We’re all questing for the best deals, and I’m stuck in the tavern. Again.
Hello, excuse me. Yes, if you could just stop playing BattleLore and The Witcher for a few minutes, I’d like to chat. While you were busy stuffing your gullet with sweetened yams and jellied cranberries, more deals appeared on the App Store. That’s right, the App Store never sleeps. [well, except for 10 days in December. – ed.]
Trouble with Robots arrived on the App Store Wednesday night and, like we mentioned in our earlier post, it’s free to download with IAP that unlocks additional chapters. That’s still true, except that all the IAP in this card battler is free right now. You can get the app and all the content right now for nothing.
More deals after the break.
Nomad Games just announced the release of Talisman: Digital Edition for Kindle devices and are having a huge blow out on everything for Talisman, including all the IAP. I mean huge. If you’re remotely interested in Talisman, now’s the time to jump on board. Talisman: Digital Edition, which is the full 2-4 player version, is now $1 instead of $7. All the IAP is 50-75% off as well. If that’s not enough, we’ve also learned that the Highland expansion is underway and should be here in January. The Highland is another “big” expansion that adds a board that curves around the main board similar to their last expansion, The Dungeon.
The Banner Saga came to iOS in October and has also joined the black Friday bandwagon by lowering the price of Banner Saga to only $5, down from $9.
The guys at Hunted Cow are jumping in on the festivities as well. They’ve lowered the prices on all their wargames anywhere from 20-80%. There’s a ton of them available, so I’m just going to list everything with it’s current and regular price:
Civil War: 1862: Was $5, now $1
Civil War: 1863: Was $5, now $1
Civil War: 1864: Was $10, now $8
Rebels & Redcoats: Was $10, now $8
Penninsular War Battles: Was $10, now $8
Russian Front: Was $10, now $8
Tank Battle: North Africa: Was $5, now $1
Tank Battle: East Front 1941: Was $3, now $2
Tank Battle: East Front 1942: Was $3, now $2
Tank Battle: East Front 1943: Was $3, now $2
Tank Battle: East Front 1944: Was $3, now $2
Tank Battle: East Front 1945: Was $3, now $2
Ancient Battle: Rome: Was $5, now $1
Ancient Battle: Alexander: Was $10, now $8
Ancient Battle: Hannibal: Was $5, now $1
Last, but definitely not least, Czech Games Edition, the developer of the excellent Galaxy Trucker, has let us know that they’ve detected a disturbance in the space-time continuum that is causing prices to drop today. To counter it, they’ve raised the price of Galaxy Trucker by $1. That’s right, you can now pick up Galaxy Trucker for $9 instead of $8, but only for a limited time. Strange? Maybe, but nothing out of the usual if you’re familiar with the world of Galaxy Trucker.
PT ‘s closed down for the Thanksgiving holiday. This feature, which originally ran this past January, gave us a first look at Noel Llopis and Ron Carmel’s forthcoming multiplayer RTS Subterfuge.
It couldn’t have been built anyplace else.
Two of the most respected names in gaming are collaborating on slowplay real-time strategy title called Subterfuge — a multiplayer game of conquest and diplomacy that takes a real-time week (or more) to play. If that sounds a little like Neptune’s Pride 2 (which transfixed PT regulars when it launched last year), devs Ron Carmel (creator of World of Goo) and Noel Llopis (designer of Flower Garden and Rovio’s Amazing Alex) more than acknowledge the debt — they’re big fans of the game. But unlike the web-based Neptune’s Pride, Subterfuge will be a native app for mobile devices and features a number of gameplay twists that Carmel and Llopis have come up with.
After the jump, the very first public screenshot of Subterfuge and an interview with the creators on why you’ll want to play their slow-percollating 4X RTS.
Subterfuge takes place in an undersea world where a sudden shift in power dynamics has made once-peacefully co-existing colonies into rivals — the Peloponnesian War meets SeaQuest DSV. Each player controls a city-state and (over the course of the 7 to 10 days it takes to play a game) can launch submarines to reinforce their outposts and conquer other settlements. Because it can around 12 hours for subs to reach a neighbouring outpost, players have lot of time to talk to one another and collaborate, exchange information, or misdirect.
“The game is set in an underwater world, with several city-states, not exactly enemies, but fairly isolated from each other,” Llopis tells me. “On the eve of the game, the element of Neptunium is discovered, and the faction that first accumulates a certain amount, can bring peace and prosperity to their people.”
The theme isn’t a major focus of the Subterfuge, however. Llopis and Carmel are more interested in the relationships that players will naturally form with one another, rather than dictating any sort of role-play.
“Over the course of development we’ve gone back and forth on how much we want to develop the world and setting. We have a few ‘big ideas’ that we think would have a meaningful impact on the kind of experience the player has, but we’re not sure yet to what degree they’ll end up in the game,” Llopis says. “They represent a lot of work and this game is already extremely challenging to design because of the long iteration cycle inherent with playtesting a game that takes 1-2 weeks to play.”
A development screenshot of Subterfuge with non-final art assets.
Frequent players of Neptune’s Pride, Llopis and Carmel had noted that the game made some heavy demands of the player, expecting her to keep mental track of fleets en route to distant targets and research projects that could take multiple days to complete. Subterfuge incorporates some fairly sophisticated forecasting and automation that the devs hope will make the game easier to dip in and out of.
“We have this really cool feature that whenever you launch a sub, as you drag your finger away from the outpost, guiding the sub, you see what the world will look like whenever the sub reaches that point,” Llopis tells me. “So as you drag the sub towards an outpost, you’ll be able to see exactly what the outcome will be when it reaches it.”
“An interesting aspect of this future scrubbing is that due to fog of war, players do not have complete information about the world, so the simulated future is based only on what they see and know now. This means that the further you scrub into the future, the more inaccurate that future is.” That’s just what Yoda taught me.
The idea driving all of Subterfuge’s automation is to make the game as convenient as possible to play, letting it fit into your schedule rather than having to schedule yourself around it.
“We are currently working on allowing players to actually issue orders in the future,” Llopis says. “This means the player uses the same UI to schedule future actions as they do for present actions, and they never have to check in at a specific time to make sure something happens, or set an alarm for the middle of the night.
“This automation feature is meant to be a kind of backup system to make sure no player ever has to get up in the middle of the night to do something. We take great effort to give players flexible ways of issuing orders in the present, minimize the need for precise timing (anything that takes place in under 8 hours we consider a ‘twitch action’ and try to avoid it), and immediately communicate outcomes of player actions to take out all the guesswork that leads to obsessive checking of the game.”
Having played a fair bit of Neptune’s Pride myself, I mentioned to the devs that the biggest problem with the game seemed to be the diminishing incentive to log back into the game once you’d started losing. Nobody likes being a speed bump on the way to somebody else’s triumph.
“That’s a tough problem we’ve been working on since almost day one” Llopis says. “We’re approaching it from a variety of directions. First, the game is won by collecting Neptunium, not taking over outposts, so it’s both a race and a brawl. This means that a militarily weak player can still win if they play the diplomatic game right. Secondly, we cut back a lot on the positive feedback for players that expand to take a lot of territory, so there isn’t much of a snowball effect where the richer gets even richer.”
There’s other mechanics built in with that in mind. “It’s possible for a player to lose instantly by losing control of their city, or to lose a lot of Neptunium by losing control of their mines, so it’s possible for the rankings to change quite a bit during the game. We also have a system in the game that allows stronger players to support weaker players. This helps tighten the race, allows weaker players to have more influence over the game, and gives everyone another reason to talk and negotiate. It also allows players to engage in a indirect secret war with a player they are supposedly at peace with.
