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The Official iPhone/iPod Touch Gaming Thread

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T

truth-lasers

Member
Chinner said:
my biggest concern is the weapon set - is it more ismilair to worms (xbla/ps3) or worms armageddon 2? it does however say on itunes thatit includes the sheep, holy hand grenade and banana so it may be looking good
Click to expand...

I took a picture of it:

3523bz4.jpg


The game is ok.

The controls are pretty good, touch (and hold) right/left areas of the screen to make the worm walk. Tap the worm to jump or double-tap to backflip. Move camera by moving two fingers on screen. Pinch to zoom in/out (there's a lot of that).

Icons for fire and opening the weapons set. Touch and aim.

Feels a little unresponsive and sometimes it doesn't register when I press the screen.
 
T

Twig

Banned
McBacon said:
So all I have to do is be hilariously irrelevant and you'll buy it?

Cool, my game is called Monkey Pants and the description is

Zombies!
Dinosaurs!
Wizards!
2 Different Types of Pants!
The only way to describe it is "horse"
Click to expand...
Sorry, you weren't needlessly redundant, as well.

Also, monkeys? Pants? Old hat. And zombies? Now you're just stealing their idea.

Can't go wrong with Wizaaaaaaaaaaaaaards though.

P.S. I was being sarcastic. I did indeed buy it but that's hardly the reason.
 
R

Remy

Member
Opiate said:
I'm considering moving from an iPod Touch to an iPhone. Anyone know if you can transfer the apps you've purchased on one device to another if you request it? I don't want to buy any more applications unless I know I can take them with me (if the purchase does indeed occur).

Edit: Just to make it clear, I'm implying that the iPod Touch I currently have would lose all these apps, and the iPhone would gain them. I'm not simply wanting duplicate copies of my apps, more like a license transfer to a new device.
Click to expand...

App licensing is done on a per-AppleID basis, not on a per device basis. Anything you buy can be synced to any number of devices, so long as all those devices are syncing to a computer you've used an activation on. You don't have to request anything.

I'm surprised more people don't know about this. If my wife and I had to double buy every app my wallet would be in much more pain.
 
K

kaskade

Member
I'm debating between the 32 and 16 gb iPhone 3g s now. I have about 12 gbs of music, which would leave a t lease like 3 gb for apps. I have a feeling we are going to get some bigger and bigger games out there.
 
H

helava

Member
re: size - go for the bigger one, for sure. If you've got 12GB of music, either you're going to spend a reasonable time swapping out Apps, or songs if you've only got 16 GB.

seppo
 
M

Mik2121

Member
I'm looking for some budget /cashflow tracker that's free. Anything good?
I'm downloading 'Cashflow Free' right now, but I hate when there's another version with more things.. using a Lite/Free version makes it look so damn cheap.

And the other apps are so expensive... seriously!. Like, more expensive than most games... what the fuck are the developers thinking? :S And anyway, all the cheap ones look hideous... :( If someone can make the coding, I wouldn't mind creating all the visuals for a budged manager that can at least track all the incomes/outcomes of a year (divided in months, weeks, days) and a create a few stats.
 
K

Khanage

Member
Interesting article I got through Daring Fireball

Year Two

It looks at how the app store has developed, and more importantly where it will hopefully
go from here.

The root of the problem
Building the App Store using the iTunes infrastructure was a brilliant move on Apple’s part. It allowed them to sell software to millions of users with a minimal amount of development. Look at it this way: would you rather have lost the first 6 months of revenue while waiting for Apple to perfect the system used to deliver our applications?
But now iTunes presents problems for both Apple and third party developers because of this simple fact: software is not music. I believe this is the basic issue that both parties are coming to grips with:
▪ Music and software differ greatly in the number of titles. Apple is currently touting 50,000 applications in the App Store. While an impressive number in this nascent category, it pales in comparison to 10 million songs.
▪ As developers, we may be small fish in this sea of titles, but we’re more important to the health of the iPhone platform than musicians are to the health of iTunes. People like Walt Mossberg don’t talk about the importance of music when reviewing the competition.
▪ iTunes customers do not have functional problems with songs. People don’t have to learn how to listen to music. Anyone who’s done customer support can tell you that’s not true for software.
▪ There are never new versions of a song. Yes, there are remixes and other adaptations, but these are labeled, marketed and sold (via SKU) as unique products. Software, on the other hand, usually gets a new version every few months.
▪ Music can’t damage the device. Malicious software can.
▪ Music doesn’t depend on the network while its playing. Our software can break or change behavior because of this dependency on external data.
▪ Many musicians sell their content through third parties (media companies), most developers do not.
Finally, the complexity of system with 10 million database rows backed by a worldwide content distribution mechanism is not lost on us. Changes to infrastructure of this scale won’t happen overnight.
Click to expand...

