This seems like an appropriate place to say that I just put my first iPhone game up on the app store.
It's called Paper Snake. Similar premise to the classic arcade game Snake, but more dynamic and fast paced.
You can play a Flash gameplay demo here, though the actual app store game has cleaner animations, tilt controls, almost 3 times more levels and a smoother difficulty curve.
kedinik on
I made a game! Hotline Maui. Requires mouse and keyboard.
This seems like an appropriate place to say that I just put my first iPhone game up on the app store.
It's called Paper Snake. Similar premise to the classic arcade game Snake, but more dynamic and fast paced.
You can play a Flash gameplay demo here, though the actual app store game has cleaner animations, tilt controls, almost 3 times more levels and a smoother difficulty curve.
Sweet! Did you use Kevin MacLeod's music in the iPhone version? I used to use his music in podcasts!
I'm just saying, so take this as you will.. But.. If you had some sort of website, and we could export and upload character sheets and screenshots of our deaths, that would be cool.
Barring that, if you could give us some sort of option to automatically save a screenshot of our death to the photo album, and perhaps a method that would let us save our character sheet in some sort of similar way without having to photoshop screencaps of each item together..
That would be a cool thing. I'm not suggesting any course of action here. I'm just saying, if those thing happened... That might be pretty awesome. Just saying..
Ooh the death screenshot's a great idea, definitely going to have a look into adding that!
And yeah, I've gotten a lot of requests to save more character info and browse it via the local score list. It's a pretty big change so probably won't see this in the next couple of updates but I am keen to add it
Not really an Ipad gamer, but I saw a kid playing this game on the train that really caught my eye. It looked like a kind of realtime rpg where you get 4 characters with different classes and fight monsters. All the characters had this very cartoony almost Castle Crashers-esque look to them. Anyone have any idea what this game is called?
Not really an Ipad gamer, but I saw a kid playing this game on the train that really caught my eye. It looked like a kind of realtime rpg where you get 4 characters with different classes and fight monsters. All the characters had this very cartoony almost Castle Crashers-esque look to them. Anyone have any idea what this game is called?
Don't get me wrong. There are some fun games on the app store, but wow. What an ass. Why do some people who develop games like angry birds suddenly think they're so full of awesome when a couple years ago this would be equal to a crappy little flash game that no one would give a second glance?
Millions of dollars will do that to an ego.
In the defense of the Angry Birds guys, this had some context. The Nintendo guys were talking about how the cheap apps on the app store are lowering the overall quality of games, and talking up Nintendo stuff. In my opinion, there is nearly as much crapware on the DS as there is on the app store. The only thing that stops some of it is the higher barrier to entry for the developer. On the other hand, if I buy a shitty game on iOS, it's usually $1-3, whereas on the DS it is $30-40.
So, I'm not going to say that Angry Birds is some sort of game Jesus (although I do love smashing those pigs), but I kinda agree with what that guy is saying. The fact is that console (DS/Wii/Xbox/etc) games are artificially held at a certain point for the most part, so they are expected to have that level of production values and that much content. But honestly, I've gotten more fun out of Dungeon Raid, a $3 game on the app store, than I ever did out of Puzzle Quest, which was at least 10x more expensive on Nintendo's platform.
So, the issue isn't the lack of quality on the app store, it's the lower barrier to entry that means there is just slightly more crap to wade through. I think as long as Nintendo has physical buttons on their portables, though, they will stay relevant. At least to me. Well, that and Phoenix Wright.
Edit: In case it wasn't clear, Dungeon Raid is the most addictive thing on the app store, and oh god it needs to stop sucking me in with more classes to unlock and different skills to use and oh god wait it's 4 hours later what has happened to me!
schmads on
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Don't get me wrong. There are some fun games on the app store, but wow. What an ass. Why do some people who develop games like angry birds suddenly think they're so full of awesome when a couple years ago this would be equal to a crappy little flash game that no one would give a second glance?
Millions of dollars will do that to an ego.
In the defense of the Angry Birds guys, this had some context. The Nintendo guys were talking about how the cheap apps on the app store are lowering the overall quality of games, and talking up Nintendo stuff. In my opinion, there is nearly as much crapware on the DS as there is on the app store. The only thing that stops some of it is the higher barrier to entry for the developer. On the other hand, if I buy a shitty game on iOS, it's usually $1-3, whereas on the DS it is $30-40.
