Baldur’s gate

A week ago I wrote that Bladur’s gate will be soon available on Ipad and We got more news that it will support multiplayer and should cost less than 10$.

More on touch arcade

Rotten tangerine (iOS & android)

I came across a really nice indie mobile game, it’s called Rotten tangerine, it’s available on android and iphone.

The goal is to prevent your tangerine to go bad, by tapping on the rotten one good tangerine will appear. However, sometime monsters appear and they will attack you tangerine to make them rot.

Check out the review at Indiegames.com: http://indiegames.com/2012/03/mobile_game_pick_rotten_tanger.html

Worm is back

I usually don’t review pc game but I was surprise that they’re a new worm game coming, on pc & console. It’s call worm revolution, here the video footage :

It’s look good, they used a new graphic engine and added 3d. This one will definitely go on my wish list.

Epic sax game

I don’t know what to say about this game, it almost could go in a bad game review but it’s too original to do so. From indie game :

“In Epic Sax Game, players attempt to replicate Epic Sax Guy’s solo using six keyboard keys. After practicing, you can record a studio version and join a jam session before attempting the toughest challenge of all: a ten-hour YouTube video, performed live.”

Well I tried it and let say it music is not my strength but it’s definitely fun to try but I won’t take my chance on the 10 hours jam … 

You can play it here : http://www.pippinbarr.com/games/epicsaxgame/EpicSaxGame.html

Clash of kingdoms – new patch

A new patch was released and what caught my eye is the new school system. The school system allows player of 10000 or more dev point to join or create a school and learn skill from the member of the school. Basically you need to have 3 student per teacher, the student can asks for advice, review to gain some insight and contribution to the school, the teacher gain some has well but less. When a hero have 400 of insight you can make him learn a skill.

Click on the icon that look like the stroke of genius skill

After you will be able to choose what skill you want to learn.

There more to it but that really the basic to get a skill, if you want all the details go check the forum thread and if you want to optimize your school to get the best out of it check my following post. 

They’re other thing in this update that interesting like the duel or new terrain effect, but the school is the big add-on to the game in this patch.

For More information

Patch 1.5 info : http://item.koramgame.com/ck/v1.50/article%203.html
School system thread : http://forum.koramgame.com/thread-55904-1-1.html

Castlot – Close beta and new server

The beta server as closed a few hours ago but if the beta server is closings that mean the first official server is coming.

Yoogame didn’t wasted much time and released there first server today at 7h00 (March 28, 2012 PDT)

I played a bit in the beta and I can say that it’s mix of MMORTS with heroes duels and mission. The tutorial and quest system really help to pick up the game. Give it a try.

Little treasures

I found two really nice games on the ipad that came out recently. The original Final fantasy tactic (you have to pay 17,99$ though) and Baldur’s gate Enhanced Edition.

I actually love the final fantasy series but never got the chance to play the first Final fantasy tactic, I did play Final fantasy tactic 2 on DS though.

The game look really good, can wait to for my itune gift certificate to spend it on this game.

Check out the review from touch arcade.

Baldur’s gate Enhanced is not out yet but should be this summer, I really hope to see how this old game port perform. I did play neverwinter and icewindale but didn’t got the chance to play baldur’s gate, I hope it will be god as my friends told me.

You can look on the news and review here.

I recently added a press release for the game call of gods.  Since I wanted to know more about the game, I played for 3 week now and wrote a Review on hub page.

If you are interested on reading the review you can check it at this url :

http://jackofspade.hubpages.com/hub/Online-web-game-Review-Call-of-god

Has I was searching a  good hockey manager and I stumble upon Cyber puck.
Cyber puck is a hockey manager game, where you can take care of a team or manage the career of up to 5 players.

The goal of cyberpuck is simple, if you don’t pay money all you need to do is to take care of 5 player, you have to find them a team where to play, train team, instruct them tactic to do in the game, buy them equipment etc.

Creating a player.

You can create up to 5 player, with cyberpoint you can create more player or buy inactive player so you can have a bigger pool of player to manage.
It’s really up to you to create what position you player will play and what it’s speciality (wrist shot, slqp shot etc) however keep in mind that a team usually have 3-4 line so they need around 9 forward (3 of each) and 6 defenseman and only 2 goaler. So don’t over create goalers, one or even 0 is enough.
Once your player is created assign him to a team to earn money.
Don’t forget to go in the tactic to setup your player tactic in game.

Training and buying you player stuff

Contrary to SHL training is done on a player level and you need to hire a personal trainer to each player. Each trainer boost different ability, pick a trainer that boosts the primary or secondary attribute that your player need. 

