The iOS gaming thread

Just a follow-up to my 'Walking Dead' question earlier in the thread - I took a punt and bought episode one and apart from one game-stopping bug (where I panned the camera to the left but couldn't pan it back, which I needed to do in order to proceed), it's been a pretty good port.

I got Elder Signs: Omens HD recently and played a bunch, until I managed to beat the first elder god. The game isn't terrible but it's not really good either. The randomness is a huge problem. I wouldn't mind as much if the game was fast-playing but it's not -- the app is riddled with inexplicable second-long load screens on my iPad 3, even though there's only another simple static graphic on the other end. Proper context help for the various gadgets would be nice, too, but most of the time tapping on stuff does nothing and you have to memorize what the symbols mean. Meh.

I agree with you about the few seconds changing from screen to screen, but I'm not sure how to answer your comment about randomness given that ES:O is a dice game. They key to winning--and, I think, enjoying--is to mitigate the randomness and give yourself as many chances as possible to get the symbols you need (perhaps obviously). You're certainly not alone in being nonplussed, but once I saw how the systems began to interact I quite liked it, bearing in mind that it's the most frustrating game I own (especially with Cthulhu!) How my iPad has survived my nerd rages I don't know.

What is confusing you about the gadgets?

ES:O is a game that takes a while to really grok. My early impressions were similar (too random, dice mechanic was somewhat inscrutable). Eventually it does start to make more sense, though, if you stick with it. And it's not as random as you might think. There's a chewy center of strategy in there, based on resource juggling and risk management.

On the preview and reward screen they are just non-interactive icons, with no explanation of what they do.

Yes, but unless I've misunderstood your issue with the icons, you can always tap a character and learn what is in their inventory and what it does. I specifically tailor my characters, with their innate abilities and items, to certain challenges.

For instance, and this is perhaps obvious, I do my best to defeat the most difficult and dangerous challenges (Midnight and Locked Glyph specifically) first, so that a monster build-up does not occur. Then I try and remove Terror challenges for the same reason. If I haven't gotten hammered by bad luck, I simply defeat the Elder Sign challenges until I reach the required limit. I send Skull-making characters after Peril-heavy challenges, Scroll-rolling characters after Lore challenges, characters who can shrug off Terror after those, etc.

But Cthulhu is where I burn and die, so I must be doing something wrong.

Cthulu is just a matter of preparation. You want a character with a good special ability, items to give you the red and yellow glyphs, and a bunch of clues. Glyph locks can help. Finding the three tokens before going to R'lyeh is essential.

Ithaqua, however...Ithaqua is a bitch. I've pulled off a win, but only by the skin of my teeth.

Baldur's Gate is out. So is Jet Set Radio.

Apple will be watching you closely, and remembering your choices.

What country's App Store are you seeing Baldur's Gate out in?

New Zealand, of course!

Ok, I guess I really meant "Baldur's Gate is rolling out."

Guess I will stop searching...you are such a tease!

Not working here in NZ :(

And here's an explanation, it was an old build which has already been pulled down:

We have to restart the iPad submission process again.We've got a couple more showstoppers.First we have to fix, then test then re-submit

— Trent Oster (@TrentOster) November 29, 2012

A new submit is going to be minimum 7 business days unless they do the expedited approval thing. They're also cutting it pretty close to the holiday app store shut down. I wouldn't be surprised if we don't see it until January.

King of Dragon Pass is on sale for $7. But the really cool news is that the sale was triggered to celebrate them selling 25,000 copies. That's terrific for an obscure, obtuse, deep text adventure game sold at a $10 price point. I hope it encourages other niche developers to make iOS games.

I hope it encourages A Sharp to make another game, actually. There's a lot that could still be done with a KoDP-style format.

David is lead developer at Shenandoah Studio and Battle of the Bulge looks to be turning out very well, so perhaps we'll eventually see something KoDP-like out of that front (heh heh).

I did not realize that. And I backed Battle of the Bulge!

Baldur's Gate is out. I'm passing until it's fully patched.

Yeah I was checking the app store over and over, until I started reading about it...I hope it gets its act together soon.

Pffft. Forget you, Beamdog or whoever. You guys thought it was done and working TWICE when it wasn't? The reasons why (time, money, manpower, etc.) are immaterial.

So my wife got me a brand new iPad for Christmas and went ahead and gave it to me cos she's cool like that.

I haven't really been following much iOS stuff that isn't implementations of board games, so I go on the iTunes app store and I see a feature on deep games for people with some time on their hands. They list a bunch of games which, in checking reviews, appear to be pretty okay, but which don't get much mention here at all. So are there any opinions on the following?