“There will always be cases when players feel hopeless and want to quit, even if their situation is objectively not hopeless. For those cases we allow players to resign in a way that minimizes the negative effects a departure will have on the players that stay in the game.”
Ron Carmel’s breakthrough hit World of Goo.
Carmel and Llopis haven’t yet figured out how we’ll be paying to play Subterfuge (“I should get in touch with [Neptune’s Pride creator] Jay [Kyburz] and see if he’ll share some of his wisdom,” Llopis says) but these are two highly successful devs that seem to be making the game for the sheer fun of it.
“From all the ideas we [considered making together], Subterfuge is probably the least likely to be a financial hit because it’s a pretty hardcore diplomacy/strategy game,” says Llopis. “But if there’s ever a time to pursue such a project just because you’re excited about the possibilities of that design space, it’s when you have a little padding and are eager for something meaty to sink your design teeth into!”
The devs are too early in production to start thinking about release dates, but they do know what platforms they want to be on.
“The plan is to do a simultaneous iOS/Android launch,” Carmel told me. “It’s being developed for phones because the nature of the game is such that players check in multiple times a day and phones are what people carry with them. But sometimes people want to sit down and scheme in front of a bigger and higher resolution screen, so the game will support tablets for sure, and post-launch we might port to PC.”
You can follow Subterfuge’s development by signing up for the mailing list on the game’s website — Carmel says they’ll be inviting alpha testers from that list in the near future.
This year, I’m thankful for this not being a MOBA.
“Hey, here’s a great idea: let’s announce the release of our game while the single biggest video game market in the West is drooling in front of the TV, near-catatonic from eating half their body weight in turkey.” Apparently Polish devs CD Projekt are hoping that Americans will subconsciously absorb the news that the Witcher Adventure Game has been released on iOS (iPad-only), on Android, and on PC, based on the popular RPG of the same name.
But let’s not give CD Projekt too much stick: in a world where every major console and PC game property is running headlong into the App Store to cash in on F2P psychosis, the Witcher Adventure Game appears to be a deeply nerdy digital board game. Thank you CD Projekt for not making your Witcher mobile game into a free-to-play kart racer (though they apparently are working on a licensed MOBA).
The Witcher Adventure Game (which was first announced back in January) was made in conjunction with high-spec tabletop publishers Fantasy Flight, who are naturally releasing a physical version of the game as well. The gist here is that you (and/or online multiplayer friends) control a group of four heroes questing around a board getting into low-fantasy hijnks. The game plays like a computer RPG to an extent — characters level up and develop new abilities as the game goes on.
‘You’ll see how they forget about these “Wolverines.”‘
You won’t find too many wargame monikers quite as dull as “Wars and Battles”. If French developers Kermorio ever tried their hand at baseball we’d get “Gloves and Caps” — or maybe an FPS called “Persons and Shooting”. I suspect that some children of Kermorio employees are named “Baby”.
Ignore the insipid name — Wars and Battles is an accessible wargame of moderate complexity with cagey scenarios and an intricately-modelled tabletop miniatures aesthetic. It’s lovely to behold and equally lovely to play. Even in a year where the wargame pond has been well stocked with fine beasts (Battle Academy 2, Desert Fox, Commander: The Great War), Wars and Battles is a singular specimen.
Time to werfer some panzers.
Wars and Battles is an ambitious wargame. Quite possibly too ambitious. When you crack open the app today you get a WWII game, but you’ll quickly notice open slots (labelled “2015”) for campaigns set in Korea, the Yom Kippur War, Austerlitz, and the American Civil War. In case you remain in any doubt about what’s up, the game’s title screen features a skirmish line of 1940s infantry making R. Lee Ermey war-faces alongside some Three Kingdoms-era spearmen and a samurai.
So the promise of Wars and Battles is that it isn’t just one wargame: it’s a never-ending cavalcade of wargames set in every imaginable period of history, delivered to your Wars and Battles app just as quickly as Kermorio can dream them up. I’m skeptical of this to a degree that would make Richard Dawkins uncomfortable. Every few years we see a new wargame system that tries to represent strategic-level combat from multiple eras with the same rules–it’s like the grognard’s Theory of Everything–and it usually falls right on its face. We’ve seen it work with more limited systems like Commands and Colors, but never with historical eras as diverse as W&B hopes to connect. You just can’t ever pull the camera back far enough for Zama to look like Okinawa.
Coming in 2016: that time you fought Chris Quinn in 3rd-period study hall.
But for the purpose of this review, we can only talk about the Wars and Battles that’s here right now — and that World War II wargame is pretty damned good. For the asking price, you get a campaign of 10 scenarios (playable from either the Axis or Allied side, so you could generously call that 20 scenarios) playable against a strong AI or async multiplayer, and single IAPs unlock a gaggle of advanced scenarios and a grand campaign — all set in 1944 during the Allied invasion of France.
Who knows if Wars and Battles will eventually make for convincing simulations of Napoleonic infantry squares or Cantabrian circles? But it gives very good WWII.
You’re pushing regimental-sized units around a hex-based map, trying to maintain a front line or break through the other guys’. In W&B, force concentration is the name of the game — you can put as many as three units onto one hex, and friendly units adjacent to your enemy can join in on an assault, supported by nearby artillery and overhead fighter-bombers. Terrain, weather, unit quality, and supply are all factored into the engine. It’s a thoughtful, easy-to-pick-up combat system that rewards dramatic maneuvers and inter-force cooperation the way a World War II game should. The scenario design is clever and the ramp-up in difficulty is gradual and exhilarating.
Pick on a kampfgruppe your own size.
Graphically, this might be the best-looking wargame we’ve seen in 2014. It’s strictly down to taste if Kermorio’s animated unit models are more pleasing than Shenandoah’s clean-lined icons, but there’s no denying the vast amount of labour that’s gone into the pieces. The UI is very thoughtful and once you’re fluent with it, it’s as good of a wargame interface as sported by any Shenandoah product or Unity of Command expansion. Formations are represented on the map by detailed and fully animated units that are presented alongside facts and figures, authentic unit badges, and potted histories.
A lot of that stuff is just historical fluff with little gameplay impact but I’m completely fine with that. The game’s badges and models and illustrations ensure that you’ll never confuse the Mustang-equipped 100th Fighter Wing with the Thunderbolt-equipped 303rd FW — although they’re no more different from one another than a couple of lesser Baldwin brothers, gameplay-wise. Some of our favourite wargames are guilty of fetishizing minor differences in military gear, but Kermorio resist that temptation in favour of a more sober operational-level wargame about the big picture of a battle.
It absolutely works — the emphasis here is on tactical prudence and big-picture thinking, not the MPG fuel economy of individual panzers. In general, the combat results feel more deterministic and less dice-driven than the ones in say, Battle of the Bulge. If you bring a three-to-one ratio of attackers to defenders, you’re probably going to win that fight. The hard questions start coming when you’re trying to figure out where you can afford to concentrate that much force. The scenarios generate a lot of tough calls and the fighting feels very good. The combat engine probably under-values the importance of terrain, but now I’m just nit-picking.
Like I said — exhaustive detail.
There is a great love for history on display here, plus a level of polish that is still atypical among core mobile games. It’s not (yet) as big of a sandbox as Panzer Corps or as lavishly detailed as a Shenandoah offering, but Wars and Battles is a top-notch wargame of rare quality. If Kermorio can deliver a few more WWII scenarios as good as this next year, we’ll agree to forget all these wacky ideas about doing pike & shot warfare in the same combat system.
Owen here, temporarily taking the helm back from Neumann as we put the great ship Pocket Tactics into port for the Thanksgiving holiday.
