A Green Mushroom

I love mobile games but unfortunately for me most of them are little time waster games.  I love the ones that really dig in and try to do something new and, honestly, I browse the app store every Thursday for new releases but most games aren't this. A few weeks ago I had a run of Thursdays where nothing looked interesting.  So... I resorted to the "Top Charts" gaming section and picked up a couple games there I hadn't tried. Mostly these were duds but a few of them have been fun enough to keep playing. Alto's Adventure is a low key take on infinite runners.  You're a skiier going fast down a hill trying to catch caribou (or something) and your only controls are tap to jump or tap and hold to backflip.  If you're looking for a new infinite runner or just a game that's fun in small 1-2 minute bursts then Alto's Adventure might be for you. Goblin Sword is a sidescrolling platform/adventure game.  It has some basic fighting and platforming ...

I've been playing a lot of Hearthstone lately.  On top of the daily quests I'm also keeping up with the weekly Tavern Brawl and working my way through the class challenges in Solo Adventure. One of the best things about Hearthstone is that it's available on basically every modern device.  You most likely own something that you can play it on.  I actually end up playing it on a bunch of my devices including PC, Mac, my iPhone, and my tablets. In my experience the game is smoothest and looks the best on PC.  On Mac it doesn't feel optimized.  It's not something I would have ever noticed if I hadn't been playing many versions of the game. It runs the worst on my Android Nexus tablet.  It's super annoying and almost unplayable.  I also tried the game on my brother's modern Android phone and it was also laggy.  It's easily the worst version of the game, but it's still playable which is something. The platform I end up playing the most on i...

I'm traveling a bunch this week.  I'm probably in the process of getting ready to leave right as this post goes up.  There's going to be lots of time in airports and on planes for the next few days. I'm trying to figure out what games to play.  I always go loaded for bear when it comes to electronics and traveling.  I'll have my 3DS, Vita, iPhone, Nexus Tablet, and Kindle. Should I revisit old favorites or dive into the games that remain untouched on my 3DS and Vita?  Should I download a bunch of iOS games to play try out?  Look through my forgotten folders of iOS that I like but never play?  Should I just give up and read a book on my Kindle?  Should I read comics on my Nexus? As of writing this post I'm really not sure what I'm going to end up doing. I ended up grabbing the Mario Edition of Puzzle and Dragons.  I also have Persona 4 Golden sitting untouched on my Vita.  Those two games are top of mind for me, but I know I have ...

Card Crawl is a diamond in the rough.  By rough... I mean the Apple App store and by diamond... I mean a good game. Card Crawl is kind of like playing through a tactical solo dungeon crawl... with cards.  It's also a little bit like solitaire?  I feel like I'm not doing a good job here.  Stick with me, the game is good. What happens is you are dealt a hand of four cards and you have to manage them.  They're in the middle area which represents the dungeon.  There are six types of cards in the dungeon and a few ways to deal with them.  The card types are shield, sword, coin, potion, special ability, and monster.  All of the card types can be dragged down into the section around your character, but the catch is that you only have two hands and one backpack.  This means only three items can fit on your character at any time.  Monsters, on the other hand, can be attacked with swords, get hit by special abilities, be defended against wi...

Heavenstrike appears to be what happens when you take Square Enix's talent at making tactics games and neuter it with Free to Play mechanics.  Ugh. I tried it because I'll try most things that Square Enix releases.  They always have my attention since they're the company that makes Final Fantasy... and if you haven't noticed by now, I love Final Fantasy . Heavenstrike is a turn based lane pushing strategy game.  You summon units using mana and the units push up each lane trying to get to the enemy commander to do damage.  The first one to take out the opposing commander wins. The basics aren't bad, but the game has all the free to play trappings that I try to avoid.  Energy is used each time you enter a battle and if you run out of energy you can either wait a while or pay real money to buy more.  You can also pay real money to have a chance to recruit new super units.  This is not the way I want games to make their money. It's the worst...

Yesterday I mentioned how I latch onto good mobile games whenever I find them.  Since my phone is always within arm's reach I can sneak in quick mobile game sessions... and I do. I've been playing a bunch of Hero Emblems.  It's really fun, despite being a match-3 game.  And it doesn't have any predatory pricing model!  You pay for it once and get the game.  No in-app purchases.  That's always a plus in my book. The reason it's better than most match-3 games is because there are always obvious available matches but the game is about choosing the right one at the right time.  Compared to most match-3 games It has a bigger board, with less variety of matching items.  In this case they're called emblems, but they function just like gems in Bejeweled. The cool part is that the game is actually an RPG and each emblem on the board corresponds to one of the members in your party.  When you match that set of emblems that character will take ...

As I mentioned yesterday, I'm having a crazy week of work.  I had a bunch of projects land at the same time, which is always a blessing for money but a curse for my sanity and sleep schedule.  I've been working 16 hour days basically the entire week. It doesn't leave much room for gaming.  But I do need to take the occasional break to clear my head.  Usually a break is catching up on twitter for a few minutes or listening to part of a podcast while I'm eating a fast meal. But 10-15 minute gaming breaks can be super refreshing mentally.  So, I've been playing a lot of Quiz Up!  I might dig into some other iPhone games I have waiting on my phone already, but for the moment Quiz Up is keeping me sane.  It's really easy to do short sessions and it takes my full attention. It's amazing how much better I can work after a quick gaming break.  Clearing my mind with breaks every few hours let's me keep being super productive and last through thes...

