Category: Mobile Game Releases

Mobile game releases and development

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Rome: Total War launches on Android next week

Feral Interactive have finally revealed the release date for Rome: Total War’s Android port. Originally launching on iPads just over two years ago, Creative Assembly’s iconic strategy game was finally made universal earlier this year.

Now, our Android Brothers and Sisters can also get in on the action come next Wednesday, December 19th.

That’s the day after Tropico for iPad releases, incidentally. We’re not going to be doing a dedicated review of Rome: Total War, but we’ll update our existing one accordingly and probably push it to the front page as a reminder.

If you’re wondering whether or not your device can actually run RTW, here’s Feral’s official list of supported devices:

  • Google Pixel
  • Google Pixel XL
  • Google Pixel 2
  • Google Pixel 2 XL
  • Google Pixel 3
  • Google Pixel 3 XL
  • HTC U12+
  • Huawei Nexus 6P
  • Huawei Honor 8
  • Huawei Mate 10
  • Huawei Mate 20
  • LG V30+
  • Motorola Moto Z2 Force
  • Nokia 8
  • OnePlus 3T
  • OnePlus 5T
  • OnePlus 6T
  • Razer Phone
  • Samsung Galaxy S7
  • Samsung Galaxy Note8
  • Samsung Galaxy S8
  • Samsung Galaxy Note9
  • Samsung Galaxy S9
  • Samsung Galaxy Tab S4
  • Sony Xperia Z5 Dual
  • Sony Xperia XZ1
  • Sony Xperia XZ2 Compact
  • Xiaomi Mi 6

In addition, they had this to add:

If your device is updated to Android 7 or later, has 3GB of RAM, and uses one of the following chipsets:

  • Qualcomm Snapdragon 810
  • HiSilicon Kirin 950
  • Samsung Exynos 8890
  • MediaTek Helio P20

… It may be capable of running the game but will not meet the standard of performance, graphics or stability required for official support.

Are any of our android readers planning on picking this up next week? Let us know!

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Review: Marching Order

Marching Order is the perfect game for the yuletide. It’s a cute, relaxing, crystal-clear logic challenge. This is refreshing and timely, because ‘tis the season for rich fare, in games as well as meals. Many of gaming’s biggest games, both in terms of raw content and development budget, drop in Q4, beckoning gamers to side-line other parts of life and mainline these huge games.

Oh, it’s also the season of trips, hospitality and fruitcake. By contrast, sometimes it’s nice to have a refresher, a break from the tumult of big festivities and the onus of this season’s crop of important, must-play AAA games. Marching Order is a nicely done bite-sized snack with endearing presentation, an effervescent soundtrack and excellent (albeit limited) gameplay.

Marching Order 1

A logic puzzle with two game modes, ‘Normal’ and ‘Hard’, Marching Order tasks players towards shuffling around animals to assemble the perfect marching band based on their preferences. The macaw plays best directly behind the elephant; the lion likes to lead; the elephant wants to march behind something with feathers, and so on. This starts out almost trivially simple but as levels go on, additional animals are added to the lineup, as are additional clues. In ‘Normal’, everything is untimed and the margins of success are measured in the number of moves required to find the right order of animals. (This is an optional, extra metric, kind of like tracking the number of moves used to solve a Rubik’s Cube). Solving it in the minimum number of moves gives a whistle bonus, which acts like an extra life. Normally submitting an incorrect final solution ends the game, but the whistle changes this to ‘Try Again’.

MArchign Order 2

‘Hard’ mode, though, is a race against the clock, seeing how far you can go before the time allotted runs out. They both have similar scaling and the same core logical challenge, so the different modes are really a matter of preference rather than challenge per se.

Logic puzzles are great mental stimulation and exercise. Famous ones like the Monty Hall problem (which pigeons can pass more reliably than Joe Schmoe) or the Watson Selection Test are distinct examples, but this game reminds me of another oldie-but-goodie: Who Owns the Zebra?  Marching Order has the same constraints, the same unique solution, but is simpler and designed to scale in difficulty to match the moment.

This adaptability and the game’s overall aesthetic are great marks in its favor. Instead of trying to foist an uber-difficult, one-and-done challenge on the player to prove they are one of the 2% of people who are ‘smart’ enough to do it (such a clickbaity line splashed across brainteaser ads all the time), it starts easy and ramps up until the player fails the challenge. Especially in the timed mode, this doesn’t really take long. The cuteness of the game sets the stage for a calm, collected mindset to tackle the logic challenges. So yes, sometimes I don’t want a flaming-rings, death-defying, world-saving backdrop theme to my mobile games. Epic is nice, but homely and cutesy are often better. The soundtrack helps immensely on this front.

