The iOS gaming thread

[The Mighty Ash]

Motoheroz released last night for 69p, by redlynx who made trials and 1000 heroz. It has the same leaderboard integration as the latter and seems really fun so far.

[JPickford]

Bizarrely I ended up just playing relentless, and now squish. I've hardly touched the higher than casual classic tables.

Is there such a thing as playing a game wrong?

Lots of people prefer the endles modes, nothing wrong with that. Sardines seems to be a big favourite perhaps because you can play in a more traditional way - no need to worry about taking as many shots as possible - you can clear clusters as quickly as you like.

I'm playing squish loads at the moment despite it being not quite right yet.

[Gotters]

Motoheroz from RedLynx is up, can't really go wrong for 69p (£1.99p on ipad) , looks like 1000 Heroz crossed with their ios monster truck games from couple of levels I've tried.

[Grobbelboy]

Hey guys, there's this game Motoheroz. It's from RedLynx and it's out now.

[ZOK]

Sardines is easily the best mode in Magnetic Billiards for me, I have lost many pleasurable hours to that game. Curiously, I always do better if I play it while listening to the Katamari Damarcy soundtrack.

[Asura]

Here's a question, has anyone used iCloud for savegames in an iOS game?

I'm curious. Say I have the game on my iPhone, and I play it a bit, then I transfer the save to iCloud so it gets "pushed" to my iPad.

Then, I put both my iPhone and iPad in aeroplane mode so that they don't have any networking features enabled.

I play some of the game on my iPad.

I play some of the game on my iPhone.

I then turn them both back to normal mode.

How does iCloud resolve that I have two savegames that are now mismatched?

[toythatkills]

Anyone know if MotoHeroz is out yet?

(But seriously, how are the controls? I'm always a bit dubious of these kinds of games on iOS)

[Rudderless]

Anyone know if MotoHeroz is out yet?

(But seriously, how are the controls? I'm always a bit dubious of these kinds of games on iOS)

Yeah, it's out. And the controls are fine. It's a lot like 1000 Heroz in that respect, albeit a little tighter. The movement of your avatar in 1000 Heroz felt slightly looser, I found. My review should be online any time between now and 4pm.

[SomethingWitty]

I second this. I've been playing it non-stop since yesterday afternoon.

Absolutely fantastic, isn't it? I'd been in a bit of an iOS gaming lull, trudging wearily through all my ongoing turn-based games, with no consistent single player time-filler having got hold of me for months. Then along comes NSS, and I'm back to sneaking off for long bog breaks at work, having a 'quick go' when I go to bed and suddenly realising it's 2 in the morning, and repeatedly draining the battery on my iPhone. I think this could be my iOS game of the year so far (as much as I love(d) Fairway Solitaire). It's absolutely perfect for the platform and fiendishly addictive, playable for a couple of minutes here and there or (more often) for hours on end - exactly what you want in an iOS game.

However, I would say that it really needs more of an introduction to what career mode is all about before you pay for it, as the arcade mode barely scratches the surface and if it wasn't for reading about the rest of the game on rllmuk, I don't think I'd have paid for the upgrade.

Also agree with this. The arcade mode really undersells it. Not sure how you'd do it, but if you could somehow offer a taster of career mode in the free app, I reckon you'd be certain to get tons more sales. Which you deserve.

[K]

I completed Waking Mars the other day, and it’s a little gem – one of the freshest games I’ve played in ages. If nothing else, it’s really different to play a game about discovering alien life which doesn’t turn out to have a sociopathic desire to eradicate all human life, and where the focus is on actually researching and understanding how an alien ecosystem works, rather than killing things with multi-barrelled shotguns. The main character isn’t Jack “Firestorm” Hammerstein a tortured and disgraced space marine, haunted by the atrocities committed at the Battle of Anvil Bridge, he’s a professional scientist who’s motivated by his awe of the natural world. His companion isn’t Kyra Darkblade, a combination secretary and assassin who gives you mission updates and also kills people in low-cut body armour and thigh-length boots; she’s another professional scientist who wears sensible clothes and gives you practical advice.

The whole thing’s incredibly well structured; it’s like a Metroidvania game that controls your progression through the world not through granting of new items or abilities, but through gradually augmenting your understanding of how the different lifeforms interact with the world and each other. The basic aim is to raise the biomass in each area by stimulating the ecosystem, and commendably you can easily let a system spin wildly out of control if you try and take shortcuts, or don’t understand or anticipate the implications of a particular aspect. It’s not perfect – you can quite easily spam some lifeforms to reach the biomass limit if you’re patient enough – but it’s incredibly satisfying when you think of a solution to an environment that looks like a dead end.

