So I've been on somewhat of an iOS game spree lately, and I just happened to stumble across a completely awesome one totally by accident. But first, a slightly less awesome game.
I found Pocket Summoner Episode 1: Dragon Master on AppleVis. You collect spirits called guards to battle other spirits and players, and complete quests. Unlike the typical Kingdoms styles games, this one actually has some dialogue. The missions themselves don't have descriptions, but ocasionally there's some dialogue that at least fills in gaps and gives some background. There are tons of guardians to collect, transform and gain abilities with. I think the game is second language hence the oddness in dialogue in some places, but it's still pretty cool. Battle is sadly automatic so the game still has a pretty casual feel, but it's still worth a play. Be warned that there are some unlabelled buttons, but they're pretty easy to figure out. For example, on the guards screen, the first button after a guard's name changes that guard to your active guard for questing, and the second brings up the guard's info and training screen. If anyone signs up, I'd appreciate it if you used my friend code. It gives us both 5 gold coins, which you can cash in for various rewards and recharges. My code is: 7506723699 And now, for the truly awesome find. This one's not on AppleVis, but when I was getting Pocket Summoner, I also discovered a game called Monster Kingdom. It's similar to Pocket Summoner in that you collect monsters and train them up, but it's not nearly as casual. For one, it has a complete, in-depth story with dialogue scattered all over the place. It's got a complete soundtrack, and sound effects for every ability and attack, pretty good ones at that. Battle is most definitely not automatic and the abilities do more than just damage, most of the ones I've seen have very useful effects, like damage over time, crippling your opponent or buffs that are incredibly useful, like Mana Shield, which lets your mana supply take some of the damage that would have normally gone to your HP. There are a lot of monsters to collect, evolutions, upgradable abilities, crafting, battling with other trainers and more. And the best part, it's about 90% accessible. There's only a couple parts I've had trouble with so far. Selecting your initial monster, and monsters in battle, is a bit tricky. You have to turn VoiceOver off and tap on the screen for both. In the first case, it brings up info about the monster you picked and I'm not sure if you can go back and pick another one, I picked the water turtle thing. In battle, the monsters seem to be lined up in the center of the screen from left to right, and when you tap on one, after a couple seconds you'll hear a chime signifying that your turn has started, so that's not too hard. Crafting is also a little tricky since most of the components aren't labelled and the screen is kind of awkward, but I think it can be done as long as you just keep trying after collecting some components. Everything else works with VoiceOver and for the most part, is clearly labelled. One thing I should explain is the battle system. As the tutorial says, touch an ability to see info on it, swipe up to cast it. What this translates into is, double tap an ability to bring up info, and to use it, you'll need to double tap and hold while on the abilities name till you hear the triple tone from VoiceOver, then swipe up and the ability will activate. Your abilities in battle are lined up along the extreme bottom edge of the screen. The life and mana of your current monster are on the top left corner of the screen, slightly away from the edge, and your opponents is on the right. The swap button is in the very top left corner, and the battle menu is in the top center. In the menu you can flee, or look in detail at your or your opponents monsters' stats. If you bring up the battle menu, you have to click the battle menu again to close it before you can continue with the battle. I hope this all makes sense. The only problem I have with the game is that it uses an energy system, so you can't play as much as you want. And you can't even raise the energy stat manually like in some games, instead you gain 5 extra energy whenever you complete a zone and unlock a new one. So it's a little limited for my liking, but still awesome. I plan to hunt down some contact info for the devs of this game and ask them if they could fix the issues that VoiceOver has, I'm pretty sure they'd be simple fixes, especially given how well the game already works with it. If anyone else decides to play, I'd appreciate help giving feedback, especially if you find any other problems I haven't encountered yet. The more, the marrier, as they say. I personally think this game has tons of potential and even though I'm already able to play and have advanced to the third zone, I'd love to have more fine control over the systems that VoiceOver has trouble with. Note that when you first start the game, there will be a long period of time where it loads up the content and images. You only have to deal with this once, so just wait it out. Trust me, it's worth it. There doesn't appear to be any kind of referal code for this one, but if anyone decides to play, feel free to add me to your friends if you want. My name is Talerous. I hope people play and get a lot of enjoyment out of this game. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
