What IOS games have you been playing?

If a Nigerian prince came on here and in his first post slammed Mike Barnes, I'd probably send him money

jeb wrote: For example, DOMINANT SPECIES got a totally revamped UI and no longer looks like someone took pictures of the boardgame and stapled some PNGs to it to put cones down and stuff. Worth checking out.

But wait! I thought absolute fidelity to the boardgame version was a GOOD thing? Isn't that what Dr. Manhattan is saying in this incredibly long and convoluted run-on sentence here:

Dr Manhattan wrote: Steam on the other hand, notwithstanding the lack of the fixed action version and some overbearing clunkiness in how some of the actions are animated and physically managed, is actually a much better stab because its design and layout stays closer to the boardgame, which for these kinds of games is REQUIRED, there are games which lend themselves to reinterpretation digitally and make sense but there are complex games like this that need to have pared down, semi abstract visuals where you can easily see the information needed to play the game, and covering it up with needless art and zooms and stupid perspectives is just idiocy designed only to appeal to casual impulse buyers of people who will never really get to enjoy the game as it should be.

I think there's room for experimentation in boardgame ports. I love what the developers did with Agricola, for example. That's a beautiful app that works really well. Sentinels of the Multiverse keeps the "cards" from the physical game, but adds a lot of visual flourishes, like comic-book-style panels, and changing the artwork on your superhero when they get close to death. Seeing your characters all beat up and bloody is a nice touch. The Talisman app, on the other hand, feels very dry and bland to me because it's such a literal translation of the boardgame. I wouldn't have minded a bit more visual appeal to bring the theme alive. Even if a video game has its roots in a board game, you still have to market and sell it as a video game.

Oh dont get me wrong, I dont think that all games need to just be digitally rendered copies of the boardgame (even though it seems most of the better ones, like Carcassonne, Ticket to Ride, Le Havre, Tigris etc) tend to stay very closely to their physical counterparts. For a lot of complex games you just cant fanny about "poshing it up" for no good reason without thinking carefully about what the user needs to be able to visually grok at a glance. Obviously screen space is limited, I get that, but theres a difference between having to change up the display a bit with just redoing it all in an attempt to "look nicer" without any feeling for what an actual player of the game needs and wants to see. Agricola is great, they went a little bit away from the real game (though stylistically its quite similar in some ways), some things took a bit of getting used to but quite quickly I found myself adapting to the app version and really like it. I've played both app and game there several hundred (no exaggeration) times. I playtested the app in fact. I was on the test group for Brass but just couldn't get past how awful it was so didn't take part in the end.

As I said, no one who has played Brass (Michael at least outed himself as having no experience with the game - though that would have been obvious just by reading his conclusion) can possibly think the way the game is presented is reasonable, especially compared to the hammer site, which is NOT a copy of the boardgame but a bare bones flowchart style minimalist look but with all the information easily at hand. I mean, first world problem and all but I took umbrage to Michael not only praising the Brass app but then lauding it as a shining example of how an app and UI should be. No no no no no no. Thats so wrong, so indescribably wrong that I had to say my piece. I know Michael has the good sense to appreciate Tigris, and theres an app that is a much better example of how its done!

As for the shilling and spamming, I'm not sure what you think I'm spamming? The order of the hammer website? uh, its just a brass boardgame site, its free to join and play. Or not. No ads. No Nigerians and no bank transfers of offers for me to pop round to yours and show my tits.
Given that you can load the website on your iPad I cant really see why anyone would pay money to play the shite app when they can play for free on a better designed site which facilitates playing the game and provides a somewhat lively and mature group of enthusiasts for the game who you'd get a much better introduction to the game (and competition) than the crappy AI of the app you just wasted your money on*. And that was the other "flag" that Michael didnt know what he was talking about, because I am pretty sure any real fan of the game with an online presence would avoid the unfathomably long stream of bollocks that tends to form the bulk of my manic ramblings with the more succint

"keep your money, play on the orderofthehammer instead, free, better, more competition".



* I nominate this for the singly worst written sentence to appear on this website in 2015. What the actual fuck. But I think you got my drift. I was probably alt tabbing between this and uh, some other web page or something

Operation Dracula (shmup) is on sale right now and seems to have gotten some pretty good reviews. Anyone here play it yet?

Just downloaded Warhammer 40K Deathwatch. Its basically a mash up of SPACE HULK and WARHAMMER QUEST. Same design studio, so it looks gorgeous. As you complete missions, your Space Marines gain XP and can trade that for better abilities, weapons slots. etc . About the only other similarity to the other two is a distinct lack of documentation - I've had to go online and poke around to figure out some of the non intuitive UI. Nothing too bad, but there's really no excuse for that sort of thing.

Monument Valley. A fun, light puzzle Escher-esque puzzle game. Great art. Currently free on iOS.

dysjunct wrote: Monument Valley. A fun, light puzzle Escher-esque puzzle game. Great art. Currently free on iOS.

I really liked it, but I wish it was more difficult. I rarely ran into any issues figuring out the puzzles.

How's Bragging Camp going ?

I got a bunch of games on my phone (Brass, Steam, Le Havre Inland Port, etc) but I still just keep playing Galaxy Trucker.

Black Barney wrote: How's Bragging Camp going ?

Very well. I took the gold in the camp olympics, and was voted best looking.