As I said in an earlier article, Rolocule is the dev team whose iOS games appeal more to Apple TV users than it does to iPhoners. Unlike other dual screen games which just provide alternate HD visuals on mirroring, Rolocule motion games are AirPlay exclusive. These games turn your iPhone into a Wii-like motion controller and are playable only over Apple TV.

Motion Tennis was their first game which was widely popular thanks to its unique and never-before style of gameplay. You can read our full review here. Motion Tennis for Apple TV is currently available for free in the AppStore to celebrate the release of their new game, Dance Party of Apple TV, which we will be discussing in detail today.

Dance Party for Apple TV is surely what it sounds like – A dancing game which can be played with friends at parties, over your Apple TV. But after spending a few hours with it, I can assure that it’s so much more than that!

Basically, each level in Dance Party has an on-screen dancer who steps to custom songs and the users have to mimic his/her moves. Your iPhone or iPod Touch is held in the right hand and the user dances as if he’s seeing his mirror image on the television. The app tracks the various motion sensors on your device, similar to the Wii controller, to find out how well you’re doing.

The game gives you live feedback as Perfect, Good or ‘a red X’ based on your choreo skills and you’re awarded with points. A continuous stream of avatars at the right bottom hints on the upcoming steps so that you can always be in sync with your dance tutor. At the end, all points add up to rate you in stars, along with an approximate count of calories you just burnt!

The game currently provides two free songs and three more can be unlocked via an in-app purchase, with still more songs to come. The Dance section is the single player mode which you can use to better your stars, for practice or for a work out. The Party mode unleashes the actual beauty of the game and literally turns your living room into a disco floor! You and your friends can play simultaneously (or one after another) in front of your TV and clash your dancing skills. An online mode is coming soon while the blind mode for expert dancers, which obviously I haven’t been able to unlock yet.

So coming to the main question – is it any good? Rolocule claims that they have brought highly polished graphics and much more accurate motion engine to Dance Party, as compared to their one year old Motion Tennis game. To be honest, the change is clearly evident right from the beginning.

You might remember me complaining about the physics engine in my Motion Tennis review, but Dance Party instantly feels different. Try messing with the steps and you’ll see that “X” mark thrown at your face while stepping according to the beat is bound to fetch you a Perfect. Of course as time passes you’ll learn to cheat your A7 chip, but that is a sort of necessary evil on all motion controlled consoles.

The songs are great and the steps are simple enough for users to replicate.  Yes after each game, you do feel like you were dancing and the fun just multiplies when you’re in goups. There is no appreciable lag nor any lost connections worth mentioning.

So far, my only complaint with Dance Party is its poor replayability. Once you’re an expert with a song, you can consistently score high with them and your first-time-playing guests will probably lose to you, again and again. Though it would be impossible to randomly animate new steps, I would have loved if the order of steps were a little mixed after each session. However, the gameplay is not too simple like it was with Motion Tennis and getting to that five star rating can take forever. This brings some replayability to the game and it’ll probably be a week until you can get every step perfect in each song. Maybe this issue can be overlooked when more and more songs get added to the library.

Dance Party supports iPhone 4S and above, iPod Touch 5th gen, and Apple TV 2 and Apple TV 3. If you donot have an Apple TV, Dance Party can mirror even to your PC or Mac with the help of third part softwares like AirServer. The game can be downloaded for free from the AppStore with two songs included. If you like what you get, you can buy more songs or unlock an unlimited songs package for 9 bucks.

In short, if you love to dance and have a supported iOS device & Apple TV, there is no game worth recommending more than Dance Party. Get Dance Party for Apple TV for free.

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There is probably only one developer team, whose iOS games appeal more to Apple TV users than it does to iPhone users. Yes, we are talking about Rolocule games. After the completely unique and hugely popular Motion Tennis for Apple TV game, the team is now rolling out their next title, Dance Party for Apple TV.

Just like last time, Dance Party turns your iPhone into a Wii-like motion controller, which pairs with your Apple TV to give a full screen gaming experience. But instead of the grass court, we have a dance floor this time.