So, I'm not going to say that Angry Birds is some sort of game Jesus (although I do love smashing those pigs), but I kinda agree with what that guy is saying. The fact is that console (DS/Wii/Xbox/etc) games are artificially held at a certain point for the most part, so they are expected to have that level of production values and that much content. But honestly, I've gotten more fun out of Dungeon Raid, a $3 game on the app store, than I ever did out of Puzzle Quest, which was at least 10x more expensive on Nintendo's platform.
So, the issue isn't the lack of quality on the app store, it's the lower barrier to entry that means there is just slightly more crap to wade through. I think as long as Nintendo has physical buttons on their portables, though, they will stay relevant. At least to me. Well, that and Phoenix Wright.
Edit: In case it wasn't clear, Dungeon Raid is the most addictive thing on the app store, and oh god it needs to stop sucking me in with more classes to unlock and different skills to use and oh god wait it's 4 hours later what has happened to me!
Yeah. Reggie Fils-Aime is employing the classic "their stuff sucks" rhetoric that always pops up when someone starts encroaching on your market. Especially when you've somewhat carved yourself a nice little niche, like Nintendo had so many years ago.
I mean, the fact is, if you have a choice between, say, Broken Sword Director's Cut for the Nintendo DS/3DS (if it came out at this point), for $29.99 or even $19.99, or Broken Sword Director's Cut on the iPad/iPhone for $5.99, the choice is obvious. The only people that might be enticed to get the DS/3DS version is if you don't have an iPad/iPhone or you have such a hard-on for 3D that it would trump the higher resolution of the iOS version. And even DS-only owners might look at the price disparity and think "hmm, why do iPhone/iPad owners get the same game for a quarter of the price?" and might refuse to buy the DS/3DS version too.
So Reggie Fils-Aime is really just filling the generic PR role he and every other company in this kind of field has to fill. Like, you know, when Sony bullshitted through "oh you know vibration really ain't any old thing" or whatever.
Of course iOS gaming threatens Nintendo. There's nothing inherently cheap about a game. Good things aren't cheapened by bad things being on the market. I don't subscribe to the "cheapening of the market" mentality. Whether you have a shelf of 20 amazing novels or 1 amazing novel and 19 volumes of Twilight, that one volume is still an amazing book in its own right, isn't it?
I know what you're thinking: which of the recent tactical squad turn based games are worth getting?
Tactical Soldier: Undead Rising - Zombies are boring and lame, but I looked at screenshots and told myself that it would be guys with guns versus mindless beasts trying to melee me, thus making it kind of like an undead Space Hulk. In reality, the game feels a little slow-paced and the combat doesn't feel as tactically complex as a gun squad vs. gun squad game. I've only played the first few maps, but after a while I honestly shut the game down and played a quick map of Hunters: Ep One. Not worth the price, not as much fun as the screenshots make it seem. Appears to have gone onto the main apple recommended list in the store, but ... I'd say pass.
Great Little War Game - $0.99 for the phone version makes it hard to not say, "Fuck it, buy it!" As mentioned in posts above, it's an Advance Wars style game, skinned with individual troops instead of groups of infantry / vehicles. I enjoyed the game well enough mechanically, and this is going to sound like a really stupid issue, but I just had some kind of mental disconnect between the feeling of a AW type abstract game clothed in troops running around with assault rifles and sniper rifles and such. Much like TS:UR, I ended up playing Hunters after this one, too.
Big surprise: despite the total lack of story or structure, I keep coming back to Hunters. The mixed armor weights that determine number of action points, the skill trees, the ranks of weapons and their types and their straightforward application in balancing a squad, and more micro-manage-y focus on managing lines of sight and keeping overwatch to not be flat footed makes everything else seem a bit simple for different reasons. I was not the biggest fan of this when it came out due to unacceptable bugginess and it locking up my save game, but at this point the combat itself is right up the middle Space Hulk / Jagged Alliance / Fallout.
I know what you're thinking: which of the recent tactical squad turn based games are worth getting?
