PT Guides: Like... Quick Games? You'll Love These!

There's nothing quite like sitting down to hours and hours of uninterrupted gaming. Well, there wouldn't be if you had the time. Much more often these days we grab what gaming time we can via our mobile devices while we wait in line for a burrito, in the checkout queue while grocery shopping, in the lobby at the dentist, or during a daily…uh… constitutional. For those times it is great to have a stable of what I like to call five-minute games. These are the games that you can pick up and play for 5-15 minutes and feel like you've made some kind of progress. The best of the genre are also playable for an hour or more when time permits. So, without further preamble, here are the best Pocket Tactics style five-minute games. Your mileage may, and probably will, vary so feel free to throw other options in the comments.

HALL OF (FIVE MINUTE) FAMERS

Card Crawl (iOS and Android)

Card Crawl is the quintessential five-minute title. Gameplay is a compelling Solitaire-like experience where you play against a dealer and must equip and use swords, shields, healing potions, and special items to defeat a series of monsters. The goal of a __game is to play through the entire deck of cards and survive. There is a huge amount of content between Normal, Constructed and Delve modes along with the Daily Dungeon and user-created scenarios in the Deck Merchant. As you play and win you gain currency which can be used to buy new cards. Deck creation is a lot of fun and completing Quests (basically achievements) can be quite a challenge. You can easily play a single __game in just a few minutes or string together as many as you'd like when more time is available. You can check out this five-star review for more on the game. Card Crawl is available on iOS and Android and is a must-have for fans of fun and quick tactical gaming.

Hoplite (iOS and Android) 

Released in early 2014, Hoplite is still my go-to recommendation for anybody looking for a great roguelike game. You play as an ancient warrior who has embarked on a hex-based quest to the underworld to recover the Golden Fleece. You must battle level after level of sword wielding, arrow firing, spell casting, bomb throwing demons equipped only with your trusty shield, spear, and a truly impressive long jump distance. The game's graphics are as Spartan as its theme, but the turn-based gameplay is full of really great tactical considerations, not the least of which is where you can move any given turn without losing one or more hearts (life). You can charge into enemies, throw your spear at ranged targets (though you'll have to retrieve it somehow), push targets away, or leap multiple squares away. Each level has a temple where you can regain life and acquire useful power-ups. A level of Hoplite can be completed in minutes, though recovering the Fleece, should you make it that far, will take significantly longer. The game earned five stars from this site back when it came out and is a can't-miss title for any fans of the genre.

Dream Quest (iOS)

Dream Quest is a deck-building, roguelike, dungeon delving, card battler where you explore level after level of randomly generated game world and slay monsters in Magic: The Gathering like duels. You pick one of thirteen different unlockable classes—each with unique cards and a different playstyle—and go adventuring. As you delve deeper and rack up the victories you level up and get gold which gives you access to more powerful cards and abilities as well as the opportunity to upgrade cards and thin out your deck by casting out your weakest cards. Losing means you die and have to start over in true roguelike fashion, although there are some persistent benefits across games. The art is pretty basic and frequently cited as a reason not to play. It was apparently created by the developers seven-year-old daughter so she could be involved in the project (check out the comments here for more on that). If you judge it based on the art alone you are doing yourself a disservice because Dream Quest's gameplay is fantastic. The choices you make matter and the deck-building strategy is surprisingly deep. You can play a full game of Dream Quest in under thirty minutes, though that can very easily be split that up into smaller chunks—a duel will take just a few minutes, for example. This is another of those games where you pay a couple bucks and get dozens of hours of entertainment. Simply put, Dream Quest is a no brainer for fans of Magic: The Gathering, deck-building games, and challenging tactical titles in general. If you don't own it you should rectify that immediately.

SUPER (SONIC) STARS

Lost Portal CCG (iOS)

Lost Portal is a single-player, premium CCG that is wrapped in an RPG adventure. You pick a color affinity (White, Blue, Black, Red, or Green), build a deck, and head off on a quest to open long lost portals between towns. As you adventure you'll encounter and duel enemy spell casters. Much like Dream Quest, you'll gain XP and gold with which to acquire new cards and steadily improve your deck. Unlike Dream Quest if you die you just lose some gold but don't have to start over. Lost Portal offers an excellent opportunity to satiate any Magic: The Gathering or Hearthstone hungers to build decks and duel enemies without the need to buy a seemingly endless supply of boosters. The RPG touches, like ability scores that grant bonuses in duels, bring a lot of novelty to the experience as well. A duel will take just a few minutes and I've been sucked in to game sessions of several hours on many occasions, making this the best of both worlds. You can read my five-star review of Lost Portal and check out my interview with the developer for more info.

Solitairica (iOS and Android)

Many mobile games these days seem to mash multiple gaming mechanics together in an attempt to create something new. Take good old-fashioned Solitaire, for example, and blend in elements of a role-playing game and voila, you have Solitairica. The result is a thoroughly entertaining experience.

Solitairica is set in the goofy pun-heavy world of Myriodd. All of the hearts of the land have been taken by Emperor Stuck, a real buzzkill of a jerk, and it is your job to defeat Stuck and free the hearts of its hapless denizens. You can't just storm his creepy castle, however. To get at Stuck you must defeat a series of his minions at a game of combative Solitaire before they reduce your health to zero. If that happens it is game over and your heart joins Stuck's sick collection. You'll fight back by casting spells fueled by four flavors of energy—attack, defense, agility, and willpower—which you gain by clearing cards of the corresponding type. There are several different decks to unlock in Solitairica each based on a classic RPG class—Warrior, Wizard, Paladin, Bard, Monk, and Rogue. Each class specializes in two of these four energies and has their own spell specialties, which contributes to an amazing level of replay value. Games are quick, about two minutes each, and quite fun, especially once you get the hang of things. Be careful, though, this is another one that'll suck you in and make you wonder where the time went.

Reigns (iOS and Android)

In Reigns you play as the King, or rather as a string of kings as your dynasty flows forth through time. You are presented with decision after decision and can make one of two choices (usually yes or no) by swiping a card to the left or the right. Your goal is to prolong your reign, and dynasty, as long as possible by balancing the needs of four constituencies: the church, the people, the army, and the treasury. Each decision will make one or more of those groups happy, and one or more of them unhappy. You can preview the effect of any given decision by sliding one way and then other but not fully swiping. The decisions you make affect future options through algorithmic goodness. There are tons of different events that pop up—literally, the cards pop up one after another—and you'll make allies and enemies, fight wars and judge witches, permit the progress of science or the rise of the church, engage in politics of all kinds, and meet the Devil himself. Reigns also has all kinds of challenges that when accomplished unlock new cards and make for a lasting legacy for the king who achieved them. The gameplay is fast, intuitive, wholly unique, and super fun. You can very easily play in five-minute bursts here and there, or longer if you like. Heck, one reign can easily start and end while you wait in the grocery checkout line.

Dungeon Warfare (iOS and Android)

Do you like tower-defense games? If the answer is yes, and you don't own Dungeon Warfare, go get it now. It definitely deserves to be part of your collection. If you kind of maybe like the tower-defense genre you very well may dig the game anyway. In it you are the lord of a dungeon and have worked really hard to build up a pile of loot Scrooge McDuck style. Then along comes those greedy loot-seeking heroes and other sticky-fingered adventuring folk, you doubtlessly know the type. The "Keep Out" signs didn't work so you have moved on to setting deadly traps and mechanized weapons to, well, you know…slaughter them. Your goal is to kill them all, no way to sugar coat it. There's no diplomacy in tower (or dungeon) defense. Gameplay is fast, fun, and intuitive. Just drop your traps wherever you think they'll crunch, stab, or slice the most adventurers and watch 'em fall, hopefully. If twenty of the thieving wretches get by your well laid countermeasures it's game over. There's 26 upgradeable traps, 40 different levels, and 12 difficulty modes. So you get your money's worth with this one.

Space Grunts (iOS and Android)

Space Grunts is the perfect game for people who like to get an arcade action shoot 'em up fix without having to rely on fast-twitch reflexes. All of the action takes within the comfortable confines of a turn-based strategy game, but those turns are quick—under a second each—and combined with Space Grunt's explosive graphical style the action really does feel intense. You play as three different fighters, each with a different style, and go forth to blast aliens with a variety of different weapons. The design is very cleverly done and should appeal to turn-based strategy and action fans alike. Check out Tof's five-star review for more info and then pick this one up.

