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A Gaming Diary
Sketch Hop (iPhone)
Aug 27th
I’ve downloaded the game several times, both via my computer and direct to my iPhone. I’ve rebooted, done a hard reset, freed memory using the Activity Monitor app, I even did a Restore in iTunes. (I did then restore from an old backup, rather start over fresh. There’s only so far I’ll go!)
Still, the results are the same. I start Sketch Hop, I get this.
The music starts, stutters for a while, then seems to play okay. I even seem to get a few sound effects, but all I see are shifting blocks on the screen, often with a little bit of fancy shading over on the left of the screen. In case the developer comes back again and finds it useful, here are some of my stats from Activity Monitor.
I’m a bit worried that there’s something wrong with my iPhone hardware, but I’ve tried Blue Skies 3GS, my only 3GS-only app and games like Terminator Salvation and Real Racing and they all play fine.
Oh, and for the record, I have not “jailbroken” my iPhone. It’s running all official software and always has been.
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.
Animal Crossing: Let’s Go To The City (Wii)
Aug 26th
When you wish upon a star… oh, wait, as far as I can tell, you can’t do that in this version.
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.
