Mobile Game Releases – Page 85

Posted on June 29, 2018 by — Leave a comment

The Weekender: Wind Rider Edition

Welcome to the Weekender, your weekly look at the best new games, sales, and updates. It’s a big week with one of my most-anticipated games of the year hitting the App Store along with a couple tabletop to digital conversions. Oh, and a healthy dose of discounted games. Have a great weekend.

Six Ages: Ride Like the Wind (iOS Universal) (Review)

King of Dragon Pass is an iOS classic. With elements of RPG, tribal management, turn-based tactics, and interactive fiction it plays like a really in-depth choose-your-own-adventure book. You operate at both a colony level, managing your tribe and its interactions with the world, and an individual level as the chieftain where you make decisions that have a big impact on the story. A sequel to this classic has been in the works for four years and this week we get to play it.

Six Ages: Ride Like the Wind is the spiritual successor to King of Dragon Pass and returns us to the rich fantasy world of Glorantha. Rather than playing as the Viking-inspired Orlanthi we take the reins of riders of the steppe, clearly meant to evoke the Mongols, and must steer them through a great migration and settling of a new home. Gameplay hasn’t changed much from King of Dragon Pass which makes sense: it wasn’t exactly broken. You still consult your circle of advisors and make important decisions season after season. You still worship a diverse and interesting pantheon of gods and seek their blessings and magic. You must navigate through diplomacy and war with other tribes, as well as domestic and economic concerns closer to home.

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The story is interesting, the choices are meaningful, and the artwork is once again top-notch. You should definitely read Matt’s 4-star review of the game if you haven’t already, but I’m happy to add my recommendation. It’s an easy pick for fans of the original and most RPG aficionados.

Card Quest – Card Combat Game (iOS Universal and Android) – Full review coming soon!

Dungeon crawler style, roguelike gameplay, an undead menace, and card-based combat…Card Quest has the elements of a good tactical game. You pick a character, customize your deck, and go battle the bad guys. The game was ported from Steam where it has a ‘very positive’ rating. I wasn’t able to play it, but it looks pretty promising and might be worth a look for those deck-building roguelike fans out there.

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Quarto (iPhone (?) and Android) – Full review coming soon!

Quartro is a pretty simple abstract board game where one’s opponents dictate their pieces, and therefore choices. You’re given a piece and must play it on the game board. The ultimate goal is the same as, you know, Connect Four, though there are four different piece characteristics (color, shape, size, and hollow or solid) which adds another dimension to the strategy. The digital presentation of the game is attractive and the game plays fast, making it ideal for quick games here and there. There’s a decent amount of strategy and the AI isn’t bad. Quatro is mostly a solo game against the AI, but there is a pass-and-play option for use by co-located humans. You can take on specific challenges to spice up the single-player experience, which is a cool way to introduce techniques and build expertise in the game.

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Istanbul Digital Edition (iOS Universal and Android) – Full review coming soon!

Istanbul either won or was nominated for a bunch of board gaming awards back in 2014 when it came out. Now, like many stand-out tabletop favorites, it gets the digital treatment. Istanbul: Digital Edition was converted by Acram Digital, the folks behind Eight-Minute Empire and Steam: Rails to Riches. The game plays the same as the physical version and sets up you the player as a sales team—one merchant and four assistants—in a busy roughly Medieval Istanbul bazaar. The goal is to collect a certain number of rubies earned through making wise sales choices. You can play a solo game versus the AI or online with others. The online game offers both real-time and asynchronous options.

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Hexologic (iOS Universal and Android)

A quick and clever puzzle game, Hexologic offers loads of challenging and fun levels for anybody that doesn’t mind a little simple addition. Hexologic puts a little spin on sudoku rules. Each level has several groups of hexes running horizontally, vertically, or diagonally each with an associated number. You must assign a value of 1 to 3 to empty hexes within these groups in order to sum up to the number. It’s just the right amount of tactical thinking for a relaxing game-play experience and I’d recommend it to puzzle fans.

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New Pre-Orders

Pre-ordering seems to be a thing now, at least on iOS. There’s two games this week we think you’ll want to take note of…

Pocket City (iOS Universal): $4.99

Long awaited Sim City-like city building sensation Pocket City is now available to pre-order, and we finally have an expected release date! The game that’s set to “re-imagine classic city building simulation gameplay” is due to release on July 31^st, and you can pre-order for $4.99 on iOS.

Battleheart 2 (iOS Universal): $3.99

The sequel to classic strategy game Battleheart is finally within our sights, although a few months later than we originally thought. You can pre-order for $3.99 and the game is expected to release on July 12^th.

Sales

Miracle Merchant (iOS Universal and Android): $.99 on iOS (Review)

Kicking off our sales today is one of the best games of 2017 and one of the better solitaire-style mobile games period. Miracle Merchant is the perfect game for short play sessions and is on sale for just a buck (although it’s free with IAPs on Android, if you’re wondering).

Dissembler (iOS Universal and Android): $.99 on iOS

Flip tiles to match and remove color groupings in the challenging puzzle game Dissembler. It came out earlier this year and is on sale in the App Store for the first time for just a dollar.

Age of Rivals (iOS Universal and Android): $1.99 (Review)

Fantastic card-drafting, civilization-building game Age of Rivals is another of the best of 2017 and on sale for half off.

Cat Quest (iOS Universal and Android): $1.99 on iOS (Review)

It’s the best cat-based RPG ever made. Ok, and also of the better games of 2017 in its own right. It’s normally $5 and isn’t on sale often, if you’re an RPG fan and looking for a game to play now’s the time.