Imbroglio (iOS)

Imbroglio is a roguelike where you look to collect as many gems as possible in a constantly changing dungeon while being chased down by monsters. The game board is a four-by-four grid of tiles and on each turn you can move one tile or attack a monster. The game revolves around two types of life—red hearts and blue diamonds. Red monsters attack hearts, blue monsters attack diamonds, and your hero attacks either depending on the weapon depicted by the tile they are standing on. The key tactical consideration is making sure you are on the right weapon tile to attack a specific monster, which makes for some very compelling gameplay. As you play and collect gems you'll unlock new heroes with which to play as well as an option to edit the gameboard and customize what weapon tiles you want and where. Tof gave Imbroglio a well-earned five-star review and the game was made by the developer of 868-HACK (another five-star game worthy of this list) so there's a solid pedigree here.

SOLID (QUICK) STARTERS

I Keep Having This Dream (iOS)

This nightmare-themed tile-placement game is one of the most underrated games of 2016. Gameplay is challenging, compelling, and pretty quick. Tof gave it four stars and it is well worth picking up.

Hero Emblems (iOS and Android)

This match-three combat game is a satisfyingly compelling twist on a played-out genre. You match symbols to fuel attacks for your quintessential RPG-style party as they take on monsters, and evil, and evil monsters. The story's pretty rote but who's in it for the story? Check out this four-star review for more.

Dungelot: Shattered Lands (iOS and Android)

This fast paced RPG is crammed full of monsters to fight, traps to avoid, magic items to acquire, and loot to…well, loot. There's plenty of content here and the game is great for five minutes or an hour.

Check out my four-star review for more.

Stencilsmith (iOS)

This tile-sliding game is like Threes, but with swords…and dragons. You combine tiles to craft tools and weapons and slay dragons. There are several modes of play and you can even create your own stencils for use in the game.

Do you need even more five-minute games? Of course you do. Who doesn't? Roguelikes are almost always good for quick play sessions, check out this guide for some great options. If there's a game you think also deserves a shout-out here, let us know in the comments below!

Review: Command & Colours: The Great War

Mention the word ‘Borg’ and many a geek’s ears will prick up with interest. Most will be reliving the assimilation of Star Trek’s Captain Jean-Luc Picard by the cybernetic Borgs. However, there will still be a select few whose first thoughts will turn towards renowned war __game designer Richard Borg. Mr Borg is best known for creating the commands and colours system. A system that has driven an array of immensely popular board games recreating battles across a range of periods from the dawn of military history, including feudal Japan, the Napoleonic era and most famously his Second World War epic Memoir ’44.

The commands and colours system condenses wargames into more manageable bite-sized chunks, significantly reducing the time it takes to play and the overall fiddliness . In The Great War players are dealt hands of command and combat cards and given a supply of HQ tokens. Command cards are used to move your troops, for instance an assault left card allows you to move all units on your left flank. By expending HQ tokens players can also use a combat card, these are usually modelled on actual events and tactics to give a sense of realism and historical accuracy.

There is the carrier pigeon card, for instance, which enhances communication to allow you to move extra units, or the charming lice card that infests an enemy unit. After movement, any active units that are within range of the enemy get to roll a bunch of dice with various different icons. The effectiveness of the rolled icons varies depending on such factors as range and terrain. Overall, it is a simplified system that doesn’t appeal to all war __game purists, but for the rest of us it is a chance to play soldiers without it becoming a lifelong endeavour.

On one side we have the German forces who usually have to hold on to a defensive position. On opposing side are the British and allied forces, doing their best to reach their objectives, often within a turn limit. The game begins with two non-historic introductory scenarios, followed by a series of 15 missions set in Loos (1915), The Somme (1916), and Vimy Ridge (1917). These scenarios can be tackled in any order. You win by earning a specific number of points by destroying enemy units and for controlling key strategic points on the map.

The crux of The Great War is trench warfare that makes for a game of attrition as you bombard your enemy with heavy artillery attacks and rake them with machine gun fire before even thinking about giving the order to go over the top. The setting isn’t going to be to everyone’s taste as there are no heroic cavalry charges or rumbling tanks corps. The only units available to either side are infantry, grenadiers, machine gunners and reserve artillery, which fire from off the board. The result is that there isn’t a whole lot of variety between the different scenarios - bring on the tanks! The game requires a fair amount of patience as trying to wear down entrenched enemy units is a slow process and initiating an assault too early is a recipe for disaster. Expect to spend an hour or so on each scenario. With the choice of playing as either side, the opportunity of winning extra medals and a decent AI opponent (that can be set at Lieutenant, General, or Field Marshal level), replay value is high.

Start playing the introductory scenario and it will come as a bit of a shock to discover that The Great War does not offer a tutorial. You are immediately thrown into the thick of the action and raw recruits, unfamiliar with the command and colours system, will have no other choice than to immerse themselves in the hefty and rather intimidating rulebook. Even those familiar with the system will struggle to come to grips with the game’s interface, which isn’t explained and so becomes a matter of trial and error. This isn’t helped by the fact that the controls feel as muddy as Flanders Fields and the information icon appears to do nothing at all.

To find out the strengths of a unit or features of a terrain type you don’t just tap the screen but have to also hold your finger down. This results in a range of frustrations when trying to gather information. Tap a unit and you often get information about the terrain type instead, or you can accidently cancel a unit’s movement when all you wanted to do was to check its statistics. Consequently, you find yourself endlessly having to exit the action to refer back to the rulebook. There are other concerns too: most worryingly, there were a few occasions when a combat card didn’t seem to work. I would say that when the original PC version was released the developers were quick to patch some bugs but there are still reports of the ‘Big Show’ and ‘Counter Attack’ cards not working correctly.

The maps scroll smoothly and allow the action to be viewed from overhead or zoomed-in to a forced 3D close-up perspective. The screen doesn’t centre to show battles so if you opt for a closer viewing point you will have to manually scroll the screen to keep up with the action. The dice animation is annoying since the dice bounce across the battlefield and take longer to settle than a class of five year olds on a windy day. Thankfully, I discovered that the animation could be switched off. Sadly there are no online options so if you want to battle a human opponent the only choice is face-to-face pass and play.

At every step the PC origins of The Great War are plain for all to see - it is obvious that the game hasn’t been optimised for smaller touchscreen devices. The fonts are tiny, the controls unresponsive and the graphics messy and indistinct. The Great War isn’t the first Richard Borg game to be converted to mobile formats, indeed the fantasy themed Battlelore received an impressive five star rated review way back in 2014. Battlelore still looks great and plays smoothly. In comparison, The Great War is shown up as a lazy conversion, with no real thought or effort made to fit the game to a mobile format. As mentioned, the game has a great pedigree and a real solid design. However, the numerous interface problems and steep learning curve means that you have to dig so deep to get it to the action, that you end up doubting if it was worth all the effort.

Out Now: Pizza in Valhalla Edition

Welcome to this week's Out Now, your gateway to the weekend. Lots of quality puzzle games hit the digital shelves this week along with a Viking in search of Valhalla and a pizza delivering ninja.

Topsoil (iOS and Android)

Topsoil is a shape-matching puzzle __game with a gardening theme. It serves up a steady stream of flowers and other plants that you must place in one of the squares of your garden. The goal is to group the same plants together so that when the shovel icon comes along you can harvest the whole group. You lose the __game when the board fills up and you can’t clear anymore plants. Topsoil is a high-score chaser and the more you clear the more points you get. Gameplay is further complicated by the fact that harvested squares change colors, and you can only match plants within the same color soil. It’s a challenging game with more tactical crunch than first meets the eye.

Baikoh (iOS and Android)

Baikoh is a word-smithing game with some Tetris-style pressure. You start the game with a bunch of lettered blocks on the game board and more continuously fall as the game goes on. You clear blocks and score points by spelling words. The game is lost if the blocks reach the top of the game board. Don’t let the pressure push you into errors, proper spelling is critical. Three failures in a row results in a punishment—a full row of letter-less blocks comes crashing down, cluttering up your game. This one worth a shot for any word-game aficionados, it’s free-to-play with optional ads. The game does have a store option with “soon” next to it, so it seems they will be selling something down the line as well.