Tactical Soldier: Undead Rising - Zombies are boring and lame, but I looked at screenshots and told myself that it would be guys with guns versus mindless beasts trying to melee me, thus making it kind of like an undead Space Hulk. In reality, the game feels a little slow-paced and the combat doesn't feel as tactically complex as a gun squad vs. gun squad game. I've only played the first few maps, but after a while I honestly shut the game down and played a quick map of Hunters: Ep One. Not worth the price, not as much fun as the screenshots make it seem. Appears to have gone onto the main apple recommended list in the store, but ... I'd say pass.
Great Little War Game - $0.99 for the phone version makes it hard to not say, "Fuck it, buy it!" As mentioned in posts above, it's an Advance Wars style game, skinned with individual troops instead of groups of infantry / vehicles. I enjoyed the game well enough mechanically, and this is going to sound like a really stupid issue, but I just had some kind of mental disconnect between the feeling of a AW type abstract game clothed in troops running around with assault rifles and sniper rifles and such. Much like TS:UR, I ended up playing Hunters after this one, too.
Big surprise: despite the total lack of story or structure, I keep coming back to Hunters. The mixed armor weights that determine number of action points, the skill trees, the ranks of weapons and their types and their straightforward application in balancing a squad, and more micro-manage-y focus on managing lines of sight and keeping overwatch to not be flat footed makes everything else seem a bit simple for different reasons. I was not the biggest fan of this when it came out due to unacceptable bugginess and it locking up my save game, but at this point the combat itself is right up the middle Space Hulk / Jagged Alliance / Fallout.
You know, I love Hunters: Episode One HD (I, too, bought the full version).
All they need to do with it now is make it so you can auto-guard at the end of your turn. And, you know, add a goddamn story.
If those guys would do like a Jagged Alliance or Battletech Crescent Hawk's Revenge type thing for Episode Two, I would pay 20-30 dollars for the app.
Auto-guard button would be handy. Speaking of, how good is that skill where the anyone in the team can declare a guard for 0 ap? Holy moly is that one golden.
And yeah, I am feeling the lack of structure. I've been doing a map or two on most days for the last two weeks and am still engaged, given the amount of finer detail decisions you can make vs. more abstract gamey decisions for some other strategy games. That just panders more to my tastes.
Also I am probably being a bit too terse on the other games -- I should have mentioned that the full 3 free panning camera in TS:UR is pro as hell. Having an ammo count and the need to reload is a touch I miss from Jagged Alliance when playing Hunters E1's handwavey non-existence of reloading/ammo.
Great Little War Game probably gets better as more units come into play, what with AW as a template, but ...
Buuuut ... I don't know, I just want a structured story to set up situations that require my tactical brilliance to do tidy breach and clears of one room after another while my snipers on overwatch lock down any large, open areas. hunters is doing that more than any other game on the store so far.
also it's not like I have FFT to distract me or anything, so, you know
Auto-guard button would be handy. Speaking of, how good is that skill where the anyone in the team can declare a guard for 0 ap? Holy moly is that one golden.
And yeah, I am feeling the lack of structure. I've been doing a map or two on most days for the last two weeks and am still engaged, given the amount of finer detail decisions you can make vs. more abstract gamey decisions for some other strategy games. That just panders more to my tastes.
Also I am probably being a bit too terse on the other games -- I should have mentioned that the full 3 free panning camera in TS:UR is pro as hell. Having an ammo count and the need to reload is a touch I miss from Jagged Alliance when playing Hunters E1's handwavey non-existence of reloading/ammo.
Great Little War Game probably gets better as more units come into play, what with AW as a template, but ...
Buuuut ... I don't know, I just want a structured story to set up situations that require my tactical brilliance to do tidy breach and clears of one room after another while my snipers on overwatch lock down any large, open areas. hunters is doing that more than any other game on the store so far.
also it's not like I have FFT to distract me or anything, so, you know
War of Eustrath seems cool, but I've only played the first mission so far.
I might pick up the zombie one you mention above for the hell of it.
Great Little War Game looks a lot like Massive Assault/Full Metal Planet to me. Anything like those?
Drez on
Switch: SW-7690-2320-9238Steam/PSN/Xbox: Drezdar
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Sirialisof the Halite Throne.Registered Userregular
edited April 2011
I just noticed Battleheart mentioned here and picked it up, its fucking addictive ! :P
Sirialis on
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Big Red Tiebeautiful clydesdale style feettoo hot to trotRegistered Userregular
edited April 2011
battleheart was really fun until i couldn't tap on the correct units anymore
also my team comp sucked and i kept getting destroyed
battleheart was really fun until i couldn't tap on the correct units anymore
also my team comp sucked and i kept getting destroyed
I loved it but haven't played it in ages, partly due to Dungeon Raid but also knowing their is a Ranger class update due at some point, once I know a decent update is on the way I tend to wait for them...
