Loop by Seedling, Houseparty, Lisn, and other apps to check out this weekend

It’s the weekend again, and you know what that means: it’s time for another edition of our Apps of the Week roundup. This week we have some awesome selections, including a video editing app that makes stop-animation a breeze, a fun new group video chat platform, a new app for listening to music with friends, and two great new games.

Loop by Seedling

This one is for the amateur filmmakers and aspiring directors out there. Loop by Seedling allows you to create and share a looping animation in seconds. Features include the ability to view overlays of your previous photo to assist with stop-motion animations, various filters and layouts, and quick sharing. In fact you can go from snapping to sharing in seconds, and it’s even easier in iOS 10, where you can send loops from right within the Messages app. Loop is available for free.

Houseparty

The team behind the pioneering-but-long-forgotten streaming app Meerkat is back with a new project called Houseparty. The tagline for the app is “Welcome to the House, where the Party is always on,” and it’s essentially group video chat. The idea is for you to be able to hop in a video chat with your friends with a single tap, and invite others to join you. A friend of a friend can join, or you can lock your room for privacy. Like Meerkat, the app has gotten a lot of early attention, but the question is how long will it last? Houseparty is available for free.

Lisn

Lisn is an app that’s built on an interesting concept: don’t just send links to your friends of your favorite songs, play it for them live. The app allows you to play tracks for other users in real time while chatting. There’s a few caveats here. For one, Lisn requires a Facebook login (although the developers say they’re working on other methods), and two it only works with Spotify Premium or SoundCloud. So if you send a song to a friend that isn’t a Spotify Premium member, the song will only play for 30 seconds. If this doesn’t bother you, this is definitely worth checking out. Lisn is available for free.

Zip—Zap

Looking for a simple, well-designed puzzle game to play this weekend? Check out Zip—Zap. The premise is simple: touch the mechanical ‘being’ to make it contract (zip), and release it to let go (zap), with the goal of bringing the mechanical beings home. There are over 100 levels, with no ads or IAPs. And that’s pretty much it. As you can see in the screenshots, the graphics are charming and polished, and the early reviews rave about the game mechanics and excellent level design. Again, if you’re into these types of puzzlers at all, give this one a shot. Zip—Zap is available for $1.99.

Pumped BMX 3

The final installment of the smash hit BMX game is here! In Pumped BMX 3, you’ll ride through sets of jumps pulling off crazy stunts in order to complete challenges and beat high scores. There are over 720 challenges and achievements, spread across 60 all-new levels and 6 amazing environments. There’s also 15 riders to choose from, from style gurus like Chase Hawk to tech wizards like Dennis Enarson, and each is capable of pulling off 24 insane tricks. This definitely seems like a fun way to pass the time on a lazy Saturday afternoon. Pumped BMX 3 is available for $3.99.