• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

iOS Gaming February 2016 | Crashlands Bandicoot

M

Moreche

Member
I'll never understand why Apple are so backward on gaming, if they had updated the internals on the Apple TV, give GC a needed lift and take away the need for remote on ATV they could be onto a winner.
It's no wonder the App Store is in the state it's in.
As much as I would love to dump my PS4 and move over to iOS gaming only, the recent release of final fantasy IX shows me that these devices will never give me something like dying light or GTA5.
 
N

nampad

Member
Moreche said:
I'll never understand why Apple are so backward on gaming, if they had updated the internals on the Apple TV, give GC a needed lift and take away the need for remote on ATV they could be onto a winner.
It's no wonder the App Store is in the state it's in.
As much as I would love to dump my PS4 and move over to iOS gaming only, the recent release of final fantasy IX shows me that these devices will never give me something like dying light or GTA5.
Click to expand...

What is GC?
If you mean the game controller, I will never understand how Apple could ever think to make the mFI standard without clickable sticks, which are a standard in the industry. So fucking stupid.

Anyway, I am surprised they have been so defensive going into the settop box/micro console space. They could have had a winner but they failed. To be fair, everyone else also did (Amazon, Google and Sony).
 
N

nampad

Member
More_Badass said:
Oh snap, I didnt even realize but Luke Schieder, aka the one-man team behind Radiangames, is the lead designer on the Descent spiritual successor. Very awsome to see him working on such a cool project. It's currently on Kickstarter

---

And Nitrome's Rustbucket is looking it's going to get even deeper and more polished
Turn-based weapons to equip
https://twitter.com/nitrome/status/697100430631903236
Click to expand...

And now I thought the Descent spiritual successor was for iOS ;)
 
M

Moreche

Member
More_Badass said:
Oh snap, I didnt even realize but Luke Schieder, aka the one-man team behind Radiangames, is the lead designer on the Descent spiritual successor. Very awsome to see him working on such a cool project. It's currently on Kickstarter

---

And Nitrome's Rustbucket is looking it's going to get even deeper and more polished
Turn-based weapons to equip
https://twitter.com/nitrome/status/697100430631903236
Click to expand...
I'm hoping he sees real success with this as he deserves it.
I love his iOS games but I'm sure that at one point he was close to walking away from iOS development.
 
autoduelist

autoduelist

Member
Picked up Tales of a Viking based on recommendations here. The free demo was... interesting. I absolutely hated what a rip off of Hoplite it was [direct steal of all basic mechanics], but then they went and expanded the game and made it more 'rpg'-y -- you eventually get multiple characters, boss battles, etc. The sprites are near horrendous -- while they obviously put more into it than the basic graphics of Hoplite, they're very hard to read.

Anyway, I beat the demo and the full version was only a buck... so I couldn't resist. i paid more for Hoplite, so at least I still feel good about that since clone-y games irk the living hell out of me.
 
Xenoflare

Xenoflare

Member
Ok iOS gaf, help me out.

I really, really like the form factor of the Mini 4, but I'm very uncertain with the A8, for those of you that has it. Does it run Vainglory smoothly? I'm not looking to play that game, but rather I think it's a decent benchmark game to push the hardware towards it's limit.
 
A

awp69

Member
Xenoflare said:
Ok iOS gaf, help me out.

I really, really like the form factor of the Mini 4, but I'm very uncertain with the A8, for those of you that has it. Does it run Vainglory smoothly? I'm not looking to play that game, but rather I think it's a decent benchmark game to push the hardware towards it's limit.
Click to expand...

Vainglory runs perfectly fine on a Mini 2 so it should run like a charm on a Mini 4. You can't get much better than an A8. Sure, the Air 2 has an A8X but it's also got a larger screen to work with.

Just my 2 cents but I have yet to find a game that runs poorly on my lowly Mini 2.
 
Xenoflare

Xenoflare

Member
awp69 said:
Vainglory runs perfectly fine on a Mini 2 so it should run like a charm on a Mini 4. You can't get much better than an A8. Sure, the Air 2 has an A8X but it's also got a larger screen to work with.

Just my 2 cents but I have yet to find a game that runs poorly on my lowly Mini 2.
Click to expand...

The only thing that sets the Mini 4 and the Mini 2 apart is the 2GB RAM, IIRC A8 and A7 are really close in terms of performance.

I mean, unless you factor in Apple's claim where it has a "60%" GPU boost.
 
M

More_Badass

Member
Picked up Alpha Omega and Lettercraft. Definitely worth checking out if you're into word games
alpha_omega2.jpg
Lettcraft-Header-e1428033382615.png
Click to expand...
Alpha Omega is from the developer of Word² and the Har•mo•ny puzzlers; you're presented with a themed grid of letters, the words scrambled except for the first (and sometimes last) letter. You can only move each letter tile once, so that's an additional tricky puzzle element.