Dance Party essentially has an on-screen dancer who steps to beatful songs and users have to replicate the moves in their living rooms. Your iPhone held in hand detects your movements and provides real time feedback on how well you’re doing. You can have your friends over and play mutliplayer modes to let the best dancer win.

FEATURES:
* Move it: Dance to 5 foot-tapping songs, that will make you feel the groove and shake a leg, appealing to everyone.
* Work it: Get accurate calories burnt as you dance, manage your daily, weekly and monthly calories counts.
* Party with your friends in Real Time Multiplayer: Its your time to shine, dance with your friends together in a group in real time multiplayer. With support of upto 4 players that can dance simultaneously on a song.
* Party with your family in Turn Based Multiplayer: Perfect for families to have a fun time taking turn based multiplayer to a new level. Enjoy a local tournament with upto 5 players and get bragging rights on scoring that win.

Rolocule claims their new game to be more polished and the physics engine to be more accurate than the Motion Tennis era and expects to provide an overall enhanced experience to players. There’s only one way to find out! Well, I will be playing Dance Party over this weekend and also do a complete review soon. In the meantime, you can get Dance Party for free on your iPhone right now!

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You are probably already familiar with Motion Tennis for Apple TV, an app that brings Wii-style gaming to Apple TV. Thanks to Rolocule Games and its award-winning rolomotion technology, your iOS device turns into a tennis racket while the grand slam tournament takes place on your television via Apple TV. You can read our in-depth review of Motion Tennis here.

Celebrating yesterday’s Djokovic’s great victory in Wimbledon (as well as last week’s Independence Day…), Rolocule has reduced the price of Motion Tennis from $7.99 to ZERO, so go and grab your free copy of the game now, as this amazing offer may not last long.

Watch this video to learn more about Motion Tennis.

Rolocule is currently in the process of adding some final touches to its next motion powered game, Dance Party. Their rolomotion technology has been vastly improved and the developers are boasting console quality precision and performance for their new release.

Dance Party is a multiplayer game where users can dance along with an on-screen artist while your iPhone or iPod touch analyses how well you’re doing. The best dancer wins, but all users will get a count of the calories they burned during the last dubstep.

In short, its a mix of game, dance and workout:

Dance Party is set to be released on the App Store in the second half of July but you can already sign up here for an early free access.

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You might remember our huge coverage (Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3) of iOS games that allow dual screen AirPlay mirroring with Apple TV, turning your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch into the controller, while the HDTV becomes the game arena. However, there is an app that not only does dual screen mirroring but actually brings motion gaming to your iOS device using Apple TV. Here is a complete review of this one-of-its-kind game, Motion Tennis for Apple TV.

As you might have already figured out, Motion Tennis turns your iPhone or iPod touch into the tennis racket while the grand slam tournament takes place on your television via Apple TV.

Swish your hand in the air and give your wrist some exercise to score aces in this spectacular game. The developers at Rolocule promise “the most immersive tennis experience ever on iOS”. But does it really live up to all the hype? Let’s see.

Getting Motion Tennis connected to the Apple TV

The first thing you need to know before purchasing this 8 bucks game is that you have to own an Apple TV to make any good out of it. Don’t expect to start an idle match directly on your iPhone while travelling or in the bedroom, because there is no provision for an in-device display of the gameplay.

Unlike other dual screen games, AirPlay is not just an optional feature in Motion Tennis, but rather the only way of playing the game – you won’t be even able to have a glimpse of the home-screen without connecting to an Apple TV.

The process of connecting to the Apple TV is as usual and fairly straight forward. Pull up the Control Center -> tap on the AirPlay button -> choose the Apple TV -> toggle on Mirroring.

Once you set up mirroring and fire up the app, you’ll see large banners on the Apple TV and their miniature versions on your iPhone or iPod touch, prompting that the dual screen gaming has been activated. A few taps into the game, a short tutorial and some calibration and you’re holding the virtual tennis racket similar to Nintendo Wii games.  At the same time, the beautiful 80 ft. court pops on your television.

