rei
4701
Also cute new match-3 game: Birzzle and Galaxy on Fire 2 has its IAP (in-app-purchase) expansion!
Also, sorry but I didn’t like Unpleasant Horse.
Can anyone recommend a multiplayer game for the iphone that would be good for keeping the kids and I occupied in lines/while the Mrs is shopping etc? Something we could pass the phone around for our turns or whatever, just need something to keep the kids (and I) focused and not running around like maniacs.
Clay
4703
Carcassone? How old are they? It’s a pretty simple board game.
Disc Drivin’: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/disc-drivin/id402379680?mt=8
TheJare
4705
After seeing Unpleasant Horse, here’s my thoughts:
- Big thank you to PopCap for trying this experimental label. It’s a big and unnecessary risk, and the company deserves major kudos for giving it a shot.
- I personally found the game completely unplayable (iPhone 4). Tried it 8 times then gave up. My finger occludes the screen, especially the places I need to see best (incoming clouds, etc), and things move so fast that most often my clicks fail to hit anything. Since missed click usually = death, the experience is terrible. Perhaps there’s another way to play it, but the experience doesn’t make me want to find it.
- The game doesn’t present itself as experimental, B-side, or owned by the actual developers behind it. The credits are hidden, and the first names that pop in there are 4th & Battery, PopCap, then a standard list of categorized credits. To anyone who doesn’t know what 4&B is, it must look like PopCap has started publishing bad games from external developers (the fact that it’s free means little in this age of F2P games).
Sorry, guess that’s a key piece of info! They’re 9, 12 and 14.
Has there been any word if Capcom is going to port any more of the Ace Attorney games to the iOS? The first one came out last may and nothing since.
Thanks–this is all good feedback.
The game was developed on/for the PC, and then they moved it to iOS later. Most of us internally played it first on PC. Honestly I never saw anyone playing it on an iPhone ever—only on iPad. But that’s just me and I don’t work on the same floor as those guys, so I have no idea how extensive it was thought out for iPhone play.
I’m not sure what we could do to make it more clear that it’s experimental/B-side, but I guess I’ll think about it. I mean, that’s why we made a separate label, for one thing, to “gate” these projects away from PopCap. And the text description on the App Store, both for the label and the game, make it clear, too–or at least I thought so. I’m not even sure how visible the game would even be to folks who hadn’t heard about this project, and if you’ve heard about it, then you obviously know what the deal is. But I’m going to mull this over–and thanks again for the feedback. This whole thing is a work-in-progress for us, and, as you say, a pretty unnecessary risk (we’re not making a dime off it). The real goal here is for the developers themselves to try new stuff–but how we share this out to the public is something we’ll continue to fine tune.
salwon
4709
I put a lot of time into Unpleasant Horse yesterday, and I definitely don’t hate it (another good quote for the back of the box). It definitely wasn’t built for the iPhone - after the first jump, the clouds are too far apart and it’s impossible to see where to go next. Also, I kept having to just tap the corner of the screen and pray that a cloud would show up. I was almost ready to give up when I got into a good groove and decided that it’s worth the price.
But how the hell are you supposed to get “style” points? I can’t for the life of me figure that one out.
OrfBC
4710
Hang onto a pony until the last possible moment before jumping off. It should be just about all the way ground up. You’ll get a message saying “Last second escape!” or something like that if you do it right, and that’s where you get your style points.
Unpleasant Horse is ok. it is priced right. :) I agree that I expected better from a popcap release. I’ll try out the pc version sometime and see if that solves the issues.
This is/has always been one of our primary concerns: the expectations. Because these games are NOT gonna be too polished. If we spent time doing THAT, then we’d just make them PopCap games. Another working title for this whole experiment was “PopCap Labs”, to kind of drive home the experimental part. But we decided in the end to remove the PopCap name entirely, and to give it its own identity. What we don’t want happen is for people to say, “Man, PopCap’s quality bar is slipping!” Because these games aren’t meant to “count”. They’re behind-the-scenes freebie extras. But the perception issue is important, so we need to seriously eep looking at this.
Sorry–didn’t mean to derail the thread w/PopCap marketing conundrums! CARRY ON!
Where? All I get is Meteor Blitz Free, and the “Get full version” button goes nowhere. Only the HD edition of the full game is available, and that requires an iPad.
Kurdel
4714
I am level 18 in O&C, and it is slowly turning into a steaming pile of dogshit. I ill keep playing, just in case it becomes better (doubt it).
No, I love it. It’s nice having a fly on the wall that can tell us what is going on over there.!
I also love the direction of the 4th and battery website. Keeping it informal does help conveying the whole “not serious” message.
Drai
4715
What happens at that level? Does the content disappear, do the mechanics of the game break down, or does it just become boring?
rei
4716
I would definitely have to say you guys are approaching it the ‘right’ way.
Kurdel
4718
Oh no nothing, there are still 42 levels of mindless grinding left before the cap. I have two major complaints about the game, and both can be fixed.
1- Mobs respawn super fast. You go into a tunnel killing mobs, then you turn around, and holy shit, they are all respawned! Also, the quest mobs spawn at least 3 times less fast. So you end up spending 30 minutes fighting mobs (for next to no xp) while waiting for an NPC to spawn.
2- The draw distance is worse than an N64 game. You literally can’t see further than 20 feet in front of you dude. What that means is that you can’t see buildings in a town, or find you way via landmarks. You must follow a blue glowing arrow at your feet towards you quest.
Both these things have been more and more annoying the more I play. If they were fixed, this would be an proficient WoW clone for the iPhone/iPad.
Gameloft has said it will support this game, but I remain skeptical…
Picked up a new ball roller called Gears and it is simply stunning. It’s frrom Crescent Moon, who also did Rimelands and Aralon. Universal, playing on my iPad…not sure how it looks on the iPhone or touch. If you can picture a marble rolling game that looks like Torchlight, you’ll have a good idea. Only played through the first seven levels, but really like it so far. The touch controls are splendid. Gears is currently a dollar, and frankly, it’s absurd that you can buy a game of this quality for that kind of price. I hope they sell a ton of copies.
My experience with Unpleasant Horse was 1. do the tutorial, 2. die within 2 seconds because there was no cloud to jump to, 3. die within 10 seconds because I ran out of clouds / birds to jump on after the first few, 4. replay tutorial to see if I’m missing anything, 5. die and… uninstall. There was no gameplay incentive for me to persevere with it unfortunately, it was highly unforgiving, and I didn’t get any sense of a worthwhile goal. I’ll keep trying 4th and Battery games because I like the overall approach, but this one did nothing for me. I certainly wasn’t expecting Peggle though, it thought it was pretty clear from the description that this was a simple experimental offshoot.
[edit]Misguided, I’ve been playing Gears as well and I like it. It’s not doing anything remotely innovative, but if you like Dark Nebula you’ll like this.
