iPhone/iPod Touch Games Thread

[Bahimiron]

I’m kind of opposite on Cut the Rope and Angry Birds as some people here. Both are great, but Angry Birds never expects quick reflexes on my part. Also, Cut the Rope occasionally doesn’t register a swipe, so I get to restart a level because a rope didn’t get cut at the right time. More frustrating is when the candy is in a bubble and I know I need to use a balloon to send the bubble to the right, but for a picosecond the bubble and the balloon share a pixel of hitbox and as a result when I tap the balloon the bubble bursts. Son of a bitch!

[Volbard]

Cut the rope seems pretty good, but it requires to much fast action for me to play on my phone. When I got to the level with stars that disappear after a couple seconds, that was the end of it for me. I’d like to play something similar, but more based on strategy than quick gestures. I also really don’t want to use fingers from both hands to play an iphone game. It seems well put together, it’s just not what I’m looking for.

[theblackw0lf]

Cut the Rope has already passed the one million download mark, in only 10 days.

[roBurky]

I’m enjoying Trainyard a lot, and I’m still playing the free demo version.
Don’t be put off by the name. It’s got a very nice vector aesthetic, and the puzzle mechanics go beyond the concept of organising trains very quickly.

[theblackw0lf]

I’m enjoying Trainyard a lot, and I’m still playing the free demo version.
Don’t be put off by the name. It’s got a very nice vector aesthetic, and the puzzle mechanics go beyond the concept of organising trains very quickly.

Yea, once the switching track mechanism comes into play, the challenge goes up quite a bit.

[tomchick]

RE: Defender Chronicles

I do like tower defence games. Working out the most efficient use of your tools is fun. But I didn’t feel like there was much of that at all in Defender Chronicles.

I initally struggled to figure out what the roles for the initial two different towers were. Or what role upgraded towers would play - which situation would you want an upgraded tower and which situation would you want multiple unupgraded? I ended up trying to look online, but to my horror every bit of strategy discussion about the game I could find revolved solely around which levels were the best for farming experience and gold.

I never did come to any conclusion to what were supposed to be good tactical decisions in those early levels, and I suspect there weren’t any. And then once I got the mage tower, the mage hero, and some mage ability upgrades, spamming them seemed to beat everything, so there was little decision making to be made there either.

It felt to me like the trickle of increased power and success through gifted rewards like experience and gold was supposed to replace the fun feelings of gaining mastery I expect from a game. “Classic RPG stuff” as you put it.

I hate to be the guy who says “if you play on the harder difficulty level, you’ll see more of the intended gameplay systems emerging”, but if you play on the harder difficulty level, you’ll see more of the intended gameplay systems emerging. :) And I’m pretty sure you can’t get very far without the difficulty ramping up. Mages are great and all, but I haven’t found them to be an I-win button as the game progresses. I do love my Archmage, but it’s my experience that he still has his limitations.

I’ve found a fair bit of strategy when it comes to figuring out how best to deal with the waves of different creatures. It basically breaks down to fast frail creatures, slow hardy creatures, and flying creatures. Then there are some “boss” creatures in some of the waves. I’ve also found there are a few different approaches: halflings to farm for money or to level up to poison for DOT; archer heavy; magic heavy; melee heavy; or some combination of those, all of which can be complemented by your choice of general and equipment.

As for information, Defender Chronicles actually sells you some of the detailed data in one of the stores. You have to buy a book or something, IIRC. Weird approach, but it’s nice to see numbers.

Anyway, that sucks that it didn’t work for you. I lurv Defender Chronicles and I bummed that everyone with an iPhone doesn’t share my enthusiasm for it. :) Out of curiosity, what would you say is your favorite iPhone tower defense game?

  -Tom

[bandidoquest]

So I just bought my favourite iPhone game of the month. Game Dev Story is an awesome menu driven game about game development. You hire a team, make games, and then ship them. The game spans from the MSX to the Wii, and it is fucking awesome.

You only see the office, never the games. But who gives a shit, it really is amazing. It all goes at a fast clip, so it’s really addictive.

I just lost 4 hours with this game and didn’t even notice. Way too addictive.

[E-phonk]

I just lost 4 hours with this game and didn’t even notice. Way too addictive.

Same here… I purchased Game Dev Story because it looked fun and good some recommendations on gaf. Next thing I know it was 23.00 and I didn’t even eat yet.
Most addictive game i’ve played in a long time.

Finished it now (20 years) - developed my own console, made multiple million (highest +25.0000000) selling games and won one GOTY award! It got a bit easy near the end, but what a fantastic little game.

I would buy a more fleshed out sequel of this day one.

[roBurky]

RE: Defender Chronicles

I hate to be the guy who says “if you play on the harder difficulty level, you’ll see more of the intended gameplay systems emerging”, but if you play on the harder difficulty level, you’ll see more of the intended gameplay systems emerging. :) And I’m pretty sure you can’t get very far without the difficulty ramping up. Mages are great and all, but I haven’t found them to be an I-win button as the game progresses. I do love my Archmage, but it’s my experience that he still has his limitations.