Lettercraft is faster paced, with unused letters growing hotter until disappearing from the board and reducing the available tiles. Each level has its own twist; for example, the first only allows words with the letter A in them

Both are very polished and both have a ton of levels.
 
M

More_Badass

Member
Okay, I have an itch for word games at the moment and just discovered one of the most interesting entries in the genre. And not surprising, it's from the same devs of quite possibly the best block sliding puzzler on mobile, aka Blockwick 2

Spell Rift, from the Kiefffer Bros. $4.99, came out in 2012

Just check out the trailer. Look at all those crazy tiles. The polish in the presentation.

ss2.png
ss4.png


With all the tiles you have to deal with it and the tricky secondary objective, Spell Rift is as much a puzzle game as it is a word game, challenging you to maximize every word and manipulate the letter grid

I love when I stumble upon an awesome hidden gem. Has anyone heard of this one before?
 
D

Danneee

Member
nampad said:
What is GC?
If you mean the game controller, I will never understand how Apple could ever think to make the mFI standard without clickable sticks, which are a standard in the industry. So fucking stupid.

Anyway, I am surprised they have been so defensive going into the settop box/micro console space. They could have had a winner but they failed. To be fair, everyone else also did (Amazon, Google and Sony).
Click to expand...

The whole mfi standard for gaming controllers is fucking stupid. But then again, Apple sure love their proprietary crap.
 
C

colinp

Banned
autoduelist said:
Picked up Tales of a Viking based on recommendations here. The free demo was... interesting. I absolutely hated what a rip off of Hoplite it was [direct steal of all basic mechanics], but then they went and expanded the game and made it more 'rpg'-y -- you eventually get multiple characters, boss battles, etc. The sprites are near horrendous -- while they obviously put more into it than the basic graphics of Hoplite, they're very hard to read.

Anyway, I beat the demo and the full version was only a buck... so I couldn't resist. i paid more for Hoplite, so at least I still feel good about that since clone-y games irk the living hell out of me.
Click to expand...

Yeah it starts as a clone but expands waaaaaaay out and that's what I love about it. Really takes the concept in an interesting direction. Totally worth the price, it's a slick game!
 
A

awp69

Member
Xenoflare said:
The only thing that sets the Mini 4 and the Mini 2 apart is the 2GB RAM, IIRC A8 and A7 are really close in terms of performance.

I mean, unless you factor in Apple's claim where it has a "60%" GPU boost.
Click to expand...

That extra GB of RAM can make a huge difference too, but, regardless, you should have no problems playing any of the latest games on a mini 4. Only other option is to wait and see what Apple announces this year.
 
N

nampad

Member
Just finished Framed and I have to say the game overstayed its welcome quite a bit even though it is only 90 minutes long. I guess I was expecting too much after the praise the game got from Kojima.

After all, it had one clever gimmick but that wasn't enough to be interesting for longer than 10 minutes and it also just played out to be mostly trial and error. Probably next to Monument Valley one of the most disappointing mobile darlings for me so far.
 
M

More_Badass

Member
So am I the only one who's played Spell Rift? It has so many cool mechanics, really adds an element of strategy and smart board management to the word game formula

To make a few:
- Plate-covered tiles that become unscrewed with each use until the plate falls and reveals another letter
- Bomb tiles that count down with each turn
- Spinner tiles that spin a new letter each turn
- Virus tiles spreads a specific letter across the board
And more

Basically if you liked how polished the Blockwick games were, this is a no-brainer. This is a word game with the same level of polish, variety, and uniqueness that they brought to the sliding block puzzler
 
K

KtSlime

Member
Xenoflare said:
The only thing that sets the Mini 4 and the Mini 2 apart is the 2GB RAM, IIRC A8 and A7 are really close in terms of performance.

I mean, unless you factor in Apple's claim where it has a "60%" GPU boost.
Click to expand...
I have a mini 4 and love it. The A8 works much better in it than my iPhone 6, and I can go back to a game a week later and it never dumped it from memory. It's very smooth, and fast.
 
K

killercow

Member
Circa Infinity is beyond amazing. I still wish it had MFi controller support sometimes but I'm still progressing. Now on Act V, level 6.

It's getting impossibly hard though :)
 
C

colinp

Banned
More_Badass said:
So am I the only one who's played Spell Rift? It has so many cool mechanics, really adds an element of strategy and smart board management to the word game formula

To make a few:
- Plate-covered tiles that become unscrewed with each use until the plate falls and reveals another letter
- Bomb tiles that count down with each turn
- Spinner tiles that spin a new letter each turn
- Virus tiles spreads a specific letter across the board
And more

Basically if you liked how polished the Blockwick games were, this is a no-brainer. This is a word game with the same level of polish, variety, and uniqueness that they brought to the sliding block puzzler
Click to expand...

