iOS Games Thread

[Charlatan]

I saw a good description of the iOS Talisman app over at NeoGAF. He spends some time comparing it to the board game too, in case you’re curious as to how it differs.

I wasn’t familiar with Talisman prior to this week (so sue me!) so I appreciated the depth of that writeup.

[MikeOberly]

I bought Talisman for the iPad, and have spent some time with it. It seems about as faithful and polished digital version of the game as is possible, but it’s still Talisman, which is a little bit like playing Uncle Wiggly with fantasy trappings. That may not be a fair comparison, though, since I believe Uncle Wiggly is trying to be a real life rabbit sim.

I do appreciate the quests that they have in the game. That gives it a little more attraction than just strictly solitaire Talisman.

It’s just solitaire Talisman, but if that’s your bag, it’s a ridiculously well done version of the game on the iPad for five bucks.

[Nathan]

Talisman Prologue is tricky, because so far it’s kind of fun and it makes me want to break out the board game until I remember that the board game has the Prologue gameplay only stretched out among multiple players and takes forever and oh god I hate the board game.

[MikeOberly]

Talisman Prologue is tricky, because so far it’s kind of fun and it makes me want to break out the board game until I remember that the board game has the Prologue gameplay only stretched out among multiple players and takes forever and oh god I hate the board game.

+1

Except that Prologue hasn’t made me want to break out the boardgame.

[Quaro]

Check out Super Monster Bros: http://www.ign.com/videos/2013/04/24/iphone-garbage-super-monster-bros-by-adventure-time-pocket-free-games

You’d almost think it was a f2p satire.

[malkav11]

I love Talisman but playing it solo would be a lot like playing ProgressQuest.

[Nathan]

Kind of, but what they’ve done is set up scenarios with customized decks, and they’ve put in a ranking system based on how many turns it takes you to complete the quest. It’s still not real deep, but it’s playable while watching bad television.

[porousnapkin]

This has some serious problems too so beware. It takes coins to start a game or accept a challenge from someone since you need to hire a hero every time. But what happens, especially if you do games vs random people is that you’ll soon find yourself full on stalled games. People are starting games and dropping the app and not finishing them. You only earn coins by making words in game, spamming your facebook friends or buying them. So in my case I have several stalled games and can’t even accept a challenge from my wife since I don’t have enough coins. But it gets worse, there is a 15 game limit and since there is no way to delete the stalled games, a person can find themselves essentially locked out even if they do have the coins. I’d suggest avoiding this unless you are going to solely play with people you know will finish.

That was the worst. I think yesterday they started making a hero free to stop this from happening.

[slantz]

I think yesterday they started making a hero free to stop this from happening.

Correct. I had the pleasure of sending the push notification to all BWH players today announcing this. The team seemed really excited to be able to make this change, and I know they care about getting things to a good place.

[Kildar]

Talisman Prologue released (single player only - a separate multiplayer app will be released later in the year)

http://www.talisman-game.com/prologue/

Review:

http://pockettactics.com/2013/04/25/review-talisman-prologue/

ohhhh SP. My type of game. Thanks

[nKoan]

Robot Unicorn Attack 2 is out. And its free this time. The only downside to that, is that they had to use a royalty free song by default. No more Erasure - Always (although, you can buy it as IAP for $1). Customizable unicorns too, and online challenges once you reach a certain level.

[LordGek]

Talisman Prologue is tricky, because so far it’s kind of fun and it makes me want to break out the board game until I remember that the board game has the Prologue gameplay only stretched out among multiple players and takes forever and oh god I hate the board game.

Ding ding ding! My thoughts exactly. Not a fan of the real game, felt it was unbalanced and rambly. But, oddly, making it a solo game with clever quests tailored to each class is kind of clever. I love how all quests are about completing your objectives as efficient as possible (unlike the real game that could drag on for days it seemed) and therefore a lot of the fun comes in trying to find an optimal path, amid the random dies rolls and card drawings, to achieve that.

