Stupid MLP GameLoft Game
Yes, I'm still playing it, although now it's been heavily modified to the point where I'm effectively just cheating for competition. Honestly, a waste of time, but I want to complete the game, thank you very much.
First, I used freepone, found http://www.reddit.com/r/MLPIOS/comments/1349n8/hardcore_cheating_for_tons_of_coins_and_gems/
It essentially redirects the request for latest prices to a local file, roughly speaking and provides the option to make everything in the store free, or worth bits. I opted to make everything worth bits.
Then, once I hit the quest where I had to collect 10 gem for Spike, I sobbed, raged, and poked Google.
Turns out someone already reverse engineered the save file. Huzzah! (So glad I didn't have to try and install gdb on my iPad and see if I could tweak the memory directly. Fortunately, I didn't try that route, as it's apparently a lot harder than I would have been able to deal with. See following link-)
So some genius geek already do all the work: http://roundcube3.blogspot.com/2012/11/reverse-engineering-with-ponies.html
Grabbed the perl scripts, found my GameLoft UID, modified the xml file to give myself more hearts and gems, set the quest so I had collected "9" gems, then proceeded to get the missing gem through the balloon popping quest. Also updated a few timestamps, removed all the huge rocks and stupid parasprites and bumped the trash timer up by a few factors of 10, so hopefully they won't pop up for a while.
Things are much happier now. I'm even thinking of rearranging my buildings so my version of Ponyville is prettier.
Back to NaNoWriMo now. 37419 words. I'm kinda hoping to get to 45k before I sleep. I never write much during the week, so 2-2.5k words per weeknight is unreasonable, making a 45k target a must.
On the bright side, I've written (via harsh, faster telling, instead of showing) what happens in the following 'chapters', so writing from now on will only involve me fleshing out the action. This is going to need a lot of editing in the end if I want to upload it to fimfiction.net. There's periods of semi-acceptable, graceful prose, followed by terrible chunks of ugly, Ben-got-tired-of-writing-about-this-and-decided-to-transition-things-abruptly.
Also, I've got a bad tendency of making typos when typing really fast. I'll think 'close' and muscle memory ends up typing 'cloths'. Blargh.
--
Yet another open letter to GameLoft:
Dearest GameLoft,
Thank you for bringing My Little Pony to the iOS (and Android) worlds. It's not polished to what I'd prefer, but I'm sure kids will love it.
However, the biggest problem with it is the economics. Please, find a game designer and ask them to crunch the numbers. Or walk through a simulation of how long it would take to acquire everything just by grinding. I'm not even sure it's possible.
Yes, you say, we want you to give us money.
Thing is, we would love to give you money. But not in the hundreds. If I could clear the game with $10, you would have had it yesterday. I think the target price point should have been 1-2 pennies per gem, not 10 cents per gem, especially considering the total price required to complete the game.
First, I used freepone, found http://www.reddit.com/r/MLPIOS/comments/1349n8/hardcore_cheating_for_tons_of_coins_and_gems/
It essentially redirects the request for latest prices to a local file, roughly speaking and provides the option to make everything in the store free, or worth bits. I opted to make everything worth bits.
Then, once I hit the quest where I had to collect 10 gem for Spike, I sobbed, raged, and poked Google.
Turns out someone already reverse engineered the save file. Huzzah! (So glad I didn't have to try and install gdb on my iPad and see if I could tweak the memory directly. Fortunately, I didn't try that route, as it's apparently a lot harder than I would have been able to deal with. See following link-)
So some genius geek already do all the work: http://roundcube3.blogspot.com/2012/11/reverse-engineering-with-ponies.html
Grabbed the perl scripts, found my GameLoft UID, modified the xml file to give myself more hearts and gems, set the quest so I had collected "9" gems, then proceeded to get the missing gem through the balloon popping quest. Also updated a few timestamps, removed all the huge rocks and stupid parasprites and bumped the trash timer up by a few factors of 10, so hopefully they won't pop up for a while.
Things are much happier now. I'm even thinking of rearranging my buildings so my version of Ponyville is prettier.
Back to NaNoWriMo now. 37419 words. I'm kinda hoping to get to 45k before I sleep. I never write much during the week, so 2-2.5k words per weeknight is unreasonable, making a 45k target a must.
On the bright side, I've written (via harsh, faster telling, instead of showing) what happens in the following 'chapters', so writing from now on will only involve me fleshing out the action. This is going to need a lot of editing in the end if I want to upload it to fimfiction.net. There's periods of semi-acceptable, graceful prose, followed by terrible chunks of ugly, Ben-got-tired-of-writing-about-this-and-decided-to-transition-things-abruptly.
Also, I've got a bad tendency of making typos when typing really fast. I'll think 'close' and muscle memory ends up typing 'cloths'. Blargh.
--
Yet another open letter to GameLoft:
Dearest GameLoft,
Thank you for bringing My Little Pony to the iOS (and Android) worlds. It's not polished to what I'd prefer, but I'm sure kids will love it.
However, the biggest problem with it is the economics. Please, find a game designer and ask them to crunch the numbers. Or walk through a simulation of how long it would take to acquire everything just by grinding. I'm not even sure it's possible.
Yes, you say, we want you to give us money.
Thing is, we would love to give you money. But not in the hundreds. If I could clear the game with $10, you would have had it yesterday. I think the target price point should have been 1-2 pennies per gem, not 10 cents per gem, especially considering the total price required to complete the game.