As is my idiom, I’m seizing the reins at the exact moment that the horses are going to sleep — this is a snoozer of a release night with exactly one good game on offer. But it’s a pretty dang good game. Come meet me after the jump and I’ll tell you all about the preview build of Wars and Battles I’ve been playing, and as a bonus we’ll read the tea leaves on whether or not to expect Telltale’s latest adventure tonight.
Wars and Battles was supposed to hit last week, but French devs Kermorio told us that Apple requested they hold it a week so they could feature it in the App Store. Once you get your hands on this game, you’re going to see why Cupertino wanted to give it the name-in-lights treatment: it’s just a gorgeous-looking thing.
And it’s not just pretty, either — I’ve had a preview build for a while now and it’s one of my favorite wargames of this year. Given that we’ve had Battle Academy 2, Heroes of the Revolution, and Desert Fox drop in 2014, I think that’s saying something. W&B is shipping with a set of WWII Normandy invasion scenarios, and the devs intend to continue supporting the game with more scenarios in 2015, including some beyond WWII. There is multiplayer right now.
I’ve got a lot more to say, but I’ll save it for the review that I’ve got sitting in the hopper waiting for midnight. Come back at 9pm Eastern when Wars and Battles goes live in the US for that.
Wars and Battles is iPad-only (Android and phone versions are coming, we’re told) and Kermorio are chunking out the content in a slightly unusual way. For $6.99 you’ll get the base game which includes the base campaign for the Normandy scenario and every scenario that Kermorio intends to ship later — they have 7 on the drawing board. There will be single IAPs that unlock a set of “advanced” scenarios and a grand campaign, but you can get everything for $9.99 I’m told. That’s a little confusing, but it makes more sense when you’re looking at the app.
Wars and Battles is out tonight at midnight for $7 wherever you are. Come back for my review at midnight Eastern.
Secondly, we just might see Telltale drop their latest adventure on iOS tomorrow. Tales from the Borderlands hit PC this past week but isn’t out in New Zealand right now, but if I remember right the last couple of new Telltale games showed up in the middle of the day on Thursday, not midnight Wednesday. So maybe we’ll see this in the next 24 hours. Or not. Either way, it gives me a good excuse to post this chuckle-worthy trailer.
And yes — as Neumann pointed out a couple of weeks ago — that is Patrick Warburton you’re hearing.
Thanksgiving is coming tomorrow here in the US and it’s a day of reflection and giving quiet thanks for all that we have in our lives, and we celebrate by trying to buy as much new crap as possible. I’m not sure we’re getting the message. Then again, when everything is on sale, what are you going to do?
The App Store isn’t immune from the cunning wiles of Black Friday. This time of year you can snatch up some pretty amazing apps for a steal. Wargames? On sale. Board games? Yep, those too. We’ll even throw in an RPG for good measure. Check out the deals after the break.
Slitherine has had a pretty amazing 2014. They ended last year with the fantastic Panzer Corps and capped it off with Battle Academy 2: Eastern Front just before Halloween. They make some great war games and charge a premium price for them. Now’s your chance to pick up a selected few for a bargain.
Panzer Corps garnered a rare 5-star review from Owen last year, and even prompted him to write a walkthrough-style post for newbies. That doesn’t happen with just any game. Panzer Corps is a special one and at $20 is worth every penny. Right now, however, you can snag it for $10 which is bordering on theft.
That’s not all from Slitherine, though. The original Battle Academy is also only $10 as well. This is another one that Owen gave the 5-star treatment and is seriously chocked full of enough goodness that it won our Reader’s Choice Game of the Year back in 2012.
Don’t think Slitherine’s done quite yet. The epic WW1 game, Commander: The Great War has also plunged from it’s $20 normal price down to $10. This one pulled another guide for noobs post from Owen and might be the only wargame on the iPad to feature the entire scope of a world war rather than focussing on a specific front or battle. What I’m trying to say is, it’s huge, and it’s only $10.
It’s not just their $20 games that have gone on sale, though, Slitherine has also dropped the prices of some of their smaller games as well. Legion is now only only $5 instead of $10, Great Battles Medieval is down to $5 from $10 as well, and Conquest! Medieval Realms which is now $2 instead of $3. Even some of their lesser known titles like their Egyptian empire builder made in conjuntion with the History Channel are on sale right now for $3 instead of $5 (or $1 down from $2 if you want the iPhone-only version).
Slitherine-owned Shenandoah Studios is getting in on the act as well. All three of their wargames, including the best wargame of 2012, Battle of the Bulge, and best multiplayer game of 2013, Drive on Moscow. You can pick up Battle of Bulge for $5 instead of $10, Drive on Moscow is also $5 instead of $10.
Slitherine isn’t the only dog in the hunt, though. We already mentioned Playdek’s sale, but we’re going to mention them again because Playdek. Their sale goes on through December 1st and includes Agricola which is now $3 instead of $7. Also, the IAP for new decks in Agricola are down to $1 a piece. You can also grab the card game with slightly naughty artwork, Tanto Cuore for only $1, down from $3. On top of that, all the IAP in Ascension: Chronicle of the Godslayer is on sale for $1 except the latest, Darkness Unleashed, which is $2.
Full Control has put their iPad port of Games Workshop classic Space Hulk out for only $3 instead of $10.
While a bit more fitting for Halloween, babaroga has put the survival board game, Zombies!!! on sale right now for only $1 instead of $2.
Ossian Studios has just released The Shadow Sun for Android devices, and it debuted there for $5. Just to be fair, they dropped the price of the iOS version from $8 to $5 as well. This is a permanent price drop, and not a sale, but I think you guys can handle it.
Tilt to Live developer, One Man Left, is putting all three of the Tilt to Live games on sale in bundle format tomorrow. The bundle will allow you to pick up all three games for 44% off. All of the Tilt to Live games are great twitch experiences on iOS, with Tilt to Live 2 even grabbing our Action Game of the Year award in 2013. You can pick up the bundle here when it goes live tomorrow.
Lastly, Codito Development is putting everything they have on sale for $1 right now. They’ve released some great board game ports over the years so if you have missed one, give it a try for a buck. Their games include: Medici, Ra, Tigris and Euphrates, Tikal, Le Havre, and A Brief History of the World.
Thanks to gosenbach, devensega, and all the PT readers who are on top of the goings on in the App Store. Thanks to all you PT readers for being here. We wouldn’t be if it wasn’t for you guys.
Wait? It’s all-seeing? I’ll have to clean out my browser cache.
A couple weeks ago I looked at an upcoming game that mixes tower defense with the basics of Dungeon Keeper (the original one, not the crappy EA money grab) called Wicked Lair. Since then, I’ve had the opportunity to play around with the game a bit and, starting today, you can as well. It was just released this morning for both iOS and Android.
Wicked Lair puts you in the pointy shoes of an evil overachiever who’s job is to destroy the neighboring town. Of course, the local townsfolk aren’t really up for this and they send forth the standard adventuring group to harsh your buzz. Your job is to build new layers of your dungeon, each with different specialities, stock them with monsters and traps and kill everything that enters. Oh, and creating a few monsters that can leave your dungeon to attack the town helps, too.
The game is free to download, and you can unlock everything in the game for $2 via IAP. There aren’t any timers or other freemium nonsense involved. Wicked Lair is available for both iOS Universal and Android.
Yes, I’m the blue guys. Yes, I’m getting my ass kicked. Thanks for asking.
Apparently the folks at Fantasy Flight Games are a little confused and think it’s Christmas morning when it isn’t even Thanksgiving yet. Waking up today, under my imaginary tree, was a shiny package that I wasn’t expecting at all: BattleLore Command with an App Store bow. I’ve been able to play a little of the solo campaign this morning and, I’m not going to lie to you, it’s pretty great.
