pabosher

iOS Gaming

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Planet Quest is a single-button rhythm-game that I'm enjoying.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/planet-quest/id922848069?mt=8

It does some unfair things to the player that make this game feel a little more playful than I am used to. So one thing I enjoy about listening to jazz-solos is that they often have an established melodic theme that each soloist riffs off of. So a very very simple example of this would be to have a drum-beat that goes

xoooxoooxoooxooo and then someone plays with it a little bit by first referencing the pattern and then subverting it playfully.

xoooxoooxoooxoox That slight variation of the theme reminds the listener that each beat remains a potential until hit.

Of course there is infinite complexity to how this can be done. My personal hypothesis is that the biggest aspect of melodies (which are the pitches and their rhythms, think "twinkle twinkle little star") that causes me to be engaged with it is how it matches with my current conception of theme and variation. Remember, I'm mostly talking about the melody. It gets confusing, especially because I might not be using the right terminology. The way I think of dance-music is that there is an overall rhythm, a bass-line which adds pitches to the overall rhythm, and then melodies laid on top that have both pitches and rhythms of their own. So I'm talking about that top layer, but really it's all bullshit because one person's bassline might be another person's melody. I don't know what I'm talking about.

Anyway my personal hypothesis is that I like things musically that are right on the edge of whether or not I can identify the repeating melodies; what I also think of as the "themes". If I can identify it easily and predict the entire song, I get bored musically (when the emotions of vocals and lyrics enter the picture things can drastically change), but if I can't identify the theme at all then I never feel engaged by the piece. My skill at identifying themes increases over listens, so my musical taste changes over time. I am attracted to things that I mostly don't understand, but which have enough familiarity that I know where to start.

Planet Quest's music is not very complex, but it plays with the rhythms of the melodies in a way I find interesting. Most rhythm-games allow the player to trust that the rhythm will remain consistent with their expectations, Planet Quest does not seem to care. It wants to change the beat at the last minute to surprise you. That makes the player miss and it's "unfair" which I typically don't appreciate, but here the arbitrary changes of melodic rhythm surprise me and because of the 6 health-point system, there is enough flexibility that perfection is not necessary. Nor is perfection desired. I like making mistakes in this rhythm-game that I didn't have the knowledge to avoid. The songs trick and surprise me by skipping beats or quickly adding them in. That design-decision makes this significantly different from other rhythm-games which seem to be more interested in rote memorization of the rhythms and melodies. Planet Quest uses the surprises of variation that I enjoy while listening to music. While listening to music though, it takes visualization or audial imagination to invest in when the next note is going to hit and what pitch it will be. Here, the button-presses and the game's systems provide you feedback on how your investments do. The game requires action and grades the results. So here is a game I can show to people to demonstrate the beginnings of why I like musical theme and variation. As a bonus, the systems require flexibility In order to allow for the player to be surprised by variation. The game assumes that the player can not be perfect. I like how the game prevents the player from thinking that perfection is possible. That's super cool to me.

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It used to be easier to browse apps by how recently they were added. I can't figure out how to do it anymore.

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I cannot stop playing Twenty. It's delicious, especially because for me it feels like it hits that sweet spot where strategy definitely helps but it needs to be able to handle the randomness of the board. (It's funny that I think I like every game that derives from Threes more than Threes itself.)

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I've been playing some Shooty Skies, which is a shmup from (I think) the Crossy Road team + a few other folks. The visual style is basically identical to Crossy Road in both in-game assets and UI, but I'm just not feeling it this time. It has a little more (and I apologize 'cause I don't know a better way to express this) 'lol random'-ness to the character designs that's kinda off putting (a hipster who shoots floppy disks out his mouth, a tv playing cat videos). It's kinda fun, but it feels a little flat to me and I think they push the monetization a little too hard. Anyway, really curious what other people (especially folks who played Pacman 256 and Crossy Road) think of this.

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Heh, I checked out on Pacman 256 pretty early on. I thought it was half-baked - there were some good ideas in there that just didn't matter enough, and it only took about half an hour to get the sense that it had shown me pretty much all it had to offer. Crossy Road had a similar problem, but there at least it was saved by the character and scenery changes, which gave it a little boost of novelty.

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Ooh, heck yeah. Been wanting to play waterdeep with people.

Edit: waiting on my confirmation email for the forum.

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Someone had to pull out of the Waterdeep tourny. If anyone wants in, the link above is where to go.

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Monument Valley is free today if you don't already have it.

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It struck me as Punch-Out with a levelling curve when I played it.

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And cut the rope 2 is free app of the week

Why the shit not

I will not play these game

Don't even have enough space on my iPhone

In the bag

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I finished Alto's Adventure! Whew! I tried the last achievement forever on iPhone, then had a suggestion to try on iPad and got it on first try.

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I didn't realize this was out. I tried it out in beta but held off on doing too much until it was out!

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Saw a tweet about Train Conductor World yesterday, which is out apparently. I haven't played it, but it looks nice.

 

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I'm having fun with Tomb of the Mask. It's a high-speed sliding-block movement-mechanic. Dexterity is required.

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In continuing to plug away at Card Crawl, trying to unlock all the cards.

I think I might lose steam before I'm finished.

Anyone else play? Very well done solitaire card dungeon crawler thing.

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Slight update. It's been a good day at job.

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In continuing to plug away at Card Crawl, trying to unlock all the cards.

I think I might lose steam before I'm finished.

Anyone else play? Very well done solitaire card dungeon crawler thing.

I'm slightly interested, but I'm not willing to purchase it to find out whether or not I'll enjoy it in this particular case. I loved Fairie Solitaire and I enjoyed Deadman's Draw though.

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It is really good, but i got good enough at it that it wasn't a challenge anymore. it took me 21 starts to win 20 games to unlock the new stuff after i reinstalled.

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