Marchign Order 3

If I had to knock one part of the game, it would be the horizontal scroll of the hints. It’s a clean presentation, to be sure, and in the beginning prevents players from getting overwhelmed, but for later stages this unnecessarily breaks up the puzzle. The hints obviously only hold value in combination with each other, so solving the puzzle is as much about holding all the clues in the player’s working memory simultaneously rather than just applying their restrictions. For timed mode, having to cycle through the hints repeatedly eats up time. A full vertical list would have been a faster, fairer way to present the information for players to process, but this is really making a bugbear of a minor design choice. Yes, it slows people down and prevents quick scans of all the hints, but it’s an evenly enforced outcome for all players.

The game is modest but excellent and fairly priced for the experience. It might not have unlimited staying power or an epic campaign, but for what it asks, it gives a satisfying and salutary experience.

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Classic tactical JRPG franchise Langrisser is coming to mobile for the first time

By Sponsored 12 Dec 2018

There’s a lot of potential in tactical RPGs on mobile, especially the classics from Japan. So far, wholesale premium ports have included gems like Final Fantasy Tactics, but the pricing model of these games can sometimes prove prohibitive to some. This, and the evolving nature of how people play mobile games, has led to an alternative offering via F2P strategy games like Fire Emblem: Heroes.

This is a sponsored article courtesy of Zlongame.

These games attempt to marry the inherent richness of their forebears with the realities of the freemium economy. Some work, some don’t, but if you’re not able to afford something like Tactics at full price these games can offer an alternative experience.

Come next year, another classic will be making a comeback, not only on traditional platforms but on mobile as well. The name Langrisser may not be as well-known as Fire Emblem, but it’s no less as important to the history of Japanese turn-based tactical games. Originally released in 1991, the first Langrisser arrived the year after Fire Emblem’s original incarnation and was actually the first of the two franchises to make it out west. Older readers may recognise the name Warsong, the title of Langrisser I’s official SEGA Genesis translation that was released in North America that same year.

Langrisser Classic

Langrisser and Fire Emblem’s rivalry would continue throughout the 90’s, with Langrisser II coming in 1994, Langrisser III in ’96, Langrisser IV in ’97 and finally Langrisser V in 1998. This year would also see Langrisser I & II ported to PC using a new engine, although the franchise went into hibernation as the original developers parted ways with their parent company to pursue their own projects.

Warsong would was the only game of the ‘classic’ era to get an official western release, but If you knew where to look you could get fan translations of Langrisser II, Der Langrisser (The super Famicom version of L2) and Langrisser IV: the all-time fan favourites amongst those who’ve followed the series since the beginning.

As a franchise, Langrisser was mainly known for offering a large-scale battle system, which stood apart from other similar games that focused more on individual characters and smaller squads. Players could control dozens, if not hundreds of troops on their side, and everyone was organised into platoons or battalions of units led by a singular hero-figure who would have a class and powers of their own. Like most of games of this genre, there was a rudimentary hierarchy in terms of which units were strong against other units, with order changing and evolving as the series progressed.

Langrisser Classic II

Featuring a medieval/Germanic setting with a noticeably Japanese spin, the series was also known for the narrative and story. 1995’s Der Langrisser introduced branching non-linear paths – with the player able to align with either one of three factions or go it alone, something which carried on into later games and remakes. This is now considered an important part of a narrative based tactical game’s DNA, and it’s something Langrisser and contemporaries helped refine. Relationship dynamics also evolved over the course of the series post-Langrisser III, giving the players multiple options for romantic partners depending on in-game choices and dialogue.

Two decades have passed since the ‘classic’ era of Langrisser, which ended with Langrisser V. There have been a few spin-offs and alternative projects since then, but it’s only recently that the series is making a real attempt at a come-back not only in Japan, but in the west as well. A compilation featuring a remaster of both Langrisser I & II is coming to Switch and PS4 next year, and us mobile users are getting our own bespoke Langrisser experience…

Langrisser Mobile

Twenty years on, Langrisser is looking to revive its ancient rivalry with Fire Emblem, and no more is this apparent than with Langrisser Mobile. It launched into open beta in China earlier this year, and now it’s being translated in English, positioning itself as an alternative to Fire Emblem: Heroes in the free-to-play strategy space.

While Langrisser Mobile replicates some of the basic traits of Heroes (given how similar these franchises have always been, not entirely surprising), it’s still carrying over the core identity of Langrisser, offering its own spin as it appeals to both new and old series fans.

