Weekly Recommendations

Whoa! Bunch of grabs, one of which is more expensive than all the rest combined. Its a Sid Meier though so that's to be expected. Then there's another giant from Gameloft. I'll also be adding one title that I picked up last week but never got around to posting about. Off we go!

Dungeon Hunter 5
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/dungeon-hunter-5/id885823239?mt=8
Free, Universal, 712mb download, Gamecenter enabled.

Gameloft's action rpg giant is back for its fifth installment and I get the feeling they finally did it right. This game is very diablo 3 esk with a card system for gear and upgrading for your characters. Top notch graphics, great controls, haven't hit a pay wall yet. Energy system in place for running dungeons, regenerates passively over time. The game requires an Internet connection and you can actually see other players in the town hub in between your dungeon runs. Fusion system lets you combine equipment in to your existing pieces to level them up. Evolution lets you change gear in to entirely new pieces.

There's alot here. And its free so no harm checking it out, eh?

Sid Meier's Starships
https://itunes.apple.com/app/sid-meiers-starships/id880424461?mt=8
14.99usd, iPad only, 532mb download, Gamecenter enabled.

Heavy strategy. Turn based combat. Fully economic system, galaxy spanning. Find planets, befriend them, do missions, upgrade ships, upgrade planets, The game is... story light. You set the parameters of your play session and then play it out usually with a goal of beating all the ai opponents senseless. What that means for me is I'll eventually complete a play through and then never play it against because I will have already beaten what story there was.

Still, everything is here to keep any Sid Meier fan or turn based strategy fan content for a good long while :)

Sick Bricks
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/sick-bricks/id934524665?mt=8
Free, Universal, 49mb download, no Gamecenter.

Real world toys implemented in to a lego esk style action adventure via your devices camera. run around smash things, swap in your various heroes, kill baddies, shoot up furniture for lego bits, use bits to build parts of town drive cars, level up, learn new abilities, find and improve gear.

Card Crawl
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/card-crawl/id950955524?mt=8
1.99usd, Universal, 74mb download, Gamecenter enabled.

A fun and challenging card game that's entirely single player with zero IAP. This is how it works. Your opponent has 54 cards and you have 13 hit points. You also have a left hand, a right hand and a backpack slot. Your opponent lays out four cards in front of you that are randomly chosen from his deck. You need to interact with these cards. Weapons, shields can be placed in your free hands. Potions and abilities can be placed in backpack slot for future use. Using your weapon card to attack a monster card consumes the weapon card and removes or reduces the hit points on the monster card, depending on whether the weapon card has more hit points than the monster or not. Using the shield card on a monster, the shield card absorbs up to its max health from the enemy attack and whats left over hits your avatar card. Potions placed in the hands consume potions to heal. Coin cards are your score card. More coins you have at the end, higher you rank on the leader boards. There is a card consuming monster thingie that eats coin/potion/ability cards. He yaps you for potion/ability cards you feed him, he thanks you for coin cards. Translation, try not to feed him coin cards, its wasted score points.

It took about 6 tries to win my first hand and the next sentence I type is the best advice I can possible give you : You have to attack throughout the opponents 54 cards. If you push too many opponents back you will find his last few pulls full of opponents with you having no way to absorb the monster cards incoming damage. Once I stopped trying to max my score and started focusing on killing along the way, I've started winning.

Winning gives you keys that you spend in the collection screen. In this screen is 20 ability cards and as you win you will be able to unlock more ability cards. If you just hit the 'normal' button on main screen the game will randomly assign you 5 ability cards you have unlocked. If you go in to 'constructed' you can choose which five ability cards you being in to play. Note, there are separate leader boards for each of these two types of play.

I prefer my ability cards to heal me in some way or permanently dispatch enemy cards. I don't like using 'push back' type ability cards because I'm just going to have to deal with those opponents later anyways.

Very cool game, two thumbs up.

Paper Monsters Recut
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/paper-monsters-recut/id942473930?mt=8
4.99usd, Universal, 187mb download, no Gamecenter.