Runic Rampage (iOS Universal and Android): $1.99 on iOS

Get your smash on and play a pissed off dwarf in Runic Rampage, an action RPG full of combos. It’s not as fun as Cat Quest, but gets the job done if you’re looking for more from the genre.

Civilization VI (iPad): $23.99 IAP (Review)

Firaxis’ 4X behemoth is a great port of the classic turn-based strategy game, and Aspyr have done a great job bringing it up to speed with its PC counter-part. If you’ve never been happy with the pricing structure, the ‘Full Game’ unlock is now at its cheapest ever price since launch.

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

Posted on June 29, 2018 by — Leave a comment

Does Battle Royale have a long-term future on mobile?

By Collin MacGregor 29 Jun 2018

The video game industry is constantly chasing the hottest and most lucrative trends. From military shooters to virtual reality, there is always a new concept asserting its dominance – this is as true for consoles and PC as it is mobile, although our app stores have yet to shake from the over-arching grip of Free-to-Play.

Want to get better at Fortnite on mobile? We’ve got a handy tips & tricks guide for you.

It’s hard to ignore the battle royale genre’s hold on the wider gaming scene as massive franchises attempt to be the next multiplayer hit. The mobile market is also chasing this latest craze: a boon of battle royale games that range in quality and name recognition have cropped up over the past few months. But despite the massive popularity of this genre, one has to wonder if this is just a fad or is this multiplayer-focused experience destined to become a mobile staple?

King of the Fort

The current king of this genre is Epic Games’ smash hit, Fortnite. What separates this one from other BR games is a unique building mechanic that allows players to rapidly assemble cover, structures, and traps. This elevates firefights and allows for a player’s creativity to shine through. Unlike other titles such as PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds (PUBG), Fortnite thrives on its speed and accessibility, something that causes the mobile port to suffer more compared to the PC/console iteration.

This isn’t to say that the mobile version of Fortnite is unplayable or even bad – it’s actually quite fun – but this iteration is absent a sense of momentum. Since playing on a phone lacks the fluidity of a controller or keyboard, many engagements are supremely awkward. Instead of seeing who can quickly construct cover and outmanoeuvre their opponents, players often just use the environment to block incoming bullets. Even with the auto-build function, it takes a lot of practice to learn how to quickly produce anything outside of a basic wall or ramp.

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What you’re left with is an odd version of Fortnite that closely resembles the PC version but lacks the kinetic energy that helped it climb to the top of the charts in the first place. Shooting others is still satisfying and the large arsenal of weapons always keep battles feeling fresh. There is still a plethora of unique gadgets that shake up combat and Epic has done a great job with keeping the mobile version updated with the latest changes. However, due to the limitations of playing on a phone or tablet, Fortnite simply cannot deliver the same quality gameplay on a mobile device.

Player Unknown

In contrast, PUBG’s mobile version fairs far better due to the title’s core pacing and mechanics. Gameplay in this title has always been much slower (A legacy of its heritage as an ArmA mod, perhaps -ED), with most matches encouraging methodical approaches to gunfights. Taking your time to line up the perfect shot or reposition into cover is par for the course. This allows PUBG‘s mobile design to flourish since these principles work perfectly with this version’s condensed control scheme.

Even though both mobile versions of these hit multiplayer titles have issues, they prove that the battle royale genre is perfect for this platform. Like the best mobile titles, both games offer quick, entertaining sessions that still possess challenge. There are no time gates or any of the usual cynical trappings of mobile free-to-play. The formula of forcing 100 players into a shrinking safe area still crafts memorable moments that very few mobile titles can replicate.

Regardless of what sacrifices these titles have had to make during their transition, the core foundation is still solid. These are complete games and it’s remarkable how little was lost during their transition to mobile. Because of this, players can continue to grow and flesh out their understanding of the mechanics. For people like myself who are coming from PC, it’s great to take my previous experiences and apply them in-game.

Royale with Cheese

This transition from PC to mobile is a double-edged sword. While bringing Fortnite to phones offers a ton of positives, it’s important to remember that this title was not designed for handheld devices. There’s a lot to keep track of, which can severely hinder the controls. The UIs for PUBG and Fortnite are quite cluttered due to the myriad of mechanics that users need to keep track of.

Mundane tasks such as sprinting, crouching, or jumping are relegated to button prompts or specific commands. This not only floods the screen with icons but can create an awkward experience for those with bigger fingers. Nothing is more disheartening than having your perfect sniper position given away because you accidentally grazed the fire button. Yes, it’s possible to customize the screen, but that only mitigates the poor UI instead of fixing it.

But battle royale games never-the-less posses a very compelling gameplay loop that’s easy to learn, but hard to master: drop into a location, scramble for loot, and try to claw your way to the top Being able to pick up Fortnite or PUBG and play a quick round on the go is what will give this genre its’ sustainability. There are no bases to manage or mechanics one has to worry about when the game is closed. Even when this latest craze has died down on PC, I predict the mobile versions will continue to thrive.

Posted on June 28, 2018 by — Leave a comment

Fortnite Battle Royale: Tips & Tricks for Competing on Mobile

By Collin MacGregor 28 Jun 2018

Battle royale sensation Fortnite has parachuted onto mobile in all its glory. While it’s still only on iOS for the moment (Android version when?) the fact that this is the same game, pretty much feature-for-feature, on a phone is mind-boggling.

