iPhone games (also Ipod Tooch/iPad games too)

this is like when the younger relative with the pad that's not even plugged in has opinions about games

Pixel Starships appears to have no point whatsoever at least as the single player mode goes - set timers, come back, spend more timer-based resources to set new timers, OP your ship and then aim for the other guy's reactor because that is literally the only part of the ship that matters in combat

I am clinically moronic for consistently being disappointed by free-to-play phone games, correct?

so crashlands and dream quest worth buying?

twofold, inc.

crashlands is pretty serious.

mordy i would be interested in what you make of dream quest. it's a lot better-tuned than i thought it was (and i dread to think how long i've spent playing it at this point) but it's still pretty kitchen-sinkish.

thx for the recommendation. i really like dream quest. it's v hard! i only just beat it with the thief class and that took a dozen runs or so.

crashlands looks cool too and apparently available on every platform

Wait, you beat beat it? I must suck so bad. I've played thief around 15 times and haven't even reached the dream lord mega boss

it looks like you have to play on the velociraptor difficulty to face the real final boss so i only just beat the boss for grizzly bear

crashlands is worth playing, yes. it's also fairly addictive. the depth is... well, it's sorta flimsy but deep? Less customization than it leads you to believe; lots of empty space and grinding.

a dozen runs i think is above par for a first finish

i have been abusing the exploit of quitting the app when you can tell a fight will end in your death next turn ... quite a lot, and now i have finished as, what, six classes. still haven't got the final final boss below 600hp though.

i haven't abused the exploit and finally finished wizard + warrior (not on the most difficult level - i should probably switch over now)

I originally tried out Cardinal Quest 2 on my ipad mini and rated it pretty lame at the time. Now there's been a ton of updates apparently, I put it on my phone a while ago, and just picked it up today because I had a bunch of stupid timer things going in Spirit Lords. I have now put in probably a total of at least 3.5 hours and it's not even close to bedtime.

i have been playing this during my commute ever since tombot posted this, and i think i may have accidentally broken the game. i unlocked the infinite tower mode, started as a mage, and got incredibly lucky with two very rare pieces of equipment dropped during the first few floors: a weapon with + intellect and 20% polystrike, and a ring that grants 75% bonus experience. i'm on floor 29, leveled up to 12, and i think i'm completely unstoppable? i have already told myself that this is the final run.

my spells are:
ice blast (big damage, area effect, and slows down enemies if it doesn't kill them)
fireball (up to 12 damage)
glide (+4 speed and health, flight)
dispel magic
freeze (slows down enemies)

so basically i wail on things from a distance, dispel magic if there's any resistance, freeze and glide while i wait a few turns for my attacks to recharge, and repeat. i am invincible. (also i have 4 invincibility potions and 4 full health potions)

highly recommended for those that haven't played it

cardinal quest 2 seems to be available on kongregate if anyone wants to browser it

lol, i just died in a really reckless way. that was some serious hubris there.

goodbye cardinal quest 2, it's been real *the app icon screams as a thumb smothers it, an X appears, and it's fate is sealed*

its

i really need to get a handle on these typos

as someone who has died many times w/ fantastic builds in rogues (i'm looking at u, nethack) my <3 goes out to u

that run had lasted over a week, because i only played it on the train. RIP really lucky build.

still finding dream quest v enjoyable

Karl did you get the Alchemist unlocked?

I've taken a pause from CQ2 while I try to figure out what the point is of Pixel Starships or whatever. Set timers, upgrade shit, try to go on a mission, barely escape total destruction, go back and set more timers. There's no difficulty slider and I clearly don't know what I'm doing.

I did get some lucky drops in Spirit Lords, I have to say they might have got the grind-to-special ratio pretty close to perfect

i need to go back and beat pixel heroes too

the first few (dozen) times (through Pixel Heroes) I would get pretty far by being lucky with drops, but I realized if I just take notes on which dungeons and bosses demand which buffs I could probably whup its ass, I just hate documentation. I'm flying to SF and back next week, that shit better watch itself

SPL-T is pretty good.

Just beat the dream lord on Dream Quest for the first time after months of playing it, using the professor with upgraded research ability. Nearly all the damage was done with multiple copies of discharge.

Imbroglio. Lots of depth here, just digging into it.

was meaning to post that here too. it's great, although i'm not so good at it yet. made by michael brough (868-HACK, among others)

I'm horrible at the so far. Fun tho.

i've tried 3 of the 4 classes (haven't unlocked the others yet) and have had the most luck with masina (52 gems). i haven't messed around much with custom deckbuilding yet though. i tried it twice and both times accidentally made the game much harder.