Langrisser Banner

Players of Heroes will recognise the dynamic of simplified turn-based combat with a focus on quicker matches, and also the idea of pulling famous characters from across the franchise into one game. But on top of that is many traits that come straight out of the classics.

The units you control on the map are still a grouping of a leader-like main character being supported by grunt troops, and each have their own health and attack stats for an extra layer of customisation and tactical utility. There’s even a nod to the series’ roots by asking players to do a quick questionnaire at the beginning, the results of which will determine the main character’s class evolution later in the game.

Beyond that, Langrisser is trying to offer more content to enhance the experience. For example, the maps can be as large as a 24×29 grid, and there’s a lot of them (as a quick comparison, Fire Emblem’s maps only go as large as a 10×8 grid). There’s also a full fleshed out central narrative that touches on key points and markers from the classic games and the tactical sphere even features terrain effects, which add on an extra dimension to fighting battles beyond class and type-trumping.

Langrisser PT Dragon

Japan has a great history of tactical strategy games, and it’s a shame more of them don’t make it out west. Whatever form it takes, it’s good to see forgotten players like Langrisser get revived for a new audience.

Langrisser Mobile is due for release sometime in 2019. You can go to the official website to register for the currently running Closed Beta Test.

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Review: Rebel Inc.

By Dick Page 11 Dec 2018

Maybe it says something about how twisted people’s tastes can really be, but Ndemic’s Plague, Inc. was a surprise mega-hit for the one-man developer, hanging out near the top of the paid charts for years and receiving several well-received expansions. You’ve probably played it, and if you haven’t, we highly recommend that you do.

Now, we have a spiritual sequel that takes the same combination of a board-game-style map and branching development trees and applies them to the theme of rebuilding a nation after an international conflict. This time, you’re playing the good guys (hopefully), and Ndemic have put together a game that is just as if not more compelling than their previous effort.

Rebel Inc 2

One level of Rebel, Inc. is enacting initiatives that help build stability in the region, improve your reputation, and enable new ways to deal with problems that crop up. Civilian initiatives like improving hospitals and water systems primarily affect stability directly, while Government initiatives often act as ‘buffs’ that speed the adoption of your other initiatives or mitigate their consequences. Military initiatives are how you get the units you can command on the battlefield, but also support and improve the effectiveness of those units.

Initiatives are rolled out around the region automatically. You give the order, and your subordinates make it happen. At first it can be difficult to understand the effects of your orders, since they are rolled-out piecemeal and sector by sector. However, you’ll definitely appreciate the improved roads you put down when your national army has to run from one end of the map to the other to put down an insurgent group.

Rebel Inc 4

The costs of these initiatives are measured not only in dollars spent, but also in inflation and increasing corruption. Pouring money into an ailing nation sounds like a great idea, but too much at one time will cause prices in the region to rise, meaning you need to instead carefully drip new programs in like an IV. Also, implementing new programs that are supposed to help people means that other potentially less scrupulous people have to be put in charge, which lets them skim some off the top and can lead to more problems later. Balancing budget, inflation, corruption, stability, reputation, and insurgent activity is the core of the game.

The next layer of the game is the military tactical level, which, although it might not appear so at first, is heavily dependent on the policy layer. Here, you move units around the map to deal with insurgents that pop up, which is always at the most inopportune times. If the insurgents manage to control a sector, they will quickly drain your reputation, so it’s a good idea to keep your soldiers in the thick of it. Once defeated, however, they will scurry off into a neighboring sector, which can lead to you chasing them all around the map. To actually eliminate an insurgent group, you have to corner them so that there is no escape. It’s a game of cat and mouse, but one where the cat also has to worry about not antagonizing the local civilians and is subject to being recalled at the end of a tour of duty.

Rebel Inc 1

Finally, there’s plenty of dilemmas that will appear and require careful judgement. These will spell out the probabilities of different consequences depending on what you choose–typically you trade cost in dollars against a change in reputation or a risk of additional corruption or emboldening insurgents. Do you pay off the warlord, or try to arrest him and risk him joining the insurgency? These dilemmas are also how the game handles issues like civilian casualties from your airstrikes (Do you cover it up, or admit responsibility? It becomes more difficult over time.) They ultimately direct the endgame, as you negotiate with the rebels to bring peace to the region without losing too much face.