Paper Monsters, I declared the original version of this game to be 'the' super marios of the iOS Appstore, and this follow up title continues to fit the bill nicely. Left side bottom finger drag to move. Right side bottom to jump. This release is much much larger than the original. Lots of stages, environments, etc. Every stage has three paperclips that are currency for unlocking additional stages. Silver buttons convert directly in to score. Stages have no time limits. Every stage has a Gold button hidden in it that you use unlocking minigames. You have 5 lives for each stage play through. Double tap jump to double jump. In between stages is the over world, this place along with the pause button both let you move from stage to stage and various mini games.

Sorry if I don't say alot about Paper Monsters but seriously, the game sells itself on its fantastic visuals, spot on controls and plethora of content. Glad to see it return from its romph on the Wii U heh. Controller support enabled, plays fantastic with my xBox styled moga controller :)

Angry Birds Stella POP!
https://itunes.apple.com/app/id937718942?mt=8
Free, Universal, 60mb download, Gamecenter enabled.

Stella is your typical match 3+ type game. Got ball thingies along the top, slingshot colored balls to their matching types to eliminate them. You'll usually be working to make pigs fall from the top to the bottom, puzzles vary from fixed positions to rotating to multi screen height. Feels well done and polished. The free to play aspect here is that failing a stage takes one of your hearts. Hearts take time to recharge. As well when your completing stages your earning gold. Gold is spent on extra balls on stages that you run out on. All stages have a fixed number of balls you can sling at your enemy.

Dig a Way
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/dig-a-way/id929120156?mt=8
Free, Universal, 121mb download, Gamecenter enabled.

This game is the only download I grabbed from last week. Its a action puzzle game where your main goal is to dig from start to finish with the side goals of collecting coin and collectibles. Collectibles are placed in a museum that earns you coin passively daily. Coin is spent on outfits so far. In the stages you can not dig up no can you climb. So you need to plan your movements so that you don't miss anything. The only two iap in game is through several outfits that you can either collect coin to buy or spend real money on (.99cents per outfit) and additional adventurers at .99cents a chapter or 1.99 for the bundle. Buying the bundle will save you 1 dollar.

Graphics are charming, controls work fine. Left, Right and Down arrows move/dig in the appropriate direction and double taping left or right will dash you in that direction.

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So there you go, my grabs this week o7

Revisited : Lili

The problem with having too many games is having too many games you never finish. Lili is one of those titles that is a AAA exclusive to iOS with amazing visuals, solid controls, lots to do, all round fun to be honest. Yet I never got around to finishing it. Distracted by something else no doubt.

Lili
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/lili/id560692867?mt=8
2.99usd, universal, 406mb download, Gamecenter enabled.
Exploration / Adventure, Tap based combat, Full 3D enviroments.

Lili is primarily a exploration collection game with a side focus on combat that is more tap based than anything else. And it really isn't combat either, though them spirits will definitely give you a run for your money.

Lili is working on a school project, cataloging rare flowers and legend has it that the island of Geos has the rarest. Legend also has it that the island is uninhabited but well its wrong on that part. The island is occupied by two types of creature. Spirits and Constructs. Spirits are generally grumpy folk who will steal from you and who you will spend all the action packed moments of this game chasing and plucking the rarest of flowers from.

As you can see they don't like you doing that and will do anything they can to stop it. Not that it hurts them or anything, just that their jerks with alot of pride and the fact that you are here collecting flowers is all the reason they need for trying to keep you from doing as such.

Controls in this game are very well implemented. Single tap starts walking, double tap starts a run. While running / walking finger on screen and swipes to rotate camera. Can also use this to look around when standing still. A single tap when running or walking stops your movement. Tap drag to pick flowers from ground (and from spirits backs). Tap on doors or spirits or constructs or other objects to interact. Controller support is present.

This game has alot of exploration to it. Things to find and loot, spirits to chase, fun fun :)

Started a new save file, casual mode. I have picked up the optional .99cent iap purchases for coin doubler, flower doubler, map opener and lastly the infinite keys. I don't recommend the keys one though, it really made collecting flowers pretty useless half way through and now I'm sitting a 300 followers collected when I need 1k for the achievements, something I would of been more focused on had I needed to buy keys.

