Bought. I was interested in it some days ago but decided to wait a bit after hearing it's really short. Also nice to encourage games like this even if it's only with 1 buck.
The iPad/iPhone/iPod Touch Gaming |Thread4| NOT Doomed
- Thread starter Dash Kappei
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Seems very grindy and IAP hungry judging from the videos I saw (bundle with everything is 1200+ "bux" and with $50 you only buy 700), any comments on that? How many different units there are?
GeekyDad
Member
Ouch! Fifty bucks, eh? Yeesh. I do remember the dev claiming that everything in the game that affects gameplay can be earned without IAP. Of course, just how much actual grinding is required -- who knows.
That appears to be true, but from what I read you still need a lot of grinding to get some stuff.
For instance, I read at TA that the cheapest soldier to buy costs 29000 gold and you gain around 500 gold per challenge mission (sort of a single player campaign) if you manage to complete every objective.
Of course, the amount of gold you gain per match could vary in late game, so I guess we'll see. Only spectulations so far. I might create a Canadian account to try it out.
My main concern though is that it seems like a really slow game, with fairly big maps and bullet sponge soldiers. That doesn't bode well for async games, since it's important to always have something going on so you're never bored.
toythatkills
Member
So wait, it's an async game where you can't possibly win because your opponent has spent more money/played longer?
Wow.
Wow.
There are five different base classes but every unit has different abilities so the two medics are also different from each other. Coin flows freely and I don't think it will be a problem. You get coins for completing the single player challenges, for every turn played in multiplayer, when your commander levels up and at the end of every multiplayer game. I started around 10:00 last night and I have already purchased a new gun for my commander and I'm 1/4 the way to getting my next unit. New outfits are the only thing you can only get with 'bux' but you can also trade coin in for bux. IAP seems like it is handled fairly especially considering the game is free and awesome.
Not at all. Everything is handled very fairly. When you start off playing you will play in 12 team point games. This means that you can only bring 3 units into battle (you start with 3) and the 12 team points also means that you can only use lighter weapons (which you start with). Your starting units are very well equipped and can hold their own in battle. Your commander also levels up very quickly. I started playing last night and I'm already level 7, the max is 15. You get 1,000 coins if you three star a single player challenge.
Multiplayer games are also very fast. You are forced to fight over a central point and at least have one unit in it after five turns. If you stay on the edges of the map and try and hide you will lose at the end of the fifth turn. If you are at all interested I recommend you make a Canadian iTunes account and try the game out. You create your account with WarChest so you can use the same account once the game is released worldwide.
Here is their new trailer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8q9khQq35g&feature=youtube_gdata_player
See that red or blue square in the middle of the levels? You HAVE to fight over that and have a unit in there after five turns or you lose.
edit: I will say that the IAP is slightly expensive at the moment and there are some conversations about that on the official forums. I have a feeling the IAP prices will go down for the official release but the game is awesome and by no means do you need to purchase anything to be competitive.
Mike Works
Member
The biggest problem I have with RAD Soldiers right now (I'm Canadian and have been playing for the last few days) is the camera angle obscures certain 'windows' in the map where you think you're behind cover, but you're not.
Also the store aspect seems pretty daunting with the coin prices.
Also the store aspect seems pretty daunting with the coin prices.
Doing an article on Freemium mobile games - the best, and the worst. Best can be things like Pocket Planes, or games that only have IAP for cosmetic changes. Worst would be games that employ an energy system or otherwise slow down player progress (it's lazy). Worst would also be multiplayer games that let you pay for in-game bonuses - Zynga's titles come to mind.
But I'd also like to have an example or two of just pure "money trap" games. They're "free" but then after an hour or so you just hit a level that's impossible without spending money. Does anyone know of any specific examples off the top of their head? I know I've played them but I didn't note the titles.
Anyway, if anyone has any Freemium games (good or bad) that jump out lemme know. I'll give you credit.
But I'd also like to have an example or two of just pure "money trap" games. They're "free" but then after an hour or so you just hit a level that's impossible without spending money. Does anyone know of any specific examples off the top of their head? I know I've played them but I didn't note the titles.
Anyway, if anyone has any Freemium games (good or bad) that jump out lemme know. I'll give you credit.
Dog Problems
Banned
Any pans to mention Snoopy's Street Fair? It's the only one that has kept me addicted for so long.
I'm probably going to avoid diving too deep into specific games. Instead I think I'm going to focus on the types of transactions that happen most often in Freemium games.
Cromulent_Word
Member
I would definitely put Mega Jump out there. One of the earlier, more successful yet still kinda-not-discussed-often, lighthearted, not-based-purely-on-addition-loops freemium games.
