Topic: iOS Gaming Thread

[Ghandi]

OK, Idol I challenged you and I like my sentence - "It may feel elegant if we carefully scootch in these sheets then doink like clumsy tigers"

Some others - "Midgets diabolically spork ninjas with delight" "I would blindly shave this creepy girl forever after barely growling"

I don't ever go for the dirtiest sentence but sometimes the words are just out there and you can't help it.

Edit: The lack of commas is killing me. I could make some great sentences if they would add commas in.

Edit2: "The fat boy growls about baked noodles" hahaha..I love that one

[idolminds]

Heh, our first match will be interesting. I was trying to see if I could come up with something not dirty, but you'll probably win it.

And yes, commas would be a godsend. Also some of the words you can hold down and use alterations, like man/men or please/pleased/pleasing. But then some words like "terrifically" don't let you change them. Huh?

[Ghandi]

I wasn't trying to pander to the masses, I assure you. I like your submission- if there was a semicolon option it would be awesome - "These pompous cats feel like tigers; jiblets may please them in a pinch"

I feel bested. The voting is dumb because these people are idiots. It's time for round two. Idol - 1 Ghandi - 0

[idolminds]

This one might take some effort. The developer of Game Dev Story and Hot Springs Story has released a new game on the Japanese itunes store. See it here! I don't know what the name translates to, but someone said its a game where you raise a manga artist. Heh. Anyway, its currently free but you will need to make a Japanese iTunes account. Its not terribly hard, a little google work and you should be able to do it. Once you get past that you get to play a game entirely in Japanese!

So yeah, probably not worth it unless you already have the account set up and just feel like grabbing it.

[idolminds]

Highborn is free. Im always down for some turn-based strategy.

[idolminds]

HISTORY™ Egypt Engineering an Empire is free. A turn based empire building game. Sounds cool to me.

People are excited that Legendary Wars is free as well, but it doesn't look like something I want. Maybe you will.

[idolminds]

Warpgate is free today. Same with Warpgate HD if you have an ipad. Get your space on.

[idolminds]

Dirt is free. Read the description and reviews. It sounds great.

Death Rally is on sale for 99 cents. Death Rally, bitches!

Aralon: Sword and Shadow is half off at $4.99. Big huge RPG game. Really tempting.

Spirits is free but probably not for too much longer. Looks like a cool puzzle platformer type thing.

[Quemaqua]

Dirt sounds awesome. Spirits I picked up and it's a very cool little Lemmings-style puzzler with a nice art and sound design scheme. Just got an update a few days ago, too.

[idolminds]

This is another one for those with a Japanese itunes account. Search for "ワイワイ！ゲーム販売店". Its another game by the guys that made Hot Springs Story and Game Dev Story, and this one has you running a game shop. Yes, its all in Japanese...so far. They updated Hot Springs Story with english even on the Japanese store, so getting this for free now would net you such an update if one becomes available.

[Xessive]

Definitely worth checking out.. Even if just to practice my Japanese

[idolminds]

Big update for Infinity Blade is coming.

This Thursday, May 19th, ChAIR will give gamers even more reasons to love Infinity Blade with the release of INFINITY BLADE: ARENA, the latest free content update for the award-winning iOS game.

The massive update will include all-new game play modes, including the highly anticipated reveal of the Infinity Blade multiplayer mode, additional items for single player campaign, and much more!

NEW CONTENT PACK! – INFINITY BLADE: ARENA

    Enter the Arena: Assuming the role of Titan or Knight, Infinity Blade fans can now challenge their friends to multiplayer matches online via Game Center!
    Survivor Mode: Players face off against a legion of Titans to see how far they can go!
    New Holiday Helms! A new helm for every season, ready to be played and mastered!
    More than two dozen new magic rings, swords, shields, and helmets for players to collect and master.
    New Facebook integration allows fans to view their character on their profile and take a screen grab to share with friends.
    Much more! New Achievements, additional Leaderboards, and some new surprises!

[Quemaqua]

Awesome! The game is pretty damned cool for what it is, but it needs infusions like this to keep it going due to its limited nature. But with support like this, it really does something neat.

[idolminds]

Bastards is currently free. Take Doom + western = this game.

[idolminds]

ATTN Pyro, DropSum is free. Its like Drop7, but with some different rules.

[PyroMenace]

Oh snap, Im all over that.

[idolminds]

Alice: Madness Returns is a comic book that bridges the gap between the old game and the new one. Free!

Note on compatibility: Because Alice: Madness Returns features rich interactions and animations that utilize OpenGL ES 2.0, this app requires iOS 4.0 and above and is playable only on the iPhone 3GS and 4, iPod Touch 3rd and 4th generation, and iPad 1 and 2.

So like, keep that in mind.

[Quemaqua]

I'll give that a whirl!

[idolminds]

Super Stickman Golf is free. I have the first game and its a lot of fun. Its like Worms + golf.

[Ghandi]

Speaking of worms, I just got Worms:Reloaded and I've been playing with some friends online and it's awesome. I used to play Worms 2 with some of my buddies long ago and it's one of my favorite series ever. So funny and just a blast all around.