BattleLore Command was first announced at Gen Con this year, and is the first time the Command & Colors system created by designer Richard Borg has hit mobile devices. Basically, it’s a skirmish game in which two armies face off, but control of your armies is done with cards which indicate how many troops, and from which sections on the board, can be activated each turn. BattleLore adds a lot to that basic system, including a Lore system that allows you to launch spells that alter the battlefield and a slew of creatures that will join the battle on both sides.
On top of a solo campaign, there is also skirmish mode which plays pretty much just like the board game. You can play this mode either against the CPU or against others players via local wifi.
BattleLore Command is available for both iOS Universal (iPad2 and iPhone 4s or later) and Android. It will run you $10, but there’s no IAP to be seen, other than a placeholder for future expansions.
There are several developers out there who seem to keep popping out new material continuously, and you begin to wonder when the hell they get a chance to sleep. One of the newer, red-eyed faces in that crowd is gamebook dev, Cubus Games. These are the guys who created Heavy Metal Thunder which was one of the most original and fun gamebooks I’ve read in a long time.
They’re back on iOS and Android with a Mayan adventure that’s been out for a couple weeks now, Necklace of Skulls. The book will lead you through Mayan myths where you’ll face gods and ghosts as you battle for your very soul. Yeah, their books are like that.
That’s not all. Coming “imminently” is the follow-up to Heavy Metal Thunder, Sol-Invictus. The sequel will extend the tale of your amnesic anti-hero and, going out on a limb here, will probably entail graphic, brutal, and mostly well-deserved violence.
Heavy Metal Thunder is available on both iOS and Android, and Necklace of Skulls is on both platforms as well.
No turkeys were harmed in the writing of this post
For our non-US readers, this Thursday is Thanksgiving Day here in the States. That means we’ll eat way too much, watch American football, and fly low enough under the radar to avoid having to help grandma with the dishes. We’re supposedly doing this to remember to be thankful for what we have, but its real purpose is to get drunk and fall asleep on the couch with your pants unbuttoned. It’s kind of weird.
That said, it’s not all turkey gravy and sweet potatoes. We still need to load up on games for the long weekend. Here comes Playdek to help our cause with a Thanksgiving sale that’s going on right now. What’s on the menu? You can nab the Agricola IAP decks for cheap, only $1 a piece, as well as the Agricola app which is only $3 instead of $7. You can also snag everyone’s favorite creepy maid game, Tanto Cuore, for only $1 instead of $3. That’s still not all! You can pick up the Ascension expansions for only $1 each, except for the latest, Darkness Unleashed which is on sale for $2.
The sale lasts through December 1st.
After the break, Board With Life plays Agricola. Yes, it has nothing to do with Playdek, but it explains in four minutes why my game group won’t play Agricola with me any more.
Grigori Stones takes your usual digital CCG, replaces the cards with tiles, adds a dash of Mahjong, Stratego, and miniatures games and puts it all on your iPad. Join me in asking, what the hell?
In Grigori Stones you take on the role of one of four factions–vampires, werewolves, zombies, and Freemasons–and you build an army, miniatures game style, out of your faction tiles. Each tile is worth a value, and you’re given a cap that your army cannot exceed. Thus, you can have a large tileset with small, weak creatures, or have very few tiles with some gargantuan minions. Tiles are randomly placed on a board and each side has a flag buried somewhere on their side. Each turn, players can either move a tile, attack with a tile, use a tile ability, or place a new tile on the board. If it all seems a bit confusing, developer Luis Cruz has created a fully illustrated how-to-play post over on his site.
The structure of the game is similar to a CCG, where the initial download is free and additional tiles can be earned or purchased. It looks like complete sets of tiles can be earned by playing through the 35-level single player campaign, but there is also pass-and-play or online multiplayer.
Grigori Stones is available now for iPad. Gameplay trailer, complete with Halloween Spooky Sounds soundtrack, after the break.
1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. Centaurs are fair game, however.
Personally, I always thought the biggest trouble with robots was the uncanny valley. Seems I was wrong, and the real problem with robots lies closer to the Skynet version and robots are just straight up jerks. At least that’s the path taken by upcoming CCG, The Trouble With Robots.
TWR is a card game in which you battle robots intent on taking over the world, but what sets it apart from other card games on the App Store is that these battles are all real time. Once you drop units on the battlefield, it’s hands-off as they engage the robot menace autonomously. During the battle, you can augment the goings-on by dropping effects and new units on the battlefield, but what they do once they get there is up to them. It sounds fairly insane, but the game has been around long enough on PC to garner praise from Richard Garfield way back in 2012. While TWR is a collectible card game, there are only 48 cards and your deck size is extremely limited per battle. That means that there is no IAP for getting any of the cards, only for unlocking more content such as new “chapters” in the TWR storyline.
Trouble With Robots should be hitting iOS next week with an Android version coming shortly thereafter. Lengthy gameplay/tutorial trailer after the break.
I know Armageddon’s not an RTS, but anyone else really want a mashup of of Warcraft and Starcraft right about now?
Slitherine’s Battle Academy 2: Eastern Front is a pretty great game, but if you’re getting tired of pushing StuG III’s and T-34’s around then you, my friend, are out of luck. Or maybe you just have to wait until next year when Slitherine puts a different kind of war game on you iPad, one in which you lead legions of Space Marines against a massive Ork WAAAGH!? That sounds pretty great to me.
While iPad users will have to wait until next year to clash with Ghazghkull Thraka, PC users will get the chance next week when Warhammer 40K: Armageddon arrives on Steam. This is a massive game that covers the entire 2nd War of Armageddon through a campaign of 30 scenarios. On top of that, there are over 300 different units you can control from units like the Steel Legion, Blood Angels and Ultramarines. That’s just the single player stuff. You will also be able to play scenarios asynchronously and cross-platform.
Slitherine just published the official release trailer for Armageddon as well. It’s completely gameplay free and the narrator is the same guy from that Hell video earlier this week. He’s keeping it a little more in check this time around though. Check it out after the break.
I’ll be the first to admit that I get things wrong every now and then out of sheer incompetence. Then there are other times when we nail it, but end up wrong anyway. Today is just such a day. Yesterday we reported that the much anticipated war game, Wars and Battles, would be coming out for iPad last night. We had all our ducks in a row, complete with emails from the developer and even finding it ready for purchase on the New Zealand App Store, but when the bugle sounded reveille this morning our email indicated that Wars and Battles was being delayed until next week.
Before you go thinking that Wars and Battles wasn’t actually ready for the big show, you need to know that it wasn’t pulled for technical reasons. No, instead we should be blaming Apple. Seems that Apple wants to feature the app when it releases, and to get everything in order, an extra week was needed. So, no worries, we’ll just have to wait until next week to head to Normandy.
Tonight we have a couple of pretty big war game titles hitting as well as the latest in a popular tower defense series. Of course, we have a puzzle game to share as well, but the first title I want to talk about is a new gamebook that’s NOT out for iOS, but arrived today for Android devices. It’s called Narborion Saga and what struck me about the release trailer was the terrible font and overbearing music. I swear that the trailer is telling me to “find affics” and “visit Park place” while screaming at me in Elvish. What the hell? Then I found the gameplay trailer and everything was alright with the world again.
Narborion Saga looks to be a fairly standard gamebook, but leaning a little heavier on the RPG elements than what we’re used to from Tin Man or inkle. You’re able to pick your stats and jostle around your inventory just like a real RPG. It’s currently available for both Android and Kindle devices and should hit iOS in a week or two, after it escapes the Apple review process. If we’re looking for a downside, it’s that the gamebook is free to download with IAP. I was hoping that the IAP would just unlock the game, but considering that you get 350 in-game gold if you register on their site during the next week, I’m worried that we might have the first freemium gamebook. I won’t get a copy until it hits for iOS, so I can let you know then.