There are a lot of systems interacting in the background in Rebel, Inc., which serves to take some of the pressure off the player but also makes some of the game a bit opaque. Key to success are the Government initiatives that control corruption, speed implementation of Civilian initiatives, and make other tools more effective–but you might not realize that at first since those initiatives don’t have as immediate or visual an impact on your situation as a new military unit. Once you get the hang of it though, Rebel Inc offers a lot of challenge and requires careful thought to keep its many plates spinning through its harder difficulty levels and maps. Yet, it’s still a game that you can easily pick up and put down thanks to the high-level of automatic administration that’s taken care of for your governor.

Rebel Inc 3

Some people will question the taste level of this kind of simulation in this day and age. Rebel, Inc. doesn’t have the same problem that Afghanistan ’11 had because its rebels are only elliptically related to the Taliban, so there’s no need to fear Apple removing this new game on the same (incredibly silly) grounds. There are probably valid criticisms to make of Rebel, Inc.‘s portrayal of reconstruction, but only because any simulation is going to have to simplify a massively complex situation in order to shrink it down to our phone screens. This simplification could reasonably make people doubtful of the message the game is sending–if only the idea that it is even possible to “win” a counter-insurgency.

However, in this case I think the material is handled with enough gravity and care, and the developer is engaged-enough with players that any problems that might surface will be considerately dealt with. The game primarily portrays the difficulties in rebuilding a country after a war, the compromises that are made and the ultimate costs, and that overall message is a powerful and necessary one in our recent decades of jingoistic adventures in the Middle East. For that reason alone, we might hope that Rebel, Inc. equals its predecessor’s popularity in the App Store. But it also deserves to make it to the top of the charts on its own, for being a complex but easy-to-play sim game.

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Pocket Tactics Presents: The Reader’s Choice Game of the Year Award 2018

By Admin 10 Dec 2018

While we’re always experimenting with how best to handle the GOTY awards, one thing we will never change is giving you guys the opportunity to speak your own minds. After all, everything we do here is for you, the readers, and so the ‘Reader’s Choice’ award is your opportunity to have the final say on mobile gaming in 2018.

We’re keeping things simple this year: We’re only including games that we’ve reviewed that got five stars that released in 2018. We’ll include the full list below so you can pick which game you feel is best of the best.

But we also recognise that we don’t get a chance to review every release in a year, and that sometimes many of you disagree with how we score games. That’s why we’re also bringing back the ‘Wildcard’ vote – your chance to nominate any mobile game released for recognition.

The rules for the Wildcard nomination are:

  • The mobile game had to have had its first/initial release on iOS or Android between January 1st and December 31st 2018.
  • Games that were released on additional platforms in 2018, but had their initial release prior to January 1st 2018 are NOT eligible.
  • To assist in data collection, please use the name of the game as it is displayed on the iTunes store. If it’s an Android-only game or you’re unable to access the iTunes store, you may use the Google Play store name (sometimes they can differ). We’d recommend copying and pasting, if you can.
  • Any genre is allowed, as well as any type of game – F2P, Premium etc…
  • You also have the option of telling us the reason for your nomination, if you wish it, in a follow-up text box.

The form is embedded below, voting will be open from today till Friday, December 21st 2018, and we’ll publish the results over the Christmas break.

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Review: Morels

Every time we visit our local supermarket my wife always bemoans the limited choice of mushrooms. If we are especially lucky, lurking at the back of the shelf there may be a sweaty packet of shitakes but that is usually as good as it gets. I guess that you could always buy a kit and attempt to cultivate your own crop or you could go out foraging.

Unfortunately, the first option requires patience and the latter one is not without risks. Munch on the wrong mushroom and you could either find yourself tripping out of your head or on the mortician’s slab. It seems a lot more prudent to stick to playing a game or two of Morels.

Morels is a pretty straightforward card game in which the aim is to collect sets of mushrooms. There are two decks of cards, a large deck of day cards and a much smaller deck of night cards. The beautifully illustrated day cards depict the various types of mushrooms that you can collect. These range from the fairly common honey fungus to the ultra-rare and highly sought after morel. Be warned, because also lurking in this pack is the deadly Destroying Angel, which you obviously want to steer well clear of.

Morels 1

Also in the day deck are some items that will help you cook your fungi, these include frying pans and butter. Finally, there are eight moon cards; take one of these and you will be able to draw a card from the night deck. This introduces a push your luck element. The night cards consist of an extra copy of all eight types of edible mushrooms but you have no idea which one you will draw. The big advantage is that each night card counts as two mushrooms.