It would be cool if they could get an iOS worms game going.

[idolminds]

WORMS and Worms 2: Armageddon are both on iOS. I havent tried them myself, though.

[idolminds]

Heh, speaking of Worms 2: Armageddon, it just dropped down to 99 cents.

[idolminds]

This one isn't totally released yet, but thought I'd mention it.

Kard Combat is from Hothead games (Deathspank). This one is a card battle game thats basically a portable version of Spectromancer. Both Kard Combat and Spectromancer are designed by Richard Garfield, the dude that created Magic: The Gathering.

There are two ways to try the game out. The game is released in the Canadian iTunes store, which they are using as a beta test. You can make a free account like I did and download the actual game. Or you can grab the demo for Spectromancer and play that. Really, the gameplay is basically identical.

I'll let you know when its released worldwide. Its a free download with some limitations, and a $2.99 in game purchase gets you the full game. Theres also a $10 purchase to unlock all the cards and such but thats really only a timesaver thing. Just play the campaign and unlock them yourself.

[iPPi]

I just picked up an iPhone 4, making the first iOS product I have. I can now take advantage of this thread. I've already picked up Infinity Blade, Cut the Rope and The Heist.

[idolminds]

Hanging with Friends is the new game from the Words with Friends and Chess with Friends people. This time, its hangman!

[idolminds]

I will apologize in advance for this one. I am sorry you have lost all productivity. Dungeon Raid is on sale for 99 cents, down from $3.

If you are like me you see those screenshots and go "Another match 3 puzzle game? BORING!" But there has been all sorts of buzz about how great it is. Yeah well, people love Diner Dash too so I wasn't very hopeful. I grabbed the lite/demo version to give it a spin and promptly lost an hour of time.

The game takes some inspiration from Puzzle Quest, but its quite a bit different. You play an RPG depending on what you match.

-Coins are gold, and as you collect them you fill up a bar. Once the bar is full the game gives you an option of 3 things to buy. These could be new armor, new weapons, new spells, etc.
-Shields are your defensive stat. It starts pretty low until you upgrade your armors. When monsters attack they take it out of your shields first before hitting your health. Collecting shields over the maximum you can hold fills a gauge that lets you upgrade...uh, something or the other. I forget right now.
-Health bottles replenish health. No need to go overboard, no gauge here.
-Swords are used to fight monsters. Each one causes damage so the more you string together the stronger the attack.
-Skulls: Do not think like PQ. In this game each skull represents a monster, and every round it sits on the board it attacks you. So make a big string of skulls and swords together and lay waste!

Those are the basics. Spells give you special abilities like causing every new block that drops in to be a coin, or making one sword at random do 5x damage, or collect double shields this round, etc. They are set on a cooldown timer but you can upgrade these abilities to shorten that.

Anyway, its addictive as hell. You have been warned. Try the demo version our if you dont believe me.


EDIT

Also, the upcoming game Pocket Heroes sounds amazing.

[idolminds]

Very limited sale on Army of Darkness Defense. Free!

[idolminds]

Gameloft Fathers Day $0.99 Sale:
Order & Chaos Online
Fast Five the Movie : Official Game
Gangstar Miami Vindication
Spider-Man: Total Mayhem
Eternal Legacy
Fishing Kings
NFL 2011
Real Football 2011


EA's Manly Man Sale
$0.99
Battlefield Bad Company 2
Dragon's Lair 2
Madden 11
Reckless Racing
FIFA 11
Fight Night Champion
SimCity Deluxe
Ultimare Mortal Kombat 3
NBA Jam
NFS Hot Pursuit
NFS Shift
NFS Undercover
NCAA Football
Tetris
Risk
Wolfenstein RPG


Also, Real Racing is 99 cents and Real Racing 2 is $4.99

[idolminds]

This one if for Que. Remember Epic Pinball? Then get Retro Pinball for free!

One of the most successful shareware games alongside such industry classics as Duke Nukem 3D, Doom and Wolfenstein 3D is Digital Extremes’ 1993 title reborn as Retro Pinball.

Retro Pinball includes three handpicked tables (Crash and Burn, Super Android, Pangea) from original creator James Schmalz, all with updated graphics and sound to enhance your gaming experience on your favorite Apple iOS device.

Theres also iDixit for free. I digital version of the card game. Apparently online only because it has to be played with a group. Worth checking out for the art of the cards.

Towers vs Dragons is free as well! A sort of tower defense/line drawing game. It sounds like you place towers to earn mana to direct dragons, and you want to direct the dragons near towers so you kill them. But the dragons are trying to kill your towers....yeah, confusing but it looks cool and its a small download so Im checking it out.

[Quemaqua]

Damn! That's completely fucking awesome... the only sad part is that's 3 tables of like... I don't even remember how many there were total, and most of them were a lot better. Super Android is a total classic from the first pinball pack, and was the shareware demo, and the other 2 aren't bad, but they seem like odd choices if you're only going to release 3 tables. Damn I hope they do the rest. I would pay $30 for a portable pack of all the Epic Pinball & Silverball tables. Or just a pack with Cyborgirl, Pot o' Gold, and Enigma.

