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[AzyWng]

Bloons Super Monkey's free on the App Store for the time being, too.

[tnc]

Is anyone playing iNethack2? I was wondering if there are any game breaking bugs or if anything is left out of the original game. I looked around the internet and couldn't find much other than a couple of old bug reports.

[Aoi]

Rogue Grinders (currently free on Android, I believe)... far as I can tell, having only done the first few sets of stages, is not very rogue, and not very grindy.

Puzzle-oriented, top-down, turn-based dungeon crawl, with each room in a dungeon being a discrete 'puzzle' that can be done in a few minutes at most. (They're not really puzzling, for the most part.) You can see where your attacks will land on a given turn, and which tiles will take damage after your next action (ie, "get out of there"). Different weapons, which you'll mostly get as random loot within a dungeon, have different attack patterns. Your base weapon attacks four spaces: Two forward, and the two forward-adjacents, like .|.  while a common upgrade attacks the six blocks adjacent to the direction you face: |'|, so you can hit your sides, but you lose forward range. Bosses at the end of the dungeon tend to have longer, larger, and more hazardous attack patterns and copious traps in the room.

I'm finding it surprisingly entertaining, if fairly simple. As far as I can tell, all the bosses can be done flawlessly with your starter weapon, though upgrades can do far more damage or have much more useful attack patterns.

Edit: If you have wifi/data off when you start it, you won't get inundated with adds between every room.  Best weapon is probably the bone since you can stunlock with it.

[Folly]

Dragon Village M started it's 1 year anniversary event today, with lots of generous rewards through the event and daily login.

[sambojin]

And, ummm, Dragon Village is what exactly?

Is it that combine-a-few-dragons into-a-better
-dragon resource grind thingy? Had pumpkin patches
 or something around Halloween?

Probably vaguely remember my sister telling me about it?

Cow clicker with extra stuff, and dragons and stuff?

[Jopax]

It also swamps you with so many different kinds of resources and mechanics that I can honestly say their design team is on really strong drugs.

That said the art is incredibly pretty (tho I guess you wouldn't expect anything less from a Korean devteam)

[Folly]

And, ummm, Dragon Village is what exactly?

I originally mentioned Dragon Village here. Yes, it's a game about collecting dragons, sacrificing some to power up others, optimizing equipment sets for your dragons, and putting together teams of dragons to overcome a lengthy series of hurdles.

And as Jopax said, yes the resources and mechanics can be a bit overwhelming at first, but that just means lots of content to keep busy grinding for a long time.


in other news...
Nintendo is publishing a new mobile game, Dragalia Lost. Pre-Registration began today, with release scheduled for sometime in September.

There's not a whole lot of details on how the gameplay will progress, whether it's a story-driven journey or a grindy time-waster. The presence of multiplayer raids against giant dragons would lead me to expect the latter. Combat appears to be real-time with swipe based spells. Art direction looks like they may have borrowed from Pokemon's design team. Overall, I'm more than a little bit interested, if not quite fully excited.

[Frumple]

The "wyrmite" stuff and mention at the bottom of it being "free to start" suggests real damn strong it's a grindy time waster, probably monetized to encourage you to spend to make it go away.

[Parsely]

Cygames makes gachapon games so it's not unlikely that it's a gachapon game too, which yes means a grind. The significance of the grind really depends on the gameplay though.

[Aoi]

So I've been doing a lot of travelling lately and have been working my way through various offline stuff I had on my phone when I rediscovered Sproggiwood (again).

Brief review: Turn-based roguelite by the same guys as Caves of Qud with charming art, surprisingly high production values, and a gripping commentary on imperialism in the narrative. I find it rather simple and limited, but I've probably sunk upwards of a hundred hours into it at this point, when a single standard playthrough probably takes under ten hours for the first time.

So... Does anybody know if finishing all stages on all characters on Savage difficulty opens anything beyond a sense of accomplishment? Figure it's good for two more flights.

[KittyTac]

I like Achikaps and Antiyoy. Android games, Achikaps is an economic strategy similar to rymdkapsel and Antiyoy is a turn-based strategy. They manage to be both complex and minimalist. There is a free version and a pro version, the pro version unlocks 100 more levels of the campaign and a level editor. No microtransactions.

[sambojin]

Templar Battleforce RPG is on special for the next five days. At $1.49 Aussie ($1US?) I can say it's most definitely worthwhile picking up. Hell, it was worthwhile when I bought it at full price ages ago.
(edit: actually, is it $4.39 Aussie? Still a bargain).

Pretty much a mixture of Xcom/Laser Squad and Wh40k, turn based top-down squad strategy, but with its own lore and background story. You can create your own squads, level them up with different abilities (there's commanders, scouts, engineers, heavy weapon specialists and gunners). There's several large narrative campaigns with mission objectives varying from "kill everything" to "run away" to "take and hold" to "bugger about turning on electrical cables" and much more. Limited "super/buff"powers, unlimited standard actions, overwatch, heat management (Templars are somewhere between Terminators and Mini-mechs in this world), ammo conservation, melee, engy turrets, everything. There's a tonne of stuff to do and ways of trying to play. And they're all good. Also a "nice" game in that you can respec you troops when you want, no costs, no downsides, so you actually get to try out all these different tactics whenever you want. So you won't get bored on ways of playing, or feel like you been trapped into the wrong focus due to one bad choice (it seems overwhelming at first, until you realize that there's not too many "bad" choices, just different ways of doing stuff). You'll feel powerful and weak at the same time, just like an armoured Marine squad o'death should when fighting against swarms of xeno scum.