The most shameless attempt at a freemium cash-in was EA's Simpsons Tapped Out. Released originally to quite a fanfare, it was simply a Tap Tap Tiny Farm alike using extensive assets from the TV show. The game was hampered by insanely expensive units that basically required real money to obtain, but worse, the game was completely riddled with bugs and glitches that would completely fuck your game and prevent progress. People who paid real money for "donuts" were finding that they weren't appearing in game and even if they were, the expensive buildings they had bought kept disappearing. The game was withdrawn from the App Store amidst a shitstorm of angry customers. I kept an eye on the Facebook page for a while, and whilst there are allegedly plans to re-release it eventually, it is chock-full of people abusing EA and their attempts to release a broken cash-in.
Not the most shameful example of IAP abuse, but definitely worth a mention due to the profile of the title and the complete incompetence of EA.
Whale Trail is an example of how to ruin a game by going freemium. A few games have done so now (ex: Fruit Ninja) and managed to keep the base game in tact (well, you can fairly argue the high score table is ruined). Whale Trail however specifically nerfed the in game power ups in an attempt to get people to buy their IAP. The game was overrated to begin with, but that move was unforgivable (I'm still bitter if you couldn't tell
Dog Problems
Banned
Oh, gotcha. I guess Snoopy is just like the Smurfs game and their upcoming Shrek game.
Can you be more specific?Whale Trail is an example of how to ruin a game by going freemium. A few games have done so now (ex: Fruit Ninja) and managed to keep the base game in tact (well, you can fairly argue the high score table is ruined). Whale Trail however specifically nerfed the in game power ups in an attempt to get people to buy their IAP. The game was overrated to begin with, but that move was unforgivable (I'm still bitter if you couldn't tell
Mike Works
Member
Man, the items in RAD Soliders are expennnnnnnsive. I think if you purchased the $99 IAP, you still wouldn't be able to buy half the stuff in the game.
toythatkills
Member
I think it would be lazy on your part to simply assume that anything that has IAP to speed up progress is bad. There's a difference between, say, Let's Golf where you can play x amount of games then you have to STOP, and something like Tiny Tower where the waiting actually improves the game in a way.
Something like Triple Town is the worst example of IAPs ruining a game, for me. You can buy coins to buy items in game, and if you don't start a game with enough coins for those items then you're handicapped. You can earn the coins, but it takes a long time to save up, and while you're saving up, every single go you're having is completely pointless.
Also, yeah, what Zynga did to Words with Friends is worth a mention. Monetising it by letting people buy the ability to cheat completely destroys the competitive aspect of the game. The reason I moved to Wordfeud instead. And Whale Trail going freemium and fucking all the early adopters was terrible, too.
Name in RAD Soldiers? I'm loving the game, hopefully they adjust coin accumulation and IAP for the official release. I have a game going with one of the developers. If there was in-game chat I'd pester him that I need moar coins. You should say something in their official forums, hopefully they listen to the beta testers and make some positive adjustments.
Mike Works
Member
mikeworks
And I re-checked: if you make the $99 purchase, then I think you'd be able to buy almost everything in the game. Of course no one in their sane mind spends $99 on IOS single IAP's except for 9-year-olds. So yeah, after completing a challenge, it almost feels like you didn't really accomplish anything at all in turns of coin rewards.
Aside from that, the game could use a little more on the tutorial side. I still don't know what that floating robot you can summon does.
The core game itself is pretty fun though.
It's a bomb with a five square radius. Fly it near your enemies and then you should be able to detonate it, but it needs to have like one point of energy left to detonate.
The original ones are the better games but I haven't tried them on iPad yet. I wonder how it plays though because I've played the first episode of the TellTale series on iPad but found the controls bad compared to the PC and Wii versions.
The problem with progress-advancing IAPs is that they're knocking down artificial barriers.
The developers themselves put up barriers to slow down game progress for the SOLE PURPOSE of slowing it down. Then they offer to sell you a way to get around that barrier. It's insulting - it's psychological manipulation of the most base kind.
Nimblebit had 100% control over how fast their elevator moved. It's silly. At least it's more masked there than energy-based games. That's just lazy, as I said. "We can't come up with a real way to stop players from just binging for 8 hours, breaking our game. So we'll just give them a depleting energy bar."
I met with a developer proudly proclaiming "NO ENERGY BARS!" once. But then I nearly literally facepalmed when they explained that lost health in battles would refill slowly in realtime. Sigh.
