The iOS gaming thread

Is it? Thanks! If I get Christmas funds, I will most likely do so.

It's hecka cheap now, so you might as well get it while it's hot.

Unfortunately, Android Netrunner is a terrible solo game. The goddam runner always knows where I've hidden my agendas!

Just to be absolutely sure, THIS is the one of which you two are speaking, correct?

It is.

And here it is for $18 on Amazon!

SWEET! I have left over gift card bucks from Amazon. Thanks, yo!

EDIT: BOUGHTED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Despite the pictures, which are clearly in English, and the app description not offering any warning, Collapsible D is currently only available in Italian. On their website they say that the English translation is coming, but man, I would not be a happy dude if I'd DLed that.

Edit: And while I'm posting, Christmas deals are really starting to pour in.

Dead Space (iPad) (and I'm certain a TON of other EA games*, but Dead Space is the only one on my watchlist) is down to $.99.
Infinity Blade II is down to $2.99.

*Yep. Mass Effect Infiltrator, about which I bitched endlessly earlier in this thread, is down to $.99, along with SimCity Deluxe for iPad and Real Racing 2. Which is actually Firemint, not EA, but whatever. I'M GETTIN' 'EM ALL! :9

Edit edit: While I'm at it, it looks like every Telltale game has dropped to $.99 and a ton of GameLoft games have also dropped to $.99.

I don't understand the issue.

Eduardo, it's really tacky of you to quote me and edit what I actually said so I sound like a complete fool. Not cool, man. :(

He's kind of a sad sap that way.

The developers, Wulven, pulled it and posted this message on BGG.

BGG people seem to be happy with that explanation. I think it's awful. Apple approved it before the client did? Why submit it before the client approved it? Oh, just to get it out the door before the Christmas freeze? And you really submitted it to the client in the state it was in? As much as you might say 'unintended release', if that's what you submitted to your client and to Apple, it's obviously what you considered to be in a finished state. So if the app is a shitty mess, that means you intended for a shitty mess to be your final product.

Valley Games is not amused.

When you submit an App to Apple, there's a checkbox you can set that gives you the option to release immediately on approval or hold for developer release. A few times I've had apps that we're in "release candidate" mode that I submitted while testing, but I can't imagine doing that without also checking the "hold for developer release" option.

I have NO idea why you'd submit an early beta however, that's just mystifying, and it sounds like a disagreement between the developer and the client on the state of the product.

So according to this post from Owen over at PT, there is a free preview build of SolForge on the App Store right now.

That looks nifty! Surely there's an iOS version in the works?

I hate to be a negative nancy*, but I really, really disliked the LotR LCG as a solo game. Out of a couple dozen games, none of them were ever close. Either I got some combo early on that allowed me to steamroll the game, or I failed to get much of anything and was completely trounced.

*not really

I'm not done trying the LotR LCG, but I'm in the same boat as Griot. Either it was too challenging or not at all.

No. FFG's pretty stupid about their approach to iOS. Despite huge success with Elder Sign, they don't seem to be in any hurry to put anything else out there.

Admittedly, when it comes to stuff that really NEEDS to be on there (Space Hulk Death Angel) or stuff that it'd be really NICE if it was on there (LotR TCG, Chaos in the Old World, X-Wing Minis) there are serious licensing issues that are probably all but impossible to work around.

Oh well, that's a shame.

But in the meantime, I've played the SolForge tutorial and I'm happy to report that it's pretty like Magic 2013 and slick like Ascension and with a healthy dose of Spectromancer to boot. Looks like a winner to me so far. Owen has an impressions thread over on Pocket Tactics.

Lords of Midnight has arrived. I'll be grabbing this one.

As have Final Fantasy IV (or 2 for you American losers who aren't kawaii otaku-kuns like me who know the real truth about Final Fantasy) and the Anomaly sequel, Anomaly Korea, and Karateka and Ravensword Shadowland,

Those are all pretty big releases!

Puerto Rico HD dropped from $8 to $3 for those who are fans of the boardgame. I'm not sure how this implementation is but it's highly rated on the app store, at least. The latest version has async MP as well.

(Technically the game is $3 even if you are not a fan of the boardgame, I suppose, but then why would you care.)

Man, this looks so neat with retina graphics. I had completely forgotten what a shameless LotR rip-off the story is. :)

I fumbled a bit with the interface. To move forward, tap at the top of the screen. To see the map, swipe up (it takes a few seconds to respond). To see the currently-selected character, swipe down.

Oh, and don't make Rorthron fight wolves by himself unless you are fond of feeding wolves.

Final Fantasy Tactics: War of the Lion is down to $8.50. Mind Elemental and BleedtheFreak convinced me to try Tactics Ogre, and I loved it. Time to go back and try FFT.

Yeah, but it is such an incredibly clever game design. Like an adventure/RPG taking place inside a wargame.

Actually, you can move forward by putting your finger in the middle of the screen and swiping down. Which feels pretty natural once you start doing it. The UI in general is really well done, and I like that they kept the original look of the game, and just sharpened it to Retina resolution.