@Drez:
i'm going against Desc's appraisal, and recommending Tactical Soldier: Undead Rising. The devs said that it was more designed to be a sort of mix of survival horror and tactics, so zombies might get dropped into a room you think you already cleared, that sort of thing, so there's a constant sense of pressure, rather than being able to take out all comers in a clean sweep. And true, it definitely plays differently from Hunters. Like Desc said- the camera is good too, although as i said earlier in my take on it, it does need management until you get used to how it moves around. The game also is more closely centred aruond the story mode, with graphic novel- style cutscenes, and you can't replay missions over and over to build up stats. I'd definitely recommend it myself- horses for courses etc.
Also, @ Desc: zombies are NOT boring and lame. You take that back, mister! (Well, ok, some ARE lame, but that's because they might only have one leg or whatever. ARE YOU PREJUDICED AGAINST ZOMBIE CAPPERS?!? IS THAT IT???)
If they ever dropped a FFT onto the iPad I would explode in my pants.
I think the fact that Nintendo didn't release any fucking thing with their launch is an attribute to their failures as a game company. I love Nintendo and I loved the DS for a long time, and I was a "DAY 1 OMG 3DS guy" until I saw the lineup. I can keep playing my Xbox or travel with my iPhone/iPad and get games on the fly, I don't see the need for a 3DS right now until they have about 5 games I "must" own. Until then... they are quickly shrinking from my field of view.
@Drez:
i'm going against Desc's appraisal, and recommending Tactical Soldier: Undead Rising. The devs said that it was more designed to be a sort of mix of survival horror and tactics, so zombies might get dropped into a room you think you already cleared, that sort of thing, so there's a constant sense of pressure, rather than being able to take out all comers in a clean sweep. And true, it definitely plays differently from Hunters. Like Desc said- the camera is good too, although as i said earlier in my take on it, it does need management until you get used to how it moves around. The game also is more closely centred aruond the story mode, with graphic novel- style cutscenes, and you can't replay missions over and over to build up stats. I'd definitely recommend it myself- horses for courses etc.
Also, @ Desc: zombies are NOT boring and lame. You take that back, mister! (Well, ok, some ARE lame, but that's because they might only have one leg or whatever. ARE YOU PREJUDICED AGAINST ZOMBIE CAPPERS?!? IS THAT IT???)
This game is great... got it last night - but how the hell do you assign skill points? I thought I had and when i went back into look i still show my total points as 4? I am not doing something right.
Also, @ Desc: zombies are NOT boring and lame. You take that back, mister! (Well, ok, some ARE lame, but that's because they might only have one leg or whatever. ARE YOU PREJUDICED AGAINST ZOMBIE CAPPERS?!? IS THAT IT???)
I pretty much reject entertainment that involves zombies across the board. This was a rare exception! Zombies are in everything and vampires are relegated to love stories for teenaged girls. I think that leaves werewolves for the next hot monster? Maybe it's time for the creature from the Black Lagoon to make his triumphant return.
I will dabble with it some more later (I paid for the damn game already, after all) but so far I just feel like I spend a lot of time shooting and missing and waiting for zombies to shamble at me.
I do give them credit for taking the time to do the cut scenes and to work on the presentation, because those are exactly where most iphone games cut mad corners.
The app store is glutted with zombie shooting and tower defense, so I wonder what's next? Probably an angry birds clone where you launch zombies ...
If they ever dropped a FFT onto the iPad I would explode in my pants.
I think the fact that Nintendo didn't release any fucking thing with their launch is an attribute to their failures as a game company. I love Nintendo and I loved the DS for a long time, and I was a "DAY 1 OMG 3DS guy" until I saw the lineup. I can keep playing my Xbox or travel with my iPhone/iPad and get games on the fly, I don't see the need for a 3DS right now until they have about 5 games I "must" own. Until then... they are quickly shrinking from my field of view.
Which is a shame really.