Still, very much enjoyed this play through, knocked out the main story at 6.6 hours then an hour later I have all achievements except for the flowers one, the pot breaking one, and some spirits I still need to 3 star. Only bugs I've noticed, gamecenter button does not work in game (still get achievement credit though) and at about 3 hours in I crashed once after doing the red flower cup chase mini game. You can also walk through the building in the fourth district that has the switch powering the windmill. Once you complete the quest go back and walk towards the switch, you'll pass through it. No game crash on that though.



o7

Weekly Recommendations

Afew charming games hit this week, I've already played enough of Tap Heroes that the link here is actually to the post I made a little bit earlier this evening. Will give a more detailed impression of the other two games after I've spent some more time with them.

Tap Heroes - Idle RPG Action
http://taeles.blogspot.com/2015/03/httpsitunes.html

Summary : Casual auto play rpg where your only required involvement is your eyes and occasionally spending your heroes hard earned cash on upgrades.

OverKill 3
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/id874866593?mt=8

Summary : Free, one of the original shooters for our iOS playground. Traditionally this series was a first person view through the scope of your gun. Now its gone full 3d with hiding behind objects and whatnot. Shoot things, hide from things, spend cash on better stuff, do the first two even better with the new stuff.

Prison Life RPG
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/id961339405?mt=8

Summary : Prison simulator, choose your short term sentence prisoner and try to survive. Choose gangs to join, where to eat, interact, pick fights, break out of prison. All round fun

Tap Heroes - Idle RPG Action

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/tap-heroes-idle-rpg-action/id960239068?mt=8
.99usd, 72mb download, no gamecenter.

This little gem feels like ClumsyKnight taken to the next level of casual game play. In this game your knight smacks enemies. Every so often he unlocks the next level of stage difficulty. As he smacks enemies he earns coin. All of this you can casually watch till the end of time if you like. He will eventually run out of hit points and lose. When he loses... it starts over.

Now, your interaction? You can tap on him to heal him. You can tap  on the enemy to help him kill it. As well, you are responsible for spending his hard earned cash. You will spend what he earns on his own attack/speed/health/crit and your ability to heal, attack and crit with your finger taps.

As the knight hits kill requirements, additional stages will unlock. Taping on the arrow to the right advances the difficulty and reward. Taping the arrow to the left lowers both. You can idly enjoy lower difficulty merely checking on him from time to time or keep at the edge of progress and pay abit more attention. Occasionally you'll encounter boss fights, also farmable. I just knocked out a gin tree and was awarded one iap currency... and convenient enough I also unlocked a second hero the Mage with a price tag of one currency.

Interesting that they call him a mage because he doesn't seem to be attacking, in fact he is healing the knight. And now the game is fully automated heh.

Once I realized I could tap infinitely (the tutorial is a circled area that goes away, I misunderstood this to mean healing/attacking with taps cost some form of currency) I invest coin only in my ability to heal the hero. An now that I have the mage/healer, I'm not even doing that atm heh. Just catching the mage up to the knight in stats and now working both evenly. Currently farming the first boss, he gives 25coin for about 30 seconds effort, not bad.

Charming visuals, like card board cut outs on sticks. -thumbs up-

Sound? Nothing to complain about.

My only gripe? Psst, developers. Every protective cover made for the ipad uses the left side (when viewed vertically) as the 'bottom' when layed horizontally. Also every game maker out there lets the entire screen flip so that the games always oriented properly. This game uses the right side as 'bottom' and does not rotate. Fix this please.

Oh one other thing, achievements in game, but no use of gamecenter. Tsk, tsk.

Space Miner : Platinum Edition Guide

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/space-miner-platinum-edition/id353853276?mt=8

Ok so, for a great many of you this is going to be a new game to you. It's previous update was mid 2011 which in app store years is eons so... I'm jealous to be honest. Such an enjoyable game for me I wish I could play it over again for the first time. Thankfully the game is enjoyable enough that I don't mind re-running through it on increasingly higher difficulties.

That said, I've had a friend or two not sure what to do and the like so here is a starter guide with tips, tricks, advice and whatnot.