Respond to reviews
Again, music is not software. Music is simple, you either like the song or you don’t.
For software, customers see the reviews pages not only as a place to comment on an application’s suitability, but also as a forum to voice their problems and concerns. As developers, it drives us crazy that we have no way to address those issues.
Solution
Give us a way to contact the customer. Ideally, we would be able to post a public response in iTunes so other users with similar issues could benefit.
Again, I can see this being too much to ask of the iTunes infrastructure. I also doubt that Apple wants to provide us with customer’s email addresses (which can be considered private data.)
So why not present a form for developers to fill out within iTunes? Our comments are entered into a text field and sent to the customer’s email address by Apple. We could provide our own contact information in that message for followup conversations.
Click to expand...

Charge us more money
The $99 developer fee is great for making the App Store all inclusive. But the needs of larger, full-time developers are much different than those of those doing it part-time or as a hobby.
Solution
Charge $999 for premium service. For professional developers, this cost is not prohibitive and would allow Apple to provide additional services such as:
▪ Shorter review times. The trust level between Apple and the developer is higher when there’s more money on the table.
▪ More “fast track tickets” as mentioned above. Larger development shops have more staff doing stupid things, so give us more freedom to deal with it.
▪ Discounts for test devices. With each product release, it becomes more difficult for developers to support the new hardware. The primary factor here is that an AT&T contract is required to get the test device. Something similar to the Mac hardware discounts for ADC members would help significantly.
▪ Background artwork for our products in iTunes. Getting a nice background means a lot to us: it makes our products more attractive to potential customers. Let us pay for the time it takes to put it up.
▪ Approval of ideas prior to development. Developers have crazy ideas. Before spending months of development on that wacky thought, it would be nice to get pre-approval from Apple on the concept.
▪ More devices in the Program Portal. The current limit of 100 devices is a joke for developers with multiple products: if you have 5 products, you can only have 20 devices per app. That, combined with multiple hardware releases in the 12 month period, means we’re effectively prevented from testing our applications until July 12th.
▪ A contact in Apple Developer Relations. Sometimes we need to talk directly to someone at Apple.
Click to expand...

Pricing
I’ve talked about pricing before, but not much has changed. The addition of in-app purchase is great for certain kinds of applications: our upcoming title, Ramp Champ, makes great use of it. But most apps cannot take advantage of this new feature and are left struggling at the ringtone price point.
These low prices are making decisions for us. If you gave an iPhone developer $50,000 to spend anyway they choose, they’re going to make 5 ringtone apps at $10,000 each instead of one killer app for $50,000. In a gold rush, it’s better to have five small claims than a single large one.
The problem is that the long-term success of the iPhone platform will be defined by killer apps, not throwaways that you replace on your home screen after a few months.
Unlike other sections in this essay, I don’t have specific suggestions to make. I do think that the solutions presented above will, in aggregate, help us get some upward movement in pricing. And that would be very good news for those of us making a living from the App Store.
Click to expand...
 
S

Shockgamer

Banned
Rumor time!

Apple To Move Into Gaming?

By David Richards | Sunday | 12/07/2009
The word leaking out of third party Companies linked with Apple is that the Company who gave us the iPhone and the iPod is seriously considering the release of a gaming device, as well as the roll out of a gaming network in 2011.

