InvertY.com
A Gaming Diary
Cavern (iPhone)
May 10th
In my previous post about Cavern I mentioned I was having trouble with the movement controls. Well, that’s no longer a problem. My brain adjusted quite quickly and now I’m completely comfortable with the control scheme. (And there is an option for more standard relative movement controls, but I actually prefer the default control scheme now.)
Squishing bugs for fun and XP.
Without the control problems I was able to dig into the game properly. It’s a fairly simple roguelike, but a solid and playable one. It reminds me of ZAngband in the way you often need to return to the surface for supplies, but magic scrolls that teleport you back are cheap and plentiful, so it feels more like a quick break than a tension-reducing slog.
It’s a harsh game, too – no matter how well you think you’ve been doing, you can die in seconds if you don’t keep your wits about you – but that’s not a bad thing at all.
I also like the variety of locations, with things like bridges and brick-walled, finely-carpeted rooms breaking up the brown and grey of the cavern. Well worth a look if you’re into roguelikes, I can’t see this being deleted off my iPhone any time soon.
iNetHack (iPhone)
May 10th
I keep failing to notice that I’m hungry. I’m not sure if it’s because it doesn’t tell you in portrait mode – which it might well do – or if my stupid, rubbish eyes just aren’t noticing.
Poor Meatbreath. A monster killed him as soon as we stepped out of the starting room.
It’s a problem. Especially when I faint from lack of food and end up being eaten alive by sewer rats, while helpless. That’s a terribly ignominious end for any adventurer.
Sword of Fargoal (iPhone)
May 10th
Another great game that I’ve played for the first time in ages. Since I last played it’s had a lot of updates, but I didn’t notice many changes in the two or three floors I played. Mostly, I assume, because I was continuing an old save game – I think I lot of the changes are to do with additional gameplay modes. I’ll investigate them once I’ve won or died with my current character.
One change I did notice was the introduction of shields, which I don’t think were in the last version I played. A small change, but anything that helps me survive is welcome.
Look! I've got a shield!
Also, all the passages I found to other maps on the same level as me seemed to be blocked – not sure what’s that around. Bad luck, glitch, new design? I must investigate further.
Anyway, it’s still probably the best introductory roguelike on the iPhone. (And it is a roguelike, as far as I’m concerned. It’s got randomly-generated dungeons, loot to find, monsters to fight and, crucially, permadeath.)
Ninjatown: Trees of Doom! (iPhone)
May 10th
Played a lot of this over the weekend and finally managed to get above 1,000 metres. Or feet. Or whatever scale it’s using. I can’t remember offhand. Let’s just call it points. I got over 1,000 points. There. Good. Let’s move on.
It’s a great little game, but I’ve got a bigger problem than the splash screens I mentioned earlier. Let’s look at the picture below.
Branches are springy.
You see that arrow? That shows where you’re going to land when you jump off the branch. You aim by pulling down and releasing. Seems simple, but every now and again when I take my thumb off the screen the arrow changes and instead of leaping to safety, I leap to my doom.
It wasn’t much of a problem at first, but now I’m getting better at the game, I’m finding that most of my deaths come from these bad leaps. It’s starting to get annoying. Either I’m going to have to find a way to let go of the screen without changing my aim or I’m going to delete in the game in a fit of frustration.
I hope it’s the former, because everything else about the game is just lovely.
Run! (iPhone)
May 10th
A much-loved iPhone game that I’ve not played in a long, long time. It’s been through several updates since I last gave it a go, including OpenFeint support and new game modes.
Purple = zombie
I just stuck with the main game, though. I’m not sure if I ever had any skills, but if I did, I seem to have lost them. That said, I do seem to be top of my friends leaderboard – but I think that says more about my friends than me.
Words With Friends (iPhone)
May 10th
Don't you just hate when you've got a great word and nowhere to put it?
Haven’t got many games on the go right now. If you want a game, please start one against me. I’m ThatRevChap.
Trials HD (360)
May 10th
Polished off the Easy and Medium levels at the weekend. I think I got a Silver medal on one level, but it was all Bronze medals apart from that. It’s getting tricky now – I wonder how I’ll cope with the Hard levels?
(Of course, if I hadn’t spent several minutes trying to get a strike on a level that included a set of out-of-the-way bowling pins I’d have probably tried out one or two of the Hard levels by now.)
Black (360)
May 10th
You remember Black, right? An Xbox first-person shooter with satisfying gunplay – both stealth and all-out-guns-blazing-near-genocide – and brilliantly designed levels and huge explosions and graphics so beautiful that they still look half-decent today.
It should, by rights, have been an absolute classic, but lengthy, incredibly, astoundingly dull, unskippable cut scenes and a save system that meant that there was no point playing the game unless you had a couple of hours to spare conspired against all the good things it did.
I played through the first two levels again on Sunday (with my iPhone in hand for the cut scenes) and nearly wept at the missed opportunity. It’s so, so close to being one of the very best FPS games that’s ever been made, but what I can only assume is some sort of bloody-minded “we’re going to make you appreciate our art whether you like it or not” attitude brings the whole thing crashing down.
The fact that I still put it on now and again, half a decade or so since it’s release, shows the quality. The fact that I’ve only ever seen the first few levels illustrates the problems.
Cavern (iPhone)
May 7th
Another roguelike, this one built specifically for the iPhone. I’ve not played it much, but it seems like it could be very decent if I can get the hang of the movement controls. At the moment I’m all over the shop. The principle seems decent – tap the square you want to move to – but somehow I keep mucking it up and running around like a loon. (There’s also a small d-pad in the bottom of the screen, but I’m having even less luck with that. Sometimes it moves me, most of the time it seems to do nothing. Perhaps I should check for instructions, eh?)
An epic battle, possibly.
It also seems awfully easy to die, but I don’t think that’s a bad thing. Nothing wrong with a good bit of permadeath.
If you’ve not played any sort of roguelike before then the magnificent Sword of Fargoal is probably the easiest starting point, but this looks like it might be another worthwhile example of the genre. I’ll hopefully have better impressions after the weekend, if iNetHack doesn’t eat all my roguelike gaming time.
iNetHack (iPhone)
May 7th
Bravo! Three cheers for the developer!
I tried iNetHack out a long, long time ago and found it a little too fiddly, as I remember. The latest version, though, is much improved, with a far better interface and lovely graphics that combine familiar letters and simbols with nicely-drawn graphics.
Get out of the way, dog.
It’s still NetHack – and as such probably incomprehensible to newcomers, though help is available – but it’s a great implementation and the developer has to be applauded for improving the game so much from the initial release.
The biggest test for me when I come back from a long time away from NetHack is how easily I can find a way to rename my pet. I had to look through a fair few menus in this version, but I found it fairly quickly and now have a lovely little dog called Ralph. He keeps wandering off, but he does like eating goblin corpses, bless him.