The gameplay

Raise the iPhone above your head to serve the ball and the game starts with a smash. Of course, the automated second player will have the green ball flying back to your side. Use the device just as a bat and thrash it back in any direction or height you want.

As you would expect, your TV avatar would replicate your gestures. Fortunately, you don’t have to do any of the running up and down the court. You’ll be automatically placed at the best positions and all you have to do is decide the side and type of the shot you need to play.

You already know the rules and point system, no surprises there. The real eye popper is the different kinds of shots you’ll be able to execute just using your wrist movements – you can do standard, slice or lob shots depending on the angle at which you hold the device.

Once you score the game point, your performance is measured in stars and, more importantly, you get an approximate count of the calories you just burned while playing the digital tennis. Obviously it is not accurate, but to know that you’re contributing to your health and not just wasting time with silly games, it’s hilariously comforting.

The game has single player, survival and multiplayer modes. The first one lets you rally with the ‘A chip’ of your iPhone and has various difficulty modes. The survival mode is analogous to the endless modes and goes on till you lose a point. Finally, in multiplayer mode you can ask one of your friends to join you in a doubles match against the CPU.

The verdict

To be honest, Motion Tennis scores the most by being unique and nothing like anything else we’ve ever seen – no complaints there. However, the gameplay as a whole feels buggy or, more correctly, a bit automated, at most times. Your digital form seems to play the perfect shots even if you completely screw up the swing or timing. Sometimes you shoot to the right and the ball bounces to the left and gets you a point.

Also, you hardly score any outs or faults while the guys on the other side of the net has plenty of them. Overall, it all seems a bit biased for me.

Motion Tennis is a great app to be showcased when you have some friends over or to test the power of your iDevice – Apple TV combo. But you won’t find yourself playing it everyday nor will it replace your gym.

It sure shows a lot of potential to grow into a more realistic game someday in the future and when that happens, it’ll be undoubtedly a must buy.

Get Motion Tennis for Apple TV from the App Store ($7.99) and try it out yourself.

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We’ve already discussed around ten great dual screen AirPlay games for the Apple TV in our previous posts. In case you missed them, you can read them here:

• 5 best AirPlay-enabled dual screen games for Apple TV
• 5 more great AirPlay-enabled dual screen games for Apple TV

Thanks to our wonderful fans, we’ve been introduced to a few more of such split-screen games. Though not as spectacular or flawless as the ones in the previous lists, the following are surely worth a look. We’ve also included a list of unconventional dual screen games further down.

Nucleus ($1.99)

Of all the games discussed, Nucleus is the only one which streams full screen even in the navigation and pre-game menus; others go HD only during the gameplay. This is a fairly simple game as you drive your spaceship through asteroid belts, shoot open some rocks, collect electrons from them and deliver to a black hole. The difficult part is dealing with the inertia in space (remember Gravity?) as you ofter crash into comets even while braking. Dual screen mirroring is satisfactory for most part, but occassional hangs have occured.

TV Screen:

iOS Screen:

Zombie Gunship ($0.99)

Here you take control of an Airdrone to defend human camps and protect survivors in the wild, from Zombie attacks. While the iPad-only gameplay went well, the dual screen feature failed terribly. First of all, this game has too much of lag and stutter for a low-graphics game. And on the other hand, the setup seems a little confusing. During gameplay, your TV puts up an infra-red view of the area while the iPad shows a graphic landscape with highlights for zombies. Quite often you’ll find yourself searching for zombies on your iPad and then looking at the TV to shoot’em up. This I think, defeats the whole purpose of dual screen AirPlay.

TV screen:

iOS screen:

Ducati Challenge HD ($2.99)

This game was used by Apple to showcase the dual screen AirPlay functionality and honestly, I can’t figure out why? Maybe it was the only supported game available then. Ducati Challenge HD is a pain even to get connected. The game often gets stuck at loading screens or menus and you’ve to quit and restart the whole game. With just average graphics, poor gameplay and too frequent dropped frames, this game fills up the red meter.

