The iOS gaming thread

SOLD! Nice iTunes review, BTW. ;)

I agree with this. Can anyone imagine Microsoft letting its premier number one franchise (Halo) being "FUELLED BY THE DEW YOYO LOLZ!" with a tie in to purchases of junk food from convenience stores on the actual xbox? Even on live arcade or whatever the download bit is called.

Yet they are quite happy to whore out Master Chief for cheap exploitation / marketing gimmick on iOS. Speaks volumes of their level of respect for the platform.

Well reviewed board game conversion Le Havre is a buck today as is Tactical Soldier: Undead Rising.

SO I finished the first campaign of Knights of Pen and Paper. It's fun. It gets grindy in parts when you have to collect 12 X or kill 15 Y, but the levelling and slowly upgrading gear here and there is present in just the right doses to pull you through by the nose. I was amazed at how balanced it was. I never really felt under or over levelled. I did complete every quest prior to doing the BIG BAD FINAL BATTLE so I guess I was over levelled by the end.

Some of my GC friends are behind me in level and other achievements, but ahead in gold earned. So there must be some trick to getting gold that I missed. I never felt I was hurting for gold though. I just did not buy a lot early on.

I give it a 4 out of 5 using the Pocket Tactics scale. ;)

Funny - I'm wrapping up my review today and that's exactly what I've given it. :)

Plagiarizer!!!! ;)

Stop wasting time telling me what I already know and see why RAD Soldiers is taking so long to fix after the Canadian Beta and why Card Hunter seems to have been in development since before the first Smartphone hit the market.

I have a RAD Soldiers story to tell but a bit later this week.

You are also a tease, I see.

Actually, it's just part of the release of our new Pocket Tactics Fuled by Mountain Dew app! If 10,000 people read Pocket Tactics from inside their local 7-11 while slurpin' a Dew, the article unlocks earlier!

Get slurpin'!!

Aka Wont be fuled again?

Rogue Miner

So I've put maybe an hour into it so far, and I get the feeling that with some tweaking and a bit better feedback in game you this game would be much more enjoyable. A lot of the mechanics at first are just things you have to figure out on your own. Example - you're plopped down in a mine at the start of the game, and you quickly realize that you dig into the walls, and some walls "cost" more torch points (you have 40 to start and each digging or fighting action takes up some of these) to dig, and you can replenish your torch points by picking up a new one! Run out and you die. So you go merrily digging away in your mine, picking up gems and all of a sudden you're done. And on an over-world map. No feedback as to why or what you did to even get there. Oh and maybe you leveled up, but it's not clear what actions you did to gain experience points. Oh and all those gems you picked up, yea, they aren't in your inventory.

So far what I can tell is that each mine/tower you enter has a gemstone quota. You meet the quota, and you "win" the level. Not that the game tells you this.

I think a lot of my frustration with the game comes from the lack of any good feedback on gameplay or tools to make decisions about my equipment and inventory. It's in the game, in a alphabetized kind of glossary in the game, but it's not helpful in seeing if my blue pick is better than this green pick I just got, because I have to flip through pages of this glossary to see if this pick is a "B+" or maybe a "B" in in-game terms. It's little things like no tool tip on things you pick up to know what they are before trying to use them.

The little game part is very rogue lite at this point, and really not much of a challenge at this early point, maybe it gets more challenging later, but the difficult part was trying to get information quickly and easily out of the game about it's mechanics and it doesn't want to help you with this. I hope they continue to update and make the game better. It's cute, but needs a bit more on the interface.

Zookeeper DX free for a limited time!

Telltale have dropped Back to the Future Episode One to ZERO dollars for the day, but it's US only (so far, I've asked them about NZ).

I haven't played a TT game on iOS yet, this looks like a good time to start!

I tried to play their first Sam & Max iOS game, and it was such a shitty experience that I'd have to be paid a decent chunk of change to be willing to try again.

Very pretty, but it was basically a slideshow and they did absolutely nothing to fix it even though there were tons of complaints. Complete waste of my money.

What kind of iOS device were you running it on? I've tried Sam & Max on both a 3GS and an iPad 2 - it was pretty poor performance-wise on the 3GS but not too bad on the iPad.

This was back in the iPad 1 days, but I remember it not being so hot on an iPad 2 either.

