A Gaming Diary
iPhone
KenKen Lite (iPhone)
Aug 6th
Still in a puzzle mood, worried about the Str8ts bug, I downloaded KenKen Lite. I think it’s the same thing as the Killer Sudoku that’s in The Times every day. I don’t do it myself, but people in the office do.
It’s all right. The interface isn’t as good as the one in Str8ts, but it’s okay. The puzzles themselves are… fine, but that’s about it. I’m probably being a bit harsh on it because it’s £2.99, but it really didn’t grab me. Well, it didn’t feel like it grabbed me, but I did do all the puzzles in the Lite version before I turned it off, so it must have had something going for it.
Str8ts (iPhone)
Aug 6th
So, I was getting addicted to this. It’s a wonderful puzzle. However, I got a phone call while solving a puzzle. When I went back to the game, it crashed when trying to go to my last game. I could play all difficulties except the easiest, which is where I really need to be right now. In the end, I had to reset my data and start over from the beginning. (You can’t choose puzzles to play, you have to do them in order in each difficulty.)
A pretty fatal flaw, really, so before I went to bed I pouted on the Touch Arcade forums and sent an email to the developer. I woke up this morning to find two responses, one private message on the forum and one email, explaining that I’d been sent a private message and going into more detail about the problem, which seems to be very rare – and which only occurs on a few of the early levels, even then. The developers are apparently fixing things and hope to have an update sent off to Apple forthwith. Now that’s service.
Bad bug, yes, but great service, brilliant game. As Meat Loaf said, two out of three ain’t bad. In this case, I’d go further and say that it’s really rather good. I’ll carry on playing, at any rate.
Words With Friends (iPhone)
Aug 6th
Normally, I wouldn’t resign from a game. I like to take them to the bitter end.
However, with those scores the way they were and with the Q stuck in my hand I didn’t see any way out, so that game I gave up on. I wish there was some sort of etiquette for resigning. Looking back, I should have just used the chat screen to explain my decision.
Dungeon Scroll (iPhone)
Aug 6th
I did play through this game again last night. I meant to play a few levels, but it wouldn’t let go until I’d completed it again. Since last checking the high score board, I’d fallen down from fourth place to tenth.
What I really want to know is, how did Mr. Youallsuck get so many points up at the top of the leaderboard there? That’s an awful lot more than anybody else has got so far.
Anyway, I said it yesterday, I’ll say it again today: this is one of the best ways to spend 59p that you’ll find on the App Store or anywhere else. Even when it goes up £1.19, as seems to be the plan, it will be well worth your money.
Words With Friends (iPhone)
Aug 5th
Mwahahaha!
Awesomely, I’ve just managed to use up all my tiles for the second time in a single game. And this time no blanks.
Str8ts (iPhone)
Aug 5th
Stupid name, excellent puzzle game. In the grand tradition of Sudoku, Kenken, Nurikabe and all those things that clutter up the newspaper these days. I dunno what they all are. Anyway, I tried this on the game’s website and after a few minutes learning the rules I was away. I did the “My First Str8ts” puzzle, today’s daily puzzle and then went and bought the iPhone version. It’s £1.79, but it’s got a lot of puzzles, all of which have been designed by an actual human being person, and it’s the first grid/number puzzle to grab me in ages.
The iPhone version may not be especially aesthetically pleasing, but the interface is just about perfect. I’ve just done the first of the easy puzzles, which took me about fifteen minutes. It was challenging without being frustrating, so I hope that as I grow better at solving the puzzles the difficulty will grow with me, as it were.
I’d advise trying the puzzles on the web site before buying, but if it grabs you, rest assured that the iPhone implementation is very good, judging from first impressions.
I’m not sure if this is their own invention or, as seems likely, a renamed Japanese puzzle, but whatever it is, it’s a good one.
Dungeon Scroll (iPhone)
Aug 5th
Phew. I’ve just finished playing ace new word game Dungeon Scroll. I got a score of about 450,000 or so, putting me fourth the world… out of 125. So, not many copies of the game have been sold just yet, then. That’s hopefully a testament to the fact that it’s new, because first impressions suggest that it deserves to sell a lot more copies.
If you want to know what kind of game it is, think a real-time Bookworm Adventures with graphics in the style of old school first-person RPGs.
Oh.
You’ve never played Bookworm Adventures?
Bother.
Okay, let’s start again.
The game starts. You’re faced with an enemy. You have a grid of letters and you click on them to spell a word. When you submit it, the enemy loses health, the tiles return to your hand and you have to spell a different word, all while your health depletes on a timer. After a certain number of fights, you move on to the next dungeon, which basically means your health is completely refilled and you get a new set of letters.
That’s the basics, without mentioning the special tiles you find that can only be used once and the choice of bonuses and a few other wrinkles that add to, but don’t change, the main thrust of the game.
Basically, you’re using your tiles to spell as many words as possible as quickly as possible. If you’re faced with a rat, a three letter word might off it in one hit. If there’s a dragon, though, you better pull out the long words – and hope you’ve not used them all already on lesser enemies.
It’s great, great fun. I started it at my desk this lunchtime and couldn’t stop playing until I’d won the game. Yes, won the game. In one forty-five minute sitting. Without even getting close to dying at any point. But, you know, it’s about the scores. I will most definitely be going back to see if I can move up the leaderboard – and there’s also a harder difficultly level to try at some point.
It may not be an epic adventure, but I can see myself playing this many times. Whether I do or not remains to be seen.
(I also want to check if you get random letters in each dungeon or not. I doubt I’ll be able to tell unless I play through several times.)
Anyway, the introductory price is a mere 59p, so there’s no question about whether or not you should buy it. Even if I never play it again, 59p for a lunchtime filled with that amount of fun is cheap.
i Love Katamari Lite (iPhone)
Aug 5th
Tried this once again to see if the controls felt any better.
I played for a while, but the “neutral” angle that you have to hold the iPhone at when you don’t want to move feels unnatural to me when I’m slumped on the sofa. I should have checked if there were any calibration options, really. Until I got back and do that, the experiment is incomplete.
Mind you, unless the game goes on sale for half price I’m unlikely to buy it, anyway.
Wild West Pinball (iPhone)
Aug 5th
It’s a pinball game.
It’s free.
It works fine.
Physics seem okay to me.
It feels just a little bit empty, but only a little.
There’s a nice little mini game where you have to shoot a guy. I think his name is Harry.
It’s a pinball game.
Actually, there was a point to playing this last night. The guys that made this have released a new pinball table (The Deep) for 59p. It’s getting some good reviews, so I thought I’d remind myself what this was like to see if it I thought it was worth taking a chance on the new table.
Well, I ended up playing quite a lot and getting a new high score – though not only did I drop down the global online high score table when I posted it (I had been 9,998th when I last checked), but I fell off the bottom entirely. Bother.
And in the end it didn’t help my decision anyway. I like this enough to consider buying The Deep, but not enough to run out and buy it.
Skybound (iPhone)
Aug 5th
Bounce, bounce, bounce. Fail. Bounce, bounce, bounce. Fail. Etc.
No new high scores last night, not that it really matters. It’s the journey, not the destination. (Man.)
Can you tell that I’m running out of things to say about these great-but-simple iPhone games? I mean, in Skybound you use your finger to draw clouds so a ball doesn’t fall off the bottom of the screen. It looks gorgeous, plays well, all that stuff I’ve mentioned a million times. What else is there to say, really?