Horn
Waking Mars (I remember Idle Thumbs talking about this one. They seemed to love the idea, but thought the implementation was bad)
Autumn Dynasty ( cnahr is the only one who talked about it and he was pretty negative)
Lili

Do people still love Starbase Orion?

Most people seem to like Autumn Dynasty, by the way. Most people also seem to like Starbase Orion which I hated, too. People are weird!

I played Horn for about two seconds and quit. I played Waking Mars for about ten minutes and deleted it. Haven't played those other two.

Starbase Orion is one of the most-updated titles I have. It was atrocious when I played it at release, but has shaped up nicely. People are also saying all kinds of nice things about Star Traders but I haven't been able to get over how bad/ugly the interface is to get into it yet.

I haven't played any of those games except for Starbase Orion, actually, which I thought was just okay. For space 4x goodness, I'd wait for the upcoming iOS version of Eclipse, which is being made by the same guys that did Neroshima Hex.

Every person I know that has played Autumn Dynasty says that it's bad. Pass.

I mentioned it in the Mike Singleton thread, but the iOS version of Lords of Midnight is just around the corner.

If you like wargames, Battle of the Bulge should be coming out any time now, and looks really good.

And there are a lot of good boardgame ports for the iPad. Le Havre, Elder Sign: Omens, and Ygdrassil are probably my top picks. Alien Encounters is fun, too, now that they patched it up.

I just got an email from the dev saying it's releasing next Thursday afternoon. Can't wait!

Waking Mars is one of the best iOS games.

Unless you can read, in which case it's one of the worst anythings ever.

I've been excited about this game but only hitting that link let me know this is a John Butterfield game. I've been dying to get my hands on some of his games, specifically D-Day At Omaha Beach. I guess this will come first!

I am so excited about Thursday. Please, please, please let it be as great as their updates have made it seem.

Given these responses, perhaps I'll wait for the others to drop in price and just get Lili. I WILL DO AN LP OF IT! OMG! (I will not do this.)

Some other games it suggested were Epoch and Shadowgun, which, pass. I'm not interested in more barely functional touch-screen shooters. Then Aquaria, which I know everyone likes, Chaos Rings 2, not a JRPG fan or a $20 for a game fan, and Swords and Sworcery which also everyone likes but I can wait for it to drop to $.99 which it does every few weeks.

I said I knew about board game releases, sir! And I believe we have already discussed my opinion of Elder Sign! BEGONE FROM MY SIGHT!

:(

I don't know what that means.

MYSTERY SOLVED!!

First thing you need to do is download an app like Appsfire or Appshopper. Every time someone mentions a game that sounds interesting, add the game to your watched list. Pretty soon you'll have 50+ games on your watched list, and every day your iPad will beep at you offering games on sale for $1 (or sometimes free).

PS: This is not a good strategy for reducing your backlog.

I appreciate that, but I've had appshopper on my iPhone for like four years. Like I said, I actually pay pretty close attention to iOS board game stuff*. I just haven't been paying a lot of attention to arcadey and more proper strategy games.

*I'm very active in the mobile board games thread. No one else is, though. They just post their mobile board game stuff here. Jerks!

So what you're saying is that you need some help operating your eyeTablet? No problem. :) To unlock it, put your finger on the arrow and move it across to the right. The kids call that "swiping".

*I didn't know there was a separate mobile board game thread. Must go hunt that up now.

Waking Mars is a good game, and the grousing about it is bullshit.

As is any opinion contrary to yours.

What about the parts where it's tedious, one-note, and has banter that will make you wish you were illiterate?

I understand I'm in the minority on this one, but I honestly couldn't see what people found interesting about this game other than the premise. It's one of the most over-hyped and least engaging games I've ever played on the platform.

Since you guys were no help, I went ahead and DLed The Last Express, since I've never played it before.

It's pretty great, but woof, if there's an old timey game that needs to be a little updated, this could be it. I'm not saying they should go straight up FPS with it, but man do I find myself turning around a lot. Also, the one QTE sequence I've done so far was not great.

Edit: I also got Lili, so I'll let you people know how that went. I added everything else to my AppShopper wishlist and I'll get 'em when they drop to $.99 in two weeks.

So which is it? I'm the loudmouth who demands to always get his way, or I'm one of the undiscriminating masses? Considering how I supposedly will harbor no disagreement, I'm not the one who responds to people saying they like the game by comparing them to an illiterate. Or who treats every single time anyone disagrees with him as if it were a personal attack.

I don't see why everything has to turn into such a fucking overdramatic production. It's a fine platformer from an independent studio with an interesting premise and some very light, non-violent Metroidvania stuff. In a world where Zynga exists, it is not the most horrible piece of illiterate nonsense or whatever the hell else you're making it out to be.