iPad Games (and Apps) Catch All

Did the ads come from playdek or from stone blade?

I don't know which of them is handling it.

oilypenguin wrote:

Did the ads come from playdek or from stone blade?

I don't know which of them is handling it.

The app in the store is Playdek's. Stoneblade's is due out later this year.

Playdek has been going downhill since Summoner Wars. Their post release support already sucked. With the Unsung Story project it's only gotten worse.

I used to buy everything they put out. Now, it's a really hard sell for me to buy their stuff.

athros wrote:
oilypenguin wrote:

Did the ads come from playdek or from stone blade?

I don't know which of them is handling it.

The app in the store is Playdek's. Stoneblade's is due out later this year.

Playdek has been going downhill since Summoner Wars. Their post release support already sucked. With the Unsung Story project it's only gotten worse.

I used to buy everything they put out. Now, it's a really hard sell for me to buy their stuff.

Yeah... they're making some interesting choices. Speaking of Unsung Story, it barely cleared its goal, let alone all their crazy stretch goals and yet they still hired most of the people who started as stretch goals.

Does that alarm anyone else a little? It seems a little skeevy that they adjusted their stretch goals 3 times during their kickstarter.

oilypenguin wrote:
athros wrote:
oilypenguin wrote:

Did the ads come from playdek or from stone blade?

I don't know which of them is handling it.

The app in the store is Playdek's. Stoneblade's is due out later this year.

Playdek has been going downhill since Summoner Wars. Their post release support already sucked. With the Unsung Story project it's only gotten worse.

I used to buy everything they put out. Now, it's a really hard sell for me to buy their stuff.

Yeah... they're making some interesting choices. Speaking of Unsung Story, it barely cleared its goal, let alone all their crazy stretch goals and yet they still hired most of the people who started as stretch goals.

Does that alarm anyone else a little? It seems a little skeevy that they adjusted their stretch goals 3 times during their kickstarter.

The Kickstarter was for the PC / Mac version only. iOS was going to come out either way, so to me, it was already pretty janky. I didn't follow it, so I didn't realize they went that far.

Oh really? Wow, I'm a backer and I didn't know that.

Of course, I didn't look very hard, "tactics game and we hired some people who made ff:t." I was sold instantly.

oilypenguin wrote:

Oh really? Wow, I'm a backer and I didn't know that.

Of course, I didn't look very hard, "tactics game and we hired some people who made ff:t." I was sold instantly.

You might want to read some of the articles over on Pocket Tactics. Most of the old FF:T team interactions are limited, especially Matsuno, unless things changed with the Kickstarter.

"English Language Version of '999: Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors' Coming to iOS on March 17th as '999: The Novel'...As that title alludes to, the puzzle elements of the original game have been removed and instead the game now plays like an interactive visual novel."

It's a shame they didn't do a direct port, but I imagine it's still worth considering for people who haven't yet played the original.

This looks interesting.

That actually looks pretty spectacular. Want!

Agreed!

Please have a 'decent' initial price point, rather than a crappy IAP model.

m0nk3yboy wrote:

Please have a 'decent' initial price point, rather than a crappy IAP model.

Same.

(Also interested because the art style reminds me a bit like that of Homeworld.)

From their website:

We also wanted to try making a game that was free-to-play. Our hope was that by using our own special kind of skill-based gameplay as a foundation, we'd be able to develop a new breed of mobile game. A skill-based free-to-play game with high production value and one that is fun, first and foremost. Not just another shellacked random number generator or clone du jour that we've all seen too often fill the App Store.

...

We've really tried to get the core gameplay loop (the combat) to be fun, fast and skill-based. The controls are simple and intuitive. Drag a flight-path for your starship to follow and tap targets for your turrets to attack. It's got a great interaction cadence that's tailored for mobile, and a great reflection of our team's roots in the action-genre. And of course your pirate starhship is crazy customizable. Armors, engines, shields, fighters, turrets, the whole-nine-yards. A full loot-system with rarity, item attributes, and crafting!

As far as pacing goes, the battles are fast. PlunderNauts is a game for mobile devices so we're completely aware of how play-patterns differ between console and mobile games. But the cool thing is... Plundernauts is a game that you can play for 2 hours or 2 minutes.

There's an over-arching galaxy map that's an arrangement of planets and other locations where you can battle space pirates and Bosses. Think of it as a constellation treasure map. When you win a battle, you earn gold, loot and items that can be used to upgrade your starship and continue your hunt for Iron Beard's treasure! Because, yeah... you're a space-pirate.

Now we'd be totally remiss if we didn't acknowledge some of the discussion lately surrounding free-to-play games. There are some really valid points about how some free-to-play games can be, shall we say, unsavory. We share those same concerns because the team members here at LightBox Interactive are gamers; console games, PC games and mobile games.

