miffy495

iPhone/iTouch gaming

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Well, as I dug Monkey Ball, I figured I'd give a few other games a try. Downloaded two more. So, without further ado:

The first is that Trism game that got featured on Kotaku a while back. I thought it was a pretty cool idea. Bejewled, but with the way you hold the phone contributing to the gameplay. Fired up the endless mode. Bad choice. Played for over an hour. Bloody addictive. For $5, definitely recommended. The fact that the game includes achievements is cool, and always a pleasant surprise when you unlock something. Fun, addictive, simple, makes good use of the accelerometer. Good job all around.

The second game is called Tap Tap Revenge. I was just surfing around looking for reviews of iPod games and came across it. Went to the iTunes store to check it out, and lo and behold, it's fucking free. Not being stupid, I downloaded it and gave it a try. Very addictive rhythm game. The commands that ask you to shake the ipod in a certain direction are not as sensitive as they should be, but there's an option to turn them off and replace them with normal notes. You have three bars, red, blue, and green, and as orbs fly down them, you need to tap on the orb as it crosses a line at the bottom of the screen. Sound familiar? Actually can get pretty challenging, and I found myself having to put three fingers over the bottom of the screen on hard and higher lest I fuck up. Easy and medium can be played just moving your index finger around though, and are nice and relaxing. There are only two complaints I have with this game. Firstly, the aforementioned ipod flick notes don't hit as often as they should. Again though, this is a non-issue as they can be disabled outright. Secondly, the tracklist is incredibly sparse, though there is already DLC songs you can get. Those are free as well. To summarize, the game is free, the extra songs are free, the only problem with the gameplay is entirely optional. Get this damn game. The only way it could be better is if it incorporated the music I already have like Audiosurf or Phase.

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I've been promised our Creative Director's 1st-gen iPhone when he upgrades some time shortly, so I'll look forward to playing these. Never played Monkey Ball on any system, so is this as good a starting point as any?

What impresses me most, about the potential for the iPhone as a games platform, is that I'm consistently hearing it's at least comparable to the PSP in terms of technology. And developers I know have been saying this since the first version launched, nevermind that you can now throw GPS into the bargain too.

It'd be great to see something as ambitious and fun-sounding as the Gizmondo's Colors realized at last. Exciting times indeed.

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Unfortunately, my device being an iPod touch and not an iPhone, I'm lacking in GPS functionality so I don't get to try those games out... ;(

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You can still do positional fixing with the first-generation iPhone and Touch though. And that's all you really need, even if you need to hit a button every time.

Besides, you're not allowed to take iterative, successive fixes on the iPhone 3G - it's explicitly stated in the developer Ts&Cs. Speculation is that allowing turn-by-turn precision would completely drain battery power in a very short period of time.

So, in theory, Colors would be possible on any version of the iPhone/Touch. You'd just load the game, tap* to take a fix, then start playing. That experience would be quite so silky smooth, but it certainly wouldn't be a complete ball-ache either.

* I'm not sure you could build in auto-fix functionality when an application starts as I've not read into the dev guide(s) yet.

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Well, I've just been ridiculously lucky. I asked orange for my PAC code earlier this week, and had been phoning up one of local O2 stores daily to check. As it happened, a 16Gb had just come back on sale, as someone had failed a credit check. A quick word with my boss, and one cab ride later... woot!

What a fabulous piece of equipment!

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Hooray! As I mentioned, Tap Tap Revenge is a must-get. Monkey Ball is great (Beaten 40% of it now, really getting a feel for the controls, even moreso than when I played it on Wii), and Trism is addictive as hell. Enjoy your shiny new toy!

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I <3 my 30gig 5th gen ipod, but I gave it away and bought me an ipod touch to do development work on. I'm *so* glad I got one, what a fantastic piece of kit!

I've been working on a game for it called Geomex. I've described it as Bejewelled + Tetris + combo system + a lot of awesome. :) I've been blogging my progress on Twitter of all things, as an experiment of sorts.