Invert (iOS and Android)

In Invert your goal is uniformity—you want all of the tiles to be the same color. You do this by selecting a row or group of tiles to flip them to the opposite color. It’s harder than it sounds once you get deeper into the game, though gamers with good pattern recognition will likely excel at this one. Invert offers a couple different ways to play. You can go with the campaign mode which requires you to solve the puzzle in a certain number of moves, or, challenge mode where it is you versus the clock with no move limit.  

Zhed (iOS and Android)

An order-of-operations puzzler, Zhed is all about figuring how to fill in the tiles of a grid to a specific spot. Each level has squares with a number in them. The number represents how many other squares it can extend into and and fill in. It’s easier done than said and makes for interesting gameplay, especially as you advance in levels. Zhed is free-to-play with IAPs to buy hints. 

Die with Glory (iOS)

Tired of puzzles? Ok, how about this: Die With Glory is an adventure game where you must guide Sigurd, a Viking warrior, to Valhalla and the afterlife by helping him die gloriously. You’ve tracked the storied career of Sigurd, and the man has quite the resume, now he’s off for one last campaign. It’s the final chance to set in stone his worthiness to enter Valhalla…so long as he dies gloriously, that is and not, you know, as a result of some Darwin-award winning action. Die With Glory features seven locations, a decision/action tree that affects the story, and a comedic rather than dramatic style. There’s castles, armies of undead, rivers of lava, dragons, and time travel.

Antitype (iOS)

Borderleap--makers of Minimize, the Harmony series, and other games—are back with a new puzzle. Antitype is a word game and where you must decipher a pair of antonyms based on the clues provided. “Temperature” for example leads you to “hot” and “cold.” Figuring out the right words is only part of the trick, you must unscramble them as well. You do this by tapping on a letter. When you do, adjacent tiles move forward one letter of the alphabet. You can only advance letters a certain number of times before they become locked in place, so indiscriminate guessing won’t do here.

Ninja Pizza Girl (iOS)

Ninja Pizza Girl is a fast-action platformer based in a dystopian future where there is only one way to get a pizza delivered quick: underpaid teenage ninjas. The game tackles some serious topics through.

In a world where slums teeter on top of skyscrapers, where powerful mega-corporations exploit the poor and where quality pizza is hard to come by, Gemma must fight to keep her ideals, her family and their business intact in face of the most merciless enemies known to any teenage girl – other teenagers.

The jerk-potential of teenagers (and let’s face it, many adults) is well known. Bullying and self-esteem are serious parts of growing up and this game tackles it head on, which you don’t often see in a game.  This one is still mostly about the action, but if you like games with a positive message Ninja Pizza Girl is worth a look.

That's all for this week's edition of Out Now. Seen anything you think we've missed or played any of the above? Let us know in the comments! None of the above are currently scheduled for a full review, but keep your eyes peeled on the site for future content.

Pocket Tactics Presents: A Guide to Shogi

Shogi is one of the most popular board games in Japan, sometimes called ‘Japanese chess’. It is not a variation of Western chess, but shares a common ancestor in the Indian __game of Chaturanga. The objective is the same — to capture the king — and many of the pieces, despite having different names, move in the same ways. Shogi differs from chess in several key respects.

The pieces, reaching the opponents starting zone, can be promoted to different, stronger pieces. Pieces that are captured can also be returned to the board by the capturing player on any open square. This makes Shogi perhaps the most difficult variation of chess to write AI for. So, if you really want to learn Shogi, like Go, you need to play against real human beings.

If you like chess, you will probably like shogi too, and probably more so than the gimmicky chess variants that have appeared in mobile recently. Overall, the __game is longer and more 'fluid' since pieces can be returned to the board, most attacks are performed at close range, and draws are very rare.

A difficult part of learning Shogi is learning to recognize the pieces by their Kanji characters. Some players do learn with pieces imprinted with the western chess equivalents of each piece (plus the few that do not have equivalents). However, more advanced players will need to read the kanji, especially if they wish to study the game in more depth.

CatchTheLionWars (iOS and Android)

Why not start with Shogi for babies? Dobutsu (animal) Shogi is a popular variant played on a 3x4 board with adorable animal pieces. It is simple enough to be played by very young children. However, it also features promotion and dropping pieces, and can be quite challenging with the right opponent.

Akira Watanabe's TsumeShogi (iOS)

Highly recommended for players of all skill levels is solving 'tsume' or checkmate problems. If you're just starting, this is a great way to learn how all the pieces move, and get used to some of the ways Shogi differs from chess — namely dropping and promoting pieces. Unfortunately, there is only one series of English-language tsume apps, and it’s iOS only! There are three levels: Primer, Beginner, and Intermediate. After that, try the website of Tsumi Shogi Paradise magazine for real braintwisters.

Shogi Lv.100 (iOS and Android)

If you are looking to practice against an offline AI, this is the app for you. Lv.100 offers, you guessed it, one hundred levels of AI skill. There's also an option to play an online game engine for an additional monthly fee, but if you are connected to the internet and good enough to beat 100 levels of AI, why aren't you playing real people for free? The free version (iOS and Android) is similar, but only offers six levels of difficulty (spaced out from 1-100) and has ads.

Kanazawa Shogi 2 (iOS)

The sequel to UNBALANCE's Shogi Lv.100, this app is twice as expensive but has three times the levels available offline, and prettier graphics. Unfortunately, there’s no free version.

81Dojo (Free on iOS and Android)

When you are familiar with the rules of Shogi, try 81Dojo, one of the most popular servers. This is the official app of the Japan Shogi Association, and an adaptation of their web-based server. It is comparatively user-friendly and has a wide variety of variants and handicaps to play with. Watch out: it allows you to make illegal moves, which will lose the game! If you do get good, however, you can order an official ranking certificate from the JSF.

ShogiWars (iOS and Android)

Overall a prettier interface is the main feature of ShogiWars. The game also allows you to play with (ugly) tiles with English letters to identify the pieces—helpful when you struggle to recognize the Kanji. It also requires the use of a timer—nice when you don’t want to wait around for your opponent to finish a game, not as nice when you are a beginner and need more time to consider moves. You only get three games a day for free.

We've got one more guide to go on Asian-origin games. If you liked what you've read or have any questions, let us know in the comments!

Out Now: GDC Edition

Welcome to this week's edition of 'Out Now', where we take a look at all of the game's released this week and put forward our top picks.

The __game Developer's Conference (GDC) has been underway in San Francisco all week, which means all kinds of announcements and previews of things to come for the gaming industry. It also means a relatively slow week for new releases, as many of the people who develop and market newly launched games are fully immersed in the convention. We've still found a few games worth a look…a match-three variant, a competitive puzzler, a Risk-like __game of world domination, an old friend ready for new devices, and a sandbox game about escaping prison.

Tavern Guardians (iOS)

Tavern Guardians is a match-three game with a monster slaying theme. You choose one of four different unlockable heroes—Paladin, Gunner, Mage, or Berserker—each with a bevy of special abilities. Your hero will act as guardian for a series of taverns, a noble pursuit no doubt. Ale and wine need defending too! You match symbols to strengthen the tavern walls, increase your health, recharge special powers, call on archers to help fight the monsters, and acquire gold with which to upgrade your  hero. While not wholly original, it is a fast and fun match-three variant with a ton of items and about 50 monsters to fight. The different character classes aids in the replay value as well. This one is worth a look for fans of the genre.

 

Black Blue (iOS and Android)

Blue Black is a graphics light puzzler with a competitive streak. Each level displays a pattern and a series of dots. You take turns with your opponent placing colored dots on the game board and, when done, watch as the dots are connected and the pattern is traced. The player with the most line real estate, so to speak, is the winner. You can take on the AI or another person via pass-and-play. The game is very clever and fairly challenging and only a buck for 70 levels. Android users can try before they buy as well. Check out the quick trailer to see the gameplay in action. 

Attack Your Friends (iOS and Android(?))

Attack Your Friends is a turn-based competitive boardgame of world conquest. Up to three friends (or random strangers) can play and the goal is to build up and expand your power in an attempt to dominate the map. Combat is dice-based with Troop and Defense cards thrown in to provide various benefits. Cards are things like putting a two-turn shield on a region or laying down mines that take out one-third of an attacking force. There is an in-game chat system to allow for scheming against an opponent or outright taunting and smack talk. The game is asynchronous with push notifications that let you know when it's your turn to act.

