So this is one of the only app games I've had on my phone and kept for such a few months. This is a combination of a few kinds of mini games wrapped up in a pretty nice little package. Only reason I'm removing it now is just to clear some space and go back down to three games (from 5). Too many of the ones I had required to frequent an upkeep to remain "active." May definitely come back to it someday, but just gonna pass for a while and play a few others out to completion. I actually got into this when I saw Markiplier plug it on his channel, the interactivity seemed interesting and gave it a shot -- that was many months ago. Of the 300ish monsters I've acquired 130.
So the features of this game are kind of varied so I'll try to describe as many of them as best I can.
Battles - they have three subdivisions of battles: 1) PVP versus other players in a 3v3 battle; 2) Adventure Map which resembles the classic level-to-level progression; 3) finally there are the dungeons, which were my personal favorite. These are temporary and always geared around your individual level offering varying difficulties and rewards for doing such. 1 & 2 were fairly unforgiving depending on your strength and level.
Breeding - one of the major features is breeding monsters to discover new ones. Discover is kind of misleading as you can always see the monsters in their encyclopedic book or dex. Now some of the full images and statistics remain hidden until you find them, but you always get a thumbnail and their name minimum. This was kind of the final straw sealing its fate, just too much RNG with little to no sense built into its scaffolding. Breeding time ranges from seconds to multi-days with hatching taking a comparable time as well. As such many times you have extra things waiting on the next stop.
Enhancement - through use of the Monster Lab and Rune Farm you can increase the base stats of your monsters, over powering them from their original maximums. You can boost a monster's max level by up to 20; and the runes increase in power up to level 10 (takes 4 of each level to guarantee the next power up).
Island Events - so the premise of this game is floating isles similar to Quest for Epic Loot, but they host your monsters rather than a castle you actively defend. As such you occasionally spawn an event isle with a theme or limited-release activity for you to participate in. They seem to have a good assortment of events and never so long as I played replayed the same event back-to-back. The one at the moment consists of illusion. Each of these has the opportunity to drop at least one Legendary monster and unlock the creature.
Material Farming - akin to almost every browser-based, click-heavy game (practically anything on Facebook) you "grow" resources that are used to level and strengthen your monsters: food and gold in this case.
Monsters - the art style is typically exaggerated and cartoonish, but there are a few that I thought were well designed and "attractive" for lack of a better word.
Stores, Assorted - almost every game type offers a pay-to-win store to unlock rare monsters or powerful runes. Now whales will fill these slots very quickly, but the vast majority are not completely unavailable to the rest of us (cheap bastard here, remember). As many of the activities offer the in game currency (gems) as rewards. It just takes time to accumulate them and luck that something you desire is available at that time.
The Negatives:
1) Upkeep, the recharge on the stamina to attack refills from zero to four (max battles per reset) is under a half hour so the alerts are annoyingly short lived between breaks. Active players can rarely be considered "casual" due to such quick turn-around times.
2) Undependable RNG - while there are some set percentiles for breeding a particular monster, there are way too many that make either little sense (if any) as to how or are available full time. Many of the more powerful monsters aren't available except during limited-time events where they enter the breeding possibility (usually at a 1% drop rate). Some of the rarest monsters don't show in the monster book, but are indeed possible -- at the same 1% drop rate from almost any legendary pairing. Most monster pairings netted 70%, 50%, 30%, 10%, 7.5%, 5% or 2.5%.
3) Community - there is a updated wiki, but I can't say it's the easiest to navigate, read, or understand how its organized I've ever used. There is also a sub-reddit, but it's usually a ghost town and threads go days without a view let alone a comment. The times people do respond were very helpful, friendly, or informative. Just not a very dependable community imho.
4) VIP - here's the exclusive whale or premium-pay rewards. There are an established set of monsters deemed VIP and are only offered at limited intervals for $20 IAP. Only once did I ever see one of these possible and it was reported at a 0.1% breeding-drop rate.
5) Ability upgrades - there is zero warning to what you're going to get at the 5-level intervals to learn a new skill, each interval has a pool of powers to randomly offer [one] the player and there's no guarantee it will be more powerful than anything you already have. You also cannot tell explicitly what an attack will do (stats yes, but not exactly how it will compare hit-for-hit). As such there's also no guarantee you will gain access to every power in their arsenal in the course of leveling them up.
There was very little that made the game unplayable and I did enjoy it for quite a while considering any of these short-lived free games tend to cycle off my phone within a month.
If any of this sounds interesting give it a try, but have patience as it will take a while to achieve self-sustainable rotations.
B-
Available on iOS and Android; also as a facebook browser game.
Tuesday, October 4, 2016
Monday, June 13, 2016
eSports...Streams... & my thoughts on them.
Alright so I am not a complete noob to the concept or having seen some of this. I am an avid stream/let's play watcher for assorted gamers online (personally I prefer YouTube to Twitch, but have no real opinions or citations to try to sway one or the other). I have and am currently subscribed to a few in the last decade where they have emerged into a category of their own. The ones I tend to follow really fall into two broad categories: content creators and official channels.