TV screen:

iOS screen:

Chopper 2 ($2.99)

I didn’t think a game could do worse that Ducati Challenge in dual screen mirroring, until I saw Chopper 2. This game lets you control a helicopter to complete short missions in a cartoonish world.  But on Airplaying, it gets too buggy for such a simple game. Most of the time, the game has no idea whether it is in portrait or landscape orientation and often presents a skewed average image of both (See the screenshot below). In addition, it gets stuck at random screens and you need to restart from scratch. Once the game begins, the accelerometer controls work fine, but try to pause the game or get help using the provided buttons and you’ll be disappointed.

TV Screen:

iOS Screen:

While the aforementioned games use dual screen capability to split between display and controls, we found the following games taking a slightly different route.

• Cro-mag Rally – The TV shows your gameplay in spectator mode in different angles, slow motion and zoom-ins while the real player-oriented display takes place on your iPad. Perfect when you’ve Local Multiplayer enabled and have some audience just enjoying your play.
• BugDom 2 – Here the HDTV presents an over-the-shoulder view of the gameplay while the device shows it in typical FPS style.
• Walking Dead: The Game, Pilot’s path, Dungeon Hunter 4, Enigmo 2 – The same content is dispayed both on the big screen and the iOS device but the television gets it full screen, instead of normal boxed-in view.

Dual screen AirPlay-enabled Local Multiplayer games

This is another set of unconventional dual screen mirroring games. Here one of the device acts as a host and other local players join in. The host airplays to the Apple TV and the television shows the common playground for all players. A look at some of the examples will surely clear that up for you.

• SketchParty TV – Get your iPad and start drawing something. It is shown up on the TV and others can guess. Upto 8 players can join and take turns to get points.
• Poker Night TV – The cards and chips on your iPhone while your HDTV is the poker table
• Scrabble – Of course, all the tiles lie on your iPhone or iPad an the TV becomes the Scrabble board.

So, we’ve covered more than 20 dual screen AirPlay-enabled games for the Apple TV, across three different posts (post 1, post 2 and this one). Gemes mentioned in this post seems to put forth a below-average performance or an unconventional utilisation (second half) of the feature and are mentioned only for the sake of completion.

Do test out your favorites from these lists and let us know how things work out for you. There might still be games which we’ve missed and on another side, the developers are hopefully coming up with more such dual screen games. We’ll keep an eye out for them and keep you updated.

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In our last post, we came across some stunning implementation of the dual screen AirPlay functionality of iOS – showing different screens on your Apple TV (the gameplay) and your handheld (the controls). In case you din’t catch that one, you can read it here. Thanks to a few tips from our readers and some digging from our part, we’ve come across more dual screen games you can play on your Apple TV. In fact, we think the games in this post are better that the last one, at some points. So lets dive in!

• Sky Gamblers : Rise of Glory ($2.99)

Similar to Metal Storm: Online about which we talked last time, Sky Gamblers is all about a bunch of planes shooting each other down in an online atmospheric-battlefield. But unlike the former, this game is more deep, variable and realistic. The visuals streamed perfectly well with negligible stutters and showed awesome cut scenes while I was busy configuring the game on the iPad. The controller at hand is dynamic with speed and altitude meters, game stats, camera view and of course, the trigger. The gameplay was perfectly smooth with no lag and hence, seems to be great showcase for the feature.

On TV Screen:

On iOS device:

• Modern Combat 4: Zero Hour ($6.99)

Here is another one from the celebrity developer club (Gameloft) showing below par performance. MC4 is the best FPS game ever on iOS but on dual screen airplaying, had far too many drooped frames for one. And for a hardcore game like this, that’d soon result in a blown head, literally! As always, I think the iPad Air and iPhone 5s should be able to pull this one without much trouble. Also the controls-hood though very effective, was too plain to attract but shouldn’t be a deal breaker since you’d rarely need to look at it. If you can get these hiccups out of the way, I feel that the graphics it offers is worth admiring on the 16:9 screen.