Whether you’re a victory royale veteran, or someone discovering Fortnite Battle Royale for the first time, playing on mobile is quite the unique experience. The smaller screen, reduced visuals and bespoke touch controls totally change the way you must play what is essentially a third-person shooter, and one that can get pretty intense.

If only someone could provide you with some essential Fortnite tips & tricks to help you to stay competitive on your mobile…

Controls refresher

Limit your long-distance fighting

This partly comes down to the current Fortnite meta across all platforms, but even more so on mobile you shouldn’t really look to be fighting at range. Even on PC/console it isn’t ideal with the power of shotguns, poor accuracy of auto rifles, and the ease of movement.

Playing on another platform you probably have at least 18 inches of screen to look at, with all those high-quality pixels allowing you to spot every bit of movement. On mobile that real-estate could shrink to something like 4 inches with an iPhone SE. That movement becomes much more difficult to spot, meaning keeping track of opponents at a distance is near impossible. The touch controls also make it much harder to hit long distance shots without a scope.

This doesn’t mean you should avoid them like the plague. Instead, prioritise SMGs, LMGs, explosives, and shotguns over precision death dealers – especially when you are just landing. If you do want to use a rifle, make sure to crouch and use the aim zoom to improve your accuracy. Additionally, don’t bother with tactics such as shotgun weapon swapping until you get comfortable with the controls. The icons are quite small and it’s easy to mistap on the wrong gun.

Be Aggressive

If you want to survive longer than a minute, you’ll need to start getting into firefights with other players. Typically, Fortnite’s building and plethora of ranged weapons allows users to stay back and pick off foes. However, since aiming on a mobile device is tricky the best option is force enemies to fight on your terms. Get in players faces when the bullets start flying and make them panic as you shoot them.

Moving is not nearly as fluid, so you can fluster you foes by destroying their cover and pressuring them with a hail of bullets. Weapons like C4, minigun, LMG, and even basic grenades are fantastic for forcing opponents out of position. Try to use the environment to break line of sight with your foes, especially if you can get the drop on them. Since rotating the camera can be a bit awkward, it’s not as common for someone to check behind them. Use this to your advantage and strike when they don’t have time to react.

Don’t be afraid to build

Building is key to success in Fortnite allowing you to travel across terrain quickly, get the drop on opponents and keep you safe when caught out. The touch controls on the mobile version are a little trickier than other versions since you have to move your hand away moving and/or shooting to select your building type, once you get some practise it becomes easier.

We have seen so many people on iOS only servers not build anything when they really should, and it almost always results in an early death. Assembling cover can be tricky at first, so accept that you may die in the early hours while learning the new control scheme. If you’re coming over from PC or console don’t expect to quickly assemble the elaborate structures. Swapping between materials and parts takes more time, so focus on constructing simple pieces of cover.

The basic three walls and a single ramp will offer decent protection and simultaneously give you a height advantage. Traps are also quite potent since navigating your character can be a bit awkward and it’s easy to accidentally stumble into one. Always practice your building because it can and will make the difference between a victory or the defeat screen.

Moving Will Be Awkward At First

As mentioned above, real estate on your screen is at a premium on mobile, as those big ol’ thumbs will take up a lot of room. The positioning of your digits usually means you won’t miss too much, but there is always a chance some loot or even an enemy, manages to go undetected thanks to being covered up. There’s also a chance that you’ll accidentally tap the jump or crouch button. Because of this, it’s absolutely vital that you keep your right thumb in the lower corner of the screen. You can still tap the screen and quickly access your weapons without the risk of hitting another icon.

Remember, double tapping the virtual joystick used to move around will keep your character running forward until you take back control. This frees up screen space to use for scouting the area, and you can still move around by changing your camera angle to turn. Of course, once a fight breaks out you’ll need to take back control right away: strafing, jumping and climbing all needs extra precision that simple running doesn’t.

There may be visual clues, but still play with sound where possible

The most obvious new addition to the mobile version is visual indicators for footsteps, gunshots and chests, as well a direction indicator. It’s a wonderfully clear and obvious addition to the UI, and boy is it useful. Being able to know exactly the direction footsteps are coming from allows you to instantly target whoever is around the corner. It also allows you to plant those traps in places you know they will be.

That doesn’t mean sound isn’t useful though. It can help identify what specific weapon or weapon class is being shot, and other subtler clues that a simple UI tweak can’t provide. Obviously don’t be that person with sound coming out of the speakers in public, but in private/with headphones having sound will give an edge.

Do you have any tips or tricks of your own you want to share? Post them in the comments below!

Posted on June 28, 2018 by — Leave a comment

Review: Six Ages: Ride Like The Wind

Strategy and story have never been the happiest bedfellows. One benefits from obscurity, from twists and mysteries that propel you forward into the unknown. The other needs as much transparency as possible, so you can understand the effects of your actions and improve your plans. To service these requirements, stories have always had to emerge from strategy, not the other way around.

Six Ages: Ride like the Wind wants to set that straight. It wants to tell you a tale of gods and humans, of mysteries and the mundane while still taxing your tactics. It’s a bold goal and, while it doesn’t always work, the narratives that it weaves are unlike anything else in gaming. Except, perhaps, its predecessor. Almost 19 years in the making, this is the sequel to a very special game from 1999, King of Dragon Pass.

What’s partly responsible for the success of both games is their bizarre setting, Glorantha. It’s a fantasy world like no other, developed in depth from academic theories of anthropology and cultural studies. You command a clan of horse-riding barbarians in the game, but your encounters are often bizarre beyond expectations. Dwarves of literal stone, dark-dwelling Trolls who judge others by their flavour, bubbling freaks of chaos and more besides. And each with their own extensive culture and mythology.