Both trailers after the break, along with a slew of other App Store newcomers. (Sorry for the lack of links, everyone. I’m having a problem getting to the NZ App Store and can’t grab them until they hit the US)
We mentioned War and Battles last week, and the trailer really blew me away. Wars and Battles acts like a console for war games and the battles that get released are like new cartridges. It will come with Normandy installed, but over the next year you’ll be able to buy new wars like October War of 1973 or Austerlitz in 1805 and play a whole new game. The game will have solo campaigns as well as online, asynchronous multiplayer and more units than you can shake an M1 Garand at. It’s currently $9 in NZD which should translate to $6 or $7 USD, I think.
Hunted Cow is busy. Earlier this week they released Hell for PC with Slitherine, and it was just 2 weeks ago that Rebels & Redcoats hit the App Store. Tonight they launch the fourth in their Ancient Battle series, Ancient Battle: Successors. This one delves into the mess that Alexander left behind when he had the gall to die at age 32. Like all Hunted Cow games, this one has a bunch of campaigns to play and a gaggle of units to fill them with. No video, but we have a screenshot.
Quiz: How many unique ancient units are there?
Election Manager 2016 actually came out earlier this week, but it deserved a little love so I’m going to make sure all the PT readers know about it. Election Manager 2016 puts you in charge of the campaign for POTUS, and lets you recreate the 2012 election or simulate any other election, even one with only independent candidates. You decide where the money goes and how to raise more, as well as taking care of all the polling you’ll need to make those decisions. 2-4 candidates can vie for the Presidency, and you can even play mulitplayer via pass-and-play. Election Manager 2016 is for iOS Universal and will run you $4.
The Kingdom Rush series has had a long history on the App Store, the first one coming out back in 2011. Since then it spawned a sequel called Kingdom Rush Frontiers and the third title in the series, Kingdom Rush Origins, is coming tonight. Not much to say about the series, as they’re basic tower defense games. As Clancy said in his review of KR: Frontiers, “It’s a thing.” So, if you’re not a tower defense fan, this probably won’t change your mind. If you do like the genre, however, it’s one of the better examples of it on the App Store. For you Android users, it’s also hitting Google Play later tonight as well. The first two Kingdom Rush games have theannoying habit of putting out separate versions for iPad and iPhone. Not sure if Origins will follow that same pattern, but if you’re going to buy tonight make sure you’re buying the right version for your device.
Lastly, we have another one of those minimalist puzzle games that are all the rage on the App Store lately. Earlier this week we spotted the very cool Zengrams, and tonight it’s the hard to spell, Quetzalcoatl. Named after the feathered serpent of Aztec myth, this puzzle game has you pulling snake-like pieces that have colors spaced within them. You need to pull the snakes into positions so the colors in the snakes match the colors underneath. It looks like a perfect candidate for one of those, “play for 5 minutes” puzzles which, let’s face it, never gets old. Quetzalcoatl contains 180 puzzles and should be released tonight for $2.
While you guys are taking out Omnitron, I’m going to go check out the Funny Bunny
Sentinels of the Multiverse is one of the best board game ports of the year, and one of the best overall games of the year as well. It does just about everything right and with the number of expansions already available for the cardboard version, its future is incredibly bright. That future begins next week when the first update for Sentinels goes live.
Aside from all the full expansions that add new characters and villains there are also a legion of what Greater Than Games calls “promo cards”. These are single cards that you get by attending conventions or through other special offers. Promo cards replace existing heroes and villains giving them a new power as well as filling in more backstory of the universe created for the game. The upcoming 1.1 patch has 6 of these promo cards–called Variants in the app–that you can get for free, but you have to find and unlock them. It’s not as easy as it sounds. I’ve been playing all morning with the new update [it's a rough life -ed.] and have yet to stumble onto one.
In addition to the promos, the graphics have received a noticeable upgrade. Characters are bigger with different poses and angles. Also, they’ve added a cool new intro screen before each game begins. Top that off with bug fixes and the ability to flip double-sided cards, and Sentinels is poised to become even better than it already is.
Sentinels for iPad and Android will cost you a cool $10. New screenshots after the break.
Note the bigger characters. It really makes the game pop.
Here you see the new graphics of…aw, who am I kidding. I only posted this so you could see how badly I kicked the Baron’s ass.
I thought that Tachyon was giving me a clue to unlock a promo card. I was wrong.
Every time a promo card is unlocked, an angel gets its wings
The Curious Expedition is a rouge-like in the vein of FTL: Faster Than Light, but it replaces the sci-fi setting with one more in line with Burroughs, Doyle and Verne. It’s a world that hasn’t yet been explored, where dinosaurs could still roam the Amazon basin, where golden pyramids have hidden for centuries waiting for plunder and where rich Englishmen gather in stuffy rooms to talk about their latest expedition. It’s pretty much what would happen if FTL and 80 Days had a kid.
Curious Expedition puts you in the shoes of some of history’s greatest figures and then pushes you out the door looking for fame and fortune. You can explore the globe as Darwin, Curie, Tesla, or a dozen different characters, each with a special ability that changes the way the game plays. After picking your crew and gear, you’re off to a procedurally generated map searching for a fabled golden pyramid. Each step of your journey will drain your sanity and if your sanity drops to zero, your game is over. Along the trek, you’ll find hidden shrines and villages, be attacked by wild animals, discover natural wonders and have to find and trade with locals.
I’ve been playing the alpha version a bit and I’m really digging it so far. You’re trying to complete a series of 5 expeditions and return to the Adventurer’s Club to boast of your glory. I haven’t made it back yet. Damn tigers. The game is entering a paid-alpha phase next week for PC, Mac and Linux and it plays very well in a browser. It should be coming to tablets as a native app sometime in 2015.
Up to this point, every game that’s tried to emulate the Star Trek experience on our mobile devices has sucked harder than Code of Honor and Angel One combined. Seriously, Star Command “won” Disappointment of the Year for 2013 and Trexels, well, the less said the better.
As bleak as things have been, it appears we’re now leaving the Delta Quadrant and have made our way into Federation space with the upcoming release of Tiny Trek as well as the Kickstarted Interstellaria which has just entered beta. You remember Interstellaria, right? It’s a 2D space exploration game that involves piloting starships, away missions, and all around Trek-like stuff. Developer Coldrice has just released a trailer that shows the game in action and it looks like all we’re missing is a holodeck malfunction that creates sentient life and kills a redshirt or two. Maybe in an expansion.
They’ve just entered beta, so there’s still no ETA on when it will be beaming to our tablets. Still, if we get what we’re seeing in the video, I’ll be excited as Riker at a Parrises squares tournament. Trailer after the break.
“Got into my hand and it went bad, so I lopped it off at the wrist. It, uh, got in that guy’s head too. Definitely.”
Auroch Digital’s updated Chainsaw Warrior was seen by many as a wholly faithful adaptation of the 1987 Games Workshop original. Like its progenitor, digital Warrior is a timed, single-player, dice-driven jaunt through a deck of zombified nasties that have overrun New York City (maybe upstate New York, too, but who would notice?) with the help of a supernatural evil, Darkness.
Owen praised the game’s grimy sci-fi while lambasting how it played in his review. In short: the thing’s heavy on chance, light on decisions, and that goes for both the ’87 classic and the newfangled app.
Now, appearing from the shadows like some alternate Earth mutation, comes Chainsaw Warrior: Lords of the Night, a full sequel to Chainsaw Warrior that will hopefully temper the dice rolling with some more substantial mechanics. Auroch are making special mention of improved combat, an upgrades system, and mini-bosses that promise tactical challenge, though it remains to be seen just how far the game will stray from the original’s formula.