Well, FFT is coming (eventually). Dunno if there will be an HD version specifically, though.
Also, @ Desc: zombies are NOT boring and lame. You take that back, mister! (Well, ok, some ARE lame, but that's because they might only have one leg or whatever. ARE YOU PREJUDICED AGAINST ZOMBIE CAPPERS?!? IS THAT IT???)
I pretty much reject entertainment that involves zombies across the board. This was a rare exception! Zombies are in everything and vampires are relegated to love stories for teenaged girls. I think that leaves werewolves for the next hot monster? Maybe it's time for the creature from the Black Lagoon to make his triumphant return.
I will dabble with it some more later (I paid for the damn game already, after all) but so far I just feel like I spend a lot of time shooting and missing and waiting for zombies to shamble at me.
I do give them credit for taking the time to do the cut scenes and to work on the presentation, because those are exactly where most iphone games cut mad corners.
The app store is glutted with zombie shooting and tower defense, so I wonder what's next? Probably an angry birds clone where you launch zombies ...
Apparently, as cheesy as it is, fallen angels are the next hot thing. At least as far as teenage girls go. I hate myself for knowing that.
@Useless4:
Are you definitely assigning them correctly? If you get a stat up to the max, the little '+' sign changes to a '-', so you might think you added, say 3 points into a skill, except if it hit the max after 2, you'd end up only really adding 1 point.
@Desc:
Ya, it does take getting used to what the game isn't but once i got round that, i've been having a great time! Also, once you level up the soldiers to have more AP, and better aim, the missing and waiting for them to get to you isn't so much of a problem. I kind of like letting them crowd, then shotgunning their undead asses, or if they're further away, give them some grenade action.
Also, @ Desc: zombies are NOT boring and lame. You take that back, mister! (Well, ok, some ARE lame, but that's because they might only have one leg or whatever. ARE YOU PREJUDICED AGAINST ZOMBIE CAPPERS?!? IS THAT IT???)
I pretty much reject entertainment that involves zombies across the board. This was a rare exception! Zombies are in everything and vampires are relegated to love stories for teenaged girls. I think that leaves werewolves for the next hot monster? Maybe it's time for the creature from the Black Lagoon to make his triumphant return.
I will dabble with it some more later (I paid for the damn game already, after all) but so far I just feel like I spend a lot of time shooting and missing and waiting for zombies to shamble at me.
I do give them credit for taking the time to do the cut scenes and to work on the presentation, because those are exactly where most iphone games cut mad corners.
The app store is glutted with zombie shooting and tower defense, so I wonder what's next? Probably an angry birds clone where you launch zombies ...
@Useless4:
Are you definitely assigning them correctly? If you get a stat up to the max, the little '+' sign changes to a '-', so you might think you added, say 3 points into a skill, except if it hit the max after 2, you'd end up only really adding 1 point.
I don't think i have added any points. There are 1s in every skill. Up at the top it says Skill Points 4. I can't figure out how to place them.
Also, @ Desc: zombies are NOT boring and lame. You take that back, mister! (Well, ok, some ARE lame, but that's because they might only have one leg or whatever. ARE YOU PREJUDICED AGAINST ZOMBIE CAPPERS?!? IS THAT IT???)
I pretty much reject entertainment that involves zombies across the board. This was a rare exception! Zombies are in everything and vampires are relegated to love stories for teenaged girls. I think that leaves werewolves for the next hot monster? Maybe it's time for the creature from the Black Lagoon to make his triumphant return.
I will dabble with it some more later (I paid for the damn game already, after all) but so far I just feel like I spend a lot of time shooting and missing and waiting for zombies to shamble at me.
I do give them credit for taking the time to do the cut scenes and to work on the presentation, because those are exactly where most iphone games cut mad corners.
The app store is glutted with zombie shooting and tower defense, so I wonder what's next? Probably an angry birds clone where you launch zombies ...
Apparently, as cheesy as it is, fallen angels are the next hot thing. At least as far as teenage girls go. I hate myself for knowing that.
Please explain
I am dying to know
UnbreakableVow on
0
KalTorakOne way or another, they all end up inthe Undercity.Registered Userregular
edited April 2011
Can't wait for the next teen girl movie where a wooden, inactive girl-character has to choose between an impossibly attractive, perpetually shirtless fallen angel and an equally attractive, shirtless reformed demon, both of whom love her in a totally not abusive way.