It’s just hard enough to be satisfying, and just easy enough for almost continual progress. As I said before, it’s basically a modern version of Exile, only with ecological puzzles instead of ridiculously hard and obscure physics puzzles. Awesome, and well worth the £1.99 of whatever preposterously cheap price it is.

[The Mighty Ash]

I just started a Rllmuk leaderboard (called rllmuk) on Motoheroz, please join

[siread]

The arcade mode really undersells it. Not sure how you'd do it, but if you could somehow offer a taster of career mode in the free app, I reckon you'd be certain to get tons more sales. Which you deserve.

Ok, top of my iOS to do list is it to open up some of the career mode for free. What do you reckon 5, 10, 20 matches? (Someone suggested a whole season which seems a bit much.)

[Cheeko]

Installed Motoheroz, played 1 level, love it. It will consume my time like 1000heroz did.

[gingerling]

Ok, top of my iOS to do list is it to open up some of the career mode for free. What do you reckon 5, 10, 20 matches? (Someone suggested a whole season which seems a bit much.)

10 matches I would say. That'll should make people part with their 69p

[Davros sock drawer]

Really in love with Waking Mars now that I'm quite deep into it. It's incredibly satisfying once you understand how everything interacts and you can optimise what to "plant" to yield the fastest bioform growth. Seeing a previously barren cave teeming with life is rather nice. I can see myself going back to get Max Bioform in every area.

Helps that it looks lovely. I'm a sucker for games like this that have seamless zooms at appropriate points:

http://www.tigerstylegames.com/wakingmars/

http://www.edge-online.com/reviews/waking-mars-review

I completed Waking Mars the other day, and it’s a little gem – one of the freshest games I’ve played in ages. If nothing else, it’s really different to play a game about discovering alien life which doesn’t turn out to have a sociopathic desire to eradicate all human life, and where the focus is on actually researching and understanding how an alien ecosystem works, rather than killing things with multi-barrelled shotguns. The main character isn’t Jack “Firestorm” Hammerstein a tortured and disgraced space marine, haunted by the atrocities committed at the Battle of Anvil Bridge, he’s a professional scientist who’s motivated by his awe of the natural world. His companion isn’t Kyra Darkblade, a combination secretary and assassin who gives you mission updates and also kills people in low-cut body armour and thigh-length boots; she’s another professional scientist who wears sensible clothes and gives you practical advice.

The whole thing’s incredibly well structured; it’s like a Metroidvania game that controls your progression through the world not through granting of new items or abilities, but through gradually augmenting your understanding of how the different lifeforms interact with the world and each other. The basic aim is to raise the biomass in each area by stimulating the ecosystem, and commendably you can easily let a system spin wildly out of control if you try and take shortcuts, or don’t understand or anticipate the implications of a particular aspect. It’s not perfect – you can quite easily spam some lifeforms to reach the biomass limit if you’re patient enough – but it’s incredibly satisfying when you think of a solution to an environment that looks like a dead end.

It’s just hard enough to be satisfying, and just easy enough for almost continual progress. As I said before, it’s basically a modern version of Exile, only with ecological puzzles instead of ridiculously hard and obscure physics puzzles. Awesome, and well worth the £1.99 of whatever preposterously cheap price it is.

o/

I spent so long on my post that I missed yours. Thanks so much for the recommendation.

[SomethingWitty]

Ok, top of my iOS to do list is it to open up some of the career mode for free. What do you reckon 5, 10, 20 matches? (Someone suggested a whole season which seems a bit much.)

I would say 10. Fewer than that and you wouldn't get much of a chance to appreciate the different things you have to balance to be successful.

Speaking of balance, if I had one minor (hopefully constructive)criticism of the game, it's that when you fall out of favour with a manager, it's virtually impossible to play your way back into the team. It seems like the starting point of the match ratings is zero, so if you come off the bench on 60 minutes and play 3-4 passes without any mistakes because that's all there is time to do, you still end up with a poor (3-5) rating, and the boss relationship sinks even further. It's rare that I would look to FIFA for examples of any kind of sensible design decision, but the way the player ratings work there is to start at a neutral value (6?) and move up and down from there. I wonder if a similar thing might work in NSS, so that coming on as sub you are not immediately at a disadvantage. That is to say, if you came on as a sub and had literally no chances to interact with the match (not something I've ever seen happen, admittedly), you would end up with a 'no change' rating. As it is, it seems like an almost inevitable downward spiral that you can only escape from by playing the boss 'matching game' from the Life section. If that was an intentional design decision, then that's cool - I certainly don't feel it breaks anything - but it feels like you ought to be able to get back into favour by what you do on the pitch.