In recent months senior Apple developers have met with various game developers according to our sources. They have also started hiring executives with gaming, graphic and processing experience.

Among those hired by Apple are Bob Drebin who was the chief technology officer of the Graphics Products Group with AMD, former ATI executive Raja Koduri and former IBM executive Mark Papermaster who was one of the architects being the Power PC processor as well as the Cell Processor now found in the Sony PS3 and the Xbox 360.

In the late 90's Papermaster was one of the main architects of the PowerPC chip. He likely had lots of interaction with Apple at this point as they were the PowerPC platform's biggest customer. The PowerPC 630 (or Power3) was ultimately used in IBM mainframe computers. Since then, he has authored many papers on chip design and is generally regarded as one of the leaders in the chip design field.

We have been told that Apple is keen to launch a device that interfaces with an Apple gaming network, however a key objective with the Apple design teams, is gaming across multiple devices including notebooks, iPhones and a gaming specific iPod.

There is also talk of a gaming monitor with full network access and an OLED screen, manufactured by LG Display. The monitor could act as the gaming device with the processor built into the screen.
Click to expand...
The second half of the article can be found here.
 
S

Stoney Mason

Banned
Flunkie said:
Wow. GloBall is #1 now?

I just bought it last night - it's pretty fun.
Click to expand...

See that's what I was talking about. Why did this game catch fire and others didn't. It's clearly not just being featured in New and Noteworthy because a lot of titles get that and often don't ever really break out. I'd almost like to do a college paper on the app store if I was still in college. :lol
 
D

dock

Member
Stoney Mason said:
See that's what I was talking about. Why did this game catch fire and others didn't. It's clearly not just being featured in New and Noteworthy because a lot of titles get that and often don't ever really break out. I'd almost like to do a college paper on the app store if I was still in college. :lol
Click to expand...

I think Apple pushed it because it makes excellent use of the GPS feature, so perhaps it demonstrates that it is worth making something very well suited to the iphone. I agree though that this totally isn't anything special.
 
J

jonnybryce

Member
Shockgamer said:
Rumor time!

The second half of the article can be found here.
Click to expand...

I can't see this happening. The iDevices are their gaming systems, they don't need to do this, it goes against everything the iPhone stands for, being one device for all your portable needs.
 
S

Stoney Mason

Banned
jonnybryce said:
I can't see this happening. The iDevices are their gaming systems, they don't need to do this, it goes against everything the iPhone stands for, being one device for all your portable needs.
Click to expand...

What I could possibly envision them doing is having a true portable gaming system that competes more directly with the PSP and DS and has traditional portable controls (think D-pad or analog stick and buttons) along with a touch screen and wifi and being able to be connected to the app store.

Essentially have the idevice and the portable game system and maybe even have the idevice games playable on the portable game system. That way the "premium app store" becomes this new portable device with bigger budget games but it doesn't destroy the existing idevice market and actually complements it.

Pure speculation on my part but that's the only way I see something like that making sense. I don't ever see them doing a true home console ala the 360 or Ps3 or something.
 
M

Mrbob

Member
I keep on picking up 99 cent apps in preparation of getting my touch in Sept/Oct. Its almost like an addiction I can't stop. :lol When you see an app on sale for 99 cents or currently 99 cents it is an impulse buy. This is what I have so far:

Hero of Sparta
StoneLoops
Grunts
GeoDefense
Knights Onrush.

Now I'm looking at GloBall and iDigit because they are currently 99 cents. :lol
 
D

Diablohead

Member
damn if worms came out last week I would have been having a blast playing it on holiday, the price is also very good so I will think about grabbing it. A good quality mobile worms > console version imo.
 
C

Costanza

Banned
lawblob said:
Anybody pick up either Railroad Madness or Zombies & Me? If so, how are they?
Click to expand...
If you're a fan of Flight Control-style games, you should like Railroad Madness. It really needs more map layouts, though.

Zombies & Me is just so cute and charming and the music is cool. I love it (even though there is no depth at all).
 
P

Peronthious

Member
Flunkie said:
The video didn't look too great at all.