Sounds neat, alas I don't have the $ to check it out at the moment. Will keep it in mind for the future though.

Is Impossible Road worth a download?
 
Matt Frost

Matt Frost

Member
colinp said:
Is Impossible Road worth a download?
Click to expand...

I love Impossible Road a lot. Is the best twitch game of that genre and even has a hidden mechanic that is quite hard to master and so rewarding: "jumping" down lanes. Is also addictive. One of my favorite games for a quick play.
 
I

infiniteloop

Member
Real Racing 3 is out for Apple TV.

downloads 247 mb.... plays tutorial, downloads another 204 mb
start race, dl another 40mb.

Shows Siri controller directions on screen when MFi controller is being used.
 
P

Pachimari

Member
How many here are still playing Spider-Man Unlimited? I'm thinking of making an OT, and we could eventually create an alliance.
 
M

More_Badass

Member
Man, my dad is a hard man to please. He pretty much only plays Into The Dead, GunnerZ, and Merged, plus the occasional Angry Birds, so I was trying to introduce him to some better games

- No story, no reading required
- Controls can't be too complicated (so no dual sticks or platformers or tilting or rotating)
- Quick, arcadey, no long sessions
- Nothing too "kiddy"
- A little brain teasing, but not too complex
- Physics-based gameplay is cool

After about an hour of letting him try different games on my Mini, we finally narrowed it down to two games he liked: Super Sharp and Swapperoo
 
H

Heel

Member
More_Badass said:
Like on sale free, or price change free
Click to expand...

lol it's sad that we have to wonder if a game is "really free" when it goes on sale. It hasn't updated since December, so whatever they were charging money for is now...um, "free."

Curious if they just did this on their own, or if Apple stepped in when they saw the news. I say this assuming a Free App of the Week receives some kind of compensation from Apple? I don't really know how it all works, tbh.
 
M

More_Badass

Member
protonium said:
What about Threes, Sage Solitaire, PuzzleJuice, or SpellTower? What dad doesn't love cards and words :D

My dad won't adventure past Solitaire and Free Cell on the PC, heh.
Click to expand...
Threes would be too "kiddy" for him and PuzzleJuice would be too complicated, but Sage Solitaire and SpellTower are good suggestions, thanks
 
PittaGAF

PittaGAF

Member
colinp said:
Yeah it's tragic. Such a great game! Such a great catalog!
Click to expand...

I know they are all ok, all have (even high profile) jobs and the like (I still keep in touch with them) and maybe I'm just being selfish while instead I should just being grateful for the hundreds of hours of fun I had with their games.

But I can't help to think about an alternate reality where I'm now playing Deathwatch new campaign in coop multiplayer and drooling over Warhammer Quest 2 using the U4 engine.

What a weird world we live in...
 
T

Tunesmith

formerly "chigiri"
awp69 said:
Seriously? You need to play it. It's awesome. And not sure what bugs there were at launch, but I haven't had any issues with it.
Click to expand...

I had an almost uncanny ability to generate crash bugs with this game at launch, spent more time filing bug reports than running the game. Never got past the prologue. I'm fairly certain the game runs fine these days but I have no desire to boot it up anymore. Rodeo lost me when they went after that Warhammer money.
 
K

killercow

Member
PittaGAF said:
I know they are all ok, all have (even high profile) jobs and the like (I still keep in touch with them) and maybe I'm just being selfish while instead I should just being grateful for the hundreds of hours of fun I had with their games.

But I can't help to think about an alternate reality where I'm now playing Deathwatch new campaign in coop multiplayer and drooling over Warhammer Quest 2 using the U4 engine.

What a weird world we live in...
Click to expand...

Yeah, I know how you feel. Sadly, that happens a lot in mobile...
 
M

More_Badass

Member
From TA:
If sources who contacted us are to be believed, developing a Warhammer game consists of giving Games Workshop upwards of 50% of the game revenue until a certain threshold is hit, at which point that percentage ratchets back significantly to around 30% or so.

So, it's entirely possible that the original revenue sharing target for Deathwatch was really high, leaving Rodeo Games with 50% of the proceeds (likely after Apple's 30%) of a game that already didn't sell well.
Click to expand...
Ouch, that's brutal
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

Apple has rejected Epic Games' subimission of their own Epic Games Store in IoS
News Game Dev 2 3 4
154
10K
SomeGit replied
Balatro coming to iOS & Android Sept 26 - Included in Apple Arcade
28
1K
bender replied
Apple to allow game emulators on iOS App Store
News Platform
27
3K
DaGwaphics replied
Fortnite and Epic Games Store now available on iPhone in the EU.
31
2K
IFireflyl replied
VR and alternative options for movement
0
162
The Infectious Paradox replied
Top Bottom