by ZombieSkittles on June 18, 2010
Some of the time anyway.
This is exactly how many people play the Words With Friends game on the iPhone; they’ll attempt as many different combinations of high scoring letters as they can until one just works. It all really comes down to the point that there’s no penalty for making up words. QUIGOBY isn’t a word? Well, try again!
I have won a fair few games through use of this method, but when you think about it, it does ruin the challenge. I remember playing Scrabble and having to REALLY pick a decent REAL word, lest someone challenge me as to whether it exists.
If the game wanted to be a bit more realistic, it would have the miss a turn penalty that comes with failing at making a real word. That would stop people “Brute Forcing” the game, and lead to a more challenging experience.
If you play this, what do you think?
by ZombieSkittles on May 14, 2010
by ZombieSkittles on April 28, 2010
I’ve heard this game mentioned a few times on a couple of gaming podcasts that I listen to, but never really thought twice about it. It’s an iPhone game, that’s all I knew about it. Then while bored and scanning Twitter at 2am in the morning, I saw a friend tweet about playing it, and inviting others (you know those automatic tweets that games let you send out?), and decided what the hell I’ll give it a go.
It’s actually REALLY fun. it’s a simple game of scrabble, but you play it with actual people over the internet. The game isn’t in real time as such though. You make a move, and the game notifies your opponent that it is their move via a push notification. The game will wait until that person makes their move, and then notify you that it’s your move in turn. This means that if you’re busy, you’re not forced to make your move until you’re ready. The other person just has to wait. However, this doesn’t stop them playing, as you can have multiple Words With Friends games going at once. While you wait, you can plan your strategy for the next word, and even just start a new game with a whole new person.
If you have the game, my name in it is Zombie_Plan, and I challenge you to a game RIGHT NOW, or whenever you’re ready (I’m not fussed).
by ZombieSkittles on April 16, 2010
As much as Britt makes fun of me with sketches like the one below (which I love), Charadium is a good little multiplayer game for the iPhone which you should try. Basically, one person draws while the others guess what it is. It’s a free game on the Plus+ network, and I encourage you to at least give it a try.
The game helps me understand the depth of my drawing talent.
by ZombieSkittles on March 10, 2010
Mobile games can be simple, requiring only minutes of time to play, with minimal concentration needed. These are good games. Then there are games where you don’t even need to play them to win. In comes Accelerate, a game for the iPhone powered by OpenFeint, which asks the question “how fast is your iPhone?”.
Accelerate is a tremendously simple program; turn it on, specify what vehicle you’re in, and wait. The game checks the iPhone’s GPS to see how fast you’re travelling and gives a (rather) rough estimate of your speed, which can be measured in either kilometres or miles. The faster your speed, the better the score. Simple. There are also OpenFeint achievements obtainable for hitting certain speeds in certain vehicles.
The game isn’t much, and doesn’t restrict you from specifying whatever vehicle you want, and get the achievements from them. In the course of 10 minutes, I switched through each vehicle option and got most of the achievements the game had to offer, while travelling at 60km/h.
There’s not much appeal in it after the initial few minutes, and unless you’re really after an easy way to boost your OF score, isn’t worth buying. If you really want those achievements though, you can grab it via this handy link.
by ZombieSkittles on February 22, 2010
Texas Tea by Snakehead Software is a game which can be (and has been) best described as a game which takes elements from games such as Bejewelled, Yahtzee and Poker and creates an interesting puzzle game out of them.
The premise is simple; there are dice on the board, and you need to construct poker hands out of them (such as a three of a kind, straight, full house) by dragging your finger along such a combination (across or up and down). When you highlight a successful combination, those squares black out and more dice drop. To win a level, all the squares must be blacked out. You can swap dice around by tapping the two that you want moved, as long as they’re touching.
The whole time you’re playing a level, there is a timer at the bottom of the screen to watch out for. However, if you’re playing without distraction the timer isn’t much of a worry as the game tends to go quickly.
Unfortunately, there aren’t many levels, so the game ends quite quickly if you sit down with the intent of playing continuously. Texas Tea does utilize the OpenFeint network, and as such has achievements to be earned. However, these are relatively simple, and you’ll get most of them in the first sitting (the majority are for completing levels).
Hopefully, as with many iPhone games, more features and levels will be added in future to increase playability, but for now it’s a good simple puzzle game. You can grab it from the iTunes store here.
by ZombieSkittles on February 20, 2010
OpenFeint is best described as Steam or Xbox LIVE, but for your iPhone. Developed by the crew at Aurora Feint, the OpenFeint gaming platform joins mobile gamers together with forums, scoreboards and classic social networking tools (Friends lists, messaging, etc). OpenFeint boasts millions of users (of which at least one is me, and another is a Mr. Citron.) and over 1000 games attached to it. Once a profile has been created, you have full access to all of the program’s features. Much like Steam, OpenFeint gives access to games that are OF enabled in the App Store, even going so far as to offer one game that you’d normally have to pay for, free for a day.
While many games have achievements these days, OpenFeint works like Xbox LIVE, Windows LIVE and Steam in that any games that are OF enabled and have achievements, run them through OpenFeint. Achievements count towards your OF score. All your gameplay stats are displayed on your profile for anyone to see.
While OpenFeint has it’s own management program (which you can get here, for free), you don’t need it. Any OF game will let you access game specific OpenFeint information, as well as access to your profile.
It’s an interesting program that has quite a few games attached to it, which you can recognize most games with OpenFeint software by the dual leaf logo sitting on the game’s icon, such as that on Texas Tea’s icon.
by ZombieSkittles on February 18, 2010
Tower defence games are a popular genre on the iPhone. It’s a simple casual game type that a player can log into, play a level or two (or even just half a level) and jump back out when they run out of time. I’ve played a few, and the latest of which is GeoDefence.
geoDefence is a basic tower defence game, made by Critical Thought Games. There’s a path that enemies (referred to as creeps,and represented by simple shapes like stars and spirals) move down towards a final point that you need to defend. To stop these monsters, you place towers alongside the path that attack them. GeoDefence starts you off slowly with a simple straight-shooting tower, but as time goes on the player is given a variety of different towers which use lasers, bombs, etc. At the beginning of a game there’s a set amount of money to get started with, and as each enemy dies more money is gained for more towers.
What separates this from a lot of other tower defence games is the art style. Maps are futuristic, with neon colours for the enemies and explosions, and makes it a pleasure to watch. While this makes the game captivating and interesting, it’s also it’s downfall. Sometimes so much is happening on screen, so many flashing lights, that concentration is lost and the game destroys the player.
The game isn’t easy either. I’m personally stuck at the sixth level on the EASY set. There is a challenge about the game, and it really makes you think through your tower placement. If a single mistake is made with the placing of towers, the game can be lost. With that said, tower placement can be difficult at times, with the game being pretty sensitive to the touch. I’ve accidently placed towers in wrong places because when I’ve tried to let go, I’ve dragged slightly. You need to be precise.
To help ease the difficulty, at the beginning of each level the game gives tips to assist in winning, but leaves out enough to still keep it a challenge.
Apart from that, it IS a fun game, and well worth the couple of dollars it costs. You can buy it from the iTunes Store here.