At the beginning of the game, each player is dealt three cards from the deck of day cards and a further eight cards are placed in a line. These cards represent the forest trail where you will commence your foraging.  The most basic action is to take one of the two cards at the start of the trail. There is a limit to how many cards can be held at once but playing a basket card can permanently extend this.

After each turn, the card left at the start of the trail is removed and placed in the decay pile.  Think of it as the bargain section of your local supermarket, for all those products about to pass their sell-by dates, which are often surrounded by a gaggle of old ladies with sharp elbows. This decay pile can hold up to four cards, after which the pile is emptied and the cards removed from the game. Instead of taking a card from the trail players can instead take all of the cards in the decay pile.

Morels 3

This is a good way of filling your hand, although the choice of cards on offer may not always be ideal. If neither the cards at the start of the trail or those in the decay pile are of interest to you, then you may wish to consider making preparations to delve deeper into the forest. You can trade in two or more matching mushrooms for some foraging sticks. On a later turn, you can use these sticks to take cards from further along the trail.

Gathering mushrooms is only half the fun. Next, comes the most important part where you actually sample the fruits of your labour and earn some points into the bargain. To commence cooking you need at least three mushrooms of the same type and a frying pan. You can enhance the flavour and points scored by adding some butter or a splash of cider. However, you are not a very adventurous cook and can never mix mushrooms of different types. Throw your chosen ingredients into the pan and with a delicious sizzling sound, your dish will be complete. Yum.

Instead of taking inspiration from a dusty Victorian botanical textbook, the artist has taken an altogether more whimsical approach. Hence, the cards are illustrated with some old-fashioned and quirky artwork in keeping with the weird and wonderful names of the mushrooms in the game. I doubt whether you will find a packet of Hen of the woods or Lawyers wig in your local Tesco’s. It is just a shame that the cards aren’t bigger. There seems to be a lot of dead space and I’m fairly certain that the screen could have been used more effectively. Furthermore, the background graphics are really basic and sit uneasily alongside the beautiful cards.

Morels 2

There are the usual options; you can take part in an online match or play offline against a computer opponent or a fellow human. It is a nice touch that the developers have bothered to add a range of different game variants. You can ditch the baskets in exchange for a larger hand limit, remove the moon cards or even add a load of extra morels to the deck. The chief advantage of playing this digital version is that you do not have to constantly shift cards around to refresh the trail.

Morels is a rather laid back and relaxing pastime. This probably explains why the original card game proved to be very popular with couples. The only things to beware of are those poisonous mushrooms. Thankfully, Destroying Angels do not kill you, but they do temporarily reduce your hand limit, which may also force you to discard cards. They are pretty easy to avoid, which means that their presence is only a minor inconvenience.

Overall, Morels is a fast-playing light game with a unique theme. In spite of its simplicity, there are still enough interesting decisions to keep players involved. It doesn’t attempt to introduce anything groundbreaking, but it does feel nicely balanced, requiring a satisfying mix of timing and luck.

Yes, I made it to the end of the review without a single fungus or mushroom related joke (congratulations -ED).

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The Weekender: Inc., Edition

We’re back with your weekly look at what’s been happening in mobile games. A lot, as it happens, although not so much on the releases front.

Reviews wise we decided to take a stab at two slightly controversial games – Command & Conquer: Rivals, which is a hot-F2P-mess that has a good game buried underneath the monetisation, and Kingdom Rush: Vengeance, which is an excellent Tower-Defence RTS marred by an overly persistent IAP. Our reviewers really liked both, but readers are dubious – let us know what you think!

I also had Nick talk about Artifact, and how it’s current state might be received on mobile, and we now know when Tropico for iPad is coming out (yay!).

We’ve got plenty of reviews in the pipeline, including Morels and Marching Order, as well as a few of the ones that were released this week.

Meanwhile, in mobile gaming…

Out Now

Rebel Inc. (iOS Universal)

The highlight of the week definitely has to be the Ndemic’s new game, Rebel Inc., which we spoke about last week. In this spiritual successor to the excellent Plague Inc., this is a political/military strategy-simulation game where you must use all of the resources at your disposal to try and keep the insurgents at bay, across five richly modelled regions.

Sadly, we weren’t able to secure code for gameplay impressions, or even review, yet, so we can’t comment on what it’s actually like. Chatter so far has been positive though. We’ll try and get you a full review as soon as we can. An Android version is planned, but it won’t be arriving till early 2019.

Rebel Inc 3 2

Twinfold (iOS Universal & Android)

Twinfold reminds me of this puzzle game my wife used to play where you had to merge blocks together to double -up and try and get higher and higher numbers. It wasn’t as diverse as this new release however, so Twinfold is definitely on the watch-list for the week.