I see that all of the Fighting Fantasy apps are on sale today. Does anyone have any experience with them? I've always been interested in Pen & Paper RPGs but don't have anyone to play with, so these would be ideal for me if they're not junk.
I see that all of the Fighting Fantasy apps are on sale today. Does anyone have any experience with them? I've always been interested in Pen & Paper RPGs but don't have anyone to play with, so these would be ideal for me if they're not junk.
Thanks for the tip-off! The apps are just the books with hotlinks and a bit of graphical frippery going on (as well as taking care of all the book-keeping and dice-rolling). The full-colour versions of the original illustrations are nice though.
As for the quality of the books themselves - very high, if you like that sort of thing. Most of the books available are the early ones though, which had the tendancy to be slightly rougher around the edges and monstrously unfair at times. One of the 'downsides' of the Apps are that you can't cheat like almost everyone did in the book versions - no 'quicksaving' to test if it was okay to take that truning, or fudging the starting dice rolls so that everything isn't a 1 or 2.
I'd recommend you start with Deathtrap Dungeon. City of Thieves is probably slightly better, but marginally less accessible for a newcomer. Warlock and Citadel are both pretty good (and the former is pretty iconic, being the first book in the series). Creature of Havoc is completely different from all the others, maddeningly hard and obscure - but also highly regarded.
Also, if you like these, you'll also probably love the Lone Wolf series - very similar to the Fighting Fantasy books, but telling a continuous story where you build skills and items between books. Slightly harder to get into, but importantly they're all totally free (with the author's blessing) to play online or download.
Posts
It's called Paper Snake. Similar premise to the classic arcade game Snake, but more dynamic and fast paced.
You can play a Flash gameplay demo here, though the actual app store game has cleaner animations, tilt controls, almost 3 times more levels and a smoother difficulty curve.
Sweet! Did you use Kevin MacLeod's music in the iPhone version? I used to use his music in podcasts!
SOLD! WOW. What a great concept.
This is really rad.
And yeah, I've gotten a lot of requests to save more character info and browse it via the local score list. It's a pretty big change so probably won't see this in the next couple of updates but I am keen to add it
Battleheart?
vvv No problem, it's an awesome game!
Need to stop.
In the defense of the Angry Birds guys, this had some context. The Nintendo guys were talking about how the cheap apps on the app store are lowering the overall quality of games, and talking up Nintendo stuff. In my opinion, there is nearly as much crapware on the DS as there is on the app store. The only thing that stops some of it is the higher barrier to entry for the developer. On the other hand, if I buy a shitty game on iOS, it's usually $1-3, whereas on the DS it is $30-40.
So, I'm not going to say that Angry Birds is some sort of game Jesus (although I do love smashing those pigs), but I kinda agree with what that guy is saying. The fact is that console (DS/Wii/Xbox/etc) games are artificially held at a certain point for the most part, so they are expected to have that level of production values and that much content. But honestly, I've gotten more fun out of Dungeon Raid, a $3 game on the app store, than I ever did out of Puzzle Quest, which was at least 10x more expensive on Nintendo's platform.
So, the issue isn't the lack of quality on the app store, it's the lower barrier to entry that means there is just slightly more crap to wade through. I think as long as Nintendo has physical buttons on their portables, though, they will stay relevant. At least to me. Well, that and Phoenix Wright.
Edit: In case it wasn't clear, Dungeon Raid is the most addictive thing on the app store, and oh god it needs to stop sucking me in with more classes to unlock and different skills to use and oh god wait it's 4 hours later what has happened to me!
Yeah. Reggie Fils-Aime is employing the classic "their stuff sucks" rhetoric that always pops up when someone starts encroaching on your market. Especially when you've somewhat carved yourself a nice little niche, like Nintendo had so many years ago.
I mean, the fact is, if you have a choice between, say, Broken Sword Director's Cut for the Nintendo DS/3DS (if it came out at this point), for $29.99 or even $19.99, or Broken Sword Director's Cut on the iPad/iPhone for $5.99, the choice is obvious. The only people that might be enticed to get the DS/3DS version is if you don't have an iPad/iPhone or you have such a hard-on for 3D that it would trump the higher resolution of the iOS version. And even DS-only owners might look at the price disparity and think "hmm, why do iPhone/iPad owners get the same game for a quarter of the price?" and might refuse to buy the DS/3DS version too.