(A big wave to freemdom for tipping us this game.)

On TV Screen:

On iOS device:

• Asphalt 7: Heat ($0.99)

I had tested Asphalt 8: Airborne for this feature but remember being disappointed. But as one of our readers (thanks, Mauro Turcatti!) pointed out, the earlier titles, namely Asphalt 6: Adrenaline and Asphalt 7: Heat, does support it. But to be honest, it din’t fair very well in our trials. The dual screen mirrored video looked far less from HD as it was mostly pixelated and seemed like a 1994 game. Even with such mediocre graphics, the game often crashed and gave frequent dropped frames. There were even times when the game was totally unplayable. But the controls-board on iPad is one of the best in business. With a dynamic map, alternate camera views, controls, speed, position and a rear view mirror, it sets the reference bar for similar games.

On TV Screen:

On iOS device:

• Touch Tanks 5 Online (Free)

It is basically an online tank battle game, with an eagle-eye camera view. You’ve to maneuvre your 1000-tonner through the maps, plan tactically, coordinate with team meambers, hide in strategic spots and take out enemy panzers; Simple as that! At any point of time, you’ll have enough players for the game and hence Touch Tanks 5 is aways quick to get connected. AirPlay worked perfectly well with sensible controls and sufficient graphics. The only bug is when you need to call for an airstrike – you’re presented with a faulty screen and you’ve to guess your target’s position on the iPad. It is not that hard to do anyway and hopefully will get rectified soon too.

On TV Screen:

On iOS device:

• Pinball HD ($1.99)

Though the gameplay is unchanged from centuries, seeing it live on the 1080p screen is a pleasure. Streaming has minimal or no dropped framed while the contol hub is simple and effective. The cut scenes, slow motion effects and the occaional zoomed-in views are spectacular. The controls, on the other hand, support both landscape and portrait modes. But there is short lag time between tapping of controls and flapping of the pedel. And for a game like pinball, this messes up your timing bigtime and the ball is raining into the hole. Though you might get used to the lag after a few rounds, it spoils a major chunk of fun.

On TV Screen:

On iOS device:

• TouchGrind BMX ($4.99) and Rage HD ($1.99)

These two were rated by some of our readers as the best implementation of the dual screen functionality. And of course, I got them to be tested. But unfortunately for some reasons, they donot go full screen on my TV nor give way to controls on the iPad, when I mirror them. I did some googling and found that these games indeed support dual screen mirroring (apologies for doubting our readers). You can check their demonstrarion videos below. I looked for any toggles or settings to enable, but in vain. It would be highly appreciated if any of you guys have a possible solution or explanation for this. Also let me know if either of them works well for you!

So those were the best 10 (part 1 and part 2) dual screen AirPlay-enabled iOS games you can enjoy on your Apple TV. This part of the series, as you might’ve noticed, was made with the help of some user suggestions and hence, we believe that there are more such games to be discovered. If you know any, make sure to leave a comment below.

Note: Dual screen apps will only work on:

• iPhone 4S or later
• iPad 2 or later
• iPad mini and mini with Retina
• iPod touch 5th gen.

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Also read: 5 best AirPlay-enabled dual screen games for Apple TV

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This setup is particularly useful for games. Imagine the game getting displayed on the 1080p screen and your iPod has all the controls. Your iPhone/iPad/iPod touch + Apple TV combo can very well replace your console. And the advantages of this over plain mirroring of games are:

• First, the black pillars on the sides of the screen will vanish (i.e. full screen gaming)
• Secondly, the gameplay will be a lot more smoother as your A5 chip doesn’t have to power two displays in two aspect ratios, simultaneously
• Lastly, it is annoying and distracting to have both devices running the same game together.

Despite the advantages, there is a real dearth of dual screen airplay enabled games at the App Store. In fact, I could only come up with about five worth mentioning in this article. Whatever the reason for that might be, if you’re looking for a console-like gameplay with your Apple devices but don’t want to spend for that MFi controller, here are the games to get.