The aim of the game is to merge the golden idols together to achieve higher and higher scores, whilst also taking care not to fall fowl of any of the 7 enemy types that could spawn. Every time you ‘level up’ an idol, a new one appears of the same number but the puzzle environment also shifts via procedural generation. Game Centre support allows for leaderboards and achievements, and if you’re using an iPhone 7 or later, you get haptic feedback. That’s nice.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2MV6hmWWwm4?controls=0]

Also caught our eye: Splotches (iOS Universal)

Now that I’m a parent, I’m always looking out for colour games I could introduce my daughter to that are simple, potentially educational and unlikely to expose her to anything inappropriate. Puzzle games seem to be safe bets at the moment, and Splotches looks very colourful indeed. If I get a chance to try it out for myself, I’ll report back.

Updates

Afghanistan ’11 (Review)

This is more of a PSA than an update – as you may have heard by now, Apple has removed Slitherine’s Afghanistan ’11 from sale on the app store. Their reason given was that the game featured “people from specific governments or other real entities as the enemies”. So they had issues with the fact that you were fighting the Taliban, who were identifiable as the Taliban, basically.

It’s not the first time this has happened, but it probably won’t be the last, but users who’ve already purchased and have the game on their device should still be able to play the game, at least. It’s still available to buy on PC.

Ticket to Earth (iOS Universal & Android) (Review)

Ticket to Earth was a very interesting and compelling turn-based strategy game that used coloured tiles as a unique mechanic. It’s only real flaw was that it was billed as an episodic game, and the episodes have been rather slow at coming out. The game was released in March last year and the second episode wasn’t put out until August. Now, over a year later, players can finally get their hands on Episode 3.

This free update adds more levels, powers and playable characters as you attempt to learn the secrets of the Refinery. The update also tweaks the rewards for Episode 2 missions – if you’ve already done those, the added rewards will already be added to your save.

Flipflop Solitaire (iOS Universal and Android) (Review)

Zach Gage will always get the time of day here at Pocket Tactics. His games are simple, yet wonderful twists on classic forms of entertainment, and the twists are usually bonkers.

Flipflop is the latest game to get an update, and the new content adds ‘Numbered Decks’ mode featuring over 1,000 deals to test your skills at. All these puzzles are meant to be 100% solvable.

Sales

Star Traders 4X Empires Elite (iOS Universal and Android) $1.99 on Android

The premium edition of the Trese Brother’s mobile 4X outing is down to just a couple of dollars on Android. There’s a free trial version with ads you can check out if you want to try the game for a bit first.

Fighting Fantasy Legends (iOS Universal and Android): $1.99
Fighting Fantasy Legends: Portal (Review) (iOS Universal and Android): $1.99

Both of Nomad’s revivals of the iconic ‘Choose your own adventure’ narrative adventure games are on sale once again, on both platforms to boot. Both games have been this cheap before, as recent as the end of October this year.

Ticket to Earth (iOS Universal & Android): $3.99

To coincide with the release of Episode 3, Ticket to Earth is now a dollar off on both stores. Fair warning, it was being sold for $1.99 back in July 2017 for a while, but it hasn’t been that cheap since then.

Seen anything else you like? Played any of the above? Let us know in the comments!

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Review: Kingdom Rush: Vengeance

Playing the bad guys is always a treat, what with all the contemptuous monologizing and the ‘I’ll show them what true power is!’ Plus, evil creatures are always way more interesting to command than boring noble goodies. That’s why Ironhide giving players the chance to captain the armies of the evil wizard Vez’nan is the best feature in this otherwise routinely excellent tower defense game. However, it may be more than just the player that turned to the Dark Side in this entry, since Ironhide has also walled-off a chunk of this premium game’s content behind a paywall.

Vengeance is the fourth entry in the mega-popular Kingdom Rush tower defense series and is the entry that makes the most changes to the gameplay, though still keeping it solidly within TD tropes. (It’s a little weird that you still play on the defense the entire game, given that your army is supposedly the invading force, but that’s the genre, so we’ll just have to roll with it.) The biggest gameplay update is in the way you choose and upgrade your towers.

Vengeance 1

Rather than leveling up your basic towers into more specialized variations in the middle of the level, you’ll have to do a little more planning. Between levels you get to choose five towers to take with you that have very different purposes: your basic towers give you ranged magical/non-magical damage, grunts to slow down the oncoming horde, or long-distance artillery. You gradually gain more towers by completing levels, so customizing your ‘hand’ of five towers becomes the metagame. You may end up with a few favorites that you always lean on, or you can customize your loadout each level for maximum efficacy against the given target. This makes for great replay value as you try to score the highest rating on each level.

