What IOS games have you been playing? ARCHIVE

Bullwinkle wrote: Guys, I don't give a rat's ass about the four fucking dollars (which I'd happily pay, but I'm waiting on the iPad version) or the Final Fucking Battles. I'm talking about something bigger: FFG's reluctance to wade with real seriousness into digital media. Maybe I'm the only one who gives a shit, since while that's where I'm looking for boardgame stuff these days, and seeing from the other thread about the TED talk everyone else wants to play with their pieces. That's fine. But what I see is a company keeping a different medium at arm's length when they could be the fucking leaders for quality boardgame-style AT.

Most of their best games (like TI:3, ToI, Arkham, Chaos, Battlestar...) would be totally unweildly on an iphone and maybe even on an ipad. But I'm still with you as I'd like to see them try. Runeage would rock on the iPhone and now that they have Nexus Ops it could fit on there too just as easily as Neuroshima Hex did. I still downloaded Elder Sign and I'm pumped to play it but I'd like to see a bit more from them. I think they might be afraid that people won't buy the real game if they have the ap. For most of their games I wouldn't.

What they could do is streamline the ap so it's slightly different then the boardgame like they've apparenlty done with Elder Sign. That could work really well but requires a whole new design team.

I would love to see more game tools though. Scenario editors for ToI, Decent, Doom, Gears, the Battlelore stuff.... that would be awesome.

The Space Alert mission generator is the best boardgame ap I own by far.

Bullwinkle wrote: Guys, I don't give a rat's ass about the four fucking dollars (which I'd happily pay, but I'm waiting on the iPad version) or the Final Fucking Battles. I'm talking about something bigger: FFG's reluctance to wade with real seriousness into digital media. Maybe I'm the only one who gives a shit, since while that's where I'm looking for boardgame stuff these days, and seeing from the other thread about the TED talk everyone else wants to play with their pieces. That's fine. But what I see is a company keeping a different medium at arm's length when they could be the fucking leaders for quality boardgame-style AT.

Have you seen it? I find it hard to believe you can call it a half-assed effort if you have. Apart from the fact FFG to my knowledge are the only company developing this stuff inhouse (appart from DoW maybe?) it's also one of the best releases I have played. What strikes me is how they didn't just do a direct port, but it's more of an adaptation to a different media. The only thing I think stinks a bit is that it's not a universal app (and I don't own an iPad), but otherwise this is the most forward thinking boardgame app I have played.

Runewars would fucking suck on this platform btw. Adapting every game under the sun is not the way to go, instead you need to target games which would work on the respective platform (elder sign is a great example of one. Nexus Ops would probably work as well.)

Mr Skeletor wrote: Have you seen it? I find it hard to believe you can call it a half-assed effort if you have. Apart from the fact FFG to my knowledge are the only company developing this stuff inhouse (appart from DoW maybe?) it's also one of the best releases I have played. What strikes me is how they didn't just do a direct port, but it's more of an adaptation to a different media. The only thing I think stinks a bit is that it's not a universal app (and I don't own an iPad), but otherwise this is the most forward thinking boardgame app I have played.

Runewars would fucking suck on this platform btw. Adapting every game under the sun is not the way to go, instead you need to target games which would work on the respective platform (elder sign is a great example of one. Nexus Ops would probably work as well.)

It's not so much the app itself (which looks great; haven't had the chance to play yet) but the fact that, up to October 30, 2011, the only game developed by FFG was Hey, That's My Fish.

Anyway, I hope this is a money bomb. Then maybe we'll see more. I think more of their games would translate than you might think: Elder Signs, Nexus Ops, Runebound, Death Angel, Red November, Dungeon Quest, Descent or Doom with a rudimentary AI like Hunters: Episode One (both would need tweaking, and Doom probably has license issues, but you get my point), etc.

I'm the biggest Runebound fan there is but I can't see a digital version being enjoyable. How would it work, you read the encounter card and then watch the dice roll and roll and roll. No, that one wont work.
Death Angel yes.
Red November yes.
Dungeon Quest, maybe, but I think even the boardgame version sucks solo. The fun in this is watching your friends get fucked over, which wont be in a digital version.
Decent or Doom rates as a no fucking way. Trying to get all that shit on an ipad screen would force it to be a fiddley piece of shit. I just don't think the games are good for the format.