Content creators have my most profound respect because they take already existing content and put a fresh spin on it; take lots of vague, scattered information, sift through it and compress it into digestible chunks for those of us interested; or generate completely original content long individually-developed mindsets. Regardless of tastes, styles, interests, or any criteria you could assign yourself, there exists something you would more than likely enjoy. Might look at the other things I subscribe to one day, but I'm gonna stick to the video gaming aspect for now. I am currently subscribed to Markiplier and MatPat/The Game Theorist. I have been or occasionally seek out content from Pewdiepie, Jack Septiceye, Neebs Gaming, and FrankieOnPCin1080p depending on my current appetite for content. I tend to like streamers or creators that present an interesting take on something I'm already aware on or treat their viewers to their 'honest' self -- fully aware of how ridiculous this reads. Let me give you an example, Pewdiepie was my first gaming channel I subscribed to long before he reached the thralls of heights he has now -- I have no beef or grief with him, I just didn't care as the content coming out. Anyway he was still in Italy at the time (after Sweden, but before moving to the U.K.) and I loved his full playthroughs and his highlight videos, being the online superstar he's become I just don't get as much joy out of the majoirty of his content he's done given the accelerated release schedule. Frankie, Mark and some of the others gained my attention because of their commentary or the same-old-same expressed in their unique mindset or accents (silly but true).
Official channels will get the minimalist blurb I can give them out of respect for the original creators buried somewhere in their ranks. If you enjoy or find interest in a game I would recommend you follow at least one of the official outlets they offer: forum, social media, streaming service, etc. I keep falling in and out again with Guild Wars and on occasion I will catch myself watching GungHo's livestream.
For more than a decade now, these subset of media have grown by leaps and bounds so of course someone thought there was a way to marginalize and market it. Enter the eSport events. Yeah, this is gonna be a negative slant on the industry and two specific events that follow. However IF DONE PROPERLY, I think this is an interesting concept in its own right and might have some merits if refined under the right mindset. The idea is good, let people watch professionals or skilled players compete in these games we all have a piqued interest or strong desire to bare witness to.
However like vapes and the like adopting eCigarettes, I think gaming adopting the moniker of eSports was just a vast misrepresentation for the subculture (No I don't smoke, but have heard friends argue it to no end). I have watched two or three events and just not enjoyed it at all. Two were DOTA tournaments and the other was the Battlefield 1 celebrity live-stream earlier today (6/12/16). My central complaint is the asinine commentators. There are a dozen or more points of view (64 on the stream) and we are handcuffed to whatever they or an unseen producer in a monitoring room think is interesting content. The largely brain-dead dribble they regurgitate is frequently incorrect, idiotic, or just dull. eSports are NOT a live sporting event and as such do not benefit from the same announcer mentality I don't mind and even reciprocate positive experiences with for Football or alternative sports like MMA or Ninja Warrior. The reason I tuned in today was to hear some of the YouTube content creators give me their thoughts, not the two jackasses who never shut up and were obvious company-endorsed shills. The production itself was sub-acceptable (forget par) by even the most generous of reviews, 64 -- SIXTY-FOUR participants -- zero introductions of non-celebrity gamers until after the event, a very fuzzy distinction between teams and who was playing at any given time. I made it part-way through the Neebs/StoneMountain interview before the questions and conversation made me turn it off in disgust. God bless them the gamers tried their best to answer, but everyone with a mic obviously knew minimal about gaming in general.
Another issue I take is the style of event. Again a 64-man respawning, general strategiless FPS is not the best place to watch someone else's idea of a 'good view'. I will grant them that a few times they had some decent shots, but more times that appeared on screen were indistinguishable from any other. More than half of the participants, some of the content creators I've already spoken highly about, were never mentioned or covered. I've already seen two post their own recordings and thoughts after the event (thank Christ). THAT's the majority of content people joined for on top of seeing the fresh pre-Alpha playthrough. I didn't give two shits about what the half-dozen, industry- or company-funded yes men spouted or had to say. Oh you enjoyed your time, which I'm not going to get to see; I have no fucking idea who you are, could essentially not care less, and the repeated elevation your trying to claim your voice has is nauseating to the point of cancerous. Now I will throttle it back down a moment and say the gross inadequacies seen today are not so readily apparent in smaller MOBA or squad-sized team games. There are vastly fewer players and thus much fewer nodes of action at any point in time.
One final thought we had was an inability to follow how points were given or allocated, especially on the cumulative team pool. Mathematically, and having watched multiple points of view of all three games now, we still don't know how anything was calculated. It wasn't death tickets as in BF4, it wasn't any legible KDA ratio, and it surely wasn't any proportional reflection of points scored per person or team. My two roommates and I spent way more time that was necessary trying to figure it out. I direct you to the end of this video (game 3 from the livestream) to try and translate the scorecards to the final result.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1RUNPEZHQc
Content creators have my most profound respect because they take already existing content and put a fresh spin on it; take lots of vague, scattered information, sift through it and compress it into digestible chunks for those of us interested; or generate completely original content long individually-developed mindsets. Regardless of tastes, styles, interests, or any criteria you could assign yourself, there exists something you would more than likely enjoy. Might look at the other things I subscribe to one day, but I'm gonna stick to the video gaming aspect for now. I am currently subscribed to Markiplier and MatPat/The Game Theorist. I have been or occasionally seek out content from Pewdiepie, Jack Septiceye, Neebs Gaming, and FrankieOnPCin1080p depending on my current appetite for content. I tend to like streamers or creators that present an interesting take on something I'm already aware on or treat their viewers to their 'honest' self -- fully aware of how ridiculous this reads. Let me give you an example, Pewdiepie was my first gaming channel I subscribed to long before he reached the thralls of heights he has now -- I have no beef or grief with him, I just didn't care as the content coming out. Anyway he was still in Italy at the time (after Sweden, but before moving to the U.K.) and I loved his full playthroughs and his highlight videos, being the online superstar he's become I just don't get as much joy out of the majoirty of his content he's done given the accelerated release schedule. Frankie, Mark and some of the others gained my attention because of their commentary or the same-old-same expressed in their unique mindset or accents (silly but true).