Set during Glorantha’s early ‘Storm Age’ of warring gods, your goal is to guide your clan to wealth and prosperity. Through a series of screens and menus, you must direct the work and wealth of your clan. There must be farmers for the fields, warriors to protect them or raid enemies, shrines to please the gods and diplomacy and trade with other clans. As the game progresses you will become engaged with the greater events of the age. But at the start, mere survival is challenging enough.

On most screens you can ask your circle of clan elders for advice on what to do, although they often give conflicting opinions. You’ll choose to do something for that season: explore new lands, perhaps, or sacrifice to the spirits to learn lore. Sometimes the result is immediate, sometimes it may take several more seasons to resolve.

Either way, it’s never quite clear why things work out the way they do. As you play, you’ll begin to intuit how things happen behind the scenes, but it’s a hard slog. And when you’re staring down disasters like a catastrophic raid or a demoralised clan, it’s frustrating not to know what choices will improve things. It does, however, result in a far more compelling narrative. One which encompasses failure as well as success, misery as well as triumph. There’s even a ‘Saga’ screen where you can view the ongoing tale of your barbarians in exquisite detail.

To flesh out this thin strategic skeleton, many seasons also see a random event. These help you learn more about Glorantha’s rich and detailed world as well as adding to the story. Mostly it’s a bunch of text and a series of options. Again, your elders will advise you if you want them. Again, intuition and your knowledge of the setting play a role but picking options can be a crapshoot.

Sometimes an event takes you through a series of choices before resolving. Sometimes, it will set in motion a chain of further events that will take years to play out. If your lunatic trickster-shaman decides to kidnap a member of a rival clan, your reaction will impact relations with them for the whole game. Taking in refugees from a mysterious culture causes their presence to bubble up in events from time to time, impacting your clan in various ways.

This essentially is the template for the entire game. There’s a battle system, but it’s similarly driven by narrative rather than clear strategy. Even then, unexpected events like the sudden arrival of a group of allies can throw things off the rails. Everything catches the player between the rock of opaque mechanics and the hard place of wonderful storytelling. It’s a wonderful place to be, if you can stomach the spirals and corkscrews of the ride.

There’s no better illustration of this than Hero Quests. These are ritual re-enactments of myths from the time of the gods. It’s important for your religion to attempt one every few years, and the rewards can be colossal. But to succeed, you need to sacrifice to find the missing pieces of lore, and then literally, as a player, learn it. Your choices on the quest must be close to those of the god if you want the best benefits.

Some strategy gamers will find this kind of forced immersion awful, others will lap it up. Fans of the original will already be familiar with it. They’ll discover a smoother interface and a new setting in a new culture. Forgoing the traditional control and power fantasies of strategic empire-building is a hard habit to give up. But for those that can make the sacrifice, Six Ages holds a wealth of wonders few other games can match.

Posted on June 27, 2018 by — Leave a comment

Review: Cartoon Craft

A lot of people are probably trolling the app stores looking for a game just like Cartoon Craft–a mobile-focused simplified RTS with swords and monsters all built from gold and trees. Obviously, Cartoon Craft is a clone of Warcraft, with armies of orc and humans facing off in a fantasy world. The one thing Cartoon Craft does really well is to make the units super cute, like a high-school graph paper battle come to life. Everything else seems not quite finished.

It’s a standard humans-vs-orcs story, with zombies as a mutual antagonist that forces the two natural enemies to band together. Each mission has its own setup and slightly varying goal, but they all come down to surviving and killing the enemy forces.

Like Warcraft, first you have to build a base, sending workers to gather gold and wood, building farms to increase your unit cap, and building a couple of production buildings to pump out soldiers.

There are only five units the humans can build: worker, swordsman, archer, catapult, and flyer. There’s not a lot of difference between the units beyond being able to make ranged attacks or not. There’s not even a basic rock-paper-scissors circle of effectiveness. The catapult is significantly stronger than any other unit, which makes it the core of your army once you build the requisite production buildings. The orc side has similar units, but a strong melee ogre unit instead of a catapult. Each side also has a turret tower, which comes in incredibly handy both as a ranged defensive structure and a simple wall to keep the hordes of zombies out. Strategic decisions basically boil down to finding the correct time to shift your production from development of your resources to building a massive army.

There are a dozen missions you play in campaign mode, but there doesn’t appear to be any AI to speak of. There is certainly no global opponent AI. The missions are simply structured as automatic waves of enemies that must be fended off on a timer, and bases that have to be hunted down and razed. The enemies can be phenomenally dumb (to be fair, a lot of them are zombies) and will just let themselves be mowed down by your turrets and archers if there is a line of trees that keeps your forces protected. Your allies will also do nothing to protect themselves or build their forces.

Unit AI is also dumb. Worker units are particularly frustrating in how they cut trees. No matter what area of the forest you tap on, they will interpret it as an order to cut trees in general and beeline for the nearest tree to their position. This can be particularly problematic when the forests form part of the walls that protect you from enemy attack. They will also sometimes just stop cutting trees entirely, for reasons I could not decipher.

Poor AI is just one sign of a game that needs a lot more time to bake before its ready for sale. I hit a major bug halfway through. Supposedly, my human forces were supposed to ally with the orcish forces to fight off a zombie attack, but the mission opened with the two groups slaughtering each other. Apparently, my mission is to protect the remaining empty orc structures? Then the game just froze.