• Real Racing 2 ($4.99)

This penultimate title in the Real Racing series would be the smoothest dual screen AirPlay game of all. It was real easy to get connected, no lags whatsoever and incredibly perfect controls. My TV showed awesome cut scenes while I was configuring the race and as soon as the whistle blew, it was HD rubber burns. In the meantime, my iPad displayed a mini map of the track, my position, laps, time and speed. The controls vary according to your settings of accelerometer or button controls. I was amazed at the flawless full screen quality of the game, despite using an iPad mini and keeps me wondering why Real Racing 3 didn’t include the feature.

TV screen:

iOS device screen:

• MetalStorm : Online (free)

This is the game which really gives some sense to dual screen AirPlay. Sporting only accelerometer controls, MetalStorm on iPad would’ve wanted your eyes to go in circles while maneuvering your fighter plane. Sending the display to the 1080p screen makes you enjoy the visuals of the game while your hands does all the twisting. Though not as intensive as RR2, MetalStorm gives a pretty decent graphics with no chokes at all. The controls hub (below) is one of the most realistic ones and they work seamlessly while AirPlaying.

TV screen:

iOS device screen:

• Race Illegal High Speed 3D ($0.99)

This one from Chillingo is another perfect execution of the dual screen functionality. The game has three levels of graphics and even the ‘high’ one doesn’t have any stutters. The game also has multiple modes of controls and different camera views to be set and they too work like charm. The control board at hand is simple with sticks (or blank for accelerometer controls), a map, the speedometer, the brake and a unique rear-view mirror too. You can also change the music track and camera angle here. Now that we think about it, it is comparable to Real Racing in its execution, keeping aside Unreal Engine graphics and the street racing theme.

TV Screen:

iOS Device screen:

• N.O.V.A. 3 ($6.99)

To tell the truth, I had high hopes for this game. An FPS game seems to be a perfect fit for dual screen gaming as you seldom need to look at the controls for using stick controls. And for the most part, N.O.V.A. 3 faired well too. But the game seems to be streaming at 15 frames per seconds or so. Yeah, there are so much dropped frames that at times, you wouldn’t even realize where you’re going. There is a high chance that it is due to my under-powered iPad mini but Real Racing 2 performed very well on the same device. So I would like my iPad Air friends to clarify this part for me.

TV screen:

iOS device screen:

• Beat Hazard Ultra ($4.99)

I took up the game just for this review, but once I did, I couldn’t drop it for an hour. It is a simple old-school Space shooter themed game in its core but on the outside, its spectacular and colorful. A techno beat plays in the background while your weapons vary with the tempo in its type, strength, colors and frequency of bullets. A minute into the game and it’ll light up all the pixels on your TV with those 16 million shades. Both single-stick controls with auto aim and dual-stick controls are available for the too simple iOS screen and the latter seems more challenging and addictive. Though the frame rates never took any hits, the sounds (the essence of the game) consistently takes some time to get going. Often the game starts with a mute but in about 3 seconds or so, it comes back on and what you have is a cracker-party!

TV screen (sorry about the glare, it’s so flashy, this is the best I could get and to put up a non-flashy snap would be an injustice to the game!):

iOS Device screen:

So these were some of the best dual screen AirPlay compatible games for iPhone and iPad. I wonder why such a great feature is utilized so little by the developers. Even giants like Gameloft and Electronic Arts aren’t seen to be implementing dual screen functionality in their games. Hopefully, there’ll be more such games in the future and we’ll make it sure to let you know.

Also read: 5 more great AirPlay-enabled dual screen games for Apple TV

Note: Dual screen apps will only work on:

• iPhone 4S or later
• iPad 2 or later
• iPad mini and mini with Retina
• iPod touch 5th gen.

Be sure to follow Apple TV Hacks on Facebook, Twitter and Google+ for all the latest Apple TV-related news.

UPDATE: We did some deep digging and found a few more dual screen games. We’ll put up a new post soon. So stick around! Here it comes: 5 more great AirPlay-enabled dual screen games for Apple TV

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