Official channels will get the minimalist blurb I can give them out of respect for the original creators buried somewhere in their ranks. If you enjoy or find interest in a game I would recommend you follow at least one of the official outlets they offer: forum, social media, streaming service, etc. I keep falling in and out again with Guild Wars and on occasion I will catch myself watching GungHo's livestream.
For more than a decade now, these subset of media have grown by leaps and bounds so of course someone thought there was a way to marginalize and market it. Enter the eSport events. Yeah, this is gonna be a negative slant on the industry and two specific events that follow. However IF DONE PROPERLY, I think this is an interesting concept in its own right and might have some merits if refined under the right mindset. The idea is good, let people watch professionals or skilled players compete in these games we all have a piqued interest or strong desire to bare witness to.
However like vapes and the like adopting eCigarettes, I think gaming adopting the moniker of eSports was just a vast misrepresentation for the subculture (No I don't smoke, but have heard friends argue it to no end). I have watched two or three events and just not enjoyed it at all. Two were DOTA tournaments and the other was the Battlefield 1 celebrity live-stream earlier today (6/12/16). My central complaint is the asinine commentators. There are a dozen or more points of view (64 on the stream) and we are handcuffed to whatever they or an unseen producer in a monitoring room think is interesting content. The largely brain-dead dribble they regurgitate is frequently incorrect, idiotic, or just dull. eSports are NOT a live sporting event and as such do not benefit from the same announcer mentality I don't mind and even reciprocate positive experiences with for Football or alternative sports like MMA or Ninja Warrior. The reason I tuned in today was to hear some of the YouTube content creators give me their thoughts, not the two jackasses who never shut up and were obvious company-endorsed shills. The production itself was sub-acceptable (forget par) by even the most generous of reviews, 64 -- SIXTY-FOUR participants -- zero introductions of non-celebrity gamers until after the event, a very fuzzy distinction between teams and who was playing at any given time. I made it part-way through the Neebs/StoneMountain interview before the questions and conversation made me turn it off in disgust. God bless them the gamers tried their best to answer, but everyone with a mic obviously knew minimal about gaming in general.
Another issue I take is the style of event. Again a 64-man respawning, general strategiless FPS is not the best place to watch someone else's idea of a 'good view'. I will grant them that a few times they had some decent shots, but more times that appeared on screen were indistinguishable from any other. More than half of the participants, some of the content creators I've already spoken highly about, were never mentioned or covered. I've already seen two post their own recordings and thoughts after the event (thank Christ). THAT's the majority of content people joined for on top of seeing the fresh pre-Alpha playthrough. I didn't give two shits about what the half-dozen, industry- or company-funded yes men spouted or had to say. Oh you enjoyed your time, which I'm not going to get to see; I have no fucking idea who you are, could essentially not care less, and the repeated elevation your trying to claim your voice has is nauseating to the point of cancerous. Now I will throttle it back down a moment and say the gross inadequacies seen today are not so readily apparent in smaller MOBA or squad-sized team games. There are vastly fewer players and thus much fewer nodes of action at any point in time.
One final thought we had was an inability to follow how points were given or allocated, especially on the cumulative team pool. Mathematically, and having watched multiple points of view of all three games now, we still don't know how anything was calculated. It wasn't death tickets as in BF4, it wasn't any legible KDA ratio, and it surely wasn't any proportional reflection of points scored per person or team. My two roommates and I spent way more time that was necessary trying to figure it out. I direct you to the end of this video (game 3 from the livestream) to try and translate the scorecards to the final result.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1RUNPEZHQc
Monday, May 9, 2016
RIP Unlockable Content. All Hail Cash-Gated DLC
This is something I think many of the old guard and most of the mid-guard (of which I consider myself, and no this is not an intentional Thor/Norse joke) would agree is becoming a more noticeable issue. For those of us still in the pulse of the gaming community we've seen the less than subtle shift from actually using easter eggs, challenging content, hidden secrets and such to progress your gameplay. These are notoriously utilized as a flashy in-joke or short-cut through their content. Not blatantly dumbing down the game to make it more completable and accessible, but it's not far from it. Where are the games that offer unlockable content or secrets or alternative skins/weapons that require a challenging succession of achievements or an undocumented cheat code or something that just doesn't come out prior to the game itself? I, for one, loved these kind of things and enjoy searching for them if I'm lucky enough to get in on a game early; or finding if I show up late and have only the knowledge that "something" exists.