Ironically Zynga's Farmville did it right. Or at least closer to right. There was a real, logical reason to take a break and come back the next day. No energy bar needed.
toythatkills
Member
I agree that certain things are there for the sole purpose of slowing a game down, I just don't necessarily agree that it follows that every such game is therefore bad.
I'm with you, to an extent. If you buy into a game that revolves around constructing buildings and sending planes on flights, you have to expect to wait for your results! The ten minute bursts of "gameplay" over the course of a day are often a draw.
I don't understand how Nimblebit's model is flawed though. As far as I an tell, they're one of the few companies that have it absolutely spot on.
Still if a great game suffers from this, it's a flaw and major one for many gamers. Game Design should always remain untouched and working just like the old days, no matter the business model. Broken also equal broken, no matter that there's IAPs to fix it.
Anyways, it's a TERRIBLE trend that plagues alot of IOS games and I really hope this will bounce back someday. What sad is that I'm 300% that people would spend just as much while playing games made just like before BUT with the option to buy anything when you want.(anything well, manner of speaking to get the point accross)
hyp
Member
added you on GC. hypoetical is mine. let's play!
In the game you collect these suns, and after you collect a few you go into frenzy mode. Before the update frenzy would last around 10 seconds, after it only lasts about 2. How do you get it back to 10 seconds? By spending the new in game currency to upgrade your frenzy mode of course. So you can either grind your way to earning back those upgrades, pay actual cash for upgrades, or do as I did and delete the app
Additionally, your life meter is also much smaller after the change. Of course this too can be upgraded back. I think you even need to upgrade your multiplier now. Though I probably shouldn't have even mentioned this game because it doesn't deserve any mention anymore.
Minsc
Gold Member
Speaking of freemiums, I just saw Juggernaut: Revenge of Sovering on a newsfeed recently, and it seems half decent. Sort of like a turn-based version of Infinity Blade, strange as that sounds. With better animation and more enemy variety. Don't know how long it'll keep me interested, but I've seen worse.
GDJustin, you should look at The Tribez for freemium done right, it's a beautiful time management / farming type game, with a very un-intrusive set of premium currency, definitely among the best builder type of that kind. Feels a lot more meaningful than Tiny Tower types to me, as your constantly building up the island to accomplish specific goals, and it gets very intricate later, with managing / trading resources between multiple islands, almost like an Anno game.
GDJustin, you should look at The Tribez for freemium done right, it's a beautiful time management / farming type game, with a very un-intrusive set of premium currency, definitely among the best builder type of that kind. Feels a lot more meaningful than Tiny Tower types to me, as your constantly building up the island to accomplish specific goals, and it gets very intricate later, with managing / trading resources between multiple islands, almost like an Anno game.
Finally, I did it: mastered all weapons, helmets, armor, shields and rings in Infinity Blade (twice, since it's in the new game+). Unfortunately there's no achievement or feasible way to screenshot all that. I'm not sure how long it took because I stopped playing the game for a long time, but then today I remembered I was one sword and two helmets from my arbitrary 100% and thought why not.
From the achievements proper I'm still lacking the last 5 ones from the arena. I don't know if/when I'll get those since 4 out of the 5 are multiplayer-related and I'm not sure if I can be assed to play it so many times. Anyway, I'm pleased. Not a single IAP bought either so I definitely got my money worth, haha. I'll go through IB2 eventually, for now I'm a tad burned out on the formula.
From the achievements proper I'm still lacking the last 5 ones from the arena. I don't know if/when I'll get those since 4 out of the 5 are multiplayer-related and I'm not sure if I can be assed to play it so many times. Anyway, I'm pleased. Not a single IAP bought either so I definitely got my money worth, haha. I'll go through IB2 eventually, for now I'm a tad burned out on the formula.
Agreed, great game. Tribez had its claws in me for weeks.
toythatkills
Member
How's Tribez on the battery? I had to stop playing No Zombies Allowed 'cause every time I opened it for two minutes it'd kill 5% of my battery.
dr3upmushroom
Banned
So I realize I'm a little late to the party on this but I finally downloaded Outwitters and I'm really liking it except the random leauge players are really flaky. I'd like to actually finish some games, my GC is Breakfast Dog, if anyone is looking for games send me an invite. I'm also playing on my girlfriend's iPad this week, her GC is [*]K Dawg[*].
I don't think there's a way to change the default at the start of battles but if you double-tap the view button it will always go to 100% if that helps (faster than pinching the screen).
