The iPhone game networks/platforms thread

[RUiN 427]

It's really early to start doing this, since there are about 4 different companies trying to be the integrated xbox live of iphone gaming. But I want to add some of you so I can get some use out of the features some of these things offer.

Specifically I use the plus+ platform integrated into Star Defense. So far it's pretty simple, offering friends lists, leaderboards, achievements and the whole facebook and twitter integration. However the most interesting part is the challenges, and not enough of my friends have the combination of iphone, game, or interest to add to the friendslist.

There are several other network/platforms that are starting up as well. Scoreloop (no notable games), Open Feint (pocket god, idracula, my brute), plus+ (star defense, rolando 2), and I think one called Onyx (trism). So far it looks like plus+ and Open Feint have the better titles but like I said it's early.

Anyway, here are my names in the platforms: (what are we calling these things anyway?)

plus+ : RUiN427

scoreloop : RUiN427

open feint: RUiN427

You get the idea. Add me and I'll add you I'll keep updating this thread if more of these networks/platforms pop up.

[Morfiend]

Personally, the iPhone seems like it has some real potential for a gaming platform, but the majority to the game released are crap. Its like mostly tower defense and mobwars clones. Seems like the perfect platform for some old school RPGs, but so far I haven't seen any.

[Prospero]

Amen. I have my iPhone dev license just to make such a beast, but I need to carve out some time to work on it.

[RUiN 427]

Personally, the iPhone seems like it has some real potential for a gaming platform, but the majority to the game released are crap. Its like mostly tower defense and mobwars clones. Seems like the perfect platform for some old school RPGs, but so far I haven't seen any.

If I hear you correct, may I suggest taking a look at:

Zenonia (it's like SNES zelda meets diablo/wow lite)

Galaxy on Fire 3D

Chronicles of Inotia

Vay

But your right, to find the gems you have to do some digging through a lot of crap.

[schild]

Zenonia is god awful. Between the aliasing, shoddy controls, and maximum grind - the only reason people recommend it is because their standards are crap as there are no other alternatives.

I still haven't found a game I can truly say I like on the platform at all. I play most of the stuff as research. I like the idea behind Taxiball, but the controls may be a bit too sensitive. They'll get there with it, I'm sure though.

I've spent the most time with Defender Chronicles. Peggle was OK. Most of the stuff I've downloaded has been tower defense stuff, followed by the odd classic sim. I'm pretty good at Word-Fu. Edge is decent, nowhere near as good as people make it out to be.

Field Runners is overrated schlock.

Mostly, I like the logos. I swear most dev teams put more time into their logo than they do their game (7 Cities anyone?).

[RUiN 427]

Yeah, I get what your saying about research. There's a pile of games I want to download just to see if they pulled off the mechanics. Like gameloft's warcraft clone, that diablo style vampire hunter game, the advanced wars clone mecho wars. Even the fully liscensed games like Assasins creed and mass effect.

Back to my original question, what do you think about these "integrated networks"? Got any games that use them? God damn this is like research.

[schild]

Back to my original question, what do you think about these "integrated networks"? Got any games that use them? God damn this is like research.

I'm not even sure they're worth paying attention to until Apple realizes that they've got the ultimate portable IM device and can integrate it all at the OS level. They're totally half-assing functionality and support for the applications at the moment. They should be seriously looking into destroying any possibility of a portable XBL or PSN variant from even making waves in the industry.

[RUiN 427]

Well I just want to play sme games with some of you guys on this thing. So let me know what and when, I'll be down.

[Prospero]

I don't think any of the games I have hook into any of the game networks, and I have a a good couple pages of games. If there's something that is interesting that uses one of the game networks let me know I'm always up for trying something different.

[RUiN 427]

If there's something that is interesting that uses one of the game networks let me know I'm always up for trying something different.

