What IOS games have you been playing?

I got Steam but I'm disappointed it's the rules with the stupid auction in it. Hoping they'll add in an option for the non-auction rules.

I got Brass but I didn't get Steam yet. I just can not grasp it for some reason, it's an odd game. I get that you have to "activate" the industries, ship cotton through the ports, use coal to upgrade/build rails etc. but for some reason I do not really get how to play. And I've played the board game, it was just a long time ago and if I remember correctly at least one Old Fashioned was in the mix.

That said, it is one of the best board games apps to date in terms of implementation. The UI is perfect and it has features that ALL board games on IOS should have and should have always had. Like the ability to skip the AI players' animation and get a summary of what they did. And to be able to turn your device and see the whole board.

I haven't gotten Steam yet, but resolve is weakening.

A game that is REALLY good on IOS right now is Templar Battleforce...it's basically a more open, more customizable Space Hulk style DoaM...but it has a TECH TREE. Crazy. Graphics are dated, but the gameplay and depth are top notch.

Lara Croft Go is pretty neat. I like it better than the big console Tomb Raider games.

Wizards and Wagons is fun, it's a simple buy low/sell high PU&D trading game with kind of clicker combat system.

Pacific Fleet, all the time.

May have to pick up brass. On steam, you say?

Hitman: Sniper is on sale for $2 right now. I think it's pretty great. Despite only the single map, there's tons of different objectives and targets. I can't wit to play it some more.

With respect Michael, you're just plain wrong about Brass. You usually write with some aplomb but I feel like it's worth pointing out when you've strayed into "bullshit" zone since you're quick to point out this flaw in others (and fairly so, usually).
For the record, I've played Brass well over a hundred times face to face, and about 3 or 4 hundred times online via the order of the hammer site. I also worked for 3+ years in videogame development for Gremlin later to be swallowed by Infogrames and then later for another year at Criterion (working mainly on Renderware). I think my high score for Brass is something like 190. This is presented to support my contention that I know more about the subject at hand than you do, on this occasion.

The Brass app is exactly whats wrong with app design its fucking AWFUL in every conceivable way. Slow, clunky, makes all the game actions take longer than needed, unneccessary clutter and distracting information, shit AI (I can forgive the app this, no AI is going to beat a decent human player at this game) and the biggest crime a total inability to see an overview of the network topography thats key in assessing your decisions in the game

compare and contrast with the order of the hammer site, there is an online implementation thats fantastic, even though it "looks shit" (form over function), see how easily you see the entire network layout properly colour coded, access to everyones tech tree, a pair of clicks to take your card and play your action you can even see a list of cards remaining, action history list for everyone, everything is right there.

What *should* have happened is they used the orderofthehammer design, and simply stylistically added some colour and art (non distracting). Instead they went for the typical "appeal to the casuals" approach but NO ONE who is a serious enthusiast of Brass can prefer this app to the order site, not to mention the huge and active community of competent (along with rookie) players there. I dont fault the guy making the app, I bet he sold a lot to people who are curious about Brass, perhaps think they can learn it from this app, will dabble with it a bit and then like the rest of their giant collections move on. Brass is one of my forever games, to be played regularly and is utterly awesome, the rules are very straightforward once you come past the illusion that they're not (weve all beeen there!), best of all its a player driven, incentive sharing, exploitation and screwage game so that even when you've mastered the basics of the main strategic paths (income-rails, cotton shipping, port strategy etc), competent players will always find the real game underneath all that with the posturing and signalling inherent in the card play and actions, the feints and bluffs and the outright smackdowns.

That you have not played Brass more than once long ago is astounding to me. I recommend everyone give it a go, but please go via the free website theorderothehammer.com and try it out there before wasting your money by buying that crap app which shits all over almost every useful feature of the website which provides a fantastic game experience (it is even worse than what happened to Caylus). In no way is this a good app, and it is very clear your comments on this are based on you not having any familiarity with the boardgame. Without meaning to piss in your general direction, you sir, are just dead wrong- the app and the UI is an abject and utter failure on every level, completely missing the point of the game and focussing on stuff which is not only of no importance but actively distracts from the information needed to actually make decisions in the game.

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. Perhaps in that regard the designers are "right" after all if they sell the app 5000 times to "pretend gamers" (the kinds of people with hundreds and thousands of unplayed games on shelves, who follow the herd of what others tell them are good games, who play games twice and think theyve got it, time to move on to the next new thing, well maybe thats better for the designer than to appeal to the few hundred of people actually enjoying and wanting to play the game.

However, the summary: The Brass app/UI is absolutely fucking shit and anyone with a genuine interest in playing the game should pay zero dollars and sign up at theorderofhehammer.com.
I would be happy to organize some learning games for anyone interested and even give comments, advice, rules reminders, whatever. its a great game well worth trying. Just not on the iPad.(unless it is to open brass.orderofthehammer.com/index.php via a web browser)

Put on some clothes for crissakes

Oh and welcome to the Fort

Personally, I believe that if you have problems with your knee joints, instead of using the horrible MapMyWalk App, which is clunky and horrible in every possible way, you should check out a website that I found online, WalkForTheNigerianScammers.com. It is inherently more user friendly than the shitty MapMyWalk app, and all bipedals, including Kangaroos and Wallabies, should be using WalkForTheNigerianScammers.com. In addition to mapping your walks, it will also make your walks more easy due to patented WalkForTheNigerianScammers.com technology wherein your pockets will be exactly 100% lighter after using WalkForTheNigerianScammers.com.

LMAO

Sorry, are you trying to imply Dr Manhattan is a scammer or a shill or something?

He's not a shill! If he is, he's exactly the kind we want. Makes a real account, with a real picture, obviously is reading F:AT for a while, and is super passionate abour BRASS, which man, brings it out in some folks here. So into it he's got a website that plays it arguably better than the official product. It's like that guy that remade M.U.L.E. online.

Welcome aboard, Dr. Manhattan! I will check out your site, and assuming you aren't full of shit, we should talk about game/app UI in a larger sense. There are some solid designers on the site here, and these discussions are always illuminating.

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.

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.