EleventhDoctor
Banned
Today I was bored and decided to create myself a Japanese iTunes account to download that Million Arthur game and Guardian Cross seeing as how the former is never coming out elsewhere in the world and the latter is coming out... who knows when. I actually found both rather boring but hey, since I went through the trouble of creating an account I decided to try other iTunes Japan exclusive games, and the first on my list was Puzzle & Dragons since I had always seen articles and things about it on Famitsu App plus, it caught my eye how it's also the top grossing game in Japan at the moment... and OH MY GOD, this game is like crack!
It's kind of like Puzzle Quest but with monster battling/collecting/Pokemon thrown in and a dungeon crawler like look. Yes, it is as good as it sounds. And I thought perhaps making a post here might give it more exposure and get you people to try it and who knows, maybe it'll become popular and some company will localize it. The game is free but it has the usual social games IAP thing going on, it doesn't seem to obstrusive however:
http://itunes.apple.com/jp/app/puzzle-dragons/id493470467?l=en&mt=8
Despite the listing saying the game supports English... it does not, however it has a pretty easy tutorial that explains everything with arrows and stuff so even if you haven't a clue of Japanese you could probably still get along, of course, knowing at least kana will make it a lot easier.
It's kind of like Puzzle Quest but with monster battling/collecting/Pokemon thrown in and a dungeon crawler like look. Yes, it is as good as it sounds. And I thought perhaps making a post here might give it more exposure and get you people to try it and who knows, maybe it'll become popular and some company will localize it. The game is free but it has the usual social games IAP thing going on, it doesn't seem to obstrusive however:
http://itunes.apple.com/jp/app/puzzle-dragons/id493470467?l=en&mt=8
Despite the listing saying the game supports English... it does not, however it has a pretty easy tutorial that explains everything with arrows and stuff so even if you haven't a clue of Japanese you could probably still get along, of course, knowing at least kana will make it a lot easier.
dreamcastmaster
Banned
For best I'd include music games that have additional tracks for download. Decent base pack and then expand as you like.
nicoga3000
Saint Nic
Odd request...I played a LOT of Gun Bros in my time (haven't played in like 6+ months) but I'm itching for a game similar. Maybe not as IAP dependent...but one that has that RPG mechanic lined with action that can be played in relatively short bursts. Is there anything that might fit that besides Glu Mobile stuff?
Horseticuffs
Full werewolf off the buckle
There are a series of games that I think will fit the bill. Look for "Solomon's Boneyard" and another one called, I think, "Solomon's Tower". Both are excellent, free, and didn't originally have iAP so they don't NEED it. definitely worth your time.
in fact though I forget the developer's name all of their games are great. they've got a nice Metroidvania called "Robot wants kitty", and a fun and unique platformer called Hoggers". All of these are now free and they are working on a new Solomon game for newer devices so now is a great time to get in on the series.
nicoga3000
Saint Nic
Ah yes - I played both Solomon games when they first came out a long while back. Very fun and possibly worth reinstalling!
yellowmonkeystudios
Neo Member
Hello GAF! Hope I am posting this in the right place.
After completing 5 years, we here at YMS have an announcement that we are very excited about... our next game! We like to call it: HUEBRIX!
Coming to the iOS and Android stores on August 15th 2012 for $2.99 only. We also plan to give some promo codes during launch week!
Screenshots: http://huebrix.com/screenshots.html
Video: http://youtu.be/Mk5w4axtttk
Edit: Added the main menu screen up top
After completing 5 years, we here at YMS have an announcement that we are very excited about... our next game! We like to call it: HUEBRIX!
Coming to the iOS and Android stores on August 15th 2012 for $2.99 only. We also plan to give some promo codes during launch week!
Screenshots: http://huebrix.com/screenshots.html
Video: http://youtu.be/Mk5w4axtttk
Edit: Added the main menu screen up top
BradleyLove
Member
I'm literally stunned by CSR Racing... It represents by far the worst form of IAP I've encountered in any app so far.
To break it down in simple terms, here's a game that pauses itself for a set amount of time (gas, lol) and doesn't let you continue to play unless you pay money or wait.
The game controls when you can and can't play.
What. Kind. Of. Bullshit. Is. That.
It's shit like this that'll cause mobile gaming to crash hard (no pun intended).
Smh.
To break it down in simple terms, here's a game that pauses itself for a set amount of time (gas, lol) and doesn't let you continue to play unless you pay money or wait.
The game controls when you can and can't play.
What. Kind. Of. Bullshit. Is. That.
It's shit like this that'll cause mobile gaming to crash hard (no pun intended).
Smh.
Well, thansk for pointing it out. If ever I am attracted by buying this game I will remember that and will not do it.
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