Core Dump: Hits & Misses

This edition of Core Dump comes to you from far, far away … Taiwan! I’m traveling with my two daughters and I’m finding out whether an iPad is sufficient for international travel. Unfortunately, my iPad 2 doesn’t give me Internet access without wifi, and I’m finding that free public wifi is harder to find in Taipei than I expected. Good thing my dad brought his laptop so I can still check my email more regularly. Here are a handful of apps I’d been playing mostly before my trip; for my next column maybe I’ll tell you about what’s been occupying my time overseas. In the meantime, if you’ve been waiting for me to take my turn in Ascension or Carcassonne, you may just have to wait until I get back.

In this edition, I’ve got some hits and misses: some that look great but aren’t much fun, some that are really addicting, and some in between.

Fishing Joy 2 – free, with in-app currency purchases

Although the title of this app is Fishing Joy 2, you’re not really fishing — you’re actually shooting fish. With guns. Every shot you take costs you coins, and every time you kill a fish, you get coins; bigger guns cost more coins to fire, and bigger fish reward you with more coins. However, it’s a bit like a slot machine: just because you hit a fish doesn’t mean you’ll kill it. The game is gorgeous and I like the way the fish swim, particularly the way schools of small fish dart away when they’ve been shot at. But it ultimately feels like a big money sink: either you wait to get more coins every 2 to 4 hours, or you pay actual money to shoot fake guns at fake fish.

My kids think it’s great fun to watch, but I’m to sure I’ll let them play unless I’m absolutely sure they’re not going to end up maxing out my credit card to shoot the hammerhead shark. Will you like it? I guess it depends on whether you feel shooting fish is its own reward.

Summoner Wars – free single player, must purchase for additional factions and multiplayer

I mentioned Summoner Wars back when I was writing about another turn-based tactical combat app, Hero Academy (which I’m still enjoying). There’s been some debate about whether Hero Academy is a rip-off of Summoner Wars, but in my opinion while there are some similarities, they’re ultimately not the same game and I’ll gladly play both.

For more about Summoner Wars you can read my review of the physical game; the app version is nice overall with a few caveats. You can get the base app for free and play against the AI, but you’ll need to spend some money on faction decks in order to play multiplayer against your pals — which is the whole point, I think. Also, the app tends to be a little twitchy: there have been lots of times when I (or my opponent) have unintentionally made a wrong move because we were trying to do something else — activating the Summoner’s special power when we were just trying to read the card (or perform a regular attack). I’ve gotten used to the “undo” move in Hero Academy, which I understand you wouldn’t want for the die-based attacks, but sometimes Summoner Wars seems a little too unforgiving.

The app currently has factions from the original version of the card game, so those (like me) who have the newer Master Set will need to learn some new factions. The graphics and cards are faithfully reproduced — down to the typos — and most fans of the game will probably enjoy having the app for online play. If you’re expecting to play against friends, most likely you’ll want to get the $7.99 combo that gives you several factions — I’m sure there will be more factions coming later.

Spy Fox: Dry Cereal – $4.99

From the makers of Putt Putt and Freddi Fish comes this spoof of James Bond. You play as Spy Fox, who is investigating a fiendish plot to replace all cow-based dairy products with — shudder — goat’s milk! There are a lot of allusions to Bond (or perhaps a better comparison may be with Get Smart) but also some that your kids might not get, like the ship captain who talks like a Shatner-era Captain Kirk.

The app is a point-and-click puzzle adventure with a lot of humor and some animated cut scenes. Some of the problems can be a little challenging (solutions weren’t always as apparent as in Putt Putt) but my kids have really been enjoying it nonetheless.

Total Defense 3D – free with in-app unlocks

Here’s another one for tower defense fans. Total Defense 3D has you installing gun turrets, missile towers, etc. to prevent the enemy’s vehicles from attacking your base. Your base has a wall which the enemies will attack, and once the wall is gone, then they can start entering your base. Completing levels gives you skill points to upgrade your towers, giving you more firepower or longer range. Also, as towers defeat enemies, they’ll gain experience and can be upgraded.