I'm sure everyone has had their fill of tower defence games, but my 2 favorites are Star Defense and geoDefense. GeoDefense is basic with a polished geometry wars look and effects but the scenarios or maps are tough as balls. While Star Defense is more graphically impressive and takes advantage of iphones graphics, and network abilities. This is the one that is on the plus+ network. Here, I will link to a little video they put together to show the basic features of plus+.

http://blog.ngmoco.com/post/125407399/welcome-to-plus

Star Defense is $6 but I feel like it's lived up to that price. Especially with the replay value from the challenges, the DLC, the plus+ network and open ended missions. (once you complete the objective you can keep playing till you die)

If it sounds like I have this game's dick in my mouth, it's because I do. It has these great features that I can't use yet simply because I have no one on my list. Besides it's the only one I own on that particular network, and the Open Feint network games are still using an old version that crashes a lot.

[RUiN 427]

This past week I downloaded quite a few iphone games. Some of them utilizing these networks, others just because they were cheap and looked fun. I found some differences in the two major iphone game networks, Open Feint and plus+.

Feint seems to have a head start on plus+, launching earlier and having more games and users. The bugs I encountered last week have since been fixed with titles using the feint 2.0 software. There are leaderboards, achievements and chat channels. Also integration with twitter/facebook to find friends playing feint games. Not much in the way of challenges or invites, and the quality of the titles is a little meh, but overall pretty solid. I played Pocket God and My Brute out of curiosity for the network features.

There is a bit of a creepy factor to consider. Late last night I poked around the chat channels in the feint network only to stumble upon a skeevy cyber exchange gone awkward. When you enter a channel you can see about 20 of the messages prior to your arrival. I won't repeat what I read but someone was definitely "getting nervous" about their "first time". I could be over reacting. After all, it has been about 10 years since I lurked around ICQ chat channels.

As for the plus+ (they don't capitalize it) network, there are only 2 titles utilizing the service right now. Star Defense and Rolando 2, they are both big titles by iphone standards. I bought star defense back when it released and bought rolando 2 the other day because i just had to have another title on the network. There are no chat channels with plus+, however the achievements and leaderboards are a bit easier to get to and compare with others. plus+ has facebook/twitter integration as well. However the difference is in the issuing of challenges via email, twitter, or facebook giving a multiplayer feel to single player games.

Both Feint and plus+ seem to be pretty serious about coming out on top. Feint announced over 1 million players the other day and over $15 million has been invested in plus+. What started as a thread trying to drum up a larger friends list has now become a personal obsession. Sorry for the wall of text, I figured I should follow up on a thread I've started for once.

As for all the other iphone games I downloaded, would you guys be bummed if I posted some threads in the "but is it fun" forum? Not all the crap, just some of the less reported-on yet quality gems that I come across.

[schild]

I can't say the iPhone deserves that yet, but mobile might deserve a subforum. I'll think about it.

[Morfiend]

I bought "I Dig It" last night as I am a fan of the "mining" games. Decent game, pretty good controls, very nice graphics. The game is not easy, and a bit on the repetitive side, but not bad at 0.99c.

[Teleku]

Reading my iPhone development book as we speak, and just got my used mac mini in the mail to work on.  Guess we'll see if I can actually make anything worthwhile in my spare time.   

[Hawkbit]

Woot.  The wife just got a 16gig 3GS for work.  It's hooked right up to their case management system so she has access to all her files 100% of the time, anywhere she can get access to AT&T.  No restrictions. 

Which means.... I get her 8gig touch 2.0.     Only 8 months old and looks pristine. 

[RUiN 427]

well gameloft just threw thier hat into the ring for a game network on the iphone... I'm starting to take schild's side, where apple builds it into the OS. Having 5 or more user names for games is getting pretty lame.

[Jain Zar]

Personally, the iPhone seems like it has some real potential for a gaming platform, but the majority to the game released are crap. Its like mostly tower defense and mobwars clones. Seems like the perfect platform for some old school RPGs, but so far I haven't seen any.

There are a couple.  Quest is basically a single player Eye of the Beholder style game.  Zenonia is a JARPG except from Korea.  Vay is an old ok Sega CD JRPG.  Dragonsbane is a Bard's Tale styled port from the Palm OS machines.