One of our guiding principals has always been to honor the "Player's Bill of Rights". It's an informal thing that we always talk about here in the studio. It serves as a test for any of the features or decisions that go into the game. Is it fun? Does it provide the player value? Does it respect the player?

It's not actually written down. It's a very informal process and discussion which boils down to "don't be a dick".

We've really needed to thoughtfully consider the "Player's Bill of Rights" when developing the game, because hey...PlunderNauts is free after all! So as you can probably imagine, we do need to make some money, keep the lights on, pay our team members, etc.

We're a small team of only 8 people. No parent company owns even a portion of LightBox Interactive. There is no angel investor funneling us capital. We're 100% independent. And one of the ways we maintain that independence is through the great partnerships we've had over the years.

And with PlunderNauts, we've chosen to partner with the great mobile developer, Backflip Studios. They've got a fantastic amount of mobile experience and expertise, and we'll be talking more about that partnership in the days and weeks ahead.

For now, we're just excited to get PlunderNauts into Canada for our soft-launch! For several weeks we'll be testing the game there, working out the kinks, tuning and making updates. When we're really happy with it, we'll be rolling it out globally, hopefully in late spring 2014.

This one looks like it could be quite fun but it isn't coming out for a few months.

Republique is on sale for $2.99 and damn, it's really good!

TempestBlayze wrote:

Republique is on sale for $2.99 and damn, it's really good!

Requires ios 7.

Chaz wrote:
TempestBlayze wrote:

Republique is on sale for $2.99 and damn, it's really good!

Requires ios 7. :(

It's a demanding game so if you don't have a retina and up it probably won't run.

TempestBlayze wrote:
Chaz wrote:
TempestBlayze wrote:

Republique is on sale for $2.99 and damn, it's really good!

Requires ios 7. :(

It's a demanding game so if you don't have a retina and up it probably won't run.

The Touch Arcade review says it plays fine on the ipad 2, so I was hoping to play it. I just don't want to risk bogging down the entire tablet for the sake of one game.

As far as I have read, the latest 7.1 update makes older hardware run faster.

If you're looking to build up your board game collection, Puerto Rico HD and San Juan are both $.99.

mateofalcone wrote:

If you're looking to build up your board game collection, Puerto Rico HD and San Juan are both $.99.

Cool! Thanks

In case anyone is interested, and like me was unaware, there is a free app for George R R Martin's "Song of Ice and Fire". Just search on that phrase. Tons of cool stuff in it. It's from Tor.

Yep. Didn't realize it had IAPs, sorry.

That doesn't bother me that much (if the app is good), there were like 10 hits for the phrase and none of them specifically said Tor (which I think is an imprint of Random House or someone now?), just wanted to make sure I was looking at the right one

mateofalcone wrote:

If you're looking to build up your board game collection, Puerto Rico HD and San Juan are both $.99.

Are these good? fun?

TempestBlayze wrote:

As far as I have read, the latest 7.1 update makes older hardware run faster.

This will be nice, but I'm not updating this time until I've reconnected to my desktop to force a localised backup of non-cloud goodies.

Fool me once...

Yeah, a backup seems wise.

m0nk3yboy wrote:
TempestBlayze wrote:

As far as I have read, the latest 7.1 update makes older hardware run faster.

This will be nice, but I'm not updating this time until I've reconnected to my desktop to force a localised backup of non-cloud goodies.

I've heard the opposite about 7.1. Past experience with Apple OS updates makes me more likely to believe that the new version will slow down old hardware rather than speed it up.

Chaz wrote:

I've heard the opposite about 7.1. Past experience with Apple OS updates makes me more likely to believe that the new version will slow down old hardware rather than speed it up.

IME, 7.1 is faster than 7.0 on my iPhone 4, but not as fast as 6 had been.

My iPad 3 apparently has sufficiently more processing power that 7.0/7.1 haven't really made it feel any more or less responsive.

7.1 marginally is better on the 4S and the iPad2. I've only handled a few units, so it's not definitive, but it appears to be helpful. The key word is "marginally." It's still horrible.

I bought an iPad Air, finally, because a bunch of my medical books and apps are on iOS and Google Play doesn't have versions of them yet. Nothing like a handy-dandy, always-on-you cheat sheet. It reminds me of the feeling and experience of a new iPad 2 back in the day. It's not a better experience - it just recalls the past, good experience.

For the most part, iPad Air is just another iPad. It's not revolutionary or different. It's strange, but my Nexus 7 IS a different device, purely because of how handy it is. An iPad is a like a light laptop. A Nexus 7 is like a big phablet. I mainly use the Nexus 7 for maps, task lists, books, reading news, and social messaging apps. I use the iPad for games, word processing, portable media center, and and reference apps.

Annoyingly, 7.1 is still occasionally laggy, even on an iPad Air. It's actually not a better experience than the Nexus 7, which is also occasionally laggy on Kitkat. You could once say that Apple had the edge on experience. That's no longer true.