Levels themselves are fairly long for a mobile title, taking about thirty minutes to complete, so there’s a lot of gameplay here even if you’re not a completionist. Each map is highly individualized (within a few themes) with few reused assets, so they never get dull. They often have amusing themes or cute details that let you play goofball fantasy Where’s Waldo in-between waves. The dwarf king will occasionally swim around in his gold like Scrooge McDuck, and there’s a smirkable Terminator reference in the smelting furnace level (you know what I’m talking about).

Special events will also frequently occur that change the landscape and open up new avenues of attack for your enemies, like Viking ships landing. It’s important not to get tunnel-vision on a few lanes or become complacent, because you never know when the tide will suddenly shift. This makes it tough to get a perfect score your first time through a level, but it also makes the game much more active than your average TD game.

Vengeance 2

Adding to the dynamism are the hero units that you can order about the battlefield. They all have a bevy of special abilities that you don’t have direct control of but do make them majorly useful for crowd control or taking down bosses. Each offers a slightly different playstyle. Your basic orc boss is a great tank, but you’ll soon get a rogue character that is good for debuffs and crowd control, and a mage that will do more damage-per-second. Finally, you can cast spells and summon instant minions to take care of any unexpected difficulties. In between missions, an upgrade tree lets you buff your hero, towers, minions and spells, giving you fun new abilities to play with beyond purely higher stats. There’s a lot going on inside and outside the levels, is basically what I’m saying.

You start with four towers and earn seven more by playing the game, and you quickly score two additional heroes beyond your starter. Eleven towers and three distinct heroes sounds pretty good … but there are another five towers and six more heroes locked behind *shudder* relatively expensive paywalls.

Vengeance 3

Is it too much monetization for an already-premium game? Fans of the series are divided. I think it’s important to remember that the base price, like just about any mobile game, is already absurdly low so the title can compete in the ridiculously cut-rate mobile market controlled by greedy gatekeepers. Yes, the IAP exist, but as long as you can ignore a persistent alert badge on one menu item, there’s little to no reminder that the developers want more of your money. It’s there, but it’s not obnoxious, and in this day and age maybe that’s all we can ask for.

The content included in the game is absolutely worth the purchase price, and I didn’t feel like I missed out on much by not spending more. The game is intensely engaging with a light-hearted tone that makes it a real pleasure to jump in to. Tweaks to the Kingdom Rush formula should please long-time fans and jaded TD players who have seen everything. If you’re new to this kind of game, Vengeance is a great, entertaining jumping off point.

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Opinion: What will Artifact on mobile look like? If it’s anything like PC, it’ll have a fight on its hands

By Nick Vigdahl 06 Dec 2018

Valve Corporation has a long history of developing popular and successful video games, although lately they’ve been relying on the veritable money-printing machine that is Steam. They’ve finally released a new game, Artifact, and it’s a big bet in the crowded collectable-card game (CCG) genre.

Artifact is based on one of Valve’s most-successful games of all time, DOTA 2, and takes a crack at differentiating its gameplay from Hearthstone and other options in this space. While interesting, those differences aren’t getting nearly as much attention as the way Valve is monetizing Artifact. With the game coming to iOS and Android in 2019 it’s worth looking at what Valve is doing with Artifact‘s pricing, and how it might manifest on mobile.

Artifact Mobile 1

Gold Standard

The standard CCG take on monetization is to sell randomized packs of cards, but to also offer the ‘grinders path’ by allowing ‘free’ players to earn in-game currency with which they can pick up packs without spending money. The main reason to do this is to pump up the active-player count so players willing to spend money don’t have to wait in long queues for an opponent, the surest way to kill a CCG. Valve has eschewed the grinders path entirely and at present the only way to acquire new cards is to buy them with real money or win them playing ‘expert’ constructed or draft events, which costs money to enter in the form of event tickets. 

Valve has set up Artifact to be very profitable starting with a $20 purchase price on Steam which is another departure from the usual model: CCGs are usually free to download. Your initial investment gets you ten of Artifact‘s twelve-card packs and five event tickets. It’s effectively a starter kit and naturally you’ll want more cards. Packs cost two bucks and additional event tickets run five for $4.99. You can also purchase individual cards from other players through the Steam marketplace, from which Valve also takes a cut.