Now whether in single-player campaigns or in a MMO-style environment I tend to lean onto the achievement hound and collector mentalities if I become engrossed in a game for one reason or another. Prime examples I can think of involve Prince of Persia (hidden weapons like a hockey stick or teddy bear), Pokemon (G1-2), and Dynasty Warriors. The latter was my first foray where I had to decide what to unlock because some of the items/power-ups in DW4:XL were gated against one another; i.e. if you unlocked character A's ultimate weapon's form, character B's ultimate weapon was forever beyond your grasp. The game also possessed one of the more annoying save functions for the PS2 where there was no "saving one with A and one with B" as it held everything within a single file. I like my stories engaging--by either the gameplay or the story. Often times I will fluctuate between these as I play a game sacrificing doing one to do the other, etc. This is another reason I find replayability highly undervalued as well as there are some games out there with little to no incentive to ever return. On an MMO and usually in a RPG I will typically keep at least one save or character slot solely for the purpose of exploring the lore, talking to all the NPCs. This is the closest I come to actually roleplaying in video games (tabletop RPGs are fine, but I never saw the appeal to online RP).
Anyway the newer incarnations of some of those same games are fraught with DLC. Some of which extends the story but sometimes only provides the conclusion to the main story they'd already sold you. Or in the case of cosmetic alternatives, pay us monies and you can run around like _____. Yes, as much as I enjoy you I'm looking at you Saint's Row, Tomb Raider, and Koei (Dynasty/Samurai Warrior publishers). I remember when to unlock something you just had to find it in game somewhere. These scavenger-hunt style micro-missions were often a big thrill for me, especially if it involved some extra skill to get: only accessible at night, and should be blinded, etc.
This is not meant to be a manifesto against the entire micro-transaction movement, though as an unemployed debtee, I do find it a tad disheartening. I appreciate that for some* games this is their only source of income: free2play mobile apps, certain unsubscriptioned MMOs or MOBAs, etc. All I'm asking is for some justification in the cost/desire. I bought most of the Dynasty Warrior franchise for $20-25 if I got it new or $10 at Gamestop later, but for each of those I got well over 100 hours of playtime racking up power-ups and legendary weapons. Now to get the same accomplishment I need over $200 in steam and I have everything from the get-go. One game app I casual-play has a special for $55 you get 1 guaranteed character of 20 and a chance at up to 3 more. Sorry for that amount of coinage I want to expressly know what I'm getting. The pay-to-win mentality is strong and I understand commercial entities trying to tap that, but in doing so they isolate a measurable percentage of their player base while at the same time increasing others frustration within the game along with their likelihood of leaving. Its a very soft border between these factions, and I am far from an expert, but I think far too many are using RNGesus as an excuse within the confined of their IP's 1's and 0's.
Anyway, semester is wrapping up this week and I should be back gaming occasionally between application and interviews. Let me know what you think.
Now whether in single-player campaigns or in a MMO-style environment I tend to lean onto the achievement hound and collector mentalities if I become engrossed in a game for one reason or another. Prime examples I can think of involve Prince of Persia (hidden weapons like a hockey stick or teddy bear), Pokemon (G1-2), and Dynasty Warriors. The latter was my first foray where I had to decide what to unlock because some of the items/power-ups in DW4:XL were gated against one another; i.e. if you unlocked character A's ultimate weapon's form, character B's ultimate weapon was forever beyond your grasp. The game also possessed one of the more annoying save functions for the PS2 where there was no "saving one with A and one with B" as it held everything within a single file. I like my stories engaging--by either the gameplay or the story. Often times I will fluctuate between these as I play a game sacrificing doing one to do the other, etc. This is another reason I find replayability highly undervalued as well as there are some games out there with little to no incentive to ever return. On an MMO and usually in a RPG I will typically keep at least one save or character slot solely for the purpose of exploring the lore, talking to all the NPCs. This is the closest I come to actually roleplaying in video games (tabletop RPGs are fine, but I never saw the appeal to online RP).
Anyway the newer incarnations of some of those same games are fraught with DLC. Some of which extends the story but sometimes only provides the conclusion to the main story they'd already sold you. Or in the case of cosmetic alternatives, pay us monies and you can run around like _____. Yes, as much as I enjoy you I'm looking at you Saint's Row, Tomb Raider, and Koei (Dynasty/Samurai Warrior publishers). I remember when to unlock something you just had to find it in game somewhere. These scavenger-hunt style micro-missions were often a big thrill for me, especially if it involved some extra skill to get: only accessible at night, and should be blinded, etc.
This is not meant to be a manifesto against the entire micro-transaction movement, though as an unemployed debtee, I do find it a tad disheartening. I appreciate that for some* games this is their only source of income: free2play mobile apps, certain unsubscriptioned MMOs or MOBAs, etc. All I'm asking is for some justification in the cost/desire. I bought most of the Dynasty Warrior franchise for $20-25 if I got it new or $10 at Gamestop later, but for each of those I got well over 100 hours of playtime racking up power-ups and legendary weapons. Now to get the same accomplishment I need over $200 in steam and I have everything from the get-go. One game app I casual-play has a special for $55 you get 1 guaranteed character of 20 and a chance at up to 3 more. Sorry for that amount of coinage I want to expressly know what I'm getting. The pay-to-win mentality is strong and I understand commercial entities trying to tap that, but in doing so they isolate a measurable percentage of their player base while at the same time increasing others frustration within the game along with their likelihood of leaving. Its a very soft border between these factions, and I am far from an expert, but I think far too many are using RNGesus as an excuse within the confined of their IP's 1's and 0's.