So Reggie Fils-Aime is really just filling the generic PR role he and every other company in this kind of field has to fill. Like, you know, when Sony bullshitted through "oh you know vibration really ain't any old thing" or whatever.
Of course iOS gaming threatens Nintendo. There's nothing inherently cheap about a game. Good things aren't cheapened by bad things being on the market. I don't subscribe to the "cheapening of the market" mentality. Whether you have a shelf of 20 amazing novels or 1 amazing novel and 19 volumes of Twilight, that one volume is still an amazing book in its own right, isn't it?
Tactical Soldier: Undead Rising - Zombies are boring and lame, but I looked at screenshots and told myself that it would be guys with guns versus mindless beasts trying to melee me, thus making it kind of like an undead Space Hulk. In reality, the game feels a little slow-paced and the combat doesn't feel as tactically complex as a gun squad vs. gun squad game. I've only played the first few maps, but after a while I honestly shut the game down and played a quick map of Hunters: Ep One. Not worth the price, not as much fun as the screenshots make it seem. Appears to have gone onto the main apple recommended list in the store, but ... I'd say pass.
Great Little War Game - $0.99 for the phone version makes it hard to not say, "Fuck it, buy it!" As mentioned in posts above, it's an Advance Wars style game, skinned with individual troops instead of groups of infantry / vehicles. I enjoyed the game well enough mechanically, and this is going to sound like a really stupid issue, but I just had some kind of mental disconnect between the feeling of a AW type abstract game clothed in troops running around with assault rifles and sniper rifles and such. Much like TS:UR, I ended up playing Hunters after this one, too.
Big surprise: despite the total lack of story or structure, I keep coming back to Hunters. The mixed armor weights that determine number of action points, the skill trees, the ranks of weapons and their types and their straightforward application in balancing a squad, and more micro-manage-y focus on managing lines of sight and keeping overwatch to not be flat footed makes everything else seem a bit simple for different reasons. I was not the biggest fan of this when it came out due to unacceptable bugginess and it locking up my save game, but at this point the combat itself is right up the middle Space Hulk / Jagged Alliance / Fallout.
You know, I love Hunters: Episode One HD (I, too, bought the full version).
All they need to do with it now is make it so you can auto-guard at the end of your turn. And, you know, add a goddamn story.
If those guys would do like a Jagged Alliance or Battletech Crescent Hawk's Revenge type thing for Episode Two, I would pay 20-30 dollars for the app.
And yeah, I am feeling the lack of structure. I've been doing a map or two on most days for the last two weeks and am still engaged, given the amount of finer detail decisions you can make vs. more abstract gamey decisions for some other strategy games. That just panders more to my tastes.
Also I am probably being a bit too terse on the other games -- I should have mentioned that the full 3 free panning camera in TS:UR is pro as hell. Having an ammo count and the need to reload is a touch I miss from Jagged Alliance when playing Hunters E1's handwavey non-existence of reloading/ammo.
Great Little War Game probably gets better as more units come into play, what with AW as a template, but ...
Buuuut ... I don't know, I just want a structured story to set up situations that require my tactical brilliance to do tidy breach and clears of one room after another while my snipers on overwatch lock down any large, open areas. hunters is doing that more than any other game on the store so far.
also it's not like I have FFT to distract me or anything, so, you know
War of Eustrath seems cool, but I've only played the first mission so far.
I might pick up the zombie one you mention above for the hell of it.
Great Little War Game looks a lot like Massive Assault/Full Metal Planet to me. Anything like those?
also my team comp sucked and i kept getting destroyed
I loved it but haven't played it in ages, partly due to Dungeon Raid but also knowing their is a Ranger class update due at some point, once I know a decent update is on the way I tend to wait for them...
i'm going against Desc's appraisal, and recommending Tactical Soldier: Undead Rising. The devs said that it was more designed to be a sort of mix of survival horror and tactics, so zombies might get dropped into a room you think you already cleared, that sort of thing, so there's a constant sense of pressure, rather than being able to take out all comers in a clean sweep. And true, it definitely plays differently from Hunters. Like Desc said- the camera is good too, although as i said earlier in my take on it, it does need management until you get used to how it moves around. The game also is more closely centred aruond the story mode, with graphic novel- style cutscenes, and you can't replay missions over and over to build up stats. I'd definitely recommend it myself- horses for courses etc.