Quiz Up is an awesome game of niche trivia.  I don't know how I haven't heard of it until last week.  Apparently it's been highly rated in the app store for a long time and I've just overlooked it. Let me emphasize, this is niche trivia.  That's what makes it so amazing!  It's not general knowledge like most trivia.  I've never enjoyed those types of trivia games.  This has very specific subsections of knowledge. For example, I've been competing heavily in the Star Wars Expanded Universe trivia area.  I'm actually ranked number one in Minnesota at the moment which gives me some kind of perverse pleasure.  It's such a small facet of geekdom, but for the moment it's mine! I showed the app to my wife and now she's hooked too.  Recently she's been dominating the Harry Potter trivia section.  We were dueling for awhile over The Newsroom TV show too. Quiz Up allows for very quick play sessions.  One round of trivia consis...

I had a few super busy days in the last week where I didn't get any chance to game.  Non-gaming days are the exception for me since I always try to make a little time in my day to disconnect and play something. One of the few things that keeps me sane on crazy days are all the gaming podcasts I listen to.  I have a bunch I subscribe to and love.  With them always on my phone I know that I'll at least get to rest my mind for a bit while I'm commuting to and from work or meetings. These brief periods of disconnecting from work make a huge difference in my day and my general happiness level.  At this point, I never listen to music in the car anymore since podcasts do such a better job of engaging my brain.  While I love music, if I listen to it while commuting I find that my mind is constantly on work.  If I throw on a podcast, my mind is actively engaged with the discussion on the show. Finding gaming podcasts and listening to them has truly h...

I've previously discussed my thought on the virtual d-pad implemented in FFI and FFII on iOS.  It generally works fine, it just doesn't have the tactile feedback I'm used to with a controller.  Final Fantasy III uses a virtual analog stick instead of a virtual d-pad and it's a totally different story. The virtual analog stick is extremely frustrating to use.  The lack of tactical sensation makes it difficult to judge how far you actually have the analog stick pressed in one direction or another and which direction it's been pushed.  Not only is it hard to judge but the stick location actually moves around the screen depending on where your thumb is touching.  It's impossible to learn the area the virtual analog stick occupies because it is constantly moving every time you pick up your thumb and put it somewhere new.  If it wasn't constantly moving around I could at least learn to use it by spending enough time with it. Final Fantasy III is a fully...

I'm staying chronological with my Final Fantasy Project which means that next up is Final Fantasy III.  Before I begin, it's important to note that not all Final Fantasy III's are created equal.  What do I mean by that?  Well, it's time for a mini history lesson. When Final Fantasy III was brought to the United States it wasn't actually Final Fantasy III.  The original FFIII was released in Japan in 1990.  The game that was released with the title "Final Fantasy III" in the US in 1994 was actually Final Fantasy VI from Japan.  The next U.S. release after that was Final Fantasy VII in 1997.  From a U.S. perspective it looked like the series had jumped from III to VII but from that point forward all of the numbers matched on U.S. and Japanese releases. Final Fantasy IV through VI were later released under their correct numbers in the United States on new platforms like Playstation and Game Boy Advance.  This covered all the releas...

Hero Academy is the game I've been longing for .  I didn't know how much I needed a game like this, but now I'm playing it more than anything else.  I've been in the mood for a nice tactical game without twitch elements, and Hero Academy fills that role perfectly. The premise of Hero Academy is simple.  On your turn you get five actions to spend how you will.  The game plays out asynchronously over multiple turns.  If you destroy your opponent's crystals or kill all of their units you emerge the victor. These five actions can be to move a unit, attack with a unit, or bring an object into play from your current available "hand" at the bottom of the screen.  The objects you'll bring into play are more units, equipment for existing units, and spells that you cast on the battlefield.  At the end of every turn your current hand of objects refills up to six. Those are the basic mechanics of the game,...

I really like the Free to Play business model.  I have no problem paying for game content in chunks.  It gives me the freedom to spend the amount of money I want on the parts of the game that appeal to me and that's awesome. In the past few months I've spent money on content for Tribes Ascend and Hero Academy.  In Tribes I unlocked some classes and in Hero Academy I unlocked different teams to play with.  In total I spent maybe $20 between the two games and it was money well spent.  I unlocked some content and got to support good developers in the process. I'm planning on spending a little more money on both Mech Warrior Online and Mech Warrior Tactics when they come out this summer.  Depending on what's available in the Guild Wars 2 store I may spend some there too. The coolest part of F2P games is that I don't have  to spend money.  These games are all designed so they can be played and enjoyed for free.  But, once I pla...

