A Gaming Diary
iPhone
Sketch Hop (iPhone)
Aug 26th
Hmpf.
New free 3GS-only game showing off Mad Monkey’s new sketch shaders.
Except, when I try to play it, I just get screens that look like this.
That’s after rebooting, redownloading, even a hard reset.
Bother.
Mr.AahH!! (iPhone)
Aug 26th
What with one thing and another (two-and-a-half hour trip to Tesco, season finales of the surprisingly entertaining Desperate Romantics and that Channel 4 Charlie Brooker thing) I didn’t get much time to play games last night. When I did play, though, it was Mr.AaHH! all the way.
No new high scores to report or anything, but the fun is still very much there. A little iPhone gem.
Words With Friends (iPhone)
Aug 26th
Hmm.
I’m sure I should have been able to use the Q and the Z, but I couldn’t see how, so settled on a less-than-mighty QUIT.
Puzzlings (iPhone)
Aug 25th
I didn’t play as much Mr.AahH!! as I thought I would because I found myself unable to tear myself away from Puzzlings last night.
It’s a match-three, like Bejeweled, but instead of only being able to swap blocks that are next to each other you can drag long lines of tiles to swap and drag squares to rotate the blocks within them. You also get big blocks, that are harder to deal with and, when you fill your combo bar, you get pieces of a round object, which you have to put together. Put to together two of them and you win the stage. (Unless it’s a challenge stage which, I think, requires you to make four.)
Don’t worry, I may not be able to explain it very well, but it makes sense when you play.
You also get puzzle stages, where you have to remove all the blocks in the fewest number of moves possible. They’ve proven to be the hardest part of the game so far, but seem obvious as soon as you see the solution.
All the while, you’re earning new clothes, accessories and skins for your little avatar chap. You can see mine in the screen shots, to the left of the grid. If you like, you can go home and pose him in front of the camera.
It’s, I assume, meant to appeal to kids… but I’m thirty-six and the thing that keeps me playing is earning all these new ways to change how my avatar looks.
Well, no, that’s unfair. They’re a great bonus, but it’s the gameplay that really keeps me playing. The twists on the standard formula make the game a lot more interesting than many of its rivals. When I first started playing, I was only really using the rotate move to orient single pieces that I needed to face a certain way. The puzzle stages taught me how useful rotating could be in normal play and I’ve started, just started, to make it a part of my regular play.
If I have one complaint, it’s that I seem to be over half-way and haven’t really been troubled yet. I’ve got all the costume items from every level I’ve unlocked and, for the most part, I’ve got them the first time I’ve played. Still, there’s a way to go yet and even if it never gets very hard, I’ve still enjoyed myself an awful lot.
In short: Hooray for Puzzlings!
Mr.AahH!! (iPhone)
Aug 25th
Played quite a bit of Mr.AahH!! last night. Not as much as I expected, but quite a bit.
It’s really very, very good and you should all at least try the Lite version. It’s free, you know.
I even did well enough to get to tenth place on the all-time scoreboard.
Of course, the game was only released yesterday, so the all-time scoreboard was the same as the daily one, but let’s not mention that, okay?
Big Top Ten (iPhone)
Aug 24th
Big Top Ten is, without a doubt, an excellent game. If I ever write my “Sixteen iPhone Game You Must Own” article that I’ve been planning, Big Top Ten has a good chance of being in the list. It’s not a sure thing, but it’s got a good chance.
There is however, something you need to know about it.
If you don’t play it for a while, you lose all your skills. Big Top Ten skills are just that. You can’t keep up your skills by playing other games. Playing Big Top Ten doesn’t make you better at other games. It sits on its own, doing its own thing.
This is not a bad thing at all. It’s just something you have to remember, to stop yourself from bursting into tears when you start the game up after a few weeks and find yourself hunched over your iPhone, your face red, straining to squeeze out even tiny amounts of points. My best score this lunchtime was a pitiful 2,007. Must try harder.
Mr.AahH!! (iPhone)
Aug 24th
I also noticed that a game called Mr.AahH!! had been released for the iPhone this morning. Looked like one of those simple games that work well on the iPhone, so I downloaded the Lite version.
You swing from platform to platform. Mr. AahH!! swings automatically, you tap the screen to let go, the idea being to land in the middle of the next platform. As you advance, the wind and gravity change and you have to allow for them when timing your release. You can also tilt the phone to make small adjustments to your flight, but I’m not sure how much difference it makes, if any.
Anyway, I played the Lite version. A lot. I finished it. I got to the number two spot on the leaderboards. And then I downloaded the full version – it’s 59p – and played that. I’m currently sixth in the leaderboad on that one.
Anyway, it’s brilliant. It’s simple, professional, addictive and has great presentation. Even the sounds are great – it just sounds exactly like a video game should. You’ll see what I mean when you play it. And you really must play it. It’s excellent. If this doesn’t rocket up the charts there’s no justice in the world.
Try the Lite version, at least. You won’t regret it.
Numeri (iPhone)
Aug 24th
Looking at the New Games page on Touch Arcade this morning (no, still no sign of Geodefense Swarm) I noticed that this had become free. The icon made it look like a Slitherlink clone, so I took a closer look.
It is indeed a Slitherlink clone. Unfortunately, I cannot for the life of me work out how to play the bloody thing. You don’t touch the lines round a square, you touch a square and lines are drawn around it according to some arcane rules I cannot even begin to fathom out.
Unless someone can explain it to me, or unless I’m missing some other way to play, I’m going to have to declare this completely unplayable.
Puzzlings (iPhone)
Aug 24th
I’m really fed up with Blogger this morning. It’s just not working properly. So I won’t be giving Puzzlings the write-up it deserves.
Puzzlings is another match-three game, but with some interesting wrinkles and lots of character customisation.
I’ve been enjoying it an awful lot and I am very glad I spent 59p on it.
That’s really all you need to know, anyway.