Anyway looks like these aren't money making ventures:
www.boardgamegeek.com/article/7787424#7787424

I think Descent or Doom could absolutely work, as long as you don't require to see your character card/opponent card all the time. If the board itself looked like and was zoomable like Hunters, if you tap on an enemy and his stats pop up, and if both your cards come up when you actually enter combat, that would be fine for me. YMMV.

Mr Skeletor wrote: Anyway looks like these aren't money making ventures:
www.boardgamegeek.com/article/7787424#7787424

That's depressing, but not at all surprising, if accurate. And I totally agree with him on pricing. But:

Christian Petersen wrote: ...most major electronic publishers are making apps at the moment because they feel they have to be in the market...We're honestly just trying to get you a nice little game at a price that is near suicide to us.

See? I knew he didn't want to be here.

According to someone on TOS, the other GOOs are listed in the files for the Android version. So as expected, they'll probably be in-app-purchases before too long.

Runewars should work okay as an app, with Dominion and Ascension already working well for that medium. Space Hulk: Death Angel would probably be particularly great in that format. I'd love to see something like the Knizia Lord of the Rings co-op game as an app. I think it would be relatively easy to make that work, as it's not that complicated of a system, though they would probably have to redesign the layout of the boards... it would be the same essential tracks, but perhaps laid out differently. Red November would probably work, too, but I don't care too much for that game. I think, for an iPad, just about anything could work, including AH and TI3, but definitely not for iPhone.

Anyway, as Christian's statement implies, FFG seems to be getting into this begrudgingly, so I wouldn't expect a lot of their titles to end up as apps, but hopefully we'll see a few other things at some point.

Christian! Reach out to me, buddy. I have your solution to this problem. The solution is: OMNIGroup. They are making the world's best iApps and they cost a proper amount of money. This is where you want to go. If you turn out shit, or even middle of the raod stuff and want to charge $15, everyone will tell you to go screw. If you make things like OMNIGRAFFLE except it's an awesome game? Then you can charge $25, $30 and lose no face. Look into it.

Bullwinkle wrote: Maybe I'm the only one who gives a shit, since while that's where I'm looking for boardgame stuff these days, and seeing from the other thread about the TED talk everyone else wants to play with their pieces. That's fine. But what I see is a company keeping a different medium at arm's length when they could be the fucking leaders for quality boardgame-style AT.

Nope, you're not the only one. I've long wondered about FFG's reluctance to enter the digital space and the curious choices they've made since begrudgingly dipping a toe in the water. The penguin game as a first offering? Really? No Citadels yet, three-plus years after the announcement? Not plundering their extensive back catalogue for a series of smaller games that could be released from every price point from $9.99 to $1.99? Why not?

Although ES:O is excellent and I'm enjoying the hell out of it (bought it twice, in fact), I'm not expecting much from FFG on iOS, at least not with CP making the decisions. His laughable "Woe Is Me, Chapter 27" speech at TOS makes it pretty clear he not only resents the iOS space, but he also doesn't have a firm grasp on it. "... the app should (by real-world standards) be somewhere between $19.95 to $24.95."? Jesus wept! What color is the sky in this alleged "real world" he's talking about?

Petersen is talking out of his ass, as he often does. If IOS and digital games are oh-so-hard and oh-so-expensive to make, how is it that these small teams- and sometimes _individuals_ are constantly turning out high quality games ALL THE TIME and MAKING MONEY from them? How is that the tiny little company that made that Battlelore-style game was able to do so but FFG somehow can't. How is it that Victory Point Games is doing a whole IOS portal for their games, but somehow FFG can't? How is that Codito and all of these companies are doing great IOS ports with full art and licensing? Are they all just going broke doing it? BULLSHIT.

