5punk

This thread is worthless without QR codes.

I've found it pretty handy. And I wouldn't know what to do with a QR code. I just search the app store, seems perfectly simple.

I'm very lazy.

Ty this one.

HereComesPete wrote:Ty this one.

I don't know what that was, but I must thank Vodafone content control for being on the ball no doubt.

Elder Signs: Omens

Elder Signs: Omens is the cooperative board game Elder Signs, made all computer gamey. Its exactly the same game, and is therefore a lot of fun.

For those that dont know: Elder Signs is a board game where the players take the roll of an investigator in a lovecraftian world. You spend the game pottering about in a museum, investigating the wierd shit that is going down in an effort to stop one of the elder gods from awakening. This is done by choosing a little adventure thing to complete. Each adventure takes the form of a number of "tasks" that are completed through the rolling of special dice, so for example one task might require three investigation points, or a peril and a lore, or some other combination. If you fail to get the required results on your roll, you remove a dice and try again. Fail enough and you run out of dice, and the adventure whops you with various penalties: loss of sanity, loss of health, extra monsters turning up, etc.

Every few turns the clock hits midnight, and DOOM counters are added. DOOM! If enough DOOM!!! counters are added before you have the required number of elder signs, Cthulhu or one of his mates turns up and eats the world. And you lose.

Theres a bunch of ways this fairly simple process is made more complicated and interesting. Different investigators have different special abilities, and completing tasks can reward you with items that let you do things like reroll dice or turn one result into another, so you need to think about what character has the best skills and tools for which tasks. Monsters appear, adding themselves to adventures in the form of additional tasks that need completing, characters can help other characters out on a single task, some adventures have bonus effects if they are not completed when midnight rolls around. You can also choose which extradimensional godbeast you want to go up against, each with slightly different monsters and midnight effects. For instance, the first one (ive forgotten all their names. I can remember that Cthulhu himself is one of the options, but thats it) spits out either a doom token or a monster every midnight, regular as clockwork, whereas the second guy doesnt do anything for the first few midnights, then starts spitting out two doom tokens at a time.

Theres a couple of reasonably cheap DLC options, adding different elder gods and slightly more complex set ups (one starts in the museum then takes you out to the arctic or something) but I havent had a chance to check them out yet, so I cant speak to whether they are worth the extra dosh. The stuff thats included will keep you going for a while by themselves though.

The easier gods are also the quicker ones, meaning a game will last you about long enough for a lengthy poo, with the longer options being good to play over a lunch break or something. Jolly good fun either way, and available for iPhone, iPad and Android.

DOOM!!!!!

Tsathhoggua: Special ability - chilling the fuck out.

I've been playing the iPad version of Baldur's Gate: Extended Edition for a little while now. I think it cost me about £6. As an iPad app it's pricey, but it's an exact conversion of the PC game, so that's not too bad when you consider how long (and good) the game is. It's a little ugly by PC standards, but compared to the usual PS1 graphics you get on the iPad that can be forgiven. The controls don't quite work, but they're not unplayably bad, just a little annoying. Since you can pause the game during combat and issue orders it doesn't affect the playability. There are a few bugs - I end the game on a CTD (or whatever an Apple equivalent is. There probably isn't one, the cult of Apple wouldn't admit it happens) every other time I play. Since it mostly happens immediately after a save though it's not a big deal. Also, half my interface vanished a few days ago and never came back. I can get to it via the character options so again it's only a minor annoyance, but it is an annoyance. As for the game itself, after all this time and with the progress made in gameplay, the constant saving and reloading after disastrous failure feels like a chore. The odd encounter that it throws in that you just can't win. I suppose if it did something different like level the monsters with you, though, I'd complain about that too. Lastly, the dialogue is looking pretty dated when compared to modern games like Mass Effect and Walking Dead. Sometimes it looks like it was written by a 13 year old boy and you think "I'd never say any of those because I'm not a twat". All in all though, I'd say I've certainly got my six quid out of it, and I'm only on chapter 3 (which sounds like it's probably late in the game, but I've not even got all my party to level 2 yet). Oh yeah, and it uses D&D 2nd ed rules, so if you've never played that before prepare to be confused to fuck by it, or just ignore it and do what sounds good.

I also bought Mechcommander Tactics mumble mumble subtitle this weekend but since I'm not past the nursery campaign yet I'll wait to post judgement on it.