You can buy equipment to boost your player attribute has well, there 3 kind of equipment you can equip stick, skate and helmet. What funny is that equipment can give you bonus unrelated to the equipment like a helmet can increase your wrists shoot ability…

Having a team

I haven’t been able to have a team yet since you need to pay 1000 cyberpoint to buy a team and only have 200 for now.
Once I get there I’ll make a post about it

Cyberpoint : what it give and how to get them

With cyber point you can do a bunch of stuff like the following.

Buy a team

The only way to have a team is to buy a team with point, so keep your point to get your team

Boost your player

Increase you player ability by using cyberpoint it accelerates the player development.

Create new player and increase player limit

If you want to hire more player and create them you need cyberpoint for that too.

Create equipment

If you want to boost specific ability use, you can create an equipment that boost those exact abilities for your player by using some cyberpoint.

Buy a inactive player

when people stop playing you can buy their player, someone actually did that to me, I wasn’t very happy to rebuild from scratch my players.

How to get Cyberpoint ?

You can get cyberpoint by logging everyday, referring the game to your friend, making blog post about the game and by buying them.

Overall cyberpuck has some really good idea but the site it self is kind of clumsy Flow of the game Is not really intuitive and I was somewhat lost when started playing.
Like, for some reason sometime the game sent you back to your player list when all you want it to continue what you’re doing (like buying equipment)
Or when you buy equipment, you need to buy then click back (which do not work on chrome) then go to inventory then equip it. Instead of equipping the item directly…

Even if the navigation is hard, you will probably like cyberpuck anyway if you a hockey fan. However I’m not sure you will like it if you don’t know squat about hockey.

Here my referall link to the game : http://www.cyberpuck.com/?ref=121294

I don’t get money but I get cyberpoint…

Give it a try and leave a comment on how you liked/hated this game.

I’ve been suggested to look at a new game call DDTank. I seem pretty recent since most review date from the end of 2011.

DDTank is  kind of Worms like game with mmo element to, where to aim you give the angle you throw and how much power you put behind it. I might not have the nifty weaponry of worm but have a lot of element to it. They’re a weird thing with the name, there no tank in the game which is misleading.

When you start the game, you much first create a character and then you start with a basic weapon, a Hammer.

After a quick tutorial where they explain how to shoot, equip weapon, do mission and how to play vs other player you get a good sense of the game.

You can fight up with 3 others player, bigger fight would probably be a lot of fun too but it currently only support 4 player fight.
From what I played getting the physic right is really hard. In my first fight it took about 10 shoot before me or my opponent to hit each other.  That probably due to the only 10 second to aim which is not a lot. Another things that weird it’s it can by your turn twice or your opponent cans go twice before you, it prevents some kind of abuse like oh no he’s next so better hide but it remove at the same time the sense of what should you really be doing. Oh and once you shoot it seems you can move, maybe that only me but I would like to use my whole 10 seconds.

Balance
One thing I found from the few game I played the fact that there leveling and pay for advantage might be a great idea but in the game sense it feel unfair. On my first game my opponent was using a better weapon and boost and did 2-3 time the damage I did. Lucky for me he seems to have no clue how to aim when we are close so I was able to win anyway. In even if you both have the same weapon and number of worm, the map and who started the turn could do the whole difference between victory and defeat, with DDTank you have the same element but other can have a weapon advantages which increase the feeling of unfairness.
What to do
If you’re not playing the city provide you with a lot of stuff to do, from training to mission and shopping for new gear. You can even have a wedding with your other DDTank friend.

Overall
The idea behind DDTank are great but not exploited to its fullest. Since it’s new, they probably have a lot of good stuff coming so let keep a good eye on the game.

I’ve been looking around for some good hockey simulator game and SHL was one of them because I used to play in 2004 when it was a is prime.
SHL is humorous ice hockey game where you choose tactics, formations, aggression levels, transfer in new players and win great prizes.

The game kind of lost is shine since they didn’t really improved it since there initial release and with all those FB game and html5 game it kind of seem outdated.

What the game is about ?

You’ve been hired has a coach for a Senior hockey team and you must train them, set-up there line, recruit new player and prepare the game plan for each game.

Your goal has to go to the top of the conference to be in the top team and win various tourney to show you team domination.

How your team rank ?

Your team is ranked based on a pyramid system

Each conference have 3 leagues these leagues are separated by section and division. When you’re in the top 4 you go up a division and if you in the bottom 4 you go down a division. They are some exception (like when switching league).