My high score is 95 with count Harry. I've done some deck shuffling. What I do quite understand is the cards can lose levels too??? Like I have a card that gives 4 heart damage, but the more I use it, it decreases.

OIC, that's the type of card it is, the Dwindling Brazier. Tricky tricky.

great game! could get very deep if the character/weapon combinations work out well.

i got 137 with harry. key thing for me so far is getting clubs and claws up to two damage, and the whisk has saved me a bunch of times. one trick with harry is to heal even if you don't need it, to get enemies to advance a square so you can get in the first hit, like using wait in 868 hack.

if you touch your "most gems" box, you can see what boards other people used to get high scores.

brough, please keep making grid roguelikes forever, thanks.

one trick with harry is to heal even if you don't need it, to get enemies to advance a square so you can get in the first hit, like using wait in 868 hack.

great tip! i've been struggling with that - how to deal with situations where you really just need to wait one turn. that's a great idea, at least with Harry.

http://mightyvision.blogspot.com/2016/05/imbroglio-notes-1-inventory-management.html

113 with Harry. Should prob try another character.

This game is great it's kind of taking over all my free time. Just got 182 with Harry. I too should prob try another character.

rly enjoyed that inventory post, mordy. second post on weapons here:

http://mightyvision.blogspot.pt/2016/05/imbroglio-notes-2-blood-and-mana.html

love brog, particularly corrypt and 868-HACK which are masterpieces and imbroglio is up there. 128 Harry (got lucky i think, or rather didn't get *unlucky*) and 50s-ish for the rest I've unlocked.

man how did I go two weeks without realising this existed

130 with Harry (and a custom board, which felt good). I like playing with the other characters but haven't been as successful with them so far (in limited use - I've only played maybe 10-15 games so far)

don't mean to overhype brough but i think he's really great, based on HACK and imbroglio alone (haven't played corrypt yet). i just mean that i will play anything he releases for quite a while because it's clear that he's trying to do something new even if it's not everyone's cup of tea

also getting the feeling that the real game is semi-deep in (100+ gems) when multiple enemies are closing in and you have to start making decisions about which enemy to take damage from first, or whether it's worth fleeing.

also i've gradually started to pick up on this (from the second brough post mordy linked to) and it's very rewarding to learn:

i've noticed that players very quickly grasp the idea that enemies are weaker in one colour so it is advantageous to hit with weapons of that colour, but then often they internalise that as a strict rule ("you always have to hit those ones with a blue weapon") and will go out of their way to use the preferred colour even when it's very unsafe to do so / costs a lot more turns. There's definitely situations where it's better to use the "wrong" colour.

I need to try a new board. I've been using a custom one for about 30 games now. I think it's good but I keep failing. I keep telling myself that I'm just not executing. But maybe it's time for a change. How long do I ride it?

For ILM, I recommend about five minutes max at first and avoid the polls.

this gets bastard hard over a hundred gems

Furious this morning that a stupid lapse saw me die on 100 with Susannah completely unnecessarily.

I've reached around 180 with four characters, still really enjoying this game. I love how different the game feels with each of them. I've yet to make my own board, I just copy the highest score boards: it's quite entertaining figuring out how they're meant to work, which weapons combine well with others etc

Furious this morning that a stupid lapse saw me die on 100 with Susannah completely unnecessarily.

― Fizzles, Thursday, June 2, 2016 8:49 AM (3 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i just did this on 97! goddammit

if the brief was 'make a game less forgiving than 868-hack' he did a damn good job. i think that has rendered me less addicted to it than i would have been otherwise (nb i am still spending 1-3 hours a day on this) -- like for example moving instead of using a ranged weapon to make an enemy close ranks and thus incurring one damage can be quickly fatal if it puts you out of parity with the next enemy or two.

might try copying the high-score boards once i start to plateau in what i'm doing myself. it's nice that susannah is set up to remove one big layer of complexity from the board design. currently not using any over-complicated chain effects. or more than one tile with curses. or braziers. i have what i think is a strong late-game board set up but if i make >1 mistake before around fifty stars i never get to the mid-game

man does this game have a win condition? too many of the high score tables stop at 256 for it to be a coincidence, also one of them is 256 for the top four

At 256 you escape the dungeon (there's a YouTube vid of a dude reaching 256 with Vesuvius bob).
Braziers can be extremely useful when you get stuck in the wrong corner though.
Has anyone tried playing with the two characters who can only use one style of weapon? The little I've used them made it seem impossible to deal with all the kinds of monsters.