The UI is far from perfect. I accidentally fat-fingered all of my reinforcements onto Madagascar on more than one occasion and it was the rare troop-placement phase where I didn't have to use the undo button (which undoes all placements, not just the last one). The game is also free-to-play with an in-game currency that you earn incrementally after every turn. You can, of course, buy more and therein lies a pay-to-win problem. You can buy those Shield, Mine, and other beneficial cards and really swing a game your way, if so inclined. Playing with friends this can be mitigated through some sort of fair play accord, but with strangers all bets would certainly be off. Attack Your Friends is basically Risk right down to the regional breakdown and living and dying by the randomness of the dice. If that appeals to you, this one is worth a look.

Legends of Callasia (iOS and Android)

We're fans of world domination game Legends of Callasia around these parts. Both the base game and the first expansion earned four stars from me last year and the game was our runner-up for multiplayer game-of-the-year in 2016. With the latest update Legends of Callasia is now playable on your Android phones, not just tablets. The game still features a meaty free trial so you can check it out before buying.

The Escapists (iOS and Android)

The Escapists has been out for a couple of years now on consoles and computers and has finally arrived in the world of mobile. The game is a pixelated strategy game that features an open world, role-play elements, resource management, and lots of crafting. Your goal is to bust out of prison (there's actually six unique prisons in which to play) through trickery or sheer force, although you can take your sweet time going about it. The touch controls were well implemented and in a lot of ways The Escapists feels like it was meant to be played on a tablet. 

That said, the game also features a virtual joystick for those who dig that type of control. The game is challenging and there's a lot to plan around from barbed wire and guards to roll-call, bed check, and work detail. You'll also need to craft the tools of your escape, which necessitates making use of the prison barter system, some outright theft, and of course hiding your contraband from nosy guards. My favorite thing about The Escapists, and any sandbox game, is that you can totally blow off preparing your grand escape and wander around doing other stuff. It's more than a little freeing and reminds me of games like Minecraft, Crashlands, and the Grand Theft Auto series in being relatively open ended.

That's it for this week - seen any other games you think should have made this list? Post about it below and we'll add it! Enjoy your weekend.

Review: Erin: The Last Aos Si

Erin: The Last Aos Si opens with a stylised, heavily pixelated, ‘cheesy live action’ (author’s own words) introductory video, that shows a young woman running through a forest. The sequence has the feel of an old music video, a link to the past that is confirmed as soon as you start playing. The blocky graphical style is reminiscent of an early Commodore 64 game; it has a charm that makes an immediate impact. However, before we get ahead of ourselves, let’s first discover a little more about the game’s background story.

Following a little research, I discovered that the aos si are a supernatural race in Irish and Scottish mythology, pretty much like fairies and elves. Sadly, as the game’s title suggests, Erin is the last of her kind. She must journey across a mythical Scotland, in her quest to defeat The God of Blight, Balor, and save the world from destruction. A gracefully animated Erin huffs and puffs her way across the side-scrolling landscape, encountering an entire bestiary of mythological monsters. These beasties must be defeated in a series of tactical, turn-based battles.

Anyone familiar with the Final Fantasy series of games will immediately feel at home, since combat in Erin: The Last Aos Si is very reminiscent of Final Fantasy’s Active Time Battle system. All of the involved units, depicted by tiny icons, make their way across a timeline. Both Erin and her adversaries traverse this timeline at varying speeds, naturally some enemies will move faster than others. When Erin reaches the middle-section she is allowed to select a spell and to begin charging it up. As she progresses into the final third of the timeline Erin becomes especially vulnerable. At this point, if she is attacked there is a good chance that her spell will be interrupted. Such an interruption causes spells to fail, and Erin will have to return to the beginning of the timeline to begin the process all over again.

Add into the mix the fact that most enemies are vulnerable to a particular type of elemental magic and you have a clever, well-crafted battle system. You really have to think carefully before selecting a spell. For instance, you know that the most dangerous beastie facing you is vulnerable to fire, but the fire spell is really slow. You just know that if you attempt to cast the fire spell that the fast-moving haggis is going to dash in and nip your ankles, ruining your concentration, and causing the spell to go off with all the power of a damp firework. So, maybe your first move should be to get rid of that pesky Scottish culinary delight and serve it up with neeps and tatties.

Spells, of which there are many, are activated by pressing a sequence of runes that are displayed at the bottom of the screen. The effectiveness of a spell is determined by tapping and swiping icons with your finger, timing being crucial. The spells are a mix of those that cause damage, those that protect, and those that heal. If you manage to reduce an enemy’s heath by 75% you can cast a capture spell. Capture spells are great; the unfortunate creature will be trapped in a bottle, and they can then be called upon to fight alongside Erin.

Erin: The Last Aos Si has a wonderfully evocative soundtrack that perfectly complements the underused Celtic theme. However, I’m not 100% sure of the game’s mythological authenticity, I’m sure that you are much more likely to find haggises roaming the aisles of Sainsbury’s, rather than the Isles of a mythological Scotland. The retro-style graphics are also excellent; it is just a shame that they are confined to the top half of the screen. Another aspect of the __game that harks back to a bygone age is the game’s economic model. Adhering to the old shareware ethos, the entire __game can be purchased by making a one-off payment, the amount dependent on how much you enjoyed playing. The author also offers a generous dollop of the game upfront for free, even before you have to decide to part with any cash. Whatever you agree to pay you are certainly getting plenty of game for your money, with a long campaign that should take around 20 hours to complete and three difficulty levels to choose from.

My only real concern with Erin: The Last Aos Si is that the game can become quite repetitive. Many of the battles are fought against the same kinds of creatures and consequently require the same tactics. The result is that battling your way from one landscape type to another can often become a bit of a dull slog. It doesn’t help matters that the design of the combat interface serves to slow down proceedings. The problem is that to activate a spell you have to select a specific sequence of runes. There are dozens of spells, and although you are likely to learn the rune sequences for a few regularly used spells, you are still going to find yourself needing to frequently refer back to the spell book. The design of the runes themselves does not help matters, since they are all pretty forgettable.

I can see that the runes add theme, but in terms of contributing to the gameplay experience they are pretty redundant. I would have preferred an option to replace the runes with a scrolling list of spells. Such an option would certainly cut down on the constant switching between screens, significantly speeding up the battles. Having to keep referring back to the bestiary is also irritating; a simple tap on a creature to bring up its statistics and any identified weaknesses would have been nice. This feature would also help to confirm the creature that you are planning to attack, which isn’t always clear when there are several enemies on the screen a once.

It seems a little churlish to criticise a game for being too long, but I think that a shorter more focused game would have helped combat the repetitive elements. Having said that, Erin: The Last Aos Si is still an enjoyable game, and since you can try the first few levels for free it is definitely worth a download.

News By Numbers - April 24th, 2017

Welcome to this week's edition of News by Numbers, where we highlight some of the can't-miss mobile gaming news each and every week.

Carcassonne: $.99

Tile-placing tabletop favourite Carcassonne is on sale at a rock-bottom price of $1 on the Google Play store. I really like the digital implementation on iOS, but can't speak to it on Android (different developer, oddly enough). Regardless, it is likely worth a dollar. If you enjoy the __game but have not yet grabbed it for your Android device now is most-definitely the time!

Frost Update: version 1.31

Frost is an excellent and atmospheric card __game about surviving the elements, and each other, in a harsh and unforgiving world. A new version was just released and brings some interesting additions to the game. There are now custom games, where you can set your own difficulty. Pets make an appearance as valuable resource cards. "The Guidance" a new scenario, focuses on gathering pets and leading them to the safety of the Refuge. There are also new survivor portraits and some graphic and UI changes. I gave Frost four stars in my review last year and still highly recommend it to anybody interested in a great card game.

LVL: $2

LVL is a fun puzzle game, one of my favorite of 2016, and plays a lot like a virtual Rubik’s Cube. The game is played on a six-sided cube on which various shapes of three different colors are placed. Each face of the cube shares a color with its opposite side. Your goal is to fill an entire side in two dimensions with the same color, and no overlap, based on the pieces on both of the opposite sides. A video is worth a bunch more words so check this out to get a good idea of how the game works.