Also, @ Desc: zombies are NOT boring and lame. You take that back, mister! (Well, ok, some ARE lame, but that's because they might only have one leg or whatever. ARE YOU PREJUDICED AGAINST ZOMBIE CAPPERS?!? IS THAT IT???)
I'm looking at City of Secrets HD and Hot Springs Story right now.
I did pick up Death Rally for the iPad, which is really cool.
Oh Death Rally is out? Been looking forward to that one...
Yar. Universal app, too, I believe.
edit: Yep.
I think the fact that Nintendo didn't release any fucking thing with their launch is an attribute to their failures as a game company. I love Nintendo and I loved the DS for a long time, and I was a "DAY 1 OMG 3DS guy" until I saw the lineup. I can keep playing my Xbox or travel with my iPhone/iPad and get games on the fly, I don't see the need for a 3DS right now until they have about 5 games I "must" own. Until then... they are quickly shrinking from my field of view.
Which is a shame really.
This game is great... got it last night - but how the hell do you assign skill points? I thought I had and when i went back into look i still show my total points as 4? I am not doing something right.
Every time I fire it up, it gets to the loading screen, then crashes back to home/desktop.
Is this actually a blessing in disguise?
I pretty much reject entertainment that involves zombies across the board. This was a rare exception! Zombies are in everything and vampires are relegated to love stories for teenaged girls. I think that leaves werewolves for the next hot monster? Maybe it's time for the creature from the Black Lagoon to make his triumphant return.
I will dabble with it some more later (I paid for the damn game already, after all) but so far I just feel like I spend a lot of time shooting and missing and waiting for zombies to shamble at me.
I do give them credit for taking the time to do the cut scenes and to work on the presentation, because those are exactly where most iphone games cut mad corners.
The app store is glutted with zombie shooting and tower defense, so I wonder what's next? Probably an angry birds clone where you launch zombies ...
Well, FFT is coming (eventually). Dunno if there will be an HD version specifically, though.
Are you definitely assigning them correctly? If you get a stat up to the max, the little '+' sign changes to a '-', so you might think you added, say 3 points into a skill, except if it hit the max after 2, you'd end up only really adding 1 point.
@Desc:
Ya, it does take getting used to what the game isn't but once i got round that, i've been having a great time! Also, once you level up the soldiers to have more AP, and better aim, the missing and waiting for them to get to you isn't so much of a problem. I kind of like letting them crowd, then shotgunning their undead asses, or if they're further away, give them some grenade action.
Also, Xaviar: why do you know that?
Angry Zombie Towers: A Racing Sim Shooterville
brb phoning Gameloft
No idea if its any good, I bought it tho...
Xbox Live - Draysoth1
PSN - Draysoth
Steam - Draysoth
3DS - 2320-6133-3744
Please let me know if you add me!
I don't think i have added any points. There are 1s in every skill. Up at the top it says Skill Points 4. I can't figure out how to place them.
Please explain
I am dying to know
Thanks for the tip-off! The apps are just the books with hotlinks and a bit of graphical frippery going on (as well as taking care of all the book-keeping and dice-rolling). The full-colour versions of the original illustrations are nice though.
As for the quality of the books themselves - very high, if you like that sort of thing. Most of the books available are the early ones though, which had the tendancy to be slightly rougher around the edges and monstrously unfair at times. One of the 'downsides' of the Apps are that you can't cheat like almost everyone did in the book versions - no 'quicksaving' to test if it was okay to take that truning, or fudging the starting dice rolls so that everything isn't a 1 or 2.
I'd recommend you start with Deathtrap Dungeon. City of Thieves is probably slightly better, but marginally less accessible for a newcomer. Warlock and Citadel are both pretty good (and the former is pretty iconic, being the first book in the series). Creature of Havoc is completely different from all the others, maddeningly hard and obscure - but also highly regarded.
Also, if you like these, you'll also probably love the Lone Wolf series - very similar to the Fighting Fantasy books, but telling a continuous story where you build skills and items between books. Slightly harder to get into, but importantly they're all totally free (with the author's blessing) to play online or download.
What the fuck.