. Easy difficulty is the new players friend. You can always do later play through on higher settings, this one will let you get around and learn the way things work.

The Sectors
. When approaching an asteroid sector for the first time prioritize your reason for being there.
.. First priority is always to kill anything red. These guys are stealing your ore! Quicker you get rid of them, the more there will be for you.
.. Orange lootables are also priority with one exception, if this is a specific quest target. If its for a quest, loot it after you've filled your cargo hold with ore.
.. Then asteroids. Do not 100% fill up your cargo hold, you run the risk of killing one or more asteroids and being unable to loot the ore due to your full cargo. Open ore left behind is lost ore.
. If your a completionist or looking to keep the game as easy as possible for as long as possible, do not move on to a new sector until the current one has the completion icon over it on the map. Also, do all the sectors. I prefer to approach cleaning sectors in a clockwise fashion, circling the mining facility in every larger circles as I clear sectors. This generates a whole lot of ore and be extension cash.
. When I reach the final outer most ring of sectors around the facility I start skipping ones with the arrow/page icon on them. I clear out all the generic ones for profit / random side quests. Then I knock out the story ones.

The Ship
. Every so often when you upgrade your license you will receive new ship hulls. If you receive one option, the choice of which to take is simple but if you see two then you have to weigh your playstyle. The bottom of the two will be more heavily armored, more cargo space and slower. The top choice of the two will be faster, more guns, less armor, less cargo. I always go with more cargo. I am a miner after all. The armor keeps me in tact and a nice engine upgrade solves the speed problem anyways.
. Reactor is the priority upgrade. More juice in the ship means more upgrades you can actually power up on the ship.
. Second priority is the collector. Better models tractor faster (you don't have to slow down) and reach further.
. Beyond that, weapons kill asteroids quicker, scanners are very useful for seeing things on your mini map well before they see you, engines get you around quicker.
. Shields are another play style choice. In general the larger the shield, the slower it recharges. You'll find three choices. One extreme recharge low hp, one exactly the opposite and a somewhat balanced option. I tend to lean towards balance myself.
. Weapons are your largest playstyle choice. You have lasers, missiles, sonic, all sorts of choices here. And with two exceptions the choice is largely up to you. Try them all out early on when they are more affordable, decide which weapon style you prefer and use it.
.. Exception 1, special weapon slot. You can put any weapon you want in this slot but its usually worth while to put a special weapon there instead. some special weapons are weapons, some are thrust turbo boosters, or large speed drills, etc.
.. Exception 2, alien tech. You'll be introduced to this eventually and one of the alien technologies you can put on your ship gives you a really nice attack rate boost, but only if you have certain weapon types equipped.

The Encounters
. Tourist rescue. Rescue them all as quick as possible, pick up ore and kill bots only as necessary. If possible when your down to the last one, stop shy of the tourist and instead go do some mining. When the clock runs short, pick him up. Maximize that profit!
. The alien tech tracker. The shop keep will eventually task you with tracking down several satellites that have whats needed to basically reveal on the sector map every sector with alien tech in it. Each of these satellites is a mini gauntlet. Waves of enemies will attack you, fend them all off and then loot the tech. When you enter one of these sectors fill your cargo half up with ore but don't cap off. Often the bots you fight will drop scrap which is pretty valuable and you don't want to have to leave scraps behind due to a full cargo container.
. Rescue that super hero guy. Don't recall that dumb butts name but basically his ship breaks down, you defend it from waves of enemies.

Things of note
. I've read somewhere that this platinum update brings with it a additional entire follow up story that happens after the main and takes place on a whole new grid of 16 additional sectors to play around in.
. Alien tech follows you permanently every time you start a new save, very useful :) Follow up runs become that much more fun. I'm going to play every difficulty in order so that eventually I'll have every alien tech and will maximize my chances of survival in the final permanent death difficulty.
. Always use the trade button when buying things on lower difficulties, no need to keep old equipment around.
. Higher difficulties you may want to keep different weapon types or ship types around to use as needed base on what your engaging.