Shove Pro!



Note: I have not yet played, but enjoyed the video! Also an unexpected cameo by Uncharted designer Richard Lemarchand as Aloysius Beauregarde:

I've not played Arranger but I am a little obsessed with the trailer for it. Out tonight.

Grand Prix Story is a buck today. I skipped it initially, but Gus and others raved about it and many view it as one of if not the best of the Kairosoft games.

So far not too impressed. The concept is kind of great, the pixel art style is nicely done (if very, very tired), but the game play itself is frustrating and/or dull. It's basically a large collection of twitchy minigames. Twitchy action games of any sort don't tend to work on mobile touch screens unless they are essentially 1 button games. It feels like the game would have been much better served by designing 1 great mechanic for the music component, and forget the rest of the minigames. Instead the star of the show music game is basically nonsense thanks to the controls and design. That said, for $1 I don't feel cheated for the couple hours I played.

Today on a lark I bought F-Sim Space Shuttle because it has enough high reviews that they can't all be from shill accounts, and because it was marked down to a buck. The concept is simple and executed surprisingly well: You're piloting the Space Shuttle during its final approach (when it is gliding, so there's no throttle to worry about), and get rated based on how close you get to the optimal parameters during landing (descent speed, ground speed, deviation from centerline, etc.). It's highly configurable, looks great, has smooth tilt controls, and there's an awesome replay feature. I'm probably the last person to know about it, but if not, get it while it's cheap.

Holy crap. This kind of thing really is my bag, baby.

Son, I was landing the Space Shuttle back when it had 4 colors (and 2 of them were black and white).

Apparently you weren't landing it very well.

Dr. Bogost's latest art piece/provocation is out:
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/simony/id559503100?mt=8

The first iOS game entirely in Latin? Most likely!

Now I want to land the space shuttle in Latin.

It's not entirely in Latin. There are English instructions.

The good news is that it's the first version of Simon I've seen that doesn't make me want to rip my ears out after ten seconds.

Battle of the Bulge is getting really close. Shenandoah Studio threw up a short video that walks you through the basics of their very slick UI. Watch it in Vimeo to get a larger size. There's also going to be a full-blown tutorial. I backed the Kickstarter for this one, and am really excited to try it out.

It really seems to be turning out well. Shenandoah has so far been a perfect example of how to run a Kickstarter.

There was also the time I left it in orbit too long and everyone died so I had to send the other shuttle up with another crew.

Grand Prix Story is pretty fun in a "Can't put this damn Kairosoft game down, but will probably not replay it, but will be tied to it for the entire weekend or how ever long it takes to win" kinda way.

Majesty, which is fine, and Plants vs. Zombies are each marked down to $0.99.

I have now played through Grand Prix Story 3 times in an attempt to win that 3rd Grand Prix. During my fourth attempt, I was being super efficient and this was going to be it and then right after winning the first Grand Prix, I spent my money, could not renew the Driver's contract and was going to have to wait 8 months to get my sponsor money while doing absolutely nothing. It just seems like this Kairosoft game has more meaningful choices and goals than many of the others. Gus_Smedstad was right. I think it is the best of the ones I have played. I lament the fact that he has left us for greener pastures.

Star Traders RPG is out on iOS now. Free, with a $1.99 upgrade available. Owen on Pockettactics.com loves the game.

Phantom Leader was just patched. Happy Thanksgiving!

Time to pull out my iPad3 and get that one. Pockettactics had a review that pointed out the downsides, and I think I can live with them. The topic interests me enough to grab this one. (Especially since we traveled around the world with squadrons of F4s when I was a kid. ;) )

I posted an extensive review at BGG, but in your case I'd say skip reading and get it already. I'm pretty sure you will love it, warts and all.

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/881792/lonely-meeple-reviews-phantom-leader-for-ios-get-s

Very nice review, Tracy!

Purchased Phantom Leader, played one mission from a campaign, and it is indeed dense. To be fair, I've never played the board game and I tried to play without reading any rules, etc. So I think next step is reading the rules.

From what I read, the tutorial is pretty bad, so do read the rules.

If you likes you some XCom, Aliens versus Humans has a price drop today - from $2.99 to $1.99. A deal at 5 times the price, IMO.