I knew I was asking for Angry Birds comeuppance by posting that.
I want to recommend Slice It!, which is a cute puzzle game that does a lot right. You have to cut shapes into equal-sized pieces with a certain number of strokes. The presentation is really good (doodle-style graphics that are actually appropriate for once), and it has retina display and iPad support all in the same app for a dollar - it plays best on iPad because of the extra precision the screen size gives you, but in any case the options and general high class production engender a lot of goodwill towards the developers.
Touch Arcade review is here. It won’t blow anyone away but I’d recommend it to everyone.
slantz
3203
Slice It! is pretty decent, especially for the price.
And, I say this in all seriousness, that would be the world’s most badass (and effective) homework for a high-school geometry class. Hell, maybe some teachers should spend a couple of days playing it on a projector with a class.
Anyway, later in the game things get pretty hard. And I’d be much more willing to go through the effort to do the math if they could just make the lines default to the grid. Some of the puzzles required (for me, anyway) doing area calculations, which is hard when the sides aren’t whole numbers.
I also wish it had the option to snap your lines to the grid somehow. There are times when you have to slice on an existing line, and if you’re even a pixel off, you lose. And if it was your last cut, they make you start over rather than trying a bogusly difficult cut again.
I imagine anyone reading this thread checks FAAD every day, but just in case you don’t, today’s free app is Sushi Cat which is the ultimate game for people who can’t resist dumb shit featuring an adorable cat.
I bought Kingsburg because I couldn’t resist, and while it’s a decent translation I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone unfamiliar with the game. There’s not enough info onscreen without constantly pulling up text boxes for explanations to make it worth anyone’s while unless they have the various buildings memorized.
That’s a real problem with some of these board game translations. Samurai had a very good tutorial to get you going, but Carcassonne’s tutorial could very well be the benchmark. Zooloretto’s, on the other hand, is muddy at best. It explains how turns work, but doesn’t explain why you do certain things or why you might do other things, so when the game starts you have no real idea what the strategy behind the game is, while Roll Through the Ages’ tutorial is barely existant. It’s so bad I just downloaded the rules for the actual game.
I’ve got so many dream games they could release. Through the Desert. The two player Catan card game. Alhambra, which we’re apparently never going to see on 360 even though it’s apparently finished. Even some western stuff, like RoboRally or the old Starship Troopers game.
Yeah, it’s never a big deal to me since I play all these board games, but I don’t know how they expect to reach a wider audience without better hand-holding.
Kingsburg is actually good in that regard, but the small screen just doesn’t provide enough room for them to display everything you need to see when making a decision. Here’s hoping the iPad version is better.
I mentioned it upthread, but Tichu is out and anyone who likes card games at all should grab it. It’s a fantastic game, and the designer couldn’t have done a better job creating a workable AI for it on this limited platform. It’s an incredible card game IRL, and he did a good job of recapturing a lot of the tension in the iPhone/iPad port. It also looks gorgeous on a Retina display. Wish he’d port more card games to that engine.
I can’t find Kingsburg on the app store. Any clues or a link?
Okay, what’s up with the difficulty levels in Shibuya? Slow and Normal are easy, then the step to Adept is a five mile cliff. I still haven’t got all achievements on that level – and it’s called “Novice”, and there are nine more levels of achievements after that! I checked out the global rankings to see if I just suck, but I’m doing suspiciously well considering I barely started playing. Someone tell the developers they need to tone down the difficulty, or this game won’t have legs despite the ingenious concept.
Yeah, I paid for it and didn’t feel ripped off. It is basically Peggle with sushi and cats, which is a pretty awesome combination.
Oh, so you don’t always have to play all Shibuya achievements in the same set on the same level… just sometimes! Got the Endless achievements in the third set without problems when I dropped down to Normal. Sure would be nice if this were properly documented.
Haha, now I have all 3rd level achievements, I restart the game… and all 4th level achievements appear as locked. Holy crap, is this game buggy. What a shame, such a great concept but impossible to recommend until they fix this achievement mess.
I don’t check any sites, so I just go by what you all say. And I like Sushi Cat. So, thanks!
Having never played the board game, my first few games of Kin(g)sburg were a little confusing, but I don’t think it took too long to get the hang of things. I do agree there are many neglected opportunities for offering the player relevant decision-making information. I’m pining after an option for higher difficulty levels more than anything–I’m winning pretty much every time I play. A high score table would also really help the replay value.
These two screenshots from BoardGameGeek I think would really help any beginners get the hang of things faster:
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/image/454976/kingsburg?size=large
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/image/291457/kingsburg?size=large
Vesper
3217
Monkey Island 2 SE is $.99 today for iPhone.
intruder
3218
“Prince of Persia - Warrior Within” just dropped to $0.99
“Shrek - Forever After” did as well.
Eilonwy
3220
Monkey Island 1 SE is temporarily $.99