Oh, woe the fuck is me. It's a situation where they don't have, and never had, a firm strategy or a grasp on how to break into the market so they make excuses. That line about publishers being involved in IOS because "they feel like they have to" is complete and utter bullshit. It's one of the biggest- and still growing- markets for _all_ games in _all games industries_ right now. There was a poll of game developers released yesterday, and Apple was overwhelmingly named as the most important and influential business in games today. And FFG doesn't have a duke of an idea of what to do other than to hem and haw and make it look like they somehow _can't_ do it. Oh, and then there's AEG moving Nightfall and Thunderstone to IOS, Plaid Hat doing Summoner Wars,and games like Ascension already selling well and gaining a rather larger following than it would have if it were a print only title. I guess all of these companies are just doing it because of peer pressure, and all are going to lose money, right?

"Suicide", heh. Whatever man. Get left in the dust.

Christian is also completely ignoring the marketing aspect of apps. If you produce and sell a great Runewars app for iPad and do a trial or freemium version, that puts the game in front of a HELL of a lot more people than will ever see a physical copy of the game- or even be aware that it exists. It's a way to monetize existing properties and to even effectively expand them through tools like the Arkham Horror thing.

But oh, woe is me. Those kids what with their Applephones and twitterpads. I guess megalomania only goes so far.

You guys are messing up Runewars and Runage. Runeage - the card game - would work very well as an app. Runewars - the DoaM game - would not.

Also, I can totally see why Hey! That's my fish was the first game rather than Citadels or something. First of all I imagine the AI is quite easy to program (comparatively), but most importantly the penquin game would potentially cater to a different market than would iOS ports of more hardcore games. I don't like HTMF as much as I did when it came out (the board game, that is) and as such I've only played the app a few times. But I think it has a lot of potential since it's a much better board game app than most of the board game like ones that are made specifically for the iPhone.

I started playing Elder Sign: Omens on the iPad last night. Skelly was dead right, this is fantastic. I'm totally hooked on it too. I've been playing it for hours.

Gary Sax wrote: So what's up with Mage Gauntlet? Lots of people playing it at all the websites I haunt. It looks like Secret of Mana. Does it have a story and characters or is it mostly just pure action/RPG fight scenes?

There is a light story, but primarily it is an action RPG. You randomly get spells from time to time (not often enough in my opinion), and the difficulty curve is whacked. It starts out very easy, and now that I'm on the last 1/3 of the game, it's crazy hard. The control is good, but I would love to have a game pad for it.

Overall it's a good game that could have been great. It's worth the money, I'd say.

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Elder Signs: Omens looks cool, but I already have the physical game and can't get it to the table. I don't know why I'd enjoy a digital dice game when the reason I bought the real thing in the first place was so I could roll dice.

ELDER SIGNS: OMENS is goooood. I have the HD version on the iPad, and it's sexy as hell. I don't the low-res is worse, really, but you just get to see less of the nice artwork. I have played 4 times now (the game takes a while!) and lost each one. Closest I have gotten is 11 Elder Signs, but I knew I was fucked. 2100+ points though!

Great game. I picked up SUPER STICKMAN GOLF the other day for free as well. That's a very well done game for the platform.

Let the record reflect that I stone burnt TheDukester in ASCENSION last night. I want someone to run stats on the 4/1 4/1 opening versus 5/0 3/2. The latter seems immensely better.

jeb wrote: Let the record reflect that I stone burnt TheDukester in ASCENSION last night. I want someone to run stats on the 4/1 4/1 opening versus 5/0 3/2. The latter seems immensely better.

LAWL. You did, indeed. It was like sitting in a master's-level course of Ass-Kicking 610.

Or else it was luck. Pure luck. Yeah, let's go with that.

Rematch queued up ...

There's been some long 4/1 vs. 5/0 discussions at the Ascension site; the general consensus is that the 4/1 split sucks. I think I'd have to agree. At the very worst, even the 3/2 end of the 5/0 allows you to buy a Mystic and kill one Cultist with no change left over.

+++++

And, yes, Elder Sign is really well-done; it's first-class all the way. Many kudos to FFG. As much as I enjoy getting my digs in at CP, I hope he green-lights more digital projects.

I think ASCENSION should come with an option to just automatically give each player 4/1 4/1 off the bat. The game itself largely corrects for any first-player bias, but the 5/0 3/2 when your opponent got 4/1 4/1 can just hump a player.