Chainsaw Warrior: Lords of the Night will be $4.99 on iOS, Android, and Steam early next year. To celebrate the sequel announcement, Chainsaw Warrior is on sale today, down to $1.99 from $4.99 on iOS, with a similar Android and PC drop coming as well (though at the time of writing those two versions still appear full-price).
Chainsaw Warrior trailer after the jump, as well as the PT Predict-O-Tron’s estimation of what Lords of the Night might look like.
It was over two years ago when Aussie developer League of Geeks wowed us with a gameplay-free and yet completely captivating trailer for their anthropomorphic fantasy board game, Armello. Since then, screenshots were trickled out sporadically with updates culminating in a new Kickstarter this spring that ended up dumping more than $300K into LoG’s coffers and opening up Armello to both Android and Windows tablets.
On Saturday, LoG had another major announcement: beta begins this week. This is great news for backers of the Kickstarter project, as they’ll have access to the beta as soon as it pops up. For everyone else it’s good news as well, because it means we’re that much closer to release which, at this point, is still estimated for March of 2015. The beta will only be available for PC on Steam, however, so even the Kickstarter backers have to wait to play Armello on their iPads.
After the break, some footage of the alpha version to give you an idea of what Armello brings to the table.
This image might as well be Fry and the “Shut Up and Take My Money” meme.
Tales From the Borderlands is yet another episodic adventure game from those busy bees over at Telltale Games. Along with Game of Thrones, that makes two major franchises being launched by Telltale in the next month or so. May God have mercy on our wallets.
Tales from the Borderlands puts you in the shoes of Rhys, a Hyperion company man, as well as Fiona, a con artist trying for her biggest swindle yet. I’ve never set foot in the Borderlands universe or the planet of Pandora due to a strong aversion to first-person shooters but, after watching the trailer, I can’t wait to get my hands dirty. They’ve pulled out all the stops for voice talent here, with a who’s who of video game voice talent: Troy Baker, Laura Bailey, and Nolan North as well as Nerdist, Chris Hardwick and Puddy. Yes, Patrick Warburton voices a character in the game. Probably should have led with that.
The game takes place after the events of Borderlands 2 and will consist of five episodes, the first coming before the end of 2014. Trailer after the break.
Given that the original PC edition of Battle Isle successor, Battle Worlds: Kronos, hit shelves almost exactly a year ago, there’s all sorts of wry witticisms to make about the notion of time. Instead of plucking the singular overripe fruit, let us celebrate another decent strategy game hitting tablets, albeit one that throws a tread here and there.
I’m a sucker for the Battle Isle series. Blue Byte’s brand of clean and clear warmongering always sat well on the palate, proffering succinct strategy that erred more towards an Intelligent Systems date than a fiery SSI tryst. KING Art Games heeded the call in a post-Andosian War clime by successfully kickstarting Battle Worlds: Kronos in early 2013 and releasing it the following November to decent critical reception. Battle Isle isn’t a strategy franchise that sets the planet ablaze, but Nectaris children were pleased to have a tidy little sci-fi hex-based reboot to muck about in. And now, the love has spread.
Battle Worlds: Kronos is parsed as easily as Panzer General or Wesnoth. Tap a unit, have it toddle to a new hex, and either bonk an enemy or keep on moving. Most units have two actions to play with, which usually boils down to a double-movement blitz prior to contact. Swapping out the latter ambulation for a bit of ultra-violence at the cut-line when things get hot is primarily the other option, and you’ve got the essentials of tactical delegation in Battle Worlds. Given that you’re also dealing with completely symmetrical forces, differentiated only on the front by predetermined installations, it might seem like this Battle Isle descendent needs a little something-something to juice its pedestrian wares.
Fulda’s Gap was smaller than expected.
And while the game is relatively conservative, Battle Worlds is by no means stingy. Single player offers a duo of meaty campaigns, bolstered by fairly stern AI and opponent force numbers not often the player’s favor. Mission design runs from attrition to against-the-odds fare, though nothing beyond a wholesome standard bearing few surprises. There’s also a good and ever-expanding collection of single mission maps, wherein the meager official offerings are swamped by a thankfully hefty archive of player-created encounters. A rating system is in place, which lets a hungry player sort the wheat from the chaff, and it does seem relatively effective.
Roy, Ray and Rob Schneider.
In the words of Jarvis Cocker, something something party, something something come here? Battle Worlds is really just a cool delivery system for some worthwhile asynchronous fun. While merely offering temporally-disjointed multiplayer doesn’t hold the cache it once did, especially given the asynchronous competition, Battle Worlds’ compact visual design and strategic cleanliness makes a compelling argument. On PC, I very much got my shekels’ worth. Given that the tablet version is almost glaringly the same version – warts and all – jimmied into a touch device, my multiplayer addiction carried over nicely. Of course, this is a cross-platform affair, so much like the recent Battle Academy 2: Eastern Front, you should never be without an opponent.
It is within multiplayer where the vertical difficulty against overwhelming AI is ameliorated and the symmetrical force scrapping can be appreciated. The engagements are relatively brief, remain dynamic due to the two-action mechanic, with flanking bonuses encouraging much of that same blitz-and-jam business we enjoyed in Battle Isle many moons ago.
Spanners and Priests.
Given that this is cross-platform and does not use any sort of Game Center integration, setting up a friendly game does require knowing the player’s name and physically typing it into a pre-game invitation, as well as saving said name to a friend’s list by typing and saving it. It feels a bit archaic, but a small price to pay for a system that otherwise runs hassle-free. There is the odd spot of lag, both in the menu screen and, more prevalently, within games themselves. Number-crunching AI moves is often glacial, but there are times that frames of animation during combat are missed completely due to this lag. Not every round sports this issue, but it happens enough to make you wonder what the problem is.
World’s Worst Campfires III
Given the Pocket Tactics readership, it’s a safe bet to suggest Battle Worlds: Kronos would be a pleasant diversion for the strat-heads and finely-bearded. Not enough to replace the golden oldies, nor sophisticated enough to be still in rotation months from now, but there’s something reassuring about its chunky units and clipped pace. We’ve had our fair share of similar fare; Rubicon’s Great Little War Game comes readily to mind, but this channels a different era. Battle Worlds: Kronos is a fine, if somewhat unremarkable strategy title that does justice to the lineage. It doesn’t rock the boat, but might not do enough to float one, either.
For those wanting to go back to the island, it’s a sure thing, Kate.
I’ve spent a great deal of time in Westeros since I first picked up A Game of Thrones back in 2000. I’ve read and reread the books–the first three, that is–countless times and was as excited as Walder Frey at a wedding to see the show come to life on HBO. My enthusiasm has since died down, mainly because A Dance with Dragons was a steaming turd that infuriated me and stealing HBO became more trouble than it was worth. Still, I love the universe and getting to play around in it has always intrigued me.
Luckily, Telltale Games has announced that the first episode of their adventure series based on HBO’s Game of Thrones is nearly upon us. The game will span 6 episodes and put you in control of House Forrester (an actual house mentioned in that book that I will not name again), who find themselves thrust into the machinations surrounding the War of Five Kings. You will play as five different characters in the Forrester family and visit places from the show–such as King’s Landing and the Wall–as well as completely new locations created specifically for the game.
If you’re not familiar with Telltale’s other adventure games like Walking Dead or Wolf Among Us, you should know that they are some of the best adventure games ever made, marred only by the stupid use of quick time events during action scenes. Even with the vapid and poorly done QTE, Wolf Among Us is one of the best experiences I’ve ever had on my iPad.