Anyway, semester is wrapping up this week and I should be back gaming occasionally between application and interviews. Let me know what you think.
Tuesday, April 12, 2016
Marvel Puzzle Quest (2013)
More & more 'match three' games...
So one thing I have learned about myself is I like puzzle games. I exhaustively cleared 3 Tangram app games a few years ago, and my longest running mobile games is another of this variety (PAD). That said there are more than a few out there and most hearken back to the granddaddy of the genre, Bejeweled. Now rather than every single one being a carbon copy recreation with a fresh (or semi-clean) shirt, there are some key distinctions between them:
1) how much you can move a piece - sometimes you can only swap two adjacent pieces, other times you can drag and drop a single piece all over the board, occasionally the orbs drop in free-fall and you can only clear them where 3 or more intersect, once I found a game where you has x seconds to adjacent swap as many as you could in the time.
2) number of colors (for matches) and unique orbs - usually the minimum I've seen is three colors, but I've seen upwards of 8 in different games, which tend to scale with difficulty. There are also proprietary "special" tiles that vary from game to game. Some destroy a row, column, or predefined shape among the chaos; others remove or manipulate a specific hue from the pool; others manipulate the board in any innumerable possible ways. Poison, jammer, indestructable are just some of the other varieties.
3) additional formats - this genre is perhaps so over-saturated that fresh faces have to get you with a gimmick or incorporating another style within the game itself. I'll go into one examples below, but genre-targetted apps like Doctor Who: Legacy uses skins of characters from the show (wow, that sounds dark suddenly).
So by-and-large this is one of the primary game-types I adhere to, and while I burnout on some individual versions for one reason or another, I have yet to clear them all off of my device ever.
[Marvel Puzzle Quest] (Mobile, Apple or Android; PC, Steam) 2013
I'll admit I got roped in by the Marvel skinned app and it had some familiar if fresh takes on the whole RPG team and card collecting formats that added an interesting change of gameplay for me. I'm usually [yawn] at RPG team builders unless I have a lot more control and prettier pictures (i.e FFX); I also usually skip card-based video games of all kinds, save a brief forray with Yu-Gi-Oh when I was younger on principle alone. Also upon research I see this 'fresh' take is 3 years old :P
So you assemble a group of 3 characters (enemies or villains) restricted only by them populating your painfully inadequate collection. Now the cards themselves didn't really pose a problem as I had 2 semi-rare ones when I dropped the game after playing less than 2 months. My major complaint with this game was the limited and expensive box space. They are not shy about giving you chances at cards (lots of commons, but even my first day I had 2 premium pulls ready to go), you only get 3-4 slots initially and it costs more and more to add slots until I had 2 6-slot pages and it wanted over 500 ?gold coins? (I was never told what the other resources were called) to get another.
These cards, however, have levels as well as up to three individual power each with their own nuance. The card levels were unlocked by adding and fusing additional power cards together (up to 13 cumulative points where you had to decide between 5-5-3 or 5-4-4 builds on your key players). Once the higher level was possible, you used in-app rewards Iso-8 (a Marvel staple for who knows how long) and grind them up in ever increasing quantities. My complaint here is limited to its steep loss you suffered if you dumped it into one card then chose to retire it in place of another. A common trope in these style games, but still annoying knowing not all do this.
This game also lacks any kind of roster or unlock system to further incentivize collecting the individual characters. For an achievement hound/collector in me, this is a very sad realization. Unfortunately, taking up quite a few precious card slots are full 1-star and 2-star (rarity and power based) ranked teams that are used as part of the daily incentive quest (Deadpool). Additionally you have to have "daily random character X" in order to run for additional daily rewards. These further exasperated the restricted nature of your collection box and were the primary reason I opted out of further playing.
Now I liked the idea of keeping pre-set teams as you leveled in order to clear particular content. I loved the way the app handled the variety of 3-4 game types: prologue, story events, and pvp content. Instead of everyone pooled into the single event and scrambling up invisible ladders, you could select your own (I believe of 7 possible) time slot and play (or not) to your heart's content. I finished in the top 3 on the last two events I participated in, unlocking a 3-powered Daredevil and Colossus respectively.
All in all it was a nice game and if I weren't as invested in PAD I might have considered this to be my primary game app. 8/10
So one thing I have learned about myself is I like puzzle games. I exhaustively cleared 3 Tangram app games a few years ago, and my longest running mobile games is another of this variety (PAD). That said there are more than a few out there and most hearken back to the granddaddy of the genre, Bejeweled. Now rather than every single one being a carbon copy recreation with a fresh (or semi-clean) shirt, there are some key distinctions between them:
1) how much you can move a piece - sometimes you can only swap two adjacent pieces, other times you can drag and drop a single piece all over the board, occasionally the orbs drop in free-fall and you can only clear them where 3 or more intersect, once I found a game where you has x seconds to adjacent swap as many as you could in the time.