Think kind of like Space Hulk, but more tactical (they actually have a SH game as well, but this is a definitive upgrade on that). Don't know if $1 will be worth it for hours of fun? They've got a slightly cut-down free version for you to try anyway. The Trese brothers stuff is by and large very good, all with a high level of polish and depth, and this is one of their best. And for a dollar, you really can't go wrong.

(Cory Trese has heaps of other games too, quite a few of them on special right now, but this one is an absolute corker at this price).

[Aoi]

 Triglav is free, ad-free, offline, and with unobtrusive IAP*. At the risk of sounding old, it plays like The Immortal, but with more stats and combat.

For people not quite familiar with that... it's an isometric ARPG dungeon crawl where you're moving through fifty floors of a tower, but there's a much stronger emphasis on puzzles and judgement calls then a Diablo-esque rampage where you kill everything in sight for loot. Played with a tap or drag interface. Difficulty, at least for the first 20 floors is questionable: Most puzzles are either for extra rewards or have minimal penalty for failure. (Didn't quite understand the hint for the trap hallway? Stand to the side, regen, try another circle.) The only required puzzle I've encountered so far that didn't have a blatant hint (like a giant arrow pointing at a wall, if you look at a scroll nearby) involved going through two near-identical passages, except you're fighting Knights in one side, and ƨɈʜϱinꓘ on the other.

There's soft permadeath-- there are consumables you can buy (in-game currency) or find as rare drops/rewards that give pretty powerful buffs for a short time, or act as an extra life if you die with them in your inventory. Part of the problem is that you have a very limited inventory-- 8 slots, and you'll can equip two weapons, armor, boots, and two rings. Then you'll need at least one empty slot to pick up the key to open the door to the next floor, and you now have one empty slot. Oh, and there are quest items, which often reward you with either stat boots or rare items. So... not much space. For better or for worse, you can cheese most combats.

Definitely worth a look, if it sounds remotely interesting. Oh, and it saves on death, if you intend to try and scum a deathless run. Exit early!

*I'm not sure how to feel that opening this way feels extremely significant nowadays. The IAP is for extra character slots and shared stash space. Not that I've felt the need for it yet.

[Reelya]

It also swamps you with so many different kinds of resources and mechanics that I can honestly say their design team is on really strong drugs.

It's not "design team on drugs" it's almost certainly an example of what Extra Credits calls "landfill strategy" of making MMOs. Watch this short video about how it works:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tL_bCwiUKNE

What happens is that every so often a new tier of resource is introduced to create artificial scarcity, along with things that only use the new resource. This creates a level playing field for new and old players, since old players have none of the new resource.

The problem this addresses is that if you bring in new gear that only uses the old money, people who did tons of grinding burn through the new content too quickly and lose interest, while new players with no money might find the costs too high and lose interest for that reason. It's impossible to balance for that in a way that engages all players in a meaningful way. So, instead they bring in a new money 'rubies' with a way to grind them, and a new 'ruby tier' of stuff that's all '+1' better than the last tier. Presto, it's easy to balance and the new content can be dribbled out at a controlled rate for all players old and new. Then, when most people have the top-level 'ruby' gear, you make 'sapphires' with their own scaling sets of gear, which are just slightly better than their ruby counter-parts. Literally a new type of coin that buys something 1% better than the last set is enough to get most people wanting it, and you can rinse and repeat this ad infinitum. The long term effect however is to make your design seem positively schizophrenic to anyone who takes a close enough look.

[Folly]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

It also swamps you with so many different kinds of resources and mechanics that I can honestly say their design team is on really strong drugs.

It's not "design team on drugs" it's almost certainly an example of what Extra Credits calls "landfill strategy" of making MMOs. Watch this short video about how it works:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tL_bCwiUKNE

What happens is that every so often a new tier of resource is introduced to create artificial scarcity, along with things that only use the new resource. This creates a level playing field for new and old players, since old players have none of the new resource.

The problem this addresses is that if you bring in new gear that only uses the old money, people who did tons of grinding burn through the new content too quickly and lose interest, while new players with no money might find the costs too high and lose interest for that reason. It's impossible to balance for that in a way that engages all players in a meaningful way. So, instead they bring in a new money 'rubies' with a way to grind them, and a new 'ruby tier' of stuff that's all '+1' better than the last tier. Presto, it's easy to balance and the new content can be dribbled out at a controlled rate for all players old and new. Then, when most people have the top-level 'ruby' gear, you make 'sapphires' with their own scaling sets of gear, which are just slightly better than their ruby counter-parts. Literally a new type of coin that buys something 1% better than the last set is enough to get most people wanting it, and you can rinse and repeat this ad infinitum. The long term effect however is to make your design seem positively schizophrenic to anyone who takes a close enough look.

While this is something I've seen before, it's also become a trend in recent games(mainly Korean) to simply include a massive variety of power-up mechanics right from launch, each with their own set of resources. Even if each resource grind is only minimally or aesthetically different, it proves sufficiently stimulating for many ADHD gamers who need to feel like they are doing something new every 2 minutes. And this happens to be the case in the particular game you are referencing.