There’s no multiplayer, which is a real shame. Against a human, the game mechanics might offer a few hours of entertainment. There’s no skirmish mode, but that’s understandable seeing as the AI probably does not actually know how to build a base or develop an army.

The translation is painfully bad–so bad that I initially thought the writers were deliberately affecting caveman/ogre grammar to fit the theme. That’s not really very important since the story text is totally skippable and does nothing to impact the gameplay. Then I realized that there was a major typo on the title screen … in the title. (Unless the game was actually meant to be titled Catoon Craft?) It’s just another sign of how unpolished the game really is.

A cute, simple version of Warcraft for mobile isn’t a bad idea, but Cartoon Craft definitely isn’t it. There’s no meat to the game, and the lack of basic RTS features combined with the silly AI and bugs makes this one to avoid at any price.

Posted on June 26, 2018 by — Leave a comment

Heart of the Cardboard: Exploring the future of app-driven board games

By Anna Blackwell 26 Jun 2018

With the smartphone proliferation of the past decade there’s been an inevitable, (but so far restrained) trend developing in the world of board games. Depending on who you’re talking to, this new development is causing a bit of stir.

No, we’re not just talking about ports-to-digital – we’re being well served there – what we rather mean is the slow creep of digital being hard-coded into board game design. That’s right, we’re talking about board game that are largely driven by companion apps.

At their most base level these companion apps are a digital component that interacts with the boardgame/card game in some way. Whether this is a digital narrator, augmented reality, or an AI that controls the movement of the other pieces, these apps change the way we think about boardgame design. This is in contrast to utility apps, which simply enhance or assist in gameplay but are not required to actually play the game in question.

Leading the charge

Let’s take Rudy Games’ Cold War strategy game Leaders as our first example. At first glance. Leaders looks like a Risk spin-off except with a realistic world map that actually includes New Zealand. You wouldn’t be far wrong with that summary either. What allows Leaders to stand apart from its classic counterpart is its virtual headquarters. From the app you can conduct espionage and sabotage, complete missions, and forge secret alliances. All of which is done through your device which – now this is important – records that you have made these decisions.

A couple of years back while I was studying computer game design I tried making an alien invasion boardgame where one player played the aliens and the other played the humans trying to mount a resistance. One of the mechanics I had planned was a fog of war where players could stash units in buildings without the other player seeing what units were or even where they were. The main problem with this was that without gimmicky board design it all came down to player trust. Players would have to admit to each other that “yeah, that grenade you tossed through the window would have totally got my guards.” Which was never going to happen. However, with Leaders tracking your moves through an impartial digital referee, there’s no need for that trust. If my army gets sabotaged right before a key invasion and I lose because of it, then I can’t rightfully complain; the app knows all.

Bridging the Gap

Another take on app-driven games is XCOM: The Board Game, the cardboard adaptation of Firaxis’ XCCOM: Enemy Unknown. The main selling point is that the alien invasion is controlled by the accompanying app. You and your friends control the elite military organization XCOM as you fight against the invaders and the app also also dictates turn order, resolution and pacing of the player actions.

XCOM: The Board Game somewhat blurs the line between analogue and digital. Is it a boardgame with a companion app or a mobile game with a physical board? The answer is both and that annoys some purists. But putting them to the side for a minute, this new combined medium offers up a lot of new potential to developers on both sides of the divide.

App developers can now work with physical components. Take Sensible Object’s Beasts of Balance, a boardgame where you balance animals, elements, and interaction pieces atop a plinth and try to evolve and grow your app-side creatures as much as possible without the tower falling. Purely as a boardgame it would be mildly entertaining at best. Purely as an app it would have flopped and died. But put both of the elements together, where you physically tap the animal to the reader and see it come to life in the game world? Brilliant! And the tension it creates by having the app give you a few seconds to put a fallen tower back together again takes away the Jenga finality and adds in a strangely wonderful air of desperation that has kept me coming back for more. And while these represent large physical investments, not all games have to be.

By now, it’s fair to say that most people (never mind gamers specifically) have some kind of smart device; be that phone, tablet or something else. Provided developers make sure they hit the key beats of iOS and Android (and Amazon, if there’s time), then there’s no danger to your potential player base. Furthermore, provided you design the game well enough you only need one person out of a potential group of 4-6 to actually need a smartphone or tablet. There’s never been a better opportunity to go high-tech.

Games to Life

Lightseekers by TOMY is a great example here. Part trading card game, part mobile RPG, and part augmented reality game. The card game itself serves as a way to enjoy collecting the various cards that you want for the mobile RPG. Every card is scannable and provides your characters with spells, boosts, or even summonable pets that fight for you. It’s pretty clear to see the Skylanders influence but this shows an important step in game design with useable, physical microtransactions. These are cards you’re going to buy anyway and with the booster pack culture of TCGs, you’re going to be seeing a lot of cards over and over again so why not put them to use? Also, the little augmented reality moment where your hero appears atop the card to get their new bonus is pretty nifty. Sort of like the ARG cards that shipped with the Nintendo 3DS but with a purpose.

So, we’ve established that companion apps can be used as rules arbiters for high strategy games like Leaders, as opponent-components in games like XCOM: The Board Game, and as a way to bridge the gap between the digital and physical like in Lightseekers. But what about physical games that have an app-based teaching component?