The “3D” comes in with the way the app zooms in and out: you still use pinch/zoom gestures, but instead of simply enlarging and shrinking the view, the app moves from an overhead view to a nearly ground-level view, and you can rotate the world to see things from a different angle. It’s kind of a neat way to look at things, but it also makes it easy to tap the wrong thing when you’re seeing everything at an angle.

There’s one planet you can play for free, or pay to unlock additional planets, but once you have a lot of upgrades it’s no longer quite as interesting. I was hoping there would be some more missions that had particular goals like destroying an enemy base while protecting your own, but it’s pretty much just like the title says: defense.

Nightfall – $.99

Nightfall is a horror-themed deck-building game that has a cool mechanic, though I simply haven’t played it as much because I prefer Thunderstone. Still, folks who like Nightfall praise its fast pace and the fact that you get to directly attack other players.

The app version will let you play against opponents from around the world, but it helps to know the game already. The tutorial’s text and animation aren’t synched up properly, which makes it quite confusing, and unlike Ascension there’s no “log” to check what the other players did on their turns. Cards fly in and out, and it can be extremely confusing, even for somebody who’s familiar with the game. Personally, I may stick with the physical version for now.

Virtual City 2 – $4.99, or there is a free version with in-app unlock

Virtual City 2 is sort of a time management game, but instead of simply micro-managing workers to complete tasks, you’re setting up cities. Much of the game is about delivering things: raw materials and goods, people, and waste. Each city starts with some different existing buildings and vehicles and you’re given a list of objectives to complete. Build the necessary facilities, route the vehicles to pick up and deliver the right items to the right places, and do it all in the least amount of time.

Delivering goods and people earns you income, which you spend to build more buildings or expand your fleet of vehicles. Building houses increases the population, adding recreation like theaters and fitness centers increases happiness, and upgrading your buses and facilities improves your environmental score. Depending on the objectives, you’ll be managing various attributes of your cities.

The game can be tough, but I’ve enjoyed it. One thing I wish they had: zoom out. On the larger cities, it’s a pain to pan back and forth to see what buildings already exist and where vehicles are running. It would be nice to get a bird’s-eye view of things.

Sinister City – free with in-app unlock

Sinister City is billed as a “first person hidden object” game, but that’s something of a misnomer. Most hidden object games have things from your perspective during the object-finding part. I think it’s actually more of a third-person game, because you see yourself on the screen instead. At any rate, you’re John, walking around Sinister City trying to find your bride Nina.

Turns out she’s been captured by her dad, who’s a vampire and has his own, ahem, sinister plans. But with some ingenuity, maybe you can convince this not-very-scary vampire to let Nina go. Along the way you’ll look for objects, solve puzzles, and try to figure out what really motivates the quirky inhabitants of Sinister City.

I did like some of the hidden object aspects of this one, but the story is pretty hokey — sometimes intentionally, sometimes not. The combination of third-person adventure and hidden object game isn’t entirely necessary, but maybe that’s me. I don’t necessarily need a convincing reason for finding things; I prefer games where there are just a whole lot of objects on one screen, rather than those where you have to wander around a lot, finding one or two items per location and then coming back later for others.

Follow the Rabbit – $.99

From the publishers of Cut the Rope comes another clever puzzle game: Follow the Rabbit. Okay, the premise is a little weird. A little red cube-shaped guy sees a cube-shaped rabbit jump down the rabbit hole (leaving a trail of coins behind), and wants to follow it. So you try to collect the coins and reach the door, following the rabbit.

The trick here is that you can slide left and right, or you can jump up — but no moving while jumping. You’ll encounter enemies, balloons, stones to push, cannons, and more. In some levels there are clones: both of the red guys move at the same time, so you’ll have to use some fancy footwork to get them both to their respective doors. One of my favorite levels is “Gravi-Tea,” in which tilting the iPad also shifts gravity, adding another dimension to the puzzle-solving.

They’re not too hard — I played through the first five worlds in maybe an hour and a half — but they are pretty entertaining, and may be a bit more of a challenge for younger players.