LVL includes fifty hand-crafted levels and 150 puzzles in total, but recently added an Endless game mode, which means unlimited, procedurally generated levels to play. This is an great addition to a great puzzle game and makes LVL and even bigger candidate for your attention than before. Check it out on iOS or Android.

The Escapists 2: 4 players

The Escapists is a sandbox game all about escaping the joint. It recently launched on mobile platforms (I gave it 4 stars) and now there's news of a sequel. The Escapists 2: Rattlesnake Springs puts a wild west spin on the franchise. The big change, however, is less the setting than the introduction of multiplayer. The game will feature "drop-in/drop-out" play for up to four players in both co-operative and versus modes. The Escapists 2 is coming to Xbox One, PS4, Nintendo Switch, and PC in 2017. Hopefully like the original, we'll see a mobile release sometime thereafter.

Through the Ages: 8.8 rating on BoardGameGeek

The digital transformation of Vlad Chvátil's Through the Ages: A New Story of Civilization has been under way for some time and, at long last, we've got some good news. The Czech Games Edition game has moved into beta territory with a focus on nailing down the multiplayer experience. There's no news on a launch date, but it sure seems like you'll be able to build your tribe into a global superpower sometime this year, at least. It is shaping up to be the year of the digital boardgame. 

Last Regiment: 9 squirrels

Boomzap, makers of last year's excellent strategy title Legends of Callasia, announced a new game under development.

“We are happy to announce the title and reveal the logo of our newest project: Last Regiment! Last Regiment is a fantasy-themed strategy game which takes the best parts of Legends of Callasia and makes a bunch of neat changes for a faster, deeper, and more strategic game. We are opening its development progress and livestreaming it on Twitch! The weekly dev stream by our Creative Director Chris Natsuume starts on April 19 10PM EST at twitch.tv/ninesquirrels.”

Last Regiment will feature both a single-player campaign and turn-based multiplayer action. Players will also be able to design and share their own maps. The game is in alpha but we should get a good idea of progress from the weekly development streams. Might be worth attending just to ask about the nine squirrels twitch.tv handle.

Samsung: 26.1% mobile-phone market share

Samsung had a rough 2016 after its Galaxy Note 7 blew up…you know, literally and not in the good figurative way. It looks like Samsung is back on top, however, with a 26.1% global mobile-phone market share throughout the first quarter of 2017. Apple was second with a 16.9% share.

Warbits: 30 new missions

Warbits version 1.2 is live and brings thirty more free missions to the game across three modes of play: 10 Skirmish missions, 10 Puzzle missions, and 10 Veteran missions that unlock when you've shown the corresponding Skirmish mission what for. To celebrate this huge update—as well as the game's one-year anniversary—Warbits is on sale for $1, 75% off. That's a ridiculously good price for one of the best tactical-combat games out there and the runner-up for this site's 2016 tactics game-of-the-year award. Once the sale is over the normal price will go up to $5 to account for the big increase in content.

Faeria: 1000 gold

The iPad launch of Faeria has been a little…let's say rough. A bunch of issues plagued the game and after multiple updates Abrakam, the makers of the game, feel they have things sorted out. They sent an email to iPad players to say as much:

"Dear Faeria player,

As you may have experienced, Faeria wasn't up to par with the standards we set ourselves in terms of quality and gaming experience. As a result of shipping a lot of new features close to the official launch, we met a lot of challenges to ensure these features were both running smoothly and efficiently on all iPad devices. Challenges which we didn't manage to overcome in time.

We would like to inform you that we have been hard at work to ensure that you now can play on a more stable version of Faeria.

As a token of our gratitude for the reports we have received and the feedback that was provided, we have sent 1000 Gold directly to your account in order for you to start your Faeria experience from scratch with a little help from the Faeria team.

The new version definitely deserves more than the App Store rating it currently has.

Kind regards,

The Faeria Team."

It's an uphill battle to take on Hearthstone regardless, and Faeria's iPad launch clearly hasn't helped its case. Dishing out free stuff to lure players back in is a good call, though 1000 gold amounts to a single booster chest. I'm not sure that'll have the effect they are looking for. The game is fun, however, and the Living Board offers a much different CCG experience. If the technical issues chased you away it might be worth another look.

Prison Architect: 2,000,000 players

Prison Architect, a simulation game where you build and manage your own maximum-security prison—every child's dream, really—is on its way to mobile. The game has over two-million players across PC and console platforms and will be available on both iOS and Android later this year courtesy of Paradox Interactive.

That's it for this week's update. Got anything to share? Want to see your news featured next week? Tweet us @pockettactics or @mrvigabool!

Out Now: No Preference Edition

Congratulations, you've survived the work week. Time to treat yourself to a __game or two, you've earned it. We have a bevy of options for your perusal of all different genres. You can cast spells, grow a forest, guard the galaxy, become a pirate, or terraform your way to victory in one of the most popular board games ever made.

Ms. Spell (iOS)

This week's one-dollar special is a little roguelike named Ms. Spell. In this __game there are foes, foes, wherever one goes. The world is full of dire rats, skeletons, bandits, and considerably worse—all of which are looking to devour Ms. Spell. Her best defense is probably obvious: spells. Scrolls are littered about the world like your neighbor's old newspapers on a super windy recycling day. Spells are one-use only and have a variety of effects like freezing one or all enemies, blasting all foes around you with fire, or swapping place with an enemy. Ms. Spell is a fun little game and a solid option for fans of the genre. If you don't like roguelikes, well, you probably moved on after the first sentence anyway.

Evergrow: Paper Forest (iOS)

Evergrow: Paper Forest is a choose-the-path puzzler where you direct a hopping bunny around a many-tiled game board. Where the bunny passes grass grows, for some reason, and your goal is to fill in all of the tiles with grass so the entire level can bloom. Certain tiles are obstacles, which means the bunny either cannot, or should not, enter them. Later, the game throws in special tiles that mix up the rules in different ways. All this is set against the backdrop of a larger story. The game takes place in a child's room and as you progress through levels the child ages and the room changes. Evergrow: Paper Forest is not an easy game and requires quite a bit of trial-and-error to work through many of the levels (there are 50 in all). Puzzle aficionados in search of a challenge need look no further.

Tempest (iOS and Android) (Full Review Coming)

Take to the seas as captain of your own ship, hire a crew of misfits and ne'er-do-wells, board and rob merchant vessels, battle and destroy rival captains, and raid shore-based settlements in Tempest. The game puts you in the boots of a pirate attempting to become an ever-greater fish in the sea. There are a bunch of quests to take part in, over one hundred in total. Oh, and naturally there's a kraken. Tempest is an RPG…you have quests, including a central storyline, but the world is fairly open. You hire and manage your crew, customize and upgrade your ship, and level up your captain's abilities. The graphics are attractive and the user interface works well enough. Combat is in real time and can be a bit confusing, however. It will take some practice for most players to get used to it. Tempest also features a player-versus-player option for those interested in testing their mettle against other human pirates, though I didn't give it a go. Check out this rock-and-rollin' trailer for a look at the graphics and gameplay.

Card Thief (Android)

It's not quite out at the time of writing, but Card Thief is sneaking onto the Google Play Store sometime today. Michael gave this one five stars and loved it so much he wrote a gameplay guide as well, and it's a safe bet Card Thief will be a contender for some game-of-the-year honors. The game has done quite well on the App Store, thanks in large part to Apple's support, and it'll be interesting to see if the buzz carries over to Android.

Guardians of the Galaxy: Episode One (iOS and Android)

The Star Lord and his plucky gang of heroes (yes, plucky and heroes are both a bit loose here) are back, in video game form, and ready to take on a new challenge. A distress call puts the team on the trail of universal big-bad Thanos himself, and they track him to a Kree planet. It ain't gonna be easy, but what else is new? Like any TellTale series your choices steer the story to some degree. Unfortunately, we weren't able to get our hands on a review copy of the game, so I have no early impressions to share. 