I’ve found a fair bit of strategy when it comes to figuring out how best to deal with the waves of different creatures. It basically breaks down to fast frail creatures, slow hardy creatures, and flying creatures. Then there are some “boss” creatures in some of the waves. I’ve also found there are a few different approaches: halflings to farm for money or to level up to poison for DOT; archer heavy; magic heavy; melee heavy; or some combination of those, all of which can be complemented by your choice of general and equipment.

As for information, Defender Chronicles actually sells you some of the detailed data in one of the stores. You have to buy a book or something, IIRC. Weird approach, but it’s nice to see numbers.

Anyway, that sucks that it didn’t work for you. I lurv Defender Chronicles and I bummed that everyone with an iPhone doesn’t share my enthusiasm for it. :) Out of curiosity, what would you say is your favorite iPhone tower defense game?

  -Tom

I don’t remember there being any difficulty level choice. But I wasn’t complaining of it being too easy. What really annoyed me was that many levels seemed to be completely impossible to fully complete with the tools I was given when I encountered them. It seemed I was supposed to be satisfied to come back and finish them later when I had been given more power.

I don’t have any other tower defence games on the iphone. But I don’t go searching for games to play unless they’re recommended in threads like this.

[Chappers]

So with the up and down discussion of 100 Rogues, what is the most recommendable roguelike for iOS nowadays? I know it’s been discussed before, but with new stuff and updates (for better or worse) this question appears to be a moving target.

Try Sword of Fargoal, it is again a little bit rogue-lite but still one of my most favourite roguelikes on the ipod touch.

[Chappers]

Just wanted to let you know of a couple of good sales:

Neuroshima Hex is down from 2.99-1.99 &
Rogue Planet is down from 4.99-0.99

Both great games. I also picked up Trainyard a couple of days ago, got through to the final city very quickly but one of my favourite puzzle games on iOS.

Chappers

[Stridergg]

I never did come to any conclusion to what were supposed to be good tactical decisions in those early levels, and I suspect there weren’t any. And then once I got the mage tower, the mage hero, and some mage ability upgrades, spamming them seemed to beat everything, so there was little decision making to be made there either.

What really annoyed me was that many levels seemed to be completely impossible to fully complete with the tools I was given when I encountered them.

I haven’t played Defender Chronicles (yet?) but the above two comments by roBurky seem kind of contradictive.

First you say that there are no tactical decisions to make, mages beat everything. Then you say that you actually couldn’t fully complete the levels with the tools you’ve got.

Maybe you couldn’t fully complete them because you didn’t make any tactical decisions?

Again, I haven’t seen this game, no idea what you guys are talking about :), I am just wondering if I am understanding you correctly.

[Tyjenks]

Just wanted to let you know of a couple of good sales:

Neuroshima Hex is down from 2.99-1.99 &
Chappers

Excellent. Thanks!

[roBurky]

The bit about mages wasn’t important really, and was talking about much later in the game. I just eventually completed the game by gaining enough upgrades to cancel out the range disadvantage of a particular tower. That just seemed to be the intended progression - start out unable to fully complete levels, gain upgrades, can now do those levels easily.

I’m aware it sounds like I could just not have been good enough. But why should I have faith that the level I am presented with contains a good puzzle when I and the designers know the player can easily bypass the challenge later with brute force?

But I just don’t like RPG progression systems, and hate the way they are spreading into everything now. So if you disagree with that, feel free to ignore me.

[Stridergg]

While I do like RPG progression systems (as they allow me to customize and diversify, even if most of the time it’s just an illusion), I do agree that if the levels are designed in a way that prevents the player to complete them until the player levels up and re-visits them, that’s a sloppy design.

Usually I like my games to be moderately challenging but beatable on the first run-through, without all that JRPG “go grind a few levels on some easy enemies and come back to win this fight” nonsense.

[Mehakoi]

Just wanted to let you know of a couple of good sales:

Neuroshima Hex is down from 2.99-1.99 &
Rogue Planet is down from 4.99-0.99

Both great games. I also picked up Trainyard a couple of days ago, got through to the final city very quickly but one of my favourite puzzle games on iOS.

Chappers

I second that assessment of Trainyard, with the added cavet that it ramps up pretty slowly so there is a lag early on of too easy puzzles and not enough challenging ones at the end. Certainly a huge value at 0.99 cents though.

Speaking of learning curves - anyone have any thoughts if Neuroshima Hex worth the curve if I am only going to be playing AI?

[Tracy_Baker]

Speaking of learning curves - anyone have any thoughts if Neuroshima Hex worth the curve if I am only going to be playing AI?

Definitely. It’s not a hard game to learn, anyway.

[Dreamshadow]

Definitely. It’s not a hard game to learn, anyway.

And you can go to the Z-Man games website and download the rulebook, which has all of the symbols defined in it.

[spelk]

Regarding Neuroshima Hex, I did a bit of a look see here, with a link to a youtube video that really helps understand the game.

http://sugarfreegamer.com/?p=895

[Morberis]

So I just bought my favourite iPhone game of the month. Game Dev Story is an awesome menu driven game about game development. You hire a team, make games, and then ship them. The game spans from the MSX to the Wii, and it is fucking awesome.

You only see the office, never the games. But who gives a shit, it really is amazing. It all goes at a fast clip, so it’s really addictive.

Love it! But wth do the different roles do? I can change their jobs to something else and yet they still come up for the same event options during development - seems skill based rather than job based?

Anyway having great fun!