There are a ton of cool titles on there.  Pinball Dreams and Illusions.  Archon, 3 good turn based strategy games, a SUBLIME RTS (at least it was on the Palm) called Warfare Incorporated, and other stuff.

But there are entirely too many puzzle and tower defense games.

Let me give a quick rundown of my currently on my 2nd gen Touch games:  (That I have spent any serious time with)

Machdice:  Its really just a dice roller.  An amazing one.  Not really a game but its fucking rad.

Monkey Ball:  Its kind of shit.  Get either Gamecube version and ignore every other Monkey Ball game.  Especially the Wii version.

Vay:  Its ok.  Nothing special.

Quest:  Its pretty rad but I am only playing the free version. 

Pinball Dreams:  The Amiga classic now with better graphics.  The sequel is up now and I wants it.

Galaxy on Fire:  Sort of an Elite/Freespace game.  Not too shabby.

Baseball Superstars 2009: An ok baseball game/RPG.  Like Baseball Stars Lite.  I am sure Konami's cutesy baseball game is probably better though.

Nicky Boom: Port of an Amiga euro action platformer.  Not bad but not great either. 

Mecho Wars:  Advance Wars clone with a really unique art style.  Pretty rad and they have been improving it.

Archon:  Works pretty well and looks nice.  Decent update.

Rick Rocketson:  Amiga styled euro platformer.  Pretty neat but not cool enough to buy the full game.  Maybe if it had a joypad control.  (Or please Apple just make an adaptor that has the Neo Geo Pocket Color joysrick on it.  Best portable game controller EVER.)

Uniwar:  Fun hex turn based strategy game.  Advanced Wars style with multiplayer and 3 races.

Reign of Swords: Fun turn based strategy game with semipersistent units.  Has an online conquest mode.  And a sequel I haven't tried yet. 

Lux Touch:  Demo version is enough for me.  Its Lux which is computer Risk only faster.  Try the computer version and see if you like it.  Full versions iTouch and computer aren't worth the asking price IMHO.

Galcon:  Demo version is enough for me.  Neat little lite RTS.  Well worth a look.  Perfect coffee break game.

SlotZ:  Slot Car Racing.  Sucks ass.  Even for a dollar its shite.  A shame since Freeverse makes some great fucking Mac games and they give us this pile of donkey dick.

[RUiN 427]

Here's what I've been playing lately since my iphone game binge... These are the ones I play daily.

Rolando2 - I don't feel Like I'm out of line by stating that this could be the platform's mascot IP. Give it a try, skip rolando 1. I really think you should try this one Schild. For a long time i though it was just a poor mans loco roco but it's much deeper then that.

UNO - with the gameloft live update uno has now become everything the XBLA version is. The 3g internet multiplayer is really stable (in my area at least)

Real Racing - this is the platform's GT or Forza, without being a clone and having just enough arcade racer to make it forgivable and fun. plus online leagues, tons of cars and tracks. They also show off tech demo of 40 cars on screen with the 3Gs vs 6 cars with regular 3G.

Scrabble - you play games against people on facebook. i have like 10 games going at once all lasting 2 weeks each.

flight control - yeah yeah yeah, it's still fun, it has leaderboards, and the bluetooth multiplayer update is deliciously fun.

tiger woods - true blue tiger woods golf game. the swing mechanic is more at home here then on an analog stick.

There are of course the staples that are always on my phone like flick fishing (have a tourney going with my co-workers), star defense, zenonia, peggle, brain excercise, sims 3, doom resurection, kaloki adventure, geodefense (tough as balls geometry wars style tower defense), eliss, puzzle quest, aurora feint arena, galcon, bejeweled 2, worms (as broken as it is), simcity, mecho wars, zombies & me, hero of sparta, deerhunter, katamari, karma star (hoping for internet multiplayer), feildrunners, dropship, i dig it, star wars FU, and apple's hold em.

then there are the experimental joints that i am messing with like 7swords (some kind of korean? 3D arena fighter?) mafia wars, pocket god, hudson shot watch, my brute (ZZZZZzzzzzz....), and taxi ball.

none of this includes the other 20 or so games in my itunes but not on the phone.