Hope that doesn't sound too critical - I think it's an excellent game, as I might have already mentioned.

[K]

o/

I spent so long on my post that I missed yours. Thanks so much for the recommendation.

\o

What I really liked about it was that I was discovering new things even towards the end of the game. I’d completely misunderstood those things that hang long strings down from the ceiling, and assumed they were just vermin and eradicated them whenever I could. Eventually, I realised that they produced compost when they eat things, which is essential to five starring some of the later areas. I’d inadvertently caused a zoacaust in some bits, but managed to claw it back.

[Davros sock drawer]

I only realised that on the train this morning. Is there any point to feeding them water, other than to keep them out of your way for a bit?

I know I could do some of the areas much more efficiently next time. There was one cave which took me ages because there were mainly those Zoa gathering floaty things, and the acid plants. Every time I generated a new floaty thing, one would get eaten by an acid berk. In the end I stood outside their cave feeding them Zoas (gathered from a previous area) and shooing them back in to generate more of themselves. "No! Dangerous out here, back in you go!". Probably the least efficient solution.

I notice that their previous game was Spider: The Secret of Bryce Manor. Any good for £1.99?

[rumblecat]

Wind does come into play once you start levelling up, but it will always be displayed at the top of the screen. How responsive is your touch-screen? I have a budget Android phone and sometimes the aiming arrow shifts just as I release, where as my iOS devices are very precise.

Ah, I've noticed on my iPhone it shifts when a bit to the left when I lift my finger, so adjusting my kick means I'm back in the game and the fans love me again

[K]

I don’t think there’s any point to feeding the mucus-string things water, I just chucked them a green seed if I wanted to get past.

I got Spider ages ago and never really got on with it, but I know a few people who absolutely love it. Probably worth a shot for £2.

[Davros sock drawer]

I'll give it a go. I mean, it's only another £2 on top of the gazillion other games I've taken a punt on for similar sums and immediately deleted (not a whinge, but it does rack up!)

[siread]

Spider is excellent, as is Waking Mars. Word of warning though - I saved my game near a tunnel into a new 'zone'. When I went back to it my guy was outside the basecamp and I had missed an entire section of the game with no way back to where I was. So I can't continue because my route back into the caves is blocked. Oh well, I felt like starting over anyway, now that I have the gist of the plants.

BTW, I have quoted a few of your NSS comments on my website. Hope y'all don't mind.

[shock33]

What's that you say? An Ipad wargame? A conversion of a fantastic pc game? That has cross platform async multiplayer? And you can buy expansions and user made scenarios?

YOU LIE I SAY!

Well Battle Academy came out a couple of days ago for Ipad, conversion of the pc/mac game by slitherine, I've not played the Ipad version, but the pc version is great fun (demo available here )

Only downside I guess is the price, £14

[Davros sock drawer]

Spider is excellent, as is Waking Mars. Word of warning though - I saved my game near a tunnel into a new 'zone'. When I went back to it my guy was outside the basecamp and I had missed an entire section of the game with no way back to where I was. So I can't continue because my route back into the caves is blocked. Oh well, I felt like starting over anyway, now that I have the gist of the plants.

I don't think I've deliberately saved the game once. It seems to just put you back where you left off if you quit the app...

[K]

Also, Espgaluda II HD is now universal (for iPhone 4 and above only). The graphics look absolutely beautiful on a retina screen, but the framerate is a bit wonkaloid on an iPhone 4; probably a lot nicer on a 4S.

[MBM]

Tower Madness HD for the iPad is free:

http://www.google.dk/url?url=http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/towermadness-hd/id368841090%3Fmt%3D8&rct=j&sa=U&ei=3GBiT96mGcPitQaDiYnsBQ&ved=0CBIQFjAA&q=tower+madness+HD&usg=AFQjCNEJwjfSLrchzzweiG85zOEh_zP8Uw

Don't know if it's good.

[Alex W.]

Magbill is now on the front page of the App Store app.

[zektbach]

Wasn't expecting this, but Epic Astro Story goes rather rapidly from being a joy to play, to being a big pain in the arse which I can no longer be bothered with. I think all the charm of my little people fighting and discovering new things was clouding the fact that the game is just needlessly complicated and crammed to the gills with all sorts of annoying micro-management nonsense.

Ah well, there's always Dungeon Village (which to be honest, seems like Epic Astro Story set on Earth)... and Game Dev Story 2 to come I suppose.

[JPickford]

Magbill is now on the front page of the App Store app.

Hopefully it'll still be there tomorrow when everyone gets their brand spanking new iPads.

[Fletch]

I think if you're on the front page you stay for a week. That is amazing news though, sales should be marvellous.