2) number of colors (for matches) and unique orbs - usually the minimum I've seen is three colors, but I've seen upwards of 8 in different games, which tend to scale with difficulty. There are also proprietary "special" tiles that vary from game to game. Some destroy a row, column, or predefined shape among the chaos; others remove or manipulate a specific hue from the pool; others manipulate the board in any innumerable possible ways. Poison, jammer, indestructable are just some of the other varieties.
3) additional formats - this genre is perhaps so over-saturated that fresh faces have to get you with a gimmick or incorporating another style within the game itself. I'll go into one examples below, but genre-targetted apps like Doctor Who: Legacy uses skins of characters from the show (wow, that sounds dark suddenly).
So by-and-large this is one of the primary game-types I adhere to, and while I burnout on some individual versions for one reason or another, I have yet to clear them all off of my device ever.
[Marvel Puzzle Quest] (Mobile, Apple or Android; PC, Steam) 2013
I'll admit I got roped in by the Marvel skinned app and it had some familiar if fresh takes on the whole RPG team and card collecting formats that added an interesting change of gameplay for me. I'm usually [yawn] at RPG team builders unless I have a lot more control and prettier pictures (i.e FFX); I also usually skip card-based video games of all kinds, save a brief forray with Yu-Gi-Oh when I was younger on principle alone. Also upon research I see this 'fresh' take is 3 years old :P
So you assemble a group of 3 characters (enemies or villains) restricted only by them populating your painfully inadequate collection. Now the cards themselves didn't really pose a problem as I had 2 semi-rare ones when I dropped the game after playing less than 2 months. My major complaint with this game was the limited and expensive box space. They are not shy about giving you chances at cards (lots of commons, but even my first day I had 2 premium pulls ready to go), you only get 3-4 slots initially and it costs more and more to add slots until I had 2 6-slot pages and it wanted over 500 ?gold coins? (I was never told what the other resources were called) to get another.
These cards, however, have levels as well as up to three individual power each with their own nuance. The card levels were unlocked by adding and fusing additional power cards together (up to 13 cumulative points where you had to decide between 5-5-3 or 5-4-4 builds on your key players). Once the higher level was possible, you used in-app rewards Iso-8 (a Marvel staple for who knows how long) and grind them up in ever increasing quantities. My complaint here is limited to its steep loss you suffered if you dumped it into one card then chose to retire it in place of another. A common trope in these style games, but still annoying knowing not all do this.
This game also lacks any kind of roster or unlock system to further incentivize collecting the individual characters. For an achievement hound/collector in me, this is a very sad realization. Unfortunately, taking up quite a few precious card slots are full 1-star and 2-star (rarity and power based) ranked teams that are used as part of the daily incentive quest (Deadpool). Additionally you have to have "daily random character X" in order to run for additional daily rewards. These further exasperated the restricted nature of your collection box and were the primary reason I opted out of further playing.
Now I liked the idea of keeping pre-set teams as you leveled in order to clear particular content. I loved the way the app handled the variety of 3-4 game types: prologue, story events, and pvp content. Instead of everyone pooled into the single event and scrambling up invisible ladders, you could select your own (I believe of 7 possible) time slot and play (or not) to your heart's content. I finished in the top 3 on the last two events I participated in, unlocking a 3-powered Daredevil and Colossus respectively.
All in all it was a nice game and if I weren't as invested in PAD I might have considered this to be my primary game app. 8/10
Monday, March 21, 2016
The Return of the Blog/Playstyle
Gods, I can never seem to consistently force myself to maintain a blog for an extended period of time. Best I did was for my table top miniatures (still actively viewed). So yeah I will be back [sporadically] as I try to clear out some of my Steam(c) library and free some of my phone's memory up. Expect it to be slow, but come graduation in May I'll have a few classics I'll finally be playing thru (Mass Effect, Assassin's Creed, and XCOM series). --Hey-- No judgement,s I picked them up over the past few years in Steam sales, bundles, or free code giveaways/trades and never took the opportunity to play them.
That said, I guess I'll explain my game style. I've all over the map. I like to try new games, but rarely do so unless they're cheap/free/my group is playing them. When I actually become an invested player I join a branch of the community (i.e. Wooden Potatoes for GW2) and usually approach it with a lore- or achievement hound-attitude. That said I'm not one who commits to more than 1-2 immersive games at a time. Guild Wars 2 is filling my MMO slot at the moment so anything I'm likely to play will be stand alone titles, casual games, or just something to clear memory off of one of my devices.
Forthcoming right off the bat I've tried my hand [over the past 9 months] at a few mobile games co-workers, classmates, or family have played and I will summarize them first (cause I'm likely not playing them anymore). Anyway, sorry for the absence, and happy gaming.
UPDATE 5/9/16:
Alright so to give myself a little time between job-hunting, moving, and just general downtime I will try for monthly discussions and try to get as many games in as I play. That said they may not be new all the time and may resort to tips, tricks, or just "what I've been playing" updates.
