A Gaming Diary
iPhone
iNetHack (iPhone)
Aug 11th
So, yes, I downloaded iNetHack and started it up.
Took me all of ten seconds to realise that I’ve completely forgotten how to play NetHack. I couldn’t even remember how to rename my pet. Or, indeed, myself. (It didn’t seem to ask me for a name when I started, but I could well have missed something.) I can’t even remember if NetHack is the correct capitalisation of the name. Maybe it’s Nethack.
So I put it down, decided to refresh myself with a desktop version of the game and a wiki and haven’t been back yet. Hardly worth blogging about, really, but I took the screen shot, so I have to. That’s the rule. That I just made up.
Words With Friends (iPhone)
Aug 11th
Played a lot of this over my long weekend.
By the way, if you’re wondering why there were no updates yesterday, it was my wedding anniversary and so my wife and I went down to Hastings and had a great time with claw machines, ice cream, sticks of rock, lovely fried food at the “famous” Mermaid Restaurant, etc. We also saw the world’s creepiest children’s ride.
“Wanna come for a ride, little kid?”
(By the way, that photo was taken with my iPhone. It does things that aren’t games… sometimes.)
Anyway, I’m winning some games and losing others. There really doesn’t seem to be pattern.
I’m resigning a lot more often now, when it’s obviously hopeless and there are no more letters in the bag.
Blue Skies 3GS (iPhone)
Aug 7th
Played another two or three missions this lunchtime.
It did nothing to convince me that I should be playing it more. It’s an okay time waster, but I just can’t get excited about it. I find lining up shots a bit fiddly and avoiding enemy fire is too hard, even now I’ve discovered strafing.
I know other people like it – and it’s not that I especially dislike it, myself – but, you know, the word that springs to mind is a simple, damning “meh”.
Str8ts (iPhone)
Aug 7th
Sometimes I’m an idiot.
Take a look at the red numbers I’ve listed as possibles in that almost-completed puzzle and see where I went wrong!
One of the problems I sorted out as soon as I took the picture, but another one I didn’t notice until I’d got myself completely tangled up.
Spy Bot Chronicles (iPhone)
Aug 7th
People complain that this blog costs them money. Apparently, I’m so persuasive that after reading about games on here they have to rush out and buy them. Well, okay, sorry about that. Let’s try and save you some cash now, shall we?
Spy Bot Chronicles, then. It was released yesterday and jumped on by members of the Touch Arcade forums and lavished with praise. It’s on a 59p introductory offer, but the price is expected to rise a fair bit before long.
Praise plus special offer equaled purchase.
So, what it is? It’s a 2D platformer that, apart from the odd nice bit of physics, is completely unremarkable. It’s, you know, fine, but that’s about it. The controls don’t work for me, either. Now, if you’ve been reading this, you’ll know that it took me about a week of iPhone ownership to go from “Virtual pads will never work! Burn them!” to “Actually, sometimes virtual pads work fine.”
Spy Bot Chronicles should be fine. It’s only got three buttons – left, right, jump – and they’re quite large. So how comes I keep missing them? How comes I run right when I want to go left and manage to hit the jump button, but then miss it half a second later when I want to double jump? I don’t know. Whatever the reason, I die more from missing the controls than anything else.
So you should obviously save your 59p and not buy this then.
Right?
Right?
Well, there’s two things stopping me from coming right out and telling you not to buy this game.
The first is that the buttons are so large, that I can’t help but feel that it must be my fault that I’m missing them. (Though I suspect that having them right up against the edge of the screen isn’t helping.)
The second reason is that, well, all the other iPhone games I’ve blogged about this morning are ones I played yesterday lunchtime. Apart from a few turns of Words With Friends, this is the only iPhone game I played all yesterday evening. I kept getting annoyed with it, planning new ways of cursing it… then going back to check it really was awful and playing another level. I’m well into the second world of four now.
So, yeah, there’s that. I’m very conflicted. I hate it. I loathe it. It frustrates me and makes me want to smash things… but I keep going back.
I’ll leave the final decision up to you, I think.
The Secret of Monkey Island Special Edition (iPhone)
Aug 7th
It’s a classic.
It’s a classic I’ve only played for five minutes many years ago – I never even left the Scumm Bar.
I loved Sam & Max Hit The Road. I rather like Day of the Tentacle, but I think I got stuck and never finished it. (This was in the days before GameFAQs.)
I played this enough to get out of the Scumm Bar, into town and to get used to the controls. (More or less – how quickly do you have to double tap for it to register? Really?)
It raised smiles. I think it even raised a couple of chuckles. I have no issue with the quality of the game. I can even work with the controls. That’s all fine.
It’s just that I really couldn’t be bothered to wander around talking to people and checking out locations to try and find out what to do next. I know that that’s the whole point of the game. I don’t know if I just can’t be bothered with adventure games any more or, as I think and hope is more likely, I just wasn’t in the mood yesterday. We’ll see.
Blue Skies 3GS (iPhone)
Aug 7th
This is a version of a well-received helicopter shooter that will only run on the 3GS, because it uses pixel shaders, or something.
It’s 59p.
I’ve not played it much, but I like the controls and it seems like it could be fun.
Really, though, you know the iPhone has arrived as a proper gaming platform when you start up a new game and the first thing you think is, “Ooh, the water looks nice.”
I hope to have something more constructive to say later, when I’ve played some levels that don’t just teach me the controls by giving me static targets to take out.
Regent Style vs Trombone (iPhone)
Aug 7th
Right, um, okay.
The trombone wants water. You have to use your hair to stop the trombone from getting the water. A click sends your hair up the screen. When it reaches the top it comes back down. If the trombone hits it, you get points. If you’re timing is off and the trombone gets to the water droplet, you lose.
I have no idea if this is as random as it appears or whether it’s a reference to something I have no knowledge of. (A forum in-joke somewhere? A reference to a popular beat combo I don’t know about?) I’m not sure it matters, frankly.
As a game it’s very simple, but playable – and it’s free. But I’m not sure whether the game’s the point.
Words With Friends (iPhone)
Aug 7th
What can I say that hasn’t been said?
Sometimes I win, sometimes I lose, I always keep playing.
Str8ts (iPhone)
Aug 7th
I love it when a plan comes together.
I’ve played quite a few more levels now with no problem. Mind you, that may be because people hardly ever phone me.
This really is a great puzzle – and it’s been put on the iphone with enough care to become a great puzzle game. Also, the developer has informed me that the puzzle is his own invention, it’s not based on any existing puzzle, Japanese or otherwise.
I don’t know why it’s grabbed me when other grid/number puzzles haven’t, but I’m not complaining.