There a manager standing too, so you can see how you rank compare to other managers, your number of victory, goal and against who you won influence that standing.

How to play

First thing you should do when you start playing is to set up your line to have your best player for line 1 & 2 and to remove missing player from the line up. We will talk about the specific in another post.

combo box instead of dragging the player in the right line, very old school.

Once your line are ready update you need to update your tactic, there 3 tactic to update and keep in mind your opponent can see them, however you can change them in game with the advance tactic and the other players don’t have access to that.

Playing style
The playing style depend mostly on the ice quality, some say its depend on your team strength too.

The math is simple :
Fast Ice – european style
Normal ice – possession
surface water : Dump and chase
Slush:Dump and chase
Poor Ice: possession

Instruction
The other tactic is the the instruction, is kind of a rock paper scissor vs. the other team where attack beat defence, defence beat counter attack and counter attack beat attack.

Aggression
And the last not the least the aggression level depend on the referee, basically I use normal all game except when Stan Dupcomic is the referee, for him I use Psycho.

There other nice feature for the time that other hockey simulator have picked up, like training and making friendly game with your friend or challenging other player to a game.

SHL is a old school simulator it was nice when I played it but now it kind of old, the interface feel like 1999 and there not much to do except setting up your team and checking the other team game to prepare your tactic.

More on SHL :
-(Comming soon) beginner guide
-(Comming soon) training guide
-(Comming soon) cash guide

Webpage : seniorleaguehockey.com

Disclaimer: I’m not gonna do another review that describes everything about the game if you want one go here or there. It’s a simple impression about the game, what I liked, what different from other similar game (in this case Clash of Kingdom).

First impression

Before going in the detail, it want to give my first feelings while trying the game.
While the game might look like a Clash of Kingdoms clones they tried harder to make some dynamic different, Koram did a better job that they did with mythopolis and some features in the game are different from Clash of Kingdoms.

The basic

You get to chose between 4 tribes, this might change in the future, there seem to be some other city that might be used like London (the angles or Saxon perhaps) , Constantinople (former roman empire),  Barcelona (for the arab maybe even though it’s historically later that they took Spain) or maybe even Athene (Greeks)
You can read about the barbarian invasion on wikipedia, it’s actually very interesting to see how they come up with all those tribes.

Features

Instead of going through all the feature I’ve decided simply to point out what make the game fun and what new compare to a really similar game CoK.
While at a first glace, it may seem that Idomitus is a Clash of kingdom clone, when you play it you realised that while the fondamental of clash of kingdom, they changed a some feature that changes a bit the game and the outcome of it.

First there no premier elected
Instead of having to run for a premier, the premier (rank X) have to be in the tops player and have a lot of development point.
While there seem to be no apparent for of leadership, leadership is somewhat acquired to meritocracy since you can only increase rank when you achieve a certain level of development. Like in the time of barbarian the strongest will lead the tribes.

I wonder how this will play out, I’ve been a premiers and some player already tend to ignore PO and do crazy stuff, I think well organized guilds will tend to influence more the direction of the kingdom.

Guilds may seem like legion but they can actually have power over city changing rank and taking care of city boost.

The other thing that strokes me is in the beta (or alpha not sure) they were no way to form alliance, I wonder if they will lead it like this. Will I think alliance and peace treaties are a good way to prevent unfortunate attack in the game, removing it in a barbarian invasion setting actually make sense. I these time of darkness the tribes often plot and betray each other in other to get more land and riches.

In the new black market you can buy scrolls and exchange items.

There some change in city management too.
Now instead of city governor, a guild must invest in a city in other to gain control of it and get the privilege to issues city boost and post message.
There are many other notable change, like the way your heroes gain xp, the arena fight (for last man standing and Historical campaign now have an entrance) and the black market has some cool new feature like you can trade you older weapon.

In the Historical campaign and Last man standing you now have to choose which entrance your hero take determining who they will fight.

I actually liked the game and the fact they gave us free gold to play with for the beta testing. You can tried it here and here some link if you want to check some review:

http://www.thirteen1.com/2011/06/13/review-indomitus/
http://games.bbgsite.com/content/indomitus/index.shtml

I wrote awhile ago about Clash of Kingdom and promised you a nice review about the came.
Clash of Kingdom is another game about the historical  The Three Kingdoms  period (like Three Kingdom Online and Heroes of Three Kingdom) but the way the game is played is much more innovative that the previous one.
For most of you that come from a typical mmorts, clash of kingdom come with a fresh taste to it.