That said, I guess I'll explain my game style. I've all over the map. I like to try new games, but rarely do so unless they're cheap/free/my group is playing them. When I actually become an invested player I join a branch of the community (i.e. Wooden Potatoes for GW2) and usually approach it with a lore- or achievement hound-attitude. That said I'm not one who commits to more than 1-2 immersive games at a time. Guild Wars 2 is filling my MMO slot at the moment so anything I'm likely to play will be stand alone titles, casual games, or just something to clear memory off of one of my devices.
Forthcoming right off the bat I've tried my hand [over the past 9 months] at a few mobile games co-workers, classmates, or family have played and I will summarize them first (cause I'm likely not playing them anymore). Anyway, sorry for the absence, and happy gaming.
UPDATE 5/9/16:
Alright so to give myself a little time between job-hunting, moving, and just general downtime I will try for monthly discussions and try to get as many games in as I play. That said they may not be new all the time and may resort to tips, tricks, or just "what I've been playing" updates.
Sunday, June 14, 2015
Mobile Games & Derivatives
So like many people I am guilty of installing a game or two on my phone and often I will hear of/see a similar game with a twist or a skin on it that makes the copy+paste game "unique" in the creator's mind. More often times than not this is more likely a cash grab situation as they churn them out as fast as possible, allowing for in-app purchases, and really don't support the game. There are entire studios devoted to this business model >> 1) What's popular? 2) Can we recreate it? 3) Can we change it just enough to avoid claims and suit? This is not the entirety of the games out there but for every game you like there's bound to be 20+ games eerily similar to it in one respect or another. Well I venture down the rabbit hole occasionally and I've found many that fall on both sides of the fence. Sometimes they provide a decent distraction for a brief interlude, sometimes they frustrate me, other times they're just sad, humorous attempts at mimicry. Here's two examples that I would call successful clones, but may or may not stay on my phone for long. (Possibly a review of them as well).
1) Star Wars Commander (similar to Clash of Clans)
Pros: Star Wars skins!
a unique functionality at the early onset of the game you can decide to support the rebels or the Empire which will determine which units you have access to for the remainder of the game.
gameplay and upgrades make 10x more sense than CoC and you can easily judge when something is under-powered. (i.e. Your base has lvl 5 HQ? Everything you have can upgrade to lvl 5)
Cons: the unique functionality does make it harder to play with friends if you chose Empire for the cooler looking units and they chose Rebels for the heroes. The "Squadrons" are limited to one side or the other and cannot cross-over. The lack of cross over ability kind of twists the knife anytime one side or the other gets something cool (I reinstalled and when light side only to find that it was not identical abilities).
As much as I did in fact enjoy the game the community was very small and not truly active. 6/10
2) Doctor Who: Legacy (similar to Puzzles & Dragons)
Pros: Doctor Who skins, companions, enemies, storyline, etc.
a (somewhat) story that progresses through the dungeons
enough minor changes from PAD that you fell like it successfully makes its own niche (including no stamina)
amazing community and dev-support
Cons: The story is [sadly] weak and usually skipped
The lack of limiting factors like stamina means you unconsciously play yourself out of it most times
Leveling up allies alters their powers at level 5 such that some of them with powers you liked 1-49 now trigger something entirely different at 50.
7/10
1) Star Wars Commander (similar to Clash of Clans)
Pros: Star Wars skins!
a unique functionality at the early onset of the game you can decide to support the rebels or the Empire which will determine which units you have access to for the remainder of the game.
gameplay and upgrades make 10x more sense than CoC and you can easily judge when something is under-powered. (i.e. Your base has lvl 5 HQ? Everything you have can upgrade to lvl 5)
Cons: the unique functionality does make it harder to play with friends if you chose Empire for the cooler looking units and they chose Rebels for the heroes. The "Squadrons" are limited to one side or the other and cannot cross-over. The lack of cross over ability kind of twists the knife anytime one side or the other gets something cool (I reinstalled and when light side only to find that it was not identical abilities).
As much as I did in fact enjoy the game the community was very small and not truly active. 6/10
2) Doctor Who: Legacy (similar to Puzzles & Dragons)
Pros: Doctor Who skins, companions, enemies, storyline, etc.
a (somewhat) story that progresses through the dungeons
enough minor changes from PAD that you fell like it successfully makes its own niche (including no stamina)
amazing community and dev-support
Cons: The story is [sadly] weak and usually skipped
The lack of limiting factors like stamina means you unconsciously play yourself out of it most times
Leveling up allies alters their powers at level 5 such that some of them with powers you liked 1-49 now trigger something entirely different at 50.
7/10
Thursday, May 28, 2015
Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns PvE Beta
A brief mention as I did participate.
It was very lack-luster and kind of a disappointment. I am aware it was a stress test and am in no way slanted negatively towards them, but I was very underwhelmed in my experiences (~3 hours over 2 of the blocks). The root cause imho was a combination of the UI and the new systems implemented therein.
