app of the week
Bonus: Pro/Con Addendum for Dungeon Hunter
Additional, major Pro: you can play your iPod music while playing the game, and not only does the game not complain, but it even shows a miniplayer with the song title and artist that pops up whenever the song changes. Massively neat!
Additional Con: Short! Leveling past a certain point is no longer interesting. Putting points into Endurance does nothing for any character class and is literally a waste since higher-end gear requires careful calibration and there's no way of undoing things.
So, now, on to the actual AotW...
Undercroft
Remember turn-based, orthogonal-dungeon, four-member party, gold-box-DND RPGs? That. On the iPhone.
It's very well done, and performs really well, which makes sense seeing as how it's a turn-based game. The animations are sparse, but well done.
The experience could easily have been marred by lack of balance, wit, and/or a failure to rework the ancient formulae of RPGs in a way that makes it more accessible to today's gaming audience. Here the game succeeds largely as a compilation of small wins: the automap is very well done; the game's difficulty is well balanced and provides challenge just shy of frustration; the tutorial is good but not overbearing; character creation is rich without demanding immersion; item management is easy and non-detracting; character progression is slow but that makes leveling more rewarding.
I find it interesting to compare this to Orcs and Elves, the iD Software experiment at bringing RPG gaming to smartphones from a few years ago. I prefer Undercroft simply because it has more of the flavor and character of the old-school RPGs; it keeps what was great about those games and focuses its polish not on adding perhaps-useless features and more on updating the less-than-stellar aspects of the experience that you ignored in 1992 because your 486 gave you enough of a headache as it was without adding zoomable and pannable automapping.
The game claims 20 hours of play time; I can only hope it delivers on that estimation more than Dungeon Hunter, which seemed annoyingly short all-told.
All in all, if you liked the gold-box DnD games--especially the Eye of the Beholder series, which the game's UI steals heavily from--or even know what I'm talking about, then Undercroft is worth a try. There's a Lite version to try out.
Undercroft
Pros: Relive the old-school RPG days in a way that doesn't require graph paper, and won't make you pull your hair out; "just one more fight" addictiveness.
Cons: A bit static (few animations); I've died about a dozen times in two commutes' worth of playing... that may be a bit much, but I'm still happily playing.
Additional, major Pro: you can play your iPod music while playing the game, and not only does the game not complain, but it even shows a miniplayer with the song title and artist that pops up whenever the song changes. Massively neat!
Additional Con: Short! Leveling past a certain point is no longer interesting. Putting points into Endurance does nothing for any character class and is literally a waste since higher-end gear requires careful calibration and there's no way of undoing things.
So, now, on to the actual AotW...
Undercroft
Remember turn-based, orthogonal-dungeon, four-member party, gold-box-DND RPGs? That. On the iPhone.
It's very well done, and performs really well, which makes sense seeing as how it's a turn-based game. The animations are sparse, but well done.
The experience could easily have been marred by lack of balance, wit, and/or a failure to rework the ancient formulae of RPGs in a way that makes it more accessible to today's gaming audience. Here the game succeeds largely as a compilation of small wins: the automap is very well done; the game's difficulty is well balanced and provides challenge just shy of frustration; the tutorial is good but not overbearing; character creation is rich without demanding immersion; item management is easy and non-detracting; character progression is slow but that makes leveling more rewarding.
I find it interesting to compare this to Orcs and Elves, the iD Software experiment at bringing RPG gaming to smartphones from a few years ago. I prefer Undercroft simply because it has more of the flavor and character of the old-school RPGs; it keeps what was great about those games and focuses its polish not on adding perhaps-useless features and more on updating the less-than-stellar aspects of the experience that you ignored in 1992 because your 486 gave you enough of a headache as it was without adding zoomable and pannable automapping.
The game claims 20 hours of play time; I can only hope it delivers on that estimation more than Dungeon Hunter, which seemed annoyingly short all-told.
All in all, if you liked the gold-box DnD games--especially the Eye of the Beholder series, which the game's UI steals heavily from--or even know what I'm talking about, then Undercroft is worth a try. There's a Lite version to try out.
Undercroft
Pros: Relive the old-school RPG days in a way that doesn't require graph paper, and won't make you pull your hair out; "just one more fight" addictiveness.
Cons: A bit static (few animations); I've died about a dozen times in two commutes' worth of playing... that may be a bit much, but I'm still happily playing.