter tipster Rich Mogull of TidBITS provided us with a ping pointing to ZDNet's Zero Day page, where blogger Ryan Naraine broke some good news today. The news? The ex-director of security architecture for the One Laptop Per Child project, Ivan Krstic (at right), has gone to work for Apple. ...