The quest I’m most proud of, unless they rigged the rolls for everybody on this quest, is finishing the first Druid quest in 3 turns.

[tomchick]

The quest I’m most proud of, unless they rigged the rolls for everybody on this quest, is finishing the first Druid quest in 3 turns.

I’m sure that looks great on the leaderboard and high score list! Oh, wait…

:)

-Tom

[LordGek]

Robot Unicorn Attack 2 is out. And its free this time. The only downside to that, is that they had to use a royalty free song by default. No more Erasure - Always (although, you can buy it as IAP for $1). Customizable unicorns too, and online challenges once you reach a certain level.

Cute but with the run only randomizing itself once each day, pass. Sure it means all rankings are devoid of any lck factor but it makes replaying a matter of memorization more than simply reacting to what’s in front of you.

[LordGek]

I’m sure that looks great on the leaderboard and high score list! Oh, wait…

:)

-Tom

Wait, that’s right, there is no GC on this. Then I might as well add that I’d finished all of the quests in 3 turns, yeah.

[tomchick]

Not only is there no Gamecenter, there’s no ingame score list. Huge fail. I’m always astonished at developers who know enough to put a score chase into their game design, but they can’t be arsed to put in any sort of score persistence.

-Tom

[LordGek]

Not only is there no Gamecenter, there’s no ingame score list. Huge fail. I’m always astonished at developers who know enough to put a score chase into their game design, but they can’t be arsed to put in any sort of score persistence.

-Tom

Bzz! Your best run on each quest IS tracked, Mr. Fewest turns to complete the quest and its resulting star rating. This is shown in game with the quest description and at the end of game summary.

[tomchick]

Bzz! Your best run on each quest IS tracked, Mr. Fewest turns to complete the quest and its resulting star rating. This is shown in game with the quest description and at the end of game summary.

You must have a special copy of the game! Here’s my quest description screen:

Care to show me where my best score is listed? Maybe you’re mistaking the number of talismans your character has collected, since it uses the word “score”. In which case no wonder you think your druid finished the training mission in three turns. :)

There’s nothing quite so embarrassing as a guy sounding a buzzer to correct someone else only to discover that he’s the one who’s wrong! As I said, there is no ingame score list. You’re told at the end of a scenario how many turns it took, and then the score vanishes until after you’ve played the scenario again. That’s hardly an ingame score list.

-Tom

[LordGek]

Okay I will Mr. Smarty-Pants!

First notice even there the total score underneath the character and the filled in triangles along the right showing your general facility with each mission attempted so far? Decent but, I agree, not the level of detail I spoke of.

To see your best run of a quest turn wise there are only two ways and this screen, even if the most logical place, is neither one of them.

Actually restart a given mission and then click on your character’s profile in the lower left hand corner. What do you see there besides a description of the character’s abilities and a mission summary?

If still too cheesy a location you’ll also see your best turn score at the end of a reattempted run as well in the end of game summation screen.

SO THERE! :-p

BZZZZZZZZT!

You must have a special copy of the game! Here’s my quest description screen:

Care to show me where my best score is listed? Maybe you’re mistaking the number of talismans your character has collected, since it uses the word “score”. In which case no wonder you think your druid finished the training mission in three turns. :)

There’s nothing quite so embarrassing as a guy sounding a buzzer to correct someone else only to discover that he’s the one who’s wrong! As I said, there is no ingame score list. You’re told at the end of a scenario how many turns it took, and then the score vanishes until after you’ve played the scenario again. That’s hardly an ingame score list.

-Tom

[tomchick]

Actually restart a given mission and then click on your character’s profile in the lower left hand corner. What do you see there besides a description of the character’s abilities and a mission summary?

Ah, good catch. I had no idea that was there. It’s a terrible place for it, but you win this round, EllGee! Just wait until next time!

-Tom