1) Story
While I wasn't expecting a great arc the sad, single quest with 4 sub-parts would take ~20 minutes to do solo unless your system crashed. Mine did twice but only once during the quests, so I had to start all over. The story chose the two decisions for you, railroading you in your script instead of presenting the options they're so proud to brag about in HoT. The events, day/night cycle, and outpost events were interesting but gave little to no indication of what you were supposed to do. 3 times I failed objectives when no enemies appeared, no interactive material spawned for us to 'deliver' and took a long time for use to figure out the 'to do'
2) User-Interface & Integration
So they bragged we would experience some of the new systems, masteries, and abilities for the new expansion. 3 hours in and a few rare people had figured out how to actually add points to their system. I ended up with 5, but I couldn't figure out how to actually spend them even though the mastery page said it was already full. To be honest gliding was the one thing I wanted to try and see how it went. No one was explaining anything in chat to assist other gamers and the vast majority of people didn't get to from what I've discussed with guildies and read in the forums.
3) Instructions
This was possibly the most heinous mistake that occurred and you';ll see the vein in the other points. There was no instruction. There was no intuitive design to implement any of these new systems as such leaving many people more unimpressed than I was. As I mentioned I had 5 mastery points, I had 8 or so tracks "open" to me to view, but everything was either grayed out and locked or already said I was fully trained and locked (1/1, 3/3, etc). I tried the classic double-click, went key-by-key down my board, even the drag and drop ability which left nothing accomplished. I hope they hold another one with better us of their players time. After I explored as much of the map as I cared to I just swapped to normal play and left the Beta with a sickening, empty feeling that didn't sit well for all the hype and attention this has been getting.
All grieving aside it looked pretty. That said in an age where anything sub-photo-realistic is considered retro, stylized, or cheap. I think no more than what I had with the teaser trailers thus far: it has potential but will likely be very small in comparisons to similar expansions [in other games] in both scope and newly accessible areas. This may be a glimmer at what is to come with a fuller-engrossing Season 3 Living World. This could rework a masterful overhaul to the game world we already know. There are too many unknowns and too many theories and speculation about where it all is going.
I previously had the experience the PvP map Conquest. This looks promising but a lot more play will be needed to understand all the new features going on in it. For it ~ 6/10
Still hopeful if a little less optimistic for HoT. 3.5/10 for the limited Beta
**Full Release Update** 5/10 was alright just way too small and limited to be taken serious as a MMO contender. ArenaNet will really have to step it up to keep its population, because everything I've seen and heard in chat and on forums (even from major content creators like Wooden Potatoes) has been steadily declining in favor because they're not keeping the audience entertained between content and they back back-pedaling more and more on their promises.
It was very lack-luster and kind of a disappointment. I am aware it was a stress test and am in no way slanted negatively towards them, but I was very underwhelmed in my experiences (~3 hours over 2 of the blocks). The root cause imho was a combination of the UI and the new systems implemented therein.
1) Story
While I wasn't expecting a great arc the sad, single quest with 4 sub-parts would take ~20 minutes to do solo unless your system crashed. Mine did twice but only once during the quests, so I had to start all over. The story chose the two decisions for you, railroading you in your script instead of presenting the options they're so proud to brag about in HoT. The events, day/night cycle, and outpost events were interesting but gave little to no indication of what you were supposed to do. 3 times I failed objectives when no enemies appeared, no interactive material spawned for us to 'deliver' and took a long time for use to figure out the 'to do'
2) User-Interface & Integration
So they bragged we would experience some of the new systems, masteries, and abilities for the new expansion. 3 hours in and a few rare people had figured out how to actually add points to their system. I ended up with 5, but I couldn't figure out how to actually spend them even though the mastery page said it was already full. To be honest gliding was the one thing I wanted to try and see how it went. No one was explaining anything in chat to assist other gamers and the vast majority of people didn't get to from what I've discussed with guildies and read in the forums.
3) Instructions
This was possibly the most heinous mistake that occurred and you';ll see the vein in the other points. There was no instruction. There was no intuitive design to implement any of these new systems as such leaving many people more unimpressed than I was. As I mentioned I had 5 mastery points, I had 8 or so tracks "open" to me to view, but everything was either grayed out and locked or already said I was fully trained and locked (1/1, 3/3, etc). I tried the classic double-click, went key-by-key down my board, even the drag and drop ability which left nothing accomplished. I hope they hold another one with better us of their players time. After I explored as much of the map as I cared to I just swapped to normal play and left the Beta with a sickening, empty feeling that didn't sit well for all the hype and attention this has been getting.
All grieving aside it looked pretty. That said in an age where anything sub-photo-realistic is considered retro, stylized, or cheap. I think no more than what I had with the teaser trailers thus far: it has potential but will likely be very small in comparisons to similar expansions [in other games] in both scope and newly accessible areas. This may be a glimmer at what is to come with a fuller-engrossing Season 3 Living World. This could rework a masterful overhaul to the game world we already know. There are too many unknowns and too many theories and speculation about where it all is going.
I previously had the experience the PvP map Conquest. This looks promising but a lot more play will be needed to understand all the new features going on in it. For it ~ 6/10
Still hopeful if a little less optimistic for HoT. 3.5/10 for the limited Beta
**Full Release Update** 5/10 was alright just way too small and limited to be taken serious as a MMO contender. ArenaNet will really have to step it up to keep its population, because everything I've seen and heard in chat and on forums (even from major content creators like Wooden Potatoes) has been steadily declining in favor because they're not keeping the audience entertained between content and they back back-pedaling more and more on their promises.
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