Will add to this as I think of more, safe flying folks :)

Weekly Recommendations

Quite a bit of thinking involved in this weeks recommendations... and one game that's alot of part time fun.

Timelines: Assault On America
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/id879593535?mt=8
Free (2.99usd in app purchase for full unlock / add removal), iPad Only, Gamecenter enabled, 562mb download.

Oh thank god! I thought this type of game was extinct on the app store. Everytime someone claims to be a rts these days its almost always some clash of clans iap riddled clone that makes me want to strangle someone. But, thank god. Here this one is. Why am I excited? This is a command & conquer style rts game. Place buildings, train troops, march across 12 stages, unlock multiple upgrades, upgrades carry over stages, visuals are sharp, controls nice. Every rts fan should have this in their library.

Evil Genius Online: The World Domination Simulation
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/id814976567?mt=8
Free, universal, gamecenter enabled, 80mb download.

This one's getting some flak for being a 'dungeon keeper' clone which without a doubt hands down is the single worst game to ever grace the iOS app store but that judgement is a bit harsh in my opinion. Dungeon Keeper iOS was a clash of clans money grab by Electronic Arts, may they burn in hell for damaging so holy a franchise's good name. This game is a full on base builder simulator from Rebellion. Build your base, recruit minions, do quests, Honestly I see no similarities between this and dungeon keeper. The minion's running the job/production buildings reminds me of Rebellion's city builder Harmony Isle and a bit like Zynga's Farmville 2. In order to do jobs and harass the good guys you need items that are often produced passively or actively via various objects in your base, decorating out your base makes it safer. Not sure if there is a pvp mechanic yet, haven't gotten all the way in to the game.

I'm liking it, the iap is mostly avoidable.

World Zombination
https://itunes.apple.com/app/id680624697?mt=8
Free, universal, gamecenter enabled, 62mb download.

Play as zombies or as humans and fend the side off you didnt choose. Combat feels like a higher speed tower defense game. Upgrading system in place, lots of units to choose from. Idle income generators present. Online required.

AdVenture Capitalist!
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/id927006017?mt=8
Free, Universal, gamecenter enabled, 52mb download.

I... this game is amusing me and I'm not sure why... maybe its the improvement reward nature of this game. Dunno, but I do like it. The game starts out simple enough. Tap a lemon to sell it. And again, and again. Until you have afew bucks and you buy the upgrade for it that lets you sell more with each tap. This makes you earn more per tap. You keep at this till suddenly the managers button lights up. Oh whats this? Look it, a manager for each business, buying the manager automates the taping. Sweet, less tapping is always nice. So now your watching that little lemon sell over and over, your occasionally upgrading it when it hits upgrade 25 suddenly the speed of  selling doubles. Nice! Then the newspaper delivery business becomes affordable. Buy that. tap, tap, tap for afew and get its manager. Win! Two automated businesses! Hey upgrade button just lit up, oh sweet upgrades double permanently triple the profits of the business, nice!

Suddenly 40 minutes later I own all but one of the businesses, I have 6 billion in the bank, all but one owned business managered and upgraded, most businesses are level 100 or higher, green bars are flying everywhere, that cash balance is chinging along, I've watched a advertisement video that gave me a 4 hour double profits buff and now I'm looking at the investor mechanic curiously which apparently is a acquire / sacrifice / spend investor system of improvement.

I like this game :) You continue making profits whether game is running or not. I just unlocked the bank, at level 1 without upgrade purchase but with advertisement boost its putting out 2.149billion every 2 hours roughly.

Can't wait to ge the oil company...

Space Miner: Platinum Edition

Space Miner: Platinum Edition
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/id353853276?mt=8
3.99usd, 171mb download, universal, gamecenter enabled.

Without a doubt, my favorite iOS game of all time just got its first update since 2011. Top down rpg space shooter. Shoot asteroids (and unfriendlies), bring home ores, sell ores, buy upgrades for your ship or new ships entirely. Large story, lots of areas to explore, fun!

The update brings graphics up to par, iOS 8 support, latest iphones supported, universal added, entire new story, 16 new areas to explore, more stuff! (the video above does not show new graphics)

-runs around in circles happily till falls over dizzy-