The main reason I love this game is the strong community sense to it, the perk to accelerate your manor development, the fact that if you lose a city to another kingdom you can rebuild it elsewhere.
When you start Clash of Kingdom your are given the choice of 6 kingdom, shao, ma, dong, meng, jiao and tao. If you’re joining a weaker kingdom of a server that recently started they might have some extra recruiting speed bonus and resources output bonus, but usually all kingdom start almost the same. You have to customize your main hero and after that your have a simple tutorial that shows you the basic of the game.

The tutorial show you the basic of the manor buiding and city development.
Manors are the equivalent of city/village in other mmorts with 3 majors difference :
It can only be built in city where you kingdom have conquered a city and you can only build if your rank is high enough, and the number of manor is dictated by your level of empire of one research.

Manor is your economic and military center, this is were you collect resources  and build unit.
You can create manor with every kind of building in it but it usually better to specialized you manor into one of the following : resources, silver or troops building.

The city is where you can improve your kingdom city, all the attribute of the city help all the player who have manor and troop in it, like improving the market help you get more silver from the residence in the city.
This is where you can recruit heroes, buy gear, and do various game to win some resources and xp.

For those who played Three Kingdom online know about the heroes but the heroes system in Clash of Kingdom is much more polished and historical heroes is available for everyone (gold and non-gold player)
Each heroes have a set of stats (power, leadership, intellect and power) that grow differently depending on the heroes and some heroes have a special abilities that increase the effect of some city command or increase the fighting power of some type of unit or that can be use on a battle field and cause more damage.

The kingdom is the center of the game, your main goal is to help your kingdom grabs the whole map. There are many ways to help your kingdom you can improve your kingdom cities, give to the landmark, give to your legion, participate to battle to grab new cities and to fight other kingdom, vote if (your in the top 70% of your kingdom) even run for premier if you’re in the top 50 of your kingdom.
The election system is pretty neat from what I saw in other mmorts game, the top 50 players can run for the premier and the top 70% player can vote for there premiers of there choice.

The premiers have the power to name other officer and the city governor. The officer can use special city and kingdom command to increase the effect of city development command and to increase attack when attacking cities.
The fight between kingdom can almost have an epic proportion, it’s can got up to million of soldiers fighting each other, heroes formation, skill, unit and settings can make a huge difference when fighting.  The battle takes place in a flash animated battle with all the troop deployed by individual players. Even if the battle is simulated, decision made by the player and kingdom prior the battles have a huge impact. Like if most of the other kingdom troop are set to attack the smallest and most of your kingdom target largest you will have a huge advantage on them even if they are in a larger army.

-

Other
There much more in the game, there a bunch of sub game like bulleye and the quiz and other battles like historical battle and battle royal that you can do to receive more items without losing any troops.

If you liked other mmorts like Three kingdom online, Travian or Tribal war you should definitely give Clash of Kingdom a chance.

This week  in bad game friday it’s actually more of a weird game friday.
I came across a funny game recently on http://www.indiegames.com called osada which I don’t know if we can really label it game since it more about making music with what you got on the screen.

It’s more about founding what to click and making music along the way some jamming are pretty neat and funny sometime you just have no clue of what happening and click everywhere.

The game is pretty click (about 30 minutes) and you’ll probably just play it once.
But for the heck of it it will be a weird and fun ½ of your life that you will never see back

Indie game review :
http://indiegames.com/2011/04/browser-game-pick-osada-amanit.html

Official site : http://amanita-design.net/osada/

There will be an upgrade to v2.6 on most server on the 22th of march, I think S1, S47 and S48 already got that upgrade.

There many nice feature to keep the game interesting even though I was king of losing interest since nothing was happening on my server.
If you want a detail review you can check this post on the Koram forum.

There a lot of nice thing there my favs are probably going to be the hermit house, the super field and the capital outpost.

The Hermit house:

 
Finally a way to get epic without paying,  you can recruit them in the hermit house and you have to do quest before recruiting them.
Note : You could get epic heroes by fighting epic guardian too but I think you already knew that…

Super field
There will be new field spawned around the map, 18f (like the item we talked about here) 17f and 16f. They are heavily guarded (min of 50k of troop there).
The number is really limited, and I think that suck because you will have a whole server fighting for them and I think that stink for the gold player who paid a boat load of money from the previous event to get a 18 farm fields city.

Capital outpost

(more in this post : TKO update Preview III:Capital Outpost )
This upgrade was almost necessary since the number of city is capped and not everyone was able to get those capital city.  There a forum post that explains well how it work.

There other bunch of nice stuff in this upgrade: new unit, better unit management, league features,  etc …
What did you like and what do you hate about this upgrade ?