I finally wrapped up my time with Final Fantasy II.  It feels good to get another game done on my quest to complete all the main (numbered) Final Fantasy games.  FFII provided me with around 25 hours of play divided mostly into 5 to 10 minute chunks.  It was great for killing a little time here and there, even if playing it that way made the game take months to complete. I've already posted some thoughts as I was going along, but what do I think about FFII overall?  Well, it's an improvement over the first game.  I can tell that the designers were stretching themselves and trying new ideas which is always worthy of praise. There is an actual story this time, something that Final Fantasy I failed at.  FFI had the general knowledge that bad things were in the world and needed to be destroyed.  Final Fantasy II, on the other hand, had 3 main characters that get caught up in a rebellion against an oppressive empire (I already see precursors to F...

I gave in and got a smart phone.  I had been putting it off for a couple years because I knew that as soon as I got a smart phone I would never be able to go back and the data rates are still killer.  But the reality of my job is that it's stupid not to have one, so I finally caved. I got an iphone 4s and I love it, just like I knew I would.  I used to carry my cell and my ipod touch with me everywhere, but now they're combined in one device.  I went with an iphone because I already had 100+ apps for my ipod touch and they all transfer over.  I didn't want to start from scratch with an android device when I had already invested money elsewhere. Besides using it for work, I've been using it to play games that were incompatible with my ipod touch.  The games that have gotten the most play time from me are Hero Academy and Infinity Blade.  Hero Academy is the best turn based strategy game that I've played in a very long time and when I launch Infin...

On a recent weekend away with my family I had the chance to use my dad's ipad for awhile and I downloaded Hero Academy.  It's an amazing turn based tactic game for iphone and ipad that I was instantly addicted to.  I played for hours against other people online.  If Hero Academy was compatible with my ipod touch I would be playing it every day. After latching onto the game so fast, I realized that I'm starved for a good turn based tactical game.  I don't have as much time to game as I used to, and time is what's required to get good at a twitch game.  So, while I love Tribes Ascend, League of Legends, and Starcraft 2 I always feel like I'm at a slight disadvantage.  I don't have the 8 hours of free time each night like I did in high school. Instead, I'd like the emphasis to be on my mind and not my reflexes.  Unfortunately, there really aren't that many on the market right now that are turn based.  I could dive back into my catalog of GBA an...

One of the advantages of playing Final Fantasy I on the ipod touch is that I can get in quick play sessions.  I'm not slaving over the game for hours the way I sometimes do in modern RPGs and MMOs.  The ipod lets me pick up and play for 5 minutes, make some progress, save and quit.  It works well and I don't feel any RPG burn out at all. Compare that to Dragon Age II where I only play once every few days and but devote a large block of time to my play sessions.  By the end of a session I'm often burned out on DAII. It actually makes me kind of concerned for my Final Fantasy Project because the thought of going back to old school save points sounds like a pain in the ass.  The games aren't that old but not being able to save on the fly is going to be inconvenient. Part of the reason the modern, save anywhere, approach exists is the increase in technology but I think that demographics play a part as well.  A whole generation of gamers has grown up ...

Tiny Wings is about momentum, reaction time, flying, and an adorable bird all at the same time.  It's a fun experience and it only takes one button to play.  Well, one touch at any rate. In Tiny Wings the world is made up of islands and each of these islands has a series of hills on it.  Your goal is to help the bird cross as many islands as possible in one day.  With a touch of the screen the bird folds his wings and gains momentum downhill.  When you release your touch the bird flaps his wings and tries his best to soar majestically with the momentum he's gained. Stringing together hill jumps makes the bird go exponentially higher and farther.  It's a simple gameplay mechanic that I can't seem to get enough of.  The sense of accomplishment I get from executing jumps successfully is amazing. The game not only has cute graphics, but they're procedurally generated too.  The hills and islands change colors and designs every day.  That's...

Flight control is a great game for the ipod touch and iphone.  It is one of the best that I have played on the system and could not be done as well without the touch screen interface.  Flight Control has really found a home on the ipod touch. In Flight Control you are put in the role of an air traffic controller.  Planes and helicopters fly onto the screen and you need to give them a path to their correct runway or helipad.  It is done by simply touching the plane and drawing a flight path - with your finger - to the runway entrance. There are different maps to play on with varying numbers of runways and different types of aircraft.  High scores are tracked for each map. That's really all there is to it, but the game quickly ramps up the speed and number of aircraft on the screen as time goes on.  It gets frantic but it's extremely fun. This is an easy to understand game that can be digested in small sessions - you know how I love 60 second games ...

I have the Kindle app for reading on my ipod touch and I absolutely love it.  I hate the default settings, but I love the app.  It's the app that I use the most on my ipod touch, which is saying something.  I have all sorts of games and entertainment on my ipod touch and yet most of my time is spent reading on it. The Kindle app links to your Amazon.com account which allows for easy purchasing of digital books.  Most of the books are cheaper in digital form than they are in paperback.  I found one of my favorite trilogies for $9.99 which is the cost of one of them in paperback.  Not only that, but I've found that a lot of authors have free digital copies of the first book in a series in an attempt to get new readers. Any book available in the Amazon Kindle store can be tried for free.  There is a buy button and a sample button.  The sample will download the first portion of the book to the application for free.  It's like browsing new b...