The first episode, Iron From Ice, should be available for PC/Mac and iOS “soon”. Trailer after the break.
Your explorers are apparently the cast of You Can’t Do That on Television
After a lengthy examination of my life, I’ve determined that I really suck at a few things: caulking bathroom tile, raising children, and writing Out Tonight posts here at Pocket Tactics. Obviously, getting the Out Tonight posts correct should be my top priority, so I’m doing what I can to make sure that you, loyal readers, know what’s up on the App Store.
Without the blinding lights of XCOM: Enemy Within holding me frozen like a fawn on a back country road, I’ve been able to gather together some other titles worthy of our attention.
Adventure, puzzles and simulations await you after the break.
The first game to get additional Out Tonight treatment is a retro sci-fi adventure game called Space Age: A Cosmic Adventure. The game tells the tale of an intrepid group of stellar explorers who stumble onto planet Kepler-16 and discover that it’s both strange and yet strangely familiar. It’s a classic point-and-click adventure game with inventory, NPC dialog and all the stuff we were used to back in the days of Monkey Island and Grim Fandango. Space Age: A Cosmic Encounter is available for iOS Universal and costs $4.
The next game in our new game-apalooza is Framed. Oh, wait, I mean FRAMED. FRAMED is a very cool looking puzzle game that involves you switching around the frames of the story like a comic book, altering the story and getting the noir-ish protagonist out of harm’s way. It’s hard to describe, but the trailer does a great job of showing just how cool this one looks. FRAMED is available for iOS Universal for $5.
Crystal Siege HD is another one of those mash-up games that combines a few different genres into a new game. This time it’s tower defense and role-playing. Each map sports the usual tower defense tropes but you also get to control a hero that can maneuver around the map, fighting battles and picking up loot. It seems a crazy combination that, wait for it, just might work. It’s currently available for iPad, but an iPhone version is expected to hit fairly soon. It will run you $5.
Airline Director drops you into the dog-eat-dog world of airline management. Yes, now all of you who said you wanted to run an airline when you grew up can realize your dream, albeit through your iPad and nowhere near an airport, which is a good thing. As a simulation this one sounds pretty cool with a lot of stuff packed into it. There are over 90 different aircraft you can buy/sell and a campaign that begins in 1955 and runs up to present day. You’ll need to manage your fleet in the face of external forces such as competition from other airlines and changing fuel prices. Airline Director is currently only out for Android devices, but should be going live on iOS in the next week or two. It costs just under $3 on Google Play.
Does the guy with the metal torso really need the biggest gun?
Back in August of 2013, Owen posed the question of whether or not we’d ever see the Enemy Within expansion pack come to the award winning iPad port of XCOM: Enemy Unknown. It took over 14 months to respond, but today 2K Games answered in the affirmative. In fact, it should be coming tonight.
When Enemy Within was released for the PC version of XCOM, it was offered as DLC and an upgrade to the original. On mobile, it’s releasing as a completely separate app that will cost $13 at launch. It is coming for both iOS Universal as well as Android devices and will offer multiplayer right out of the gate.
XCOM: Enemy Within takes the basic game and plot of XCOM, but adds some incredibly awesome mechanics to the mix. The first is Meld, which is a new resource you can collect on each map that unlocks some major technological upgrades to your troops. Unfortunately, it’s extremely volatile and will explode if not contained quickly. Nothing will make you send your squadmates into extremely compromising positions like when you spot a Meld canister across the map. Besides Meld, you’ll be able to genetically and mechanically enhance your soldiers now, creating super-warriors that can do stuff that Enemy Unknown soldiers only dreamed of. Add more maps, more aliens, and a new enemy consisting of alien sympathizers and you’ve got a whole new reason to play through XCOM.
Reports vary on whether or not the expansion is coming tonight or tomorrow. Either way, it won’t be long until it’s in our grubby, cryssalid-hating fingers.
Other than more XCOM, it’s a pretty barren night for releases on the App Store. Then again, more XCOM. Do we need anything else?
“The 600 series had fake beards. We spotted them easy, but these are new. I had to wait until he sang a viking shanty before I could zero him.”
Confession: I’ve played several titles in the oft-maligned Mega Man Battle Network series. Enjoyed, even, and without the lifelong curse of perpetual prepubescence that some researchers have associated with long-term Rockman.EXE exposure. My apologies, then, if Trouble With Robots–a collectible card game with real-time scrums passably resembling Battle Network or (by the developers’ own suggestion) the more recent Ironclad Tactics–has me looking back fondly on a certain game within a game.
Instead of a fan-baiting piece of meta-fiction, though, Trouble With Robots is the upcoming port of Digital Chestnut’s PC title of the same name (barring one “the”), and like the desktop version concerns a typical fantasy world invaded by automatons–presumably of the troublesome variety. While it looks like players don’t directly control their armies, not even to the point of choosing where summoned troops appear, a quick perusal of some of the cards leaked in promotional materials is heartening; of special interest are cards which can be played for immediate benefits or kept in your hand to modify how other cards function. However, a developer-led gameplay video–of the tutorial levels, admittedly–suggests that battles might largely involve waiting for the right moments to drop cards, as opposed to the gradual construction and culmination of plans one expects in a CCG.
We’ll keep an eye out for Trouble With Robots when it drops on November 27th as a free-to-play, according to publisher Play-Asia. Transmission from Cyberdyne Systems after the jump.
The first chapter in Joe Dever’s Lone Wolf gamebook was released one year ago and it, along with what inkle was doing, changed how we thought of gamebooks on a digital device. Lone Wolf came wrapped in a beautiful book-like interface, but their biggest innovation was combat. Turn the book sideways and the book melted away, revealing a 3D world and real-time combat using quick-time-events.
This chapter takes you inside the Tower of V’taag, but BulkyPix are being extremely tight-lipped about what we might find inside. From the trailer, I’m guessing bigger baddies, puzzles, and everything that made the first chapter so much fun.
Act 4: Dawn of V’taag will be releasing for iOS and Android on November 20th and will be available as a $5 IAP. Trailer after the break.
It’s always more fun to share with every…one person.
SolForge is like the older kid who’s been playing football for years, but has to sit on the bench while their little brother plays varsity quarterback. Here they are, about to release their fourth major influx of cards to the SolForge universe as well as introducing some major innovations to the genre, but Hearthstone is out there strutting it’s stuff and getting all the plaudits.
Let’s try to even out the scales. Tomorrow, SolForge is getting its fourth influx of cards when the Imprisoned Heralds set goes live. This set will introduce the titular heralds which are new cards that can change type mid-game. For example, a card might be a staff at level 1 and 2, but when it hits level 3 it turns into a rampaging dragon. The expansion also includes two new mechanisms: upgrade and assault. Upgrade will let a creature gain traits left behind by other creatures in the same lane. Assault awards creatures for fighting, and gives a bonus to creatures placed in lanes that are empty.
If that were all we were getting tomorrow, that would be pretty cool. It’s not. Stone Blade is updating SolForge tomorrow to include card sharing. You’ll be able to share any card that you can purchase for gold, and you’ll be able to share it with anyone in your Friends List while retaining a copy of it yourself. The restriction is that you can only share each card once, so pick your friends wisely.
SolForge is downloadable for free for Android and PC, but the iOS version has been pulled from the App Store until the update goes live tomorrow. SolForge trailer after the break.
“…then they open the door and, BOOM, catapult.” “You’re fired Alonso.” “But I’m the ki-” “Fired.”