I gave SolForge a whirl as well, and it has some promise. Simple, and quick pacing (it's obviously paced for asynch play), but with some interesting decision-making (that would probably be more interesting if I were more familiar with the cards). I like the central mechanic of "draw five cards, but you can only use two of them." That plus the dynamic of needing to play more creatures while simultaneously needing to play cards that buff and support your existing creatures makes for some interesting decision-making. The card leveling mechanic is clever. And the game is beautiful--really great art, a really nice, clean UI, and it't one of those games that makes you say "Ahhh, Retina." :)

I still want to know more about the collectible element of the game, though.

Usually TouchArcade keeps a running tally of what's dropping in price. Maybe they're doing it on the forums this year, unfortunately I got no access from work.

Lots of Square stuff dropped. Unfortunately, none of it is the stuff on my wishlist. (Man, the latest version of Chaos Rings Omega adds full VO, more than doubling the app size from 300 mb to over 700 mb. Am I the only one who would be a little pissy about that? I never have the volume up when playing these stupid games.)

Lego Harry Potter 1-4 and appstore game of the year runner up Rayman Jungle Runners are both $.99.

GTA Chinatown Wars (both versions) and Grand Theft Auto are both $.99. Vice City remains full price. THEY KNOW YOU'LL PAY IT!

The Avengers Initiative, Infinity Blade with Avengers characters, has dropped to FREE. Apparently this is exactly what it's worth.

Bastian is $.99. Max Payne is $.99.

Man. Max Payne on my phone. I can't imagine how much fun it must be to do that motherfucking dream sequence on your phone. Fuuuuuck thaaaaat.

Lost Treasures of Infocom is actually new, not a price drop. It claims to be free and shows off lots of games, except it really only comes with Zork and the others are all IAPs. Other Infocom games come in 5-game packs for $2.99 or get all 27 games on offer for $9.99. Unfortunately I would only want A Mind Forever Voyaging, and you can't just pay $.99 to get that by itself. SORRY, INFOCOM!

Someone should buy Karateka and tell me if it's worth $2.99. That's pretty expensive, guys.

Caylus, San Juan, and Puerto Rico dropped last night. The former is still not low enough for me, but the other two are half off, and I may just have to finally snag PR at that price. Right, guys? RIGHT?

Right. It's a fine game.

It's a wonderful design. Fond as I am of the iOS release from a nostalgia perspective, I really wish someone would make a thoroughly modern update/homage (e.g. Legend of Grimrock). It just begs for a modern interface and more fleshed out gameplay.

I'm not a big fan of the Caylus iOS edition, but San Juan is wonderful (though the AI is weak). Puerto Rico is a nice implementation but there's seemingly no way to program a decent AI for it.

PT post rounding up a bunch of the last-minute iOS releases. So. Many. Games.

Pixel Defenders and Sidius Nova look interesting. Ravensword is simply not the sort of game I want to play on a mobile device. I'm curious about the terribly-named Collapsible D, but not enough to play it in Italian. Lost Treasures of Infocom on my iPad? Yes, please! I already picked up Lords of Midnight and Stone Age this week, and the SolForge preview. I also downloaded the free version of Rad Soldiers.

And the Steam Winter sale starts today.

Help!

I thought Sidius Nova was fairly uninteresting because of the stupid lane combat. People who actually like stupid lane combat might disagree, though.

I have nothing against lane combat, per se, though it is often done poorly. But I've also played some great games that are essentially lane combat games, like Might & Magic: Clash of Heroes.

It's pretty stupid that Silversword has a manual as IAP.

I downloaded the Lost Treasures of Infocom, and from what I've seen so far they knocked it out of the park. It has a full tutorial, has auto-complete, lets you tap words in the text to add them to your command, has undo, and the interface has handy features like shortcuts for common commands and an interactive compass. You can even rearrange the shortcut bar.

In testing, the feature that lets you tap words in the text to add them to your command doesn't work well (Frotz is much better in this regard). The auto-complete seems grand, though.

You can get maps (all of them for $1). And Invisiclues ($1). And buy themed game packs for $3 or all 23 of them for $10.

Avengers Initiative is a fun "swipe to punch bad guys in the face" game, but suffers a bit from having microtransactions to speed your leveling. I have it, and have never played Infinity Blade, but it's good to play when I don't have wifi around.

There are tons of sales going on right now, obviously, but one that stood out to me is Spectromancer HD for a buck.

Some pointless bitching about Gameloft.

It annoys the hell out of me that they refuse to reduce the price of Dungeon Hunter 1 or 2. They've got a free Dungeon Hunter 3, packed with IAPs and other fremium bullshit, so of course they don't want to take away from that game with an all-in-one-package game like DH2. But fuck them! Hell, I guess I should just be glad that DH1 and 2 are still available, considering that the assholes pulled the (aforementionedally awesome) Let's Golf 2.

Is there no easy way in the iTunes store to see which things they have put on sale? Because it seems like they have noticed how effective the big Steam sales are, without really understanding how to pull that off.

It's not Apple putting these things on sale.

Also, AppShopper.

Edit: So how do you report shit to Apple, cos this looks kinda hinky.

Sure, but how hard would it be to have a filter in the store for "show sale items?" I guess pretty hard, considering how much Apple seems to hate giving you any sorting/filtering options at all.

I'd heard of it, but never used it. Thanks!