Mensa award nominee Colour Chess by DogEared Games is an interesting new take on dusty fan favourite Chess. Its colour mechanics add a new layer of strategy that are pretty simple to learn but difficult to master and like all good remix games, it comes with a couple other variants packed in with it. The problem is, you might not have someone to play with. Or you might need to practice and are sick of your Chess buff friends calling you a dumb-ass. Well Colour Chess has your back with its companion app that allows you to practice against an AI and play with players online (in a digital only sense, but you could set the board up and copy the moves for better spatial awareness).

Like them or not, companion apps are expanding the potential of boardgames and apps and as technology progresses and gets cheaper to produce, we can expect more to come. Even party games like One Night Werewolf are getting in on the action with an app that handles the night time narration and turn order, meaning everyone can play at once.

And if that means that I can view my Yu-Gi-Oh battles through an augmented reality app and actually see them fight, then I’m happy with this new future Oh, wait, they already made that too.

What are your thoughts on app driven boardgames? Let us know in the comments!

Posted on June 25, 2018 by — Leave a comment

The Coolest Fortnite Wallpapers for your phone

We know you’re all secretly playing Fortnite on your iPhones or Tablets right now. The Battle Royale sensation earns hundreds of millions in dollars nearly every month and the playerbase has grown to 125 million. It’s certainly not me who’s been spending all that money. God knows what will happen when it finally comes to Android.

What better way to show your clear & undeniable appreciation for this masterpiece by displaying your affection via a snazzy, on-message wallpaper for your phone. Your first port of call could always be this iOS app we found cunningly titled Fortnite Wallpapers. It’s iOS Universal, it’s free, and it also has a collection of phone (and tablet) art that you can use show your allegiance. Thank you Matthew Nelson for trying to make us redundant.

If you’re happy to let us help you though, using top-secret investigative techniques (Google), we’ve scoured the internet to find some of the best examples of Fortnite wallpaper.

< I’M A LLAMA
Source: Pinterest

Did you ever see The Emperor’s New Groove? Man that was a great film. Some good, clean Disney humour there, and all about a guy who gets turned into a Llama. Speaking of llamas, we managed to find a rather artisitc version of the Fortnite llama, in wallpaper form. Don’t say we never do anything nice for you.

Nerves of Steel >
Source: Progamesguide

We like this one because A/ Chrome and B/ it’s actually a really good character render. There’s a lot of detail, some really bold colours (animated red hair looks pretty great). Also, there’s a lot of sass in that smile of hers. It’s almost like she’s saying “Aww yeah, it’s on,” before she shoots lasers out of her eyes and melts your face.

< Rust Lord
Source: iphonehacks

One thing that contributes to Fortnite‘s appeal is the customisation factor. Whether you win it in-game or pay real money, you can find a character skin that best suits your personality or identity and equip it. It’s a very pure form of digital expression that often gets over-looked, and an often misunderstood part of what drives free-to-play business models.

This is wallpaper features a skin that released as part of the third season of Battle Pass. It’s called ‘Rust Lord’ and is a purple rarity skin.

CrossOver >

Source: Progameguides

The cross-over event with Avengers: Infinity War may be over, but that doesn’t mean you can’t forever remember that one time Thanos was in Fortnite.

He couldn’t build or carry weapons (except when he could), but he was strong and surprisingly fun to play as. Was this the best cross-over event of all time? Probably.

< Plain & Simple
Source: Pinterest

As well as featuring a great shade of purple, this wallpaper is great because it is what is – someone with this clearly likes Fortnite, and they’re not afraid to tell the world about it.

Festive Fun >
Source: HDQWalls

Christmas is long behind us, but should this Fortnite business last until the 2018 holiday season what better way to get into the festive spirit with a festively themed background. There’s a Christmas tree in the background and everything.

Fun fact, the original image shows the Fortnite crew facing off against zombies.

< Angelic
Source: HDQWalls / Dodonozore34

If you’ve ever won a game of Fortnite, you’ll know it’s a transcendent moment. Not only did you managed to survive, you managed to beat everyone else whilst doing it. Winning is like ascending to a higher plain of existence which, unlike Redbull, is a process which legitimately does give you wings. Here’s a Frotnite wallpaper that has one of the character skins with wings.

Don’t Mess with Me >
Source: Pinterest

Alternatively, you might just want to show everyone that you mean business. This wallpaper features another one of the character skins available in the game. You can tell by the fact that his arms are crossed that he’s not going to take any nonsense from anybody. Also, the black background and colour scheme makes everything a lot more dramatic than it needs to be.

< Birds-Eye View
Source: Alphacoders

Perhaps you’d like something a bit subtler and understated. There’s nothing like a bit of scenery to draw people’s attention and spark conversation. This 3D snapshot/recreation of the Battle Royale map throws up some iconic locales, as well as the looming storm in the background. You may not be loud-and-proud with this one, but anyone who knows what they’re looking like will be secretly sending you their respect.

The Devil Makes Work For Idle Hands >
Source: Epic Games Forum

To finish off the list, this is the only wallpaper on the list we can actually attribute to an actual author.

Epic forum user Whitesushi was apparently bored one day, so decided to make a phone wallpaper themed on Fortnite’s PVE mode. It’s definitely the best quality out of the list, although perhaps not as memorable (or as on point).

Have you found any neat phone wallpapers that use for Fortnite? Or any game, really – why not share them with us in the comments!

Posted on June 22, 2018 by — Leave a comment

The Weekender: Ultimate Sales Edition

Welcome to the Weekender, your weekly look at the best new games, sales, and updates. We’ve got just a couple new games to discuss but a whole bunch of great game sales to help kick off summer in the Northern Hemisphere.