Terra Mystica (iOS and Android) (Full Review Coming)

Boardgame enthusiasts rejoice, Terra Mystica has launched for iOS and Android. Terra Mystica is super popular in cardboard form and a fixture in the top-5 of BoardGameGeek's rankings. Digidiced—known for bringing Agricola, Patchwork, and  Le Havre to digital life—has been hard at work on Terra Mystica for quite some time.  The game is deep and complex, with a myriad of rules to understand, strategies to work through, and tactical considerations to ponder and none of that goes away with the digital version. There's a steep learning curve here, no doubt about it, and that's by design. The digital implementation if Terra Mystica is solid. The graphics look great and do a good job capturing the board game feel and the UI is clean and polished, no small feat given how much is going on. The tutorial does a good job going over the basics of what is a very complex game. There are a few different ways to play Terra Mystica. You can play solo against the AI and attempt to master its three levels of difficulty. There's local pass-and-play versus some combination of human and AI opponents. Finally, there's online multiplayer where you can take on either friends or opponents of similar skill level in ranked games. Online play is asynchronous with some optional rules to speed up the back-and-forth in certain circumstances.

Seen any other games you think people should know about? Tried out anything from the list above? Let us know in the comments! Enjoy your weekend!

Review: Militia

Anyone encountering Militia for the first time will be struck by the game’s spartan presentation. Sticking with the ancient Greek references, the next thing to spring to mind is likely to be the game’s similarity to the classic Hoplite. Both are turn based tactical games with a puzzle __game vibe. Both hide a solid challenge under a simplistic surface. Both have seven letters and the word “lit” in their title. I’m struggling a bit now so let’s quickly move on. What is different about Militia is that you do not just control a single soldier but lead a small troop of up to three warriors, mages and cavalry units.

If you thought that Hoplite was pared down presentation-wise then Militia will surprise you by taking the idea of minimalism to a whole new level of nothingness. When you enter the Light World for the first time you could easily suffer a spell of snow-blindness as your eyes adjust to the barren, wintery landscape. Start making your way through the training levels and you could be fooled into thinking that the gameplay is going to be as simple as the presentation. However, with the gradual introduction of new units, each with their own increasingly complicated special powers, any fears of a __game lacking in scope are quickly laid to rest.

Militia uses a simple turn based structure; each of your units moves and attacks and then the enemy units do likewise. There are no terrain modifiers and no combat statistics. Put simply, if a unit is attacked it will be destroyed. The key to success is to learn the most effective ways of using the skills of your small band of troops and to be aware of your enemies’ movement and attack patterns. To give a clearer idea of how Militia actually works let’s look at a few of the units in a little more detail. Things start off straightforward enough with the warrior who will wipe out enemies in the three tiles directly in front of him. Cavalry units can destroy an enemy by moving into the same tile and skewer a further two kebab-style. The mage can move up to one tile and cast a ranged spell or move two spaces and attack an adjacent enemy. The paladin rejuvenates units around him when he attacks, providing them with a second action. Then there is the teleporting mage, he may not be able to attack, but if he teleports an enemy to a tile occupied by another unit then things get messy and both are destroyed.

Of course whilst all of this manoeuvering is going on your adversaries aren’t just sitting around sipping tea. The bog-standard orc can only move one tile horizontally or vertically, imps move diagonally, archers will destroy a unit if they have a clear line of sight in a vertical or horizontal direction, slimes do what slimes do best by multiplying themselves and barbarians give immunity to units next to them. There are also the tiles that generate new enemies to consider. Mercifully, you don’t have to defeat every enemy to win a battle, just the captains who are denoted by a star. Still, you only have a limited number of turns in which to wipeout the leaders so you cannot afford to sit back.

Victory in a battle is only the first step to winning a game. In Militia you need to be successful in three consecutive battles to claim a win. Every time you achieve this you head towards a higher rank and a stiffer test, with the randomly generated levels offering ever-greater challenges. If you are defeated then you lose ranking points. This can frustrating, especially when you have reached the third and final battle. After the first few easy levels you find yourself in a constant tug-of-war as you try to keep your win ratio high enough to improve your ranking. There are no equipment upgrades or character level progressions; you are simply pitting yourself against greater challenges.

That is just the Light World, a whole new Dark World campaign also awaits. This introduces new heroes and enemies for a much more demanding challenge. Key features include units with the ability to warp from one edge of the board to the other and a new mage who has the ability to push units back. There are also explosive totems that can wreak havoc on your enemies but also endanger any nearby friendly units. I found that some of the training levels in the Dark World were a challenge in themselves. Soon my brain just wanted to crawl into its own dark corner and be left alone.

When a game opts for such an austere design even the smallest issue is going to stand out like your Nan’s old sofa and crocheted cushions in a minimalist’s apartment. It is here that Militia falls a little short. The presentation feels a bit rough (the glitchy screen reorientation for instance) and the unit icons do not really have a consistent style. In general, although the rules are easy to understand, some units could do with a little more explanation. Finding out the more complex capabilities can often be a matter of trial and error. The teleporting mage is a case in point; this guy bamboozled me for a fair while. Finally, I discovered that he teleports a unit to the symmetrically opposite tile on the other half of the board.

Militia isn’t a game that you are going to sit down with and spend hours playing. It is at its best when experienced in short sharp blasts when you have a spare 10 minutes and want to give your brain a quick workout. The controls are responsive, and although the enemies aren’t the brightest they make up for this in sheer numbers. In some ways, with its constantly respawning baddies, Militia feels like a turn-based version of the old arcade classic Gauntlet - "The Wizard Needs Food Badly."

Militia does feel rather harsh at times. Defeat is all too often followed by frustration that carries over into the next battle. Then you make the inevitable annoyance-fueled stupid mistakes and before you know it your ranking is plummeting. It doesn’t help matters that although you can undo movement orders you cannot take back any accidental attacks. Consequently, it can feel like you are taking one step forwards and two steps back. This lack of a sense of steady progression may put off some players. Yet, Militia's chilled music, graphical sparseness and absorbing puzzles help you to forgive and embrace the game’s trance-like quality.

The Grand Adventure: An Interview with Wadjet Eye CEO Dave Gilbert

Once upon a time there was a locked door. Nothing would open it, and we had nothing to help open it: no keys, crowbars or sledgehammers. There was just a mysterious box which, despite being cardboard, no-one could open. After wandering around with this box for hours, someone thought to drop it in a furnace. What came out was a bra wire, too hot to touch and which stayed that way forever. Finding water to cool it was a whole other story. But at the end of it, there was a finally a wire to pick the lock on the door.

This story is from Return to Zork and the blind frustration of the experience has stayed with me for over 20 years. I told it, not long ago, to a group of gamers in a dingy bar after we'd revealed a shared loathing of adventure games. The result was astonishing: each person in the circle told a similar story, of similar age, recalled in similar detail. Which made me wonder if, given we could all remember them in such clarity, they really deserved such hatred?

Dave Gilbert, CCO of Wadjet Eye, which makes adventure games for iOS and PC, has another memory to add to the list. "There was a puzzle in Wishbringer where you had to put a hat on a pelican," he confided to me. "It's memorable because I dreamed about putting a hat on that pelican. This was before Google, and Wishbringer had consumed weeks of my time. So in lieu of a walkthrough, my subconscious did the work."

Infuriating, logic-free puzzles were a feature of many text and early point and click adventures. Some became legendary, such as the babel fish puzzle from Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, a __game Douglas Adams described as "player mendacious". Dave has fonder memories. "It's difficult to be mad at the __game because Infocom managed to obfuscate the horribleness with some clever and charming writing," he told me. "But I still describe Hitchhiker's as a game that hates you. I enjoyed many of the Infocom games because they played fair most of the time. Hitchhiker's, for all its strengths, was not one of them."

Tellingly, though, it's not the puzzles that he remembers best. "When I think back," he recalled, "I often wax nostalgic about the characters, the story, a clever bit of writing or a piece of art that I really enjoyed."

It's something that's informed his approach to game design. "My goal in creating a game is to tell an immersive story that reacts to your input, not to stump you with puzzles," he told me. "Plus the typical adventure game puzzle is hard to justify in a grounded or realistic setting. That said, if there's a situation where a puzzles or obstacle occurs naturally, I will include it. But I'm not going to force it. If something doesn't feel right, I will listen to that instinct."

And of course, there's a huge elephant in this escape room. "Back in 1989, I would happily spend weeks or even months on a puzzle," he said. "But now? I'd last about five minutes before bringing up Google. Modern developers understand this, so will instead focus on the areas of the game that are more enjoyable. Things like immersion, exploration, and reactivity become the priority. Puzzles become a distant second."