Follow along here if you're interested: http://twitter.com/caffeinemonster

SiN

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What the iphone needs is some sort of Footballl manager game. The amount of people who spend their lives on that game would make whoever did a bagload...the UI would need to be flawless though for ease of use

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I <3 my 30gig 5th gen ipod, but I gave it away and bought me an ipod touch to do development work on. I'm *so* glad I got one, what a fantastic piece of kit!

I've been working on a game for it called Geomex. I've described it as Bejewelled + Tetris + combo system + a lot of awesome. :) I've been blogging my progress on Twitter of all things, as an experiment of sorts.

Follow along here if you're interested: http://twitter.com/caffeinemonster

SiN

Looks quite interesting... Beta tester needed? :P

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Hey cool, I just downloaded the SDK myself :shifty:

And finally upgraded the iPod to 2.0. Been playing around with a few free apps but haven't bothered with any pay games yet. I'm curious about GalCon though. HOWEVER, I have been playing with this:

http://toucharcade.com/2008/08/13/frotz-interactive-fiction-comes-to-the-iphone/

FROTZ. On the go. YES! And it comes bundled with a whole slew of games. Awesome. I could never really get into IF because I never had the patience for it, but one a train or plane it could be great.

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What the iphone needs is some sort of Footballl manager game. The amount of people who spend their lives on that game would make whoever did a bagload...the UI would need to be flawless though for ease of use

I hadn't actually thought of this, but you're so absolutely right! I wish I had more than the slightest interest in sports, because if I did, I'd be writing this game now and would laugh my way to the bank soon thereafter. :)

No beta testing required I'm afraid. Apart from it being a bit complicated to set up (it's not a matter of just sending you an exe) my buddies who are suppose to be studying for their exams are more than happy to obsessively play Geomex instead. :)

SiN

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Ok, well it was worth a shot at least :grin:

I'd love to write such a game (for the aforementioned bank reason), but similarly to you I have not a great deal of interest in sports games, especially footie mgt games, unlike you however, I have no skill at coding. So :fart: to that! :)

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Just heard about X-Plane being ported to the iPhone and couldn't quite believe it until I'd read about it.

Just... wow. :eek:

<snark>In case it hadn't become apparent, I'm now not getting an iPhone due to a swift about face by the person who originally wanted to give me their old one, fuck you very much.</snark>

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So I bought iSplume. That was the first iPod App I purchased and it's... OK. Passes the time in short bursts but there's not a lot to it. Then again, it is $3 and I did feel like giving Flashbang Studios my money after all the enjoyment I got out of Velociraptor.

Unfortunately, this game is totally deficient in dinosaurs. Gonna try some other stuff soon.

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Make sure you also check out Aurora Feint. Sliding blocks puzzle combined with RPG elements in a similar vein to Puzzle Quest. It's the best free game on the app store.

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The games that are based on GPS are the way forward.

So...out of curiosity...what kind of fun stuff do you do with GPS capabilities? Sprint down the block or something?

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Obviously, players will compete to get the highest GPS coordinates.

Heheheh :tup:

That would be what, the South Pole?

GPS presents great possibilities for ARGs. You could also have a GPS version of 'Barcode Battlers', where your position generates the stats for the monsters you fight and the loot you collect.

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<snark>In case it hadn't become apparent, I'm now not getting an iPhone due to a swift about face by the person who originally wanted to give me their old one, fuck you very much.</snark>

Exactly the same thing just happened to me. I even got a call today asking for numbers starting with "Hi, I'm just setting up my new iphone..."

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Jesus, people are A-holes... :tdown:

On the positive side: I pre-ordered a shiny, shiny new Nokia N96 on Wednesday, which should arrive the middle of next week. Very excited!

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So...out of curiosity...what kind of fun stuff do you do with GPS capabilities? Sprint down the block or something?

Heh! I can't see that selling too many to tech geeks :P

More about the location based aspect crossover of social networking into games. If you can make a simple, fun, casual game that links into facebook and google maps or whatever and can be cross phone platform for those with HTcs, iphones etc., as soon as more phones become GPS capable, I can see it going a storm. Heck, the amount of people that love twitter shows that people are getting round to being willing to connect as often as possible and tell everyone that they are connected - if you can come up with something that becomes addictive enough, you're made.

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