Le Havre – $4.99

Le Havre (The Harbor) is a highly-rated worker-placement game from Uwe Rosenberg, who also designed Agricola and At the Gates of Loyang. You start with a few resources and a worker, and on your turn you can either take resources from the harbor or send your worker to a building to take actions. Actions can include converting resources (turning fish into smoked fish, for instance, or clay into bricks), building new buildings, and so on. You’ll need to keep everyone fed, but you’re also going for wealth through buildings, resources, and cold hard cash.

The app version captures the look of the game pretty well, but it can be hard to play. I think the biggest difficulty is simply that Le Havre is a game that takes a tremendous amount of table space to play. You have a board with lots of resources and a turn tracker, plus piles of buildings that become available, and each player also starts to accumulate buildings, most of which can be accessed by any other player. It’s a feat to cram all this onto a single screen, and it may be that the iPad simply doesn’t have enough real estate for the sprawl.

Each player’s cards are in a stack, so you just see names and some tiny icons until you tap to expand them — but then you can’t see any other player’s buildings. There’s also the weird design choice to have the active player always in the center of the screen and the others rotating around: when you play a multiplayer game, things keep shifting and it’s tough to track what everyone is doing.

This is another board game app that may be better appreciated in physical form, or at least learned in its physical form before you move to the app. I’m not sure how easily I’d be able to pick it up from the app itself.

Bubble Witch Saga – free with in-app purchases

Bubble Witch Saga is a bubble shooter game that’s also on Facebook, and it kind of shows. The whole thing seems to be about ways to get your money. I’ll admit: I like bubble shooters. I played Snood for hours on end a while back, and I still like to play variations from time to time. Bubble Witch‘s tweak is that there are spiders that drop down when you play well, and the bubbles that fall become part of a pachinko-like game, where you score more points for directing balls into the center cauldron. My complaint about the game is that you unlock upgrades which must then be purchased with real money — there’s no way to earn in-game cash to buy them — and some of them are as much as twelve bucks. This is one bubble shooter that I won’t be playing much more.

Great Big War Game – $2.99 with additional maps and unlocks

If you like tactical combat games, this one is an interesting one to check out. Great Big War Game can be played either single player in a campaign mode or skirmish, or two players with pass-and-play or online. You take charge of an army, deploying units and vehicles onto the field, and then moving and shooting with them. Each unit has different abilities: scouts can move fast and see far, but have no attack and very weak defense; snipers can shoot farther than other troops; grenadiers can lob grenades over walls.

The game also includes “fog of war,” preventing you from seeing areas where you don’t have troops or control facilities. When your enemy is moving, you’ll just see and hear some little sound effects moving around in the cloud, but you won’t know exactly what’s coming or how many troops are around the bend.

There is one weird thing about that, though: the game has a limited “undo” feature, allowing you to pull back your last move if you haven’t done any other actions yet. That means that you can move a scout to check out the enemy and then undo the move, then go somewhere else.

The campaign mode is pretty fun, with different objectives that make it more interesting than just “eliminate the enemy.” Skirmish mode is more just simple elimination. As you play, you’ll gain access to better troops and vehicles. The cartoony appearance is fun, with little goofy catchphrases as you deploy and move and attack.

Biobots Under Sea Rescue – $2.99

Biobots is an educational game, set in the Underwater Robot Zoo. There’s an accident, and you need to get help — thankfully, the lab has been working on various robots based on marine animals. It’s your job to put together a robot that can navigate the dangerous waters. You get to pick the size of the hull, the type of breathing apparatus (gills vs. lungs), the type of fuel it can process, and defensive mechanisms like camoflauge or ink. The size of the hull determines how much you can add to your robot: the smaller hull moves more quickly and can navigate through coral reefs and kelp; but the larger hull which requires more energy protects you from many predators. I particularly like the diagrams of the robot animals, with facts about the real animals that the robots are based on. The robot platypus may be my favorite.

Once you’ve built your robot, you get to play the navigator portion, and this is unfortunately a little less exciting. It feels less like a cool robot traveling through waters and more like watching a diagram with rudimentary animation. And it’s hard. But overall I think the app is a good idea. It was developed with support from the Office of Naval Research, and has good potential for getting kids interested in both marine life and robotics.

Disclosure: GeekDad received review codes for the paid apps in this column.