Without tough puzzles, though, it would seem hard to design a game that holds the attention. Most gamers expect a certain level of challenge. But when I put this to Dave, he disagreed. "Challenge isn't a bad thing," he replied. "It's just not our forte."

"Folks play these games now for the immersion," he continued. "You are in the story. You are making the events happen, or the events are happening to you. The visuals, the sound design, the way the world and characters react to you." He agrees, though, that it's a challenge in itself. "It's a difficult line to walk, but when it's done right there is nothing quite like it."

And he must be pretty good at it, because people keep buying Wadjet Eye games. Dave reminded me that the studio's been going for eleven years. And although it started out releasing for PC, he's enthusiastic about the genre's future on mobile. "I wouldn't say one platform is better for storytelling," he said. "I will say that it's difficult to bring a PC on the subway!" The next title they're planning to port is Technobabylon, a popular favourite and one Dave particularly enjoys.

So where does that leave the legend of the absurdist puzzle? Relegated to a retrogaming niche, with faint echoes in hidden object and room escape games, that's where. And, in truth, I can't say I mourn its passing. It might have forged some mighty memories, but they're often not pleasant ones. Recollections of time spent wasted and frustrated rather than having fun. In the modern age, as games get longer and distractions more frequent, time is too precious to waste.

Many thanks to Dave Gilbert for taking the time to talk to us. Got any of your own stories to share about adventure games? Let us know in the comments below!

Welcome to the Jungle - A Hearthstone Meta Evaluation

Spring is here, along with a spring-clean of the Hearthstone scene. Not only have we got a new expansion to play with, Journey to Un'Goro, but it's rotation time. The year of the Kraken has given way to the year of the Mammoth and with it, a lot of popular cards are no longer legal in Standard play. Goodbye then, Reno Jackson. Some of us won't shed a single tear for the tiresome play style you engendered.

Seismic change is timely for the game, though. After the bright days in the wake of the last expansion, the __game settled in to tiresome repetition, with a small number of fixed decks dominating. Worse, they were boring decks to play against, either full of bludgeoning aggro or mind-numbing defence. It's a lesson to remind us to take Hearthstone expansion reviews with a pinch of salt. It takes a long time for trends to emerge.

With all the heavy lifting Un'Goro and its attendant Mammoth needed to do to revitalise the game, however, it's too tempting not to try. So after a week, here's where we are in the bright new age of Hearthstone.

First, the biggest new toy in the expansion: quest cards. These are all 1-mana class legendaries which you're guaranteed to draw in your opening hand. Fulfill the conditions of the quest by playing a certain number of a certain type of cards and you're rewarded with another, very powerful card.

Quests turned out nothing like anyone was expecting. Those trailed as exceptionally powerful, like the Hunter's Marsh Queen, turned out to be a damp squib. Those presumed to be not worth a look, like those for Warrior and Rogue, turned out to be the ones everyone is playing. And on the plus side, its seems difficult to pin down a fixed format for decks supporting the worthwhile quests. There are several competitive flavours for most classes. Let's hope it stays that way: the open-ended nature of Quests lends itself to multiple ways of fulfillment.

It's not all roses, though. Quests are legendary cards and thus out of reach of most casual players. And there's another set of class legendaries in the expansion too. There's a real danger that Un'Goro might price newbies out of the competitive game. Two of the quests, those for Mage and Rogue, also fulfill the regrettable combination of being both powerful and boring. We have to hope that the temptation of taking the former over the latter doesn't come to dominate the meta.

A bigger and more pleasant surprise, though, is how the expansion has revitalised several old archetypes. The classic Warlock zoo and handlock decks are both back and doing well. Miracle Rogue absolutely will not die in spite of losing two key cards. The mid-range Hunter beast deck has returned from the Call of the Wild nerf. Most surprising of all, the Jade Shaman and Druid decks introduced in the last expansion remain playable. As does the much loathed pirate aggro Warrior, in spite of some new cards introduced to counter it.

Yet the counter-cards do seem to be partially effective. A flood of new cheap taunts have given players the tools to handle aggro without taking it out of the game. Play has slowed down a little, control is more viable, mid-range and ramp-style decks are currently dominating. This is a good thing. It's the freshness, the variety that we needed and which big shake-ups tend to provide. The fact that, like quest decks, there are several variants to many of these archetypes is great news. It's grounds for some optimism that some of that variety will persist.

Arguably Blizzard bought this variety at the cost of complexity. Most of the decks doing the rounds right now have a fairly low skill cap. There's nothing really new in terms of mechanics or the interplay between existing ones. Some cards just mimic older ones going out of rotation, with Primordial Drake, for instance, looking a lot like Chillmaw. I'm going to call that as a good thing. Hearthstone was at its best in the early days, proving it had enough depth and mechanical diversity to sustain it. The __game needs a range of workable decks and strategies far more than it needs new toys. Early signs are that Un'Goro has bought some of that back.

Certain classes always get a big left behind in an expansion, and Un'Goro is no exception. It's poor, though, that the weakest classes are the same ones that suffered through the previous expansion. Dragon Priest was briefly a solid deck for that beleaguered class, but it lost a slew of vital cards. It's a testament to the dearth of options on offer that Priest players are still trying to make it work. Paladin has more of a mixture to play with, but none of the decks are really singing yet. Perhaps they will in time, with handbuff taunt showing some early promise.

Our journey to Un'Goro, then, has taken us somewhere quite unexpected. Instead of lush virgin jungle, with a wonder or two to marvel at, we've discovered something even more valuable. The mystery at the heart of uncharted Un'Goro is the pleasure of returning to an old haunt. The joy of finding out that home isn't such a bad place to be over all. Let's hope Blizzard let us put our feet up, and rest here awhile. We've earned it.

News By Numbers - April 17th, 2017

Welcome to this week's edition of News by Numbers, where we highlight some of the can't-miss mobile gaming news each and every week.

Faeria: 1 player draft

Pandora, the draft format for Faeria, has been rejiggered to include a solo mode. Rather than taking on other players for fame and riches you take on AI opponents for…well, no fame and fewer riches. The idea is to provide a more laid back, casual, drafting experience. It's a good idea, not everybody likes taking on other players. The Elder Scrolls: Legends offers the same thing with their Arena mode, in fact, so this is something of a trend for CCGs.

Age of Conquest IV: 2 new maps

Noblemaster can't stop and won't stop updating Age of Conquest IV. The latest update adds new maps for feudal Japan (Sengoku period) and Japan and Korea as well as some AI tweaks. Age of Conquest IV is free-to-play with no ads and IAPs for maps and other nice to haves. There is no pay-to-win here and a really great online multiplayer systems. You should be playing it.

Mysterium: version 2.06

Asmodee Digital has updated digital board __game Mysterium with a new pass-and-play mode (apparently by popular demand) as well as the ability to create private password-protected games (now we're talking) and social features like friends, ignored players, and recent players lists. In progress games are now displayed in the lobby, as well. Oh, also chat emoticons. People do love their emoticons.

Epic Little War Game: 4th __game in the series

If you've been a mobile strategy gamer for years and years chances are high you've encountered Rubicon's war gaming series of Great Little War Game, Great Big War Game, and Great Little War game 2. The games feature one-on-one, turn-based combat between swarms of units that you bring to the battlefield. The games require a fair amount of both strategy and tactics to win. The last one came out nearly three years ago but Rubicon is at it again and poised to deliver a fourth game in the series, Epic Little War Game, toward the end of May. The game will feature more of the same army-versus-army action for up to six players on even bigger hex maps. There's also a map maker so players can create and share their own maps on which to fight. Epic Little War Game looks really good, maybe even epic. Check out the early trailer below and let Rubicon know if you want to help beta test this one on mobile starting April 19.

Race for the Galaxy: $7

The 2007 card game Race for the Galaxy is on its way to mobile, releasing May 3 for both iOS and Android. It's a Euro victory-point game where 2-4 players will compete to build space faring civilizations by playing cards that will build up your economic, technical, and social prowess. Race for the Galaxy will support both asynchronous and real-time online multiplayer (fingers crossed that it will be implemented well) and promises to provide a killer AI to take on if desired. The base game will cost $7 and The Gathering Storm and Rebel vs Imperium games will be available via IAP. If you want to help beta test this one click here and let them know.

