The Lost Cities Adventure has begun! Not sure if any of you like playing Lost Cities, but it’s a great asynch game and you might like picking it up via this blend of the game with a dungeon crawl text romp.
I’ve been playing the beta for X-Mercs and I have to say I really like it for the most part. It has some of the staples of the crap that plagues mobile games like women in basically bodypaint clothing with huge tracts of land, but the XCOM feel is definitely there.
How does one get a beta key? Do you just put your email in here http://x-mercs.com/promo/?
I signed up on their site and got it the next day.
Thanks for mentioning X-Mercs. I haven’t heard anything about this game but it looks interesting and has a lot of potential based on gameplay trailers.
-Todd
This game is just stunning. I’m level 35 mow and what is killing me is I have to fly 50 meters proximity style. That means REALLY close to the ground. I keep crashing. But this game has that “just one more try” that all the great ones have. It’s in my Top 10 Ipad games of all time so far!
Try proximity backflips with Maya. Pretty easy to chain them on the first 3-4 hills. Unless you mean 50 in one stretch, in which case you’d need a long hill.
rei
3028
Space Miner got a major update recently!
Not sure if this was mentioned yet but I think some of you would love Card Crawl. Solitaire card game re-themed as a light dungeon crawl. One of my favorite games on iOS in quite some time. Games are short, there is no annoying evolving “meta”, and the art and sound design are spot on. Thankfully it is a purchase up front and get the whole game model which seems really rare now a days on iOS.
Definitely worth a look.
Pocket Tactics gave it 5 Stars.
-Todd
WOAH! Here are the update notes:
It’s been three years, so this had better be one AWESOME update! Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered:
- Now a UNIVERSAL app for iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch after we realized that most games on the App Store are technically “HD” now anyway.
- Added a BRAND NEW STORYLINE after years of haggling with space miner unions to get members of the original cast back in the studio.
- Added 16 brand new sectors to mine and explore following our discovery that we could create entire space systems with mere lines of code.
- Recruited a brand new villain and army of bad guys from Mega Space Corp’s prestigious Accelerated Villainy Programme.
- Sculpted new asteroids from pure space dust and hid numerous treasures around the new system.
- Added two new license levels and top-tier gear to match following intense negotiations with the Space Miner’s Association.
- Added a new ultra-powerful level 8 ship designed by billionaire madman Bancroft. It’s possible he was planning to use it to dominate the galaxy.
- Made the game play nice with iOS 8, as it is used by a majority of our space mining fleet.
- Remastered ship models, weapons, and equipment. Space Trader Galactus was happy about the improvements, we think. It’s hard to tell with him.
- Fixed a huge chunk of all those little things that bugged us over the last three years.
rei
3031
Man, I love developers who will support their games. I’d throw them money again if I could.
They are also making a new space miner game. It revolves around mining to gather materials to build up a base, with a clash of clans style multiplayer component.
I have just re-downloaded Space Miner. It’s like it’s 2009 all over again. Before you know it I’ll be downloading Geospark again. Wait, I HAVE ALREADY DOWNLOADED IT. I need to lie down.
Card Crawl sounds quite interesting, but I’m on a device that can’t be updated higher than iOS 6. :<
So this really is just cool looking solitaire though. Which is fine, but I’m not over the moon about it the way Pocket Tactics is.
Maybe I need more time with it, but there doesn’t seem to be much strategy possible beyond making the best choice possible one hand at a time. If I get two hands in a row of mostly “good” stuff (potions/swords/shields) and have to start tossing those cards, that’s almost definitely game over for me eventually. Doesn’t matter if it happens early in the game or late, there’s no recovery strategy I can see, just a very closely balanced sum of good cards and sum of bad cards, so if more than a couple good cards get wasted, you can’t win.
Which is fine, like I said, it’s solitaire. Most solitaire deals are also unwinnable. But at a glance this looked a little more strategic, and I’m starting to think it’s really not.
On the meta game, do I get any reward at all for a loss? It looks like maybe I’m still getting a fraction of the amassed gold, but I haven’t done the math to confirm that or seen it explained in game.
nKoan
3036
Sometimes I’ll take the 5 hp penalty to redraw if I’ve got too many good cards in a row (and its relatively early). Seems counter intuitive, but I’d rather those cards be shuffled back in for when I need them rather then toss them early on.
But still, I sorta agree. I like the game, but I don’t love it. Seems like there are small ways to maximize things but otherwise you are at the mercy of the draw. I keep finding myself playing another game, not because I enjoyed it, but more because I was annoyed by the previous run.
I like that in theory, but so far I’ve only used the redraw option for unwinnable opening hands. In my last game, for example, I had the Sacrifice card equipped (do damage equal to how much life you’re currently missing), I think a shield in the other hand, and a 10 hp potion in the pack. So my plan was to get my HP low, hold out as long as I could for a big monster to use the Sacrifice on, then heal up. Got my HP low, but then just got several rounds of potions/coins/shields/swords. I couldn’t redraw since my HP were already less than 6. I guess I could’ve sold the sacrifice and gotten my health up sooner with one of those potions or something, I don’t know, but my point is that it’s still a tricky affair to use the redraw option once you’re in the middle of the game.
Yes, and there probably aren’t overly complex strategies to mine from the game. For some reason Card Crawl really clicked with me. Its ~5 minute games are perfect for my limited mobile gaming. Just like in normal solitaire you will get deck shuffles that are theoretically not winnable…I just view that as having rouguelike/lite elements. There are many games where I am approaching the last card draw and think I have it beat, but I wasn’t really counting cards and lose the game by a tiny margin. This game will probably not appeal to systematic card counters or min/maxers.
For me, it is one of the best iOS games I have played in recent memory and will be something I keep installed for some time while I try and improve my score (amount of gold retained on a successful crawl) through various different approaches.
-Todd
I played Card Crawl on the plane for several hours recently, fun game and there’s just enough strategy in it to make it “one more go” when you fail. It’s one of those games where you can influence luck, rather than control it, but it’s satisfying to win because it does require a bit of careful planning on which utility cards to use when. Unless you have no choice, and then you have to hope you’re not screwed.
Rodeo has announced a new game! Deathwatch, a game set in the Warhammer 40k universe which sounds a lot like their previous Hunters and Hunters 2 games. Hunters style game with GW Space Marines? I think I just died and went to heaven. Scheduled to be out this summer.