As far as I'm concerned, 2079 is still the best-controlling and most fun Geo Wars-style game.
Click to expand...

Which is actually 99 cents now, so I grabbed that one as well :lol Both are pretty fun, but I like the feeling of the acceleration more in Occurro, and the graphics seem a bit more smooth.
 
M

Mar

Member
Lord Error said:
Enviro-Bear 2010: Operation Hibernation is out!

sfvxao.jpg


http://toucharcade.com/2009/07/10/enviro-bear-2010-the-best-bear-driving-simulator-in-the-app-store/

Make sure to read the whole quote, this sounds completely deceptively amazing.



2mezn9e.jpg
Click to expand...

I had to buy this after I read the review. I think the reviewer really summed up how I felt when I saw the initial screenshots and game description:

Every so often a game comes along that is just so terrible that the ol' awesome-o-meter goes so far in to the red that it comes back up on the other side.
Click to expand...
 
H

helava

Member
lawblob said:
Anybody pick up either Railroad Madness or Zombies & Me? If so, how are they?
Click to expand...

I'd like to like Zombies & Me more than I do. My biggest complaint is actually pretty simple - when you die, you go immediately to a "Game Over" screen - you don't get to see yourself get killed. The weird thing is that this really makes the game feel like it's pulling the rug out from under you - you don't get a chance to look at what went wrong, exactly how you died, etc. Just "GAME OVER!" on a new screen.

If you just saw your guy get blown up, or keel over dead after being caught in an explosion, the difference would be massive.

The other thing is that I can't get over the fact that 8 lb. Gorilla is still really the 800 lb. Gorilla, and it does bother me that EA's jumping into the small game market. They have every right to do so, of course, but I wish they did it as "EA" and not as what amounts to a front.

Thing is, that's purely an emotional reaction from a smaller dev's perspective. I used to work at EA, and I know that once they approach a segment like this, they have the resources and talent to completely dominate it through brute force. So I don't really find the "8 lb. Gorilla" name humorous and charming so much as incredibly ominous. :|

Still, Zombies & Me is a charming little thing, and with a little more polish, could definitely carve out a niche for itself.

seppo
 
D

dLMN8R

Member
man, Touch Arcade's impressions of Worms wasn't very optimistic. Oh well, I'll hold out purchasing for maybe another update or two.
 
C

Costanza

Banned
Caster is on sale for 99c (from $4.99)

Full version
Lite version

Video

016537_4jpg.jpeg


Features listed by the developer include:

Use Natural and Intuitive Controls!
Listen to Pulse Pounding Music by Trance Emerson (www.tranceemerson.com)
Dash across 15 Scenic Landscapes!
Destroy enemy Flanx and cause Massive Terrain Deformation using 6 Unique Attacks!
Heal the infected land and Bring Trees Back to Life!
Upgrade your abilities to become an ALL POWERFUL HARBINGER OF LIFE AND DESTRUCTION.
Play at 3 difficulty levels, Casual, Normal, and EXTREME!

Caster Lite contains a single mission and 3 unique attacks.
Click to expand...
 
L

Lord Error

Insane For Sony
Shaneus said:
Any word on a Pinball Fantasies launch date? Itching to get my hands on it.
Click to expand...
When Apple approves it. The approval process is unfortunately a black box and there's no rule for how long it can take, but it goes for up to two weeks sometimes. They submitted the game 4-5 days ago.
 
S

Stryder

Member
I gotta say DownToZero really isn't that interesting to me. I bought it when it came out but the gameplay for me is really quite shallow. Am I missing something?
 
T

Tempy

don't ask me for codes
I'm doing nicely near the top of most tracks in DrawRace after the new update. Wish you could see the top of high score list if you're nowhere near it, or choose to race anybody, rather than just the guy above you.
 
D

Deleted member 30609

Unconfirmed Member
surely it's not the actual full-game, is it?

I want it.
 
T

ThatObviousUser

ὁ αἴσχιστος παῖς εἶ
Actually looks like it controls well. Thought not having tap-to-aim-and-fire makes it more like PS2/GCN than Wii.
 
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