Minecraft PE: 300 coins for $1.99

As part of the next Minecraft update, Microsoft will be introducing a new marketplace where third-party content creators will be able to sell skin packs, texture packs, worlds, and so on to players. Those content creators will pocket at least half of the sale income, after retail fees have been applied. To shop at the marketplace players will need an Xbox Live account and will be able to buy coins—$1.99 for 300 coins, $4.99 for 840 coins, and $9.99 for 1,720 coins—with which to make their purchases. I'm interested to see how this works. Will talented content creators be able to make a living off of Minecraft? Surely many will at least be able to convert this into a decent supplemental income source.

Terra Mystica: 20th of April

At long last we have a date for the digital launch of popular board game Terra Mystica. This Thursday. Yup, you won't have to wait much longer to get your hands on it for your iPad or Android tablet. Dave Neumann at Stately Play got a hold of the trailer (below) and seems impressed with the digital port.

[CUT 2017 04 09 LaunchDate]

Rome Total War: 30% off

The barbarians invaded and made a bit of a mess. As a result Feral Interactive is selling some slightly beat up copies of Rome: Total War for the iPad. Ok, I made that up. The game is fine. It is on sale, down $3 from the usual ten-spot asking price. If you've got a newer iPad and have been holding off on this one due to price, time to pounce.

Evolution: 12,000 different species

Evolution, a card game of strategic adaption and survival, is evolving from the tabletop to digital devices near you. Players must champion their creatures by adding traits that will help obtain enough food and avoid hungry predators looking to cut their evolutionary path short. The gameplay is all about natural selection and advantageous adaptation and Darwin would love it.  North Star Games, the makers of Evolution, are building the game for both PC and are looking for alpha testers here.

Bit City: 2.5 million downloads

Nimblebit's city simulating clicker has definitely found an audience since its release during March mobile madness. Bit City has already crossed the 2.5 million download threshold, undoubtedly thanks to Apple's featured placement during their indie showcase (and continued prominence on the indie games page). An update last week added eight more cities, including lunar colonies, to the game complete with satellites, lunar rovers, and special moon-based buildings.

Kami 2: 284,000,000 puzzle attempts

I love metrics about mobile gaming, as anybody who regularly reads this column likely knows. I also love infographics. State of Play Games—makers of Kami 2, a recently released puzzle game of unfolding paper triangles—created an infographic to provide some behind-the-scenes metrics about their game's first ten days. Oh, and the game is fun too and well worth checking out on iOS or Android for fans of the puzzle genre.

That's it for this edition of News by Numbers. If you've got a news item worth sharing send it my way on Twitter @MrVigabool and it may show up in a future edition.

Unity set to triple Indian workforce as it eyes industries outside of games Related Articles Comments Login to to leave a comment Or click here to register Top Stories Events Games Industry Jobs Popular Stories Latest User Comments Videos PGBiz on Facebook PGbiz Staff About Us Steel Media Network

Unity wants to triple the number of its employees in India during 2017 as it ups plans to branch out into industries outside of games.

As reported by the Economic Times, the __game engine firm is looking at opportunities in other sectors such as automotive, manufacturing, real estate and education.

Unity believes it can offer these companies a tool for their expansions into augmented reality and virtual reality.

Market leading ambition

According to Unity Director of South Asia/ANZ Quentin Staes-Polet, 70% of the world’s VR work is done on its engine.

“People in automobile and manufacturing have raised a demand for interactive and immersive platforms for their customers and internal work,” said Staes-Polet.

“This high-fidelity visualisation cannot be achieved with 3D design tools. Therefore, we are consorting with IT integration firms that are building up augmented and virtual reality practises.”

Unity sees plenty of opportunity in India both in and outside of games.

Chief Revenue Officer Dave Rhodes said the costs of mobile continues to decrease in the country, giving wider access to mobile games and driving the market on an upward trajectory.

“People in India if given the right price of device and bandwidth, will buy more games,” said Rhodes.

“The developers have an outlet to make money and we want to be there to support them.”

Getting into games through the back door Related Articles Comments Login to to leave a comment Or click here to register Top Stories Events Games Industry Jobs Popular Stories Latest User Comments Videos PGBiz on Facebook PGbiz Staff About Us Steel Media Network

Mark Sorrell is a consultant and advisor on fremium __game design, behavioural change, value perception and strategy. He has over a decade of experience in making games do new things, in new places, for new audiences. With an enviable history of successful projects for companies across gaming, broadcasting, advertising and finance, talk to Sorrell if you want to know how games can help your business.

Mark Sorrell is Head of Studio at Rovio London.

The games industry is generally rather insular, and often respects only skills learnt inside the business.

While that is very sensible for some roles, this way of thinking is not necessarily always useful, especially within the mobile games business.

There are many skills which those outside the industry possess in greater depth than those inside, along with the unquestionable benefits of having assumptions questioned and fresh ideas brought to bear.

While we can’t guarantee that other companies feel the same way, certainly at Rovio we are always happy to receive applications from outside the games industry at all levels of the business.

When we do, these are the things we look for and the things you can do as a prospective candidate to make your application stand out.

Be passionate about what we do

There are lots of people who are very passionate about games, and you should definitely be one. That’s not to say that everyone who works in the business already is passionate about it, nor that that passion should be unquestioning or a reason to expect unreasonable hours of work.

You do need to have played a wide variety of specifically mobile free-to-play games and you should love them. Making games is hard and it can easily end in failure. Even the best teams don’t make successful games every single time.

A glimpse inside the Rovio Stockholm office

So while you don’t need to be passionate as a replacement for good working conditions, you do need to be sincerely excited and enthusiastic, to carry you through the inevitable failures and disappointments that pave the way to eventual success.

Be passionate about what we don’t do

If you are being hired from inside or outside the industry, it’s important you have something else to offer too.

This is certainly true of what are usually referred to as ‘creative’ roles, but every role is creative in some way or another and seeking inspiration in the most unusual places is one of the key strengths someone from outside of the industry can have to offer.

What does architecture teach us about how spaces in games are designed? How does philosophy help us understand player motivations? What does the structure of British versus US sitcoms teach us about games as a service and culturalisation?

If you are being hired from inside or outside the industry, it’s important you have something else to offer too.

What does magic teach us about controlling the player’s attention? How can stand-up comedy help us understand timing and rhythm? How does cookery help us understand how we present rewards? How do supermarkets help us understand how to design our shops and how can fashion help us understand luxury and desire?

It’s difficult to think of a discipline or experience that hasn’t got something interesting and useful to say about how hugely mass-market free-to-play mobile games are made.

So think about how the experiences and knowledge that you have can help make better games. What’s the way of looking at the world that’s unique to you? What does that have to say about games and how they are made?

It could be just the right thing to make them even better.

Have opinions

One of the most important reasons to hire someone without explicit experience of the games industry, is because you have fresh opinions about what we do and why we do it.

Rovio has worked on numerous games, including hit title Angry Birds 2

Play big popular games, play small niche games, read about games, have opinions about what works and what doesn’t, and have a bunch of reasons for those opinions.

We don’t have to agree, in fact it’s often best if we don’t, but you need to demonstrate that you’ve given the industry considerable thought. The whole industry. That’s the art and the commerce.

One of the greatest strengths that people from outside of the industry can bring is their knowledge of their own lack of knowledge.

In the games industry, we can seldom afford to care for only one side or the other. Have as strong an interest in why and how particular games are fun and compelling as why and how their free-to-play systems work.

Have questions

Having questions is possibly the most important thing of all. One of the greatest strengths that people from outside of the industry can bring is their knowledge of their own lack of knowledge.

All too often inside the industry we think we know how things work, or what the best solution to a problem is, or what our audience want, when we’re really just relying on comfortable answers.

While it’s important to remember that 90% of the questions you have we’ve almost certainly already asked and answered, there will always be those beautiful questions that haven’t been thought of, the angles that haven’t been considered or the answers staring us in the face that we just haven’t seen.

So stay curious, question without fear and hopefully together we can discover something truly new.

And remember, If you’re wondering if you should apply or not, we always hope you do.

Rovio is hiring now, in Espoo, Stockholm and London. For more details, no matter your background, please have a look at www.rovio.com/careers.

This was part of the MGU course Mobile Games University: How to get a job in games. For more articles in this course click here.