Damn damn damn. Somebody make that happen.

Thanks for the link, idol.

EDIT - Maaan, they changed the sound and music... which is really awful. I wonder if there was some reason they couldn't get the rights to the original stuff and had to replace it? I don't know, but it really sucks because of how god damn great the original tracks were. It was all MOD music, right up there with the Jazz Jackrabbit and One Must Fall 2097 stuff. Robert Allen and Joshua Jensen, if I recall correctly.

[idolminds]

Mission Europa is free.

preview video

Dude compares it to System Shock and such, which is  rather interesting. Supposed to have a ton of content in it. Theres a second paid version that has even more stuff but I figure this version should have enough to pass the time.

[Quemaqua]

Looks awesome... download ahoy!

[idolminds]

Sword & Sworcery EP is 99 cents. I recommend this one if you like point and click adventure games, or awesome pixel art. The soundtrack is pay what you want, as well.

[iPPi]

Gah, there are so many good games on iOS.  I picked up Dead Space, Real Racing, Flight Control over the weekend.  Also got Rage HD (really short, but a good game), Army of Darkness Defence (it's free).

[idolminds]

Samurai Girl went free. Seems to be a sidescroller with nice art. Sidescrollers are iffy on a touch device because of the controls, but for free Ill give it a spin.

DDD Special is free. Seems to be an ad supported version of Deep Deep Dungeon, which I liked. Dunno whats up with the in-app purchases because I dont recall that being anywhere in the original. And this is put out by a different publisher. Strange.

[idolminds]

Tiny Tower is out! And free! Its a neat little "freemium" game that has you building a tower. Each floor costs more and more. You buy residential floors to get more people living in your tower. You collect rent from them. The other floors come in different categories: Food, Service, Recreation, Retail, and Creative. Each of these also has various stores they can be. For example my first food flood ended up being a pub, but there are pizza places, bakeries, etc.

Each Bitizen (the name of the little people that live in the tower) has their own preferences for what they are good at, and a dream job that is for a specific floor. For example if I get a Bitizen with a dream job of working in the pub and I put him there then restocking to food in the pub gets much much cheaper.

There is an elevator that you have to manually control. People want to be dropped on certain floors. I dont think anything bad happens if you ignore them, but you wont get new people in the elevator, which means you wont get a VIP. These are special Bitizens that show up and do something special. One will cut time off of a construction job, one will make whatever floor its on really popular and sell a lot of things, and I just had one that came and bought out everything in the store. You can of course upgrade the elevator so its faster.

So for the "freemium" bit. Stuff takes time. Real life time. Want to restock the shoes at the shoe store? That will take 30 minutes. You can spend "Towerbux" to speed this up, and you can flat out buy towerbux. You also need towerbux to upgrade the elevator. The nice part about Nimblebit games (like Pocket Frogs) is you aren't required to spend money to earn these things. You earn towerbux just by playing. Ive gotten them as tips from elevator service, and randomly someone will want you to find a specific Bitizen to deliver a package and you get one as a tip there too.

So the basic idea is to earn money. Stock your stores with supplies and then turn off the game. When you come back they will have sold a bunch of stuff, you can build more stuff and restock, and repeat. I'm sure it eventually gets old but the retro pixel look is awesome and its rather neat. Check it out.

[idolminds]

Just an update on Tiny Towers. There seems to be a crash bug related to GameCenter. Hopefully they track it down because its very annoying. If the game crashes on you during subsequent launches, log out of GameCenter first. It seems to have fixed it for me.

[Quemaqua]

Weird. No problems for me yet... really enjoying TT. It's a nice game to just have at my desk as I'm writing. I can keep track of it and play, get a little boost of enjoyment here and there, but it doesn't take any real attention away from what I'm doing. Started it up last night... it's super cute.

[idolminds]

Yeah not sure why it only affects certain people. Oh well, Im sure they will work it out.

Just started the construction job on my 6th floor. Hopefully one of the "speed up construction" VIPs shows up. Its going to be my second residential floor because I need employees! My shoe store is fully stocked and I've got 2 people working the photo studio, but my pub is empty. All my current residents stats are better suited for the other shops. I could stick the one dude to run the pub but he would only be able to serve the bar nuts which sell out quickly so I'd be constantly restocking.

Reading the thread on TouchArcade it seems like there are 80 different businesses in the game and you won't get duplicates. So some quick math a finished tower will have 128 total floors, 48 floors of residents to have 240 Bitizens to fully staff all 80 businesses. I guess at that point it would just be a matter of evicting people until everyone is working their dream job. But it will be a long time before you get to that point.

[Quemaqua]

Haha, yeah. I'm actually really enjoying this... it's simple and somewhat repetitive, but it's got a ton of charm and the simplicity is so simple and quick that it doesn't actually feel boring, it feels fun. I just built my sixth floor. Have 2 residentials, the shoe shop, pub, and photo studio, all fully staffed. Most of the people are well suited to the job except one at the photo studio who is just there until I can get another residential floor built. I'm close to being able to upgrade my elevator...