Artifact Mobile 3

The reaction from many players and games media has been negative. Artifact has nearly ten-thousand “mixed” reviews on Steam. A great many of these can be broken down to, “pay to own, pay to play, pay to win,” with a primary gripe being the inability to grind out packs without spending money. It’s a predictable response, given the genre norms, and Valve has made some minor concessions to the complaints so far in the beta. They recently added a card “recycling” feature that lets you convert 20 unwanted cards into an event ticket where previously the only way to unload cards you didn’t want was to sell them to others.

There could be more changes coming, but I’m betting we won’t see anything as extreme as the addition of an in-game currency and a way to grind for packs. Valve seems to be making a play for gamers willing to treat Artifact like a hobby and invest accordingly. Their bet is that they can attract enough players to not have to rely on free-to-play grinders to fill their queues. It’s not a crazy idea by any means and has worked for twenty-five years for the original and most-successful CCG of all time: Magic: The Gathering (MTG).

Artifact Mobile 2

There’s no way to grind free physical packs of MTG cards, after all, and you can’t “dust” the cards you don’t want to craft ones you do. Paper MTG and digital Magic: The Gathering Online (MTGO) cards have been resold by third parties as singles since the game was born (though Wizards of the Coasts can only dream of a cut). There’s a big benefit to this kind of a system for paying players as you can buy just the cards you want instead of packs which is often cheaper when building constructed decks. The ability to resell cards also opens up a lot of options to reinvest in the game or spend that money elsewhere in Steam. Valve seems to be going for the same players that made MTG the behemoth it is today.

Artifact on Mobile

Agree with it or not, this is Valve’s monetization plan for Artifact and the game’s coming to mobile next year. We can only speculate on what a mobile version of Artifact will look like, though a $20 price tag will be a much tougher sell on the App Story and especially the Google Play store than it is on Steam. They could drop the price and provide fewer initial packs and event tickets. Either way however, Steam players may balk at having to buy into mobile in exchange for cards they probably already have. The other option, and one that would assuage existing players, would be to make the game free to download but push a ‘starter IAP’ on new players. This is the likeliest option.

Artifact Mobile 4

The bigger hang-up will be the secondary card marketplace. It’s difficult to conceive of how Valve could implement anything similar on iOS or Android. They can, and likely will, direct mobile players to Steam for the full functionality of card resale and purchase. This would put mobile-only players at a distinct disadvantage, with no ability to sell cards they don’t want and fully reliant on packs and expert events to get any new cards. A partial solution would be for Valve to directly sell popular cards or bundles of cards via in-app-purchase though this could be tough to balance with the player-driven marketplace on Steam.  

How will mobile gamers react to Artifact? Well, it’s going to get pummeled in the user reviews. Premium isn’t popular on mobile. Neither are games listed as free that end up requiring a purchase to continue (just ask Nintendo). Free-only players will stay away. There are mobile players that don’t mind paying money for a good game, however, this site exists because of them. There are certainly CCG players who don’t mind paying to try new cards, new decks, and to keep up with a metagame. They probably don’t write many grammatically disastrous user reviews on Apple or Google’s stores, but they are out there. Valve’s betting they can find them and time will tell if they’re right.

At the time of writing, there was no official information on the mobile version of Artifact, but it’s still still being worked on as far as we know. In the mean time, you can play on Steam.

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[Updated] Tropico iPad specs, release date & iPhone versions

By Joe Robinson 05 Dec 2018

Update: Feral have also just confirmed that the game will release on iPad on December 18th. An iPhone/Universal release is confirmed for 2019. There’s also a snazzy new trailer we’ve embedded for your enjoyment.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1roVBx5TRN8?controls=0]

Original Story: Feral Interactive, as well as bringing us excellent mobile ports of Rome: Total War, have also managed to win the rights to bring Tropico to mobile.

Tropico for iPad  was announced earlier this year and will officially be a modified version of Tropico 3, and will see you put in charge of an up-and-coming banana republic as el president. You’ll need to develop your economy, keep your citizens in-line, and court the major powers for favours and influence.

“But Pocket Tactics, I really want to know whether my device will run it or not,” said some people, sometimes.

Luckily for you citizen, Feral have published a handy infographic to illustrate what devices are officially supported:

tropicoipadThe official summary on the game’s website is:

Tropico will run on any iPad Pro, any iPad released since 2017, and requires iOS 12 or later. You will also need 3GB of free space to install the game.

So it seems even a nine-year old PC game still needs some serious hardware to run.

There’s been no word on when Tropico will release, but we’ll keep you posted.