Out Now

Evoland 2 (iOS Universal and now Android)

Evoland 2 arrived on iOS back in March and has now made it to Android country as well. It’s follows in the original game’s footsteps by taking players on a journey through the history of games with constantly evolving graphics and gameplay and a slew of history-of-gaming references. Like its predecessor, it combines elements of RPGs, platformers, action, fighting, adventure, puzzlers, and a whole lot of other genres. Evoland is clever in parts but the pacing is odd and I found myself wanting to get through certain sections faster, and spend longer in others. It made me want to go and play some of the games from yesteryear but didn’t necessarily make me want to play more of Evoland 2. If you are a fan of franchise Evoland 2 has a lot you’ll like and RPG super-fans will enjoy the many references and the one more jaunt through gaming history.

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Startup Grave (iOS Universal)

If you’re looking for a new solitaire card game on iOS Startup Grave says “pick me, pick me!” You play with a deck of 48 monster cards and must be kept in check and ultimately defeated. There’s a health bar for both you and the monsters and each card has a value that increases one and decreases the other. Your goal is to play cards by double tapping, which affects both bars, without either losing all or your life or maxing out the monster’s health. You can store up to two cards at a time, to get some breathing room, and every 8 cards you can take a favorable card into battle with an unfavorable one in an attempt to clear it for free. If you get through all 48 cards you win. It’s a simple and fun setup and works well to kill a few minutes here and there.

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Sales

Motorsport Manager Mobile 2 (iOS Universal and Android) $.99 (Review)

Like racing sims? If so, and you don’t own Motorsport Manager Mobile 2, now’s the time to rectify that. The game is just a buck on either store and is among the top options of the genre – which is why it features in our list of best sports management games.

Door Kickers (iOS Universal and Android): $.99 (Review)

SWAT-team simulator Door Kickers requires strong tactics and superior planning to succeed. Get it for a buck.

Codito Development Games (iOS Universal): $.99

Codito Development’s catalog of digital board games are all on sale for just a buck on iOS.

Asmodee Digital Games (iOS Universal and Android): $1.99

Not to be outdone, several Asmodee Digital games are also on sale. Links are iOS Only.

Teeny Titans (iOS Universal): $1.99

One of the best games of 2016, Teeny Titans is based on the Cartoon Network’s Teen Titans GO and pokes fun at the Pokémon craze while adopting it’s most compelling features. You collect teen-sized heroes and villains and take them into 3-on-3 battles in a very meta figure-battling craze that is sweeping a city. You can explore, complete quests, buy new figures at stores throughout the city, and upgrade your figures as you go. The battles themselves are quick, real-time, and tactical and rely heavily on how well their powers work together, as well as making use of class advantages over your opponent. There’s a new game coming out soon, Teen Titans GO! Figure, in support of a movie and the original is having a rare sale. Teeny Titans is well worth it at the normal price, and definitely worth picking up on sale.

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FTL: Faster than Light (iPad): $1.99 (Review)

FTL is an App Store classic and on a bunch of ‘best of’ lists across the internet (including ours). It’s also just $2, down from $10, its cheapest ever price on iOS.

Sproggiwood (iOS Universal and Android): $1.99

Speaking of best of lists, whenever the best roguelike games for mobile comes up inevitably Sproggiwood appears somewhere in the pack. In Sproggiwood you play as a simple island farmer who is lured through a magical portal by a talking sheep. Never trust talking sheep. The portal is a trap created by the Sproggi, a forest spirt who to tame the forests for him. The gameplay is pretty classic roguelike RPG with different character classes, all kinds of loot, and random dungeon delves. You can pick up Sproggiwood for $2 on either store.

Bottom of the 9th (iOS Universal and Android): $1.99 on iOS

Handelabra is getting in on the summer sale action with its excellent baseball card-and-dice game Bottom of the 9th on sale for two bucks…

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Sentinels of the Multiverse (iOS Universal and Android): $2.99 on iOS (Review)

…and it’s equally excellent hero-versus-villains card game Sentinels of the Multiverse for $3.

Tiny Bubbles (iOS Universal and Android): $3.99

Who doesn’t like popping bubbles? Nobody, that’s who. Tiny Bubbles brings this universal joy to mobile with a bunch of levels of bubble-popping puzzle games. It’s a buck off now and a good addition to any mobile puzzle gamers device.

Updates

Templar Battleforce Elite (iOS Universal and Android) (Review)

Turn-based tactics classic Templar Battleforce is constantly updated and re-balanced and the Trese Brothers are known for supporting their games post release. The latest update improves the game’s scoring system to keep separate records for levels beaten in the various game modes and also lets you compare scores on the same level over multiple attempts. There are also a bunch of balancing changes.

Sir Questionnaire (iOS Universal and Android) (Review)

The much newer Sir Questionnaire is a roguelike with a lot to do, and a lot of updates already made. The latest adds three new gate types: library room, treasure room, and knights room. There are also a bunch of other updates and improvements as well as a wiki.

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

Posted on June 21, 2018 by — Leave a comment

Return to Glorantha with King of Dragon Pass Successor Six Ages

By Matt Thrower 21 Jun 2018

In the beginning was an egg, which hatched into an infinite dragon. From the dragon came first two gods, then a third, who spawned a bunch more lesser gods. They fell to fighting, as gods do, and then Chaos invaded, and the Cosmic Mountain exploded and the few humans who were around had a really miserable time of it.