I'll look out for the Android release of that, it looks quite good, although there are a few concerns.

The resolution shown in the screenshots looks a little high for phone/mini-tablet use. It's good that it's massively increased from the rather restictive view of your surroundings you got in the original PC release, but like with the enhanced PC version, it's possible to make the res so high you can't actually discern your characters anymore.

The other worries are the bugs you mention, and that they are new bugs to this version. Having carefully been through and applied all the numerous fan-made patches to the original on my GoG copy, there are so many which could be game-breaking that I'm not sure I'd want a straight conversion of the original, without all those unofficial fixes.

The graphics, I think are fine. Okay it's not rendered, but a pixel is a pixel and when they created that world they paid attention to the detail. The sort-of-followup Neverwinter Nights by comparision looks to me rather drab and repetitive, with just a bunch of stock artifacts plonked down, instead of a meticulously hand-drawn world.

The gameplay though, does show its age. Save and reload because you went the wrong way or said the wrong thing from a bunch of dumb options is totally the wrong vibe for an RPG. The 2nd Ed ADnD rules aren't bad in themselves, but I don't think they were ever succesfully incorporated into a computer game, with most attempts at doing so looking overly ambitious in retrospect.

They always seem to make the mistake of including cool-sounding spells that work great in certain circumstances in a non-computerised D&D session but which can't live up to their description in a CRPG - such as perhaps using Bigby's Grasping Hand to trigger a trap or manipulate an object out of physical reach, but in computer games it all boils down to DPS.

Two things recently flashing up on Google play, Super Hexagon and Aralon.

Hexagon is an arcadey, superhard piece of chiptune madness.

Aralon is rough around the edges but as close to an Elder Scrolls game mobiles are ever gonna get.

A few more added to the list lately:

Warhammer Quest (iOS, £2.99)
A pretty faithful recreation of the old Games Workshop boardgame, which was the spiritual successor to Hero Quest. It has a few tweaks, such as an XP system (you level up in the original by buying training) and difficulty levels, as well as the inevitable paid for content in the form of three probably hard as nails extra characters and extra gold. I'm playing on hardcore mode - harder combat and perma-death - and I've wiped twice. Worth the cash for a look, and if you like it probably worth an extra character or two, although they cost as much each as the game does.

Candy Crush
This is a polished and compelling, but pretty basic, match-up game which has even been advertised on TV. It's entertaining for about 30 levels, then you start to see why it's so well promoted - they start to drop in difficulty spikes and pimp the option to pay your way to cheat past it. Extra lives for cashmoney, or by harassing your friends on Facebook, little special 'weapons', paying to skip the waiting time to get more lives or the timer which stops you progressing to other zones. All very cynical, especially when you spot the item which costs £30. I don't know what the fuck it does, but short of it sucking me off I can't see it being worth that kind of money.

Another World
Not a bad conversion of the old Amiga classic. The controls don't quite work, and the save points are sometimes in stupid places, but it's still a decent puzzle/platformer.

Talisman Prologue HD - iOS, Android

I had no idea this existed, but I paid £3 just to see if it was what I thought it was. It is. This is a (currently single player only) digital version of Talisman for your tablet, or possibly phone. I've never played Talisman, but I've played Relic and it seems to pretty much get the basics. The PC version was greenlit on Steam last month and is due to land in November with up to 4 player support.

The version I'm playing, on the iPad, is pretty good. The interface isn't perfect, but it's perfectly serviceable, and I've had it crash once. My only real concern is that you might get bored of playing it on your own after a few games. Worth £3, or maybe wait for it on Steam.

80 Days

I've seen quite a few articles about this, back when it came out about a year ago. It got a lot of acclaim but it looked kind of slow and wordy. I've been away from my PC for days though, so I thought I'd give it a go.

The premise is that you are Phileas Fogg's valet, guiding him around a steampunk world in order to win his bet. As well as the titular time limit you have to balance other concerns - money most obviously, but also Mr Fogg's wellbeing along with gathering information on further routes. In this the difficulty is just right - I've won half of the four games I've played.

What's particularly unusual is that much of the decisions are dialogue based. Normally I find that pretty tedious, but it's such an interesting world that I've enjoyed it. It took me a couple of games to get into it, but I'm struggling to put it down now.