All Glory to the Pixel King! was as straightforward as they come, and a game which I couldn’t help but like despite its many faults. (Faults including: repetitive—if pleasant—music, repetitive combat, guileless AI opponents, lack of a tutorial, and a punctuated title.) The basic premise was simple: build a castle, populate it with a monarch and a host of troops ranging from archers to knights to catapult teams, and slug it out with some other king whose fortress would magically materialize next to yours. First team to brutally slaughter the other’s leader (and popularize the notion of constitutional monarchy) wins.
I mention all this because The Magnificent Pixel Dynasty, sequel to AgttPK!, is nearly the exact same game. There are changes, to be fair, but odd ones that exist largely outside of the core base-building schtick. Dynasty loses the exclamation point and replaces it with… child rearing? Hmm indeed, sir knight.
But really, the first decision your besieged king must make in The Magnificent Pixel Dynasty isn’t where to position his arbalists, but with whom to make a baby. This is likely before you’ve laid down the floor, for crying out loud, and the same goes for all the lesser lords and knights squished into your single-room fortress or open-air pleasure grounds. Couples birth or adopt children who grow up a bit with each completed fight, eventually becoming battle-hardened adults themselves. The king’s progeny even get the prince/princess designation, cute pixely aristocrat garb, and daily opportunities to berate the servants running their whole damn castle. But no, they’re probably delightful, so protect them.
With this surprisingly literal dynasty, your troops move from the cannon fodder of the previous game (treated like any other tile, and regenerating after each fight) to slightly more fleshed out characters, with their own stats and customizable gear. Your starting team are tougher than the plague-riddled peasants of Pixel King!, but when they die, they die for good. So… best get to the babies, then.
And what schoolchild today can’t recount the adventures of Bart the Averaged-Named?
Rather than pure survival challenges, sieges in Pixel Dynasty are opportunities to add to your empire’s pool of gold and loot. Enemy castles spawn with red chests which, when attacked, gift you with gold (to buy more tiles for your castle) or gear (to slot on your troops/family). These tend to be placed right next to the enemy king, in a “throne room” that’s often just a patch of carpet in some grass clearing.
In principle, Pixel Dynasty’s attempt to make the Lincoln Log cabins of AgttPK! feel less like toys and more like actual lived-in spaces is smart—a logical progression, even. It’s easy to imagine a building game where the wood walls of some dank medieval cavern gradually expand over several years, are reinforced with stone, and come to encompass a bubbling fountain which rosy-cheeked younglings (soon to be blood-drenched killers) play around. That’s exactly the sort of homestead Pixel Dynasty encourages you to build—in fact that tranquil, idealized medieval castle is the only sort of construction most will manage to wring out of Pixel Dynasty’s limited set of tiles. The game uses the same set of construction materials—from the mundane wooden walls, stone walls, and gates, to the more exotic water and lava tiles—we saw in All Glory to the Pixel King!, with the only difference being that Pixel Dynasty allows for more complex (but not fundamentally different) layouts funded with gold from raids.
“Sire, I know riches unimaginable wait but…” “Yes yes, out with it.” “I, uh, I can’t turn left.”
The Magnificent Pixel Dynasty is an attempt to broaden the scope of the original premise laid out in All Glory to the Pixel King!, but the game doesn’t reveal anything of greater depth compared to that first game, only additional, equally shallow mechanics which are superfluous to the castle construction.
The RPG elements which should make us care for these little pixel lords and ladies fail to do so, because they lack complexity. Any one character has a handful of stats—power, defense, magic, speed—which do more or less what you expect. These stats increase with new gear and experience, but those increases never translate into major strategic shifts—in other words, fights play out just as they did in the previous game. Walk all your soldiers forward, gang up on one foe at a time, used ranged units at range, catapults on walls, and so on. To be fair, mage characters can fire through walls, so that’s different, as are the increasingly beefy HP bars which serve to make tedious fights last longer than they ought to.
But, does it really make much of a difference if one of my warriors can move a few extra tiles because I’ve equipped them with a lighter armor? Or that another’s attack stat is slightly higher because they’re now dual-wielding swords? What if my soldiers’ children could inherit traits from their parents? And—especially for a game about constructing castles—shouldn’t my army gain skills which let them interact with the fortifications around them? Maybe my mage could light wooden walls on fire or teleport, and perhaps my seemingly sneaky fella with the katana could scale towers or hide in bushes which, hey, would actually give me a good reason to use the bush tile! These are the sorts of RPG elements that Pixel Dynasty sorely lacks.
Advances in door tech during the Middle Ages were adopted a little too enthusiastically by some.
I liked All Glory to the Pixel King! because it was simple and unpretentious, yet I can’t help but dislike its successor for those same reasons. Pixel Dynasty is, again, almost the same game, just with a underdeveloped families system and the barest suggestion of RPG character-crafting. The game hints at so much (a true DYNASTY ruling from a mighty FORTRESS), but the follow-through is as lackluster as they come. The Magnificent Pixel Dynasty isn’t a case where more is better, or even a case where more is unobtrusive—rather, these half-baked mechanics that have been bolted onto the same construction toy as All Glory to the Pixel King! only serve to detract from the core experience that lays at the heart of both games.
The Magnificent Pixel Dynasty was played on a 3rd generation iPad for this review. The game is free to try, with a 99-cent IAP to unlock unlimited play with the same dynasty.
The new expansion for Hearthstone hasn’t really been a secret for a while now. Rumors about a bigger card dump than the mere 30 cards we got with Naxxramas were around as soon as Naxxramas went live. Today, during BlizzCon’s opening ceremonies, Blizzard gave us a few more details, taking the rumor tag right off any expansion talk.
The expansion will be called Goblins vs. Gnomes and will include 120 new cards as well as a new minion type, Mechs.
We also know that it will be releasing this December, right around the time that Hearthstone shows up on Android tablets. How will you get the new cards? You can buy Goblin vs. Gnome specific card packs in the shop when it releases, guaranteeing that you’ll be getting the expansion cards when you drop either in-game gold or cold cash. No clue on whether Goblin vs. Gnome packs will come as rewards for arena play, but the new cards will appear as draftable cards in arena even if you haven’t acquired them yourselves.
Fairly ridiculous, and card free, trailer after the break.
Back in the early 80’s, our family received a Merlin handheld electronic thingee and it quickly became one of my favorite toys. Yes, kids, before the Internet, a red plastic phone that played tic-tac-toe was as good as it got. When my brother and I pulled ourselves away from another round of Mindbender, I would use the device to play Magic Square in which you were trying to turn every light in the grid out by pressing buttons. As you pressed a button, it would turn the lights around it on or off. As a 10 year-old, I found it to be an incredibly difficult problem to solve. As I got older, not so much. Break the Grid reminds me of that old Magic Square game quite a bit. In Break the Grid you have a5x5 grid and you’re trying to turn every box in the grid “off”. The big difference between Break the Grid and the old Magic Square is that Break the Grid is tough and fun.
Its difficulty comes from the randomly drawn cards which indicate a pattern of squares you can toggle. This randomness makes a simple puzzle into a struggle that can, sometimes, border on frustrating when you just need a certain pattern to clear a board. On top of that, you’re only given 20 turns per puzzle to succeed and those 20 turns go by extremely quick. There are 10 different challenges you can aim for, like finishing with all the squares off except the corners, or leaving an “X” pattern lit through the center of the grid. I have yet to actually complete any of the challenges, and I’m imagining the only way I’ll do so is by sheer luck.
Break the Grid is another one of those puzzle games that works great as a five minute time waster, like Threes or Rules. Unlike those, however, Break the Grid is free to play with ads, which can be removed via a $2 IAP. There are also “Power Points” which you can spend on power-ups. You can buy those via IAP as well, but you earn them as you clear each grid so, you could always grind for more if you feel like you really need the power ups (you don’t).
Break the Grid is out now for iOS Universal and should hit Android devices next week. Trailer after the break.