Welcome to Glorantha, a fantasy world like no other. Invented in 1966 by a student seeking to deepen his appreciation of cultural mythology, it has spawned several tabletop games and a single videogame: 1999’s King of Dragon Pass. A bizarre mix of strategy and story-telling, it got a face-lift and a wave of adulation for a modern iOS release.

“It only scratched the surface of the wealth of stories you can tell in Glorantha,” the designer, David Dunham, admitted to me. “And people have been asking for a sequel for almost 20 years. It wasn’t until 2014 that I figured out what sort of game was a worthy successor.”

The answer is Six Ages: Ride like the Wind, due for release at the end of June. It takes place during the aforementioned God’s War, known as the Storm Age in Glorantha parlance. “It’s the mythic past compared to King of Dragon Pass” Dunham explained. “And you’re playing a barbarian clan from an entirely different culture.”

In spite of Dunham’s implication that it’s a different sort of game, fans of the original will quickly find themselves at home. The player is in charge of making decisions for their clan on a season by season basis. What Gods they should be sacrificing to, where they should be exploring, which other clans they trade with or raid in war. I asked Dunham what had changed.

“We tried to address some things that frustrated people,” he replied. “Combat is no longer as abstract, while we abstracted food production a bit more, still keeping it as a critical component. There’s also a lot of changes you can’t see directly. But it’s now much easier to add new interactive scenes, new treasures, maybe even new ventures.”

The interactive scenes he’s talking about are the other key component in the game’s appeal. Events, usually tied into Glorantha’s unique lore, often pop up, requiring you to choose between various options to resolve them. Children in your village, for example, might suddenly exhibit the ability to wield powerful fire magic they can’t control. Do you keep them? Ask a more magic-rich clan to train them? Cast them out before they burn down someone’s house?

Whatever you choose, the consequences often lead to further events later in the game, slowly building a clan saga in epic detail. And this, I sense, is where the bulk of the differences lie. “Some changes just reflect the fact that we’re telling a different story,” Dunham told me. “You’re in an unknown land, so the map starts blank. It’s also much larger, and you can choose what your party is looking for. You can deal with spirits, as well as gods.”

Glorantha is a very unusual setting and Six Ages is a very unusual game. The marriage of statistical management and story can clash as you’re rarely able to see exactly why your choices played out the way they did. But Dunham’s in no doubt which he thinks is more important to the experience. “If I have to pick, then it’s a narrative game,” he opined. “The strategy ties together the story. But if you haven’t figured out how to feed your clan, your story might not have a happy ending.”

Still, he’s made other changes to the game to help the player to understand what’s going on. “We still try to fully immerse you in the world, rather than leave you on the outside peering at game numbers,” he explains. “But we also tried to give more in-world feedback to explain why things happened. For example, if a hero quest fails, your quester will reflect on what went wrong.”

Hero quest isn’t a reference to the fondly-remembered board game of the 90’s, but another slice of Gloranthan pie. They’re ritual re-enactments of stories from a clan’s mythology which gain access to powerful rewards. You can undertake them in the game, but your clan starts out with only a piecemeal understanding of these myths. Patching them back together is an important goal of play, which also pushes the player deeper into Glorantha’s bizarre setting.

They were also a part of King of Dragon Pass. That game, though, originally came out on PC. With the advent of mobile, Dunham quickly realised the potential of a port. “The short interactive scenes are perfect for very short game sessions,” he enthused. “Your clan advisors help remind you of the context, and you can always refer back to the Saga for more specifics about what happened. I think being turn-based helps too, since you don’t have to set aside enough time for a complete Battle Royale match.”

Still, launching on mobile alone in the modern multi-platform market seems risky. It’s not what Dunham had originally planned. “I’d hoped to launch on more platforms,” he explains. “But a bunch of things didn’t work out. Luckily, I think the game is perfectly suited to iPad. Sitting back with a tablet is just like reading a great book, except you’re playing one.”

In the time I’ve spent with the preview, it’s hard to shake the feeling that I’ve been here before, in several senses. First, Six Ages plays a lot like a smoother, more refined version of the earlier game. Second, you’re back in charge of another bunch of barbarians, which Dunham refers to as the “movers and shakers of Glorantha”. But mostly, it’s familiar because we’re back in the rich and vivid world of Glorantha. I’ll take a little sameness in the game mechanics if that’s the price to explore this extraordinary place again.

Six Ages: Ride like the Wind is due out on iOS Universal on June 28th, and pre-orders are available starting today.

Posted on June 20, 2018 by — Leave a comment

Never Fear, El Presidente is Here! Tropico is coming to iPad

By Joe Robinson 20 Jun 2018

Tropico is a really fun and interesting twist on the typical city builder/management genre. As the head of the Banana Republic/Dictatorship, your job is to exploit your people and your islands’ resources for wealth & power, often with hilarious results.

Depending on which version you played (Tropico 4 was the sweet spot, I feel), you’d also be jostling against the big superpowers of the world, potentially pitting them against each other while trying to avoid losing control through revolution, or invasion.

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Now, thanks to Feral Interactive we’ll be able to sun it up on our iPads. These guys are known for bringing PC games to mobile with quality ports, the most recent of which was Rome: Total War (the iPhone version is still incoming).

Coming “later this year”, Tropico will be releasing for iPad and according to TouchArcade will be a premium game. If you’re interested, this mobile port is actually a heavily modified version of Tropico 3. So while it’ll be missing some of the fun things they introduced in 4, Tropico 3 was still a great game so we’re very excited for this one.