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Showing posts with label Apps. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Apps. Show all posts

Saturday, May 31, 2014

Thoughts of an (Almost) Casual

I read a few posts on this blog before writing this one.  It made me think about how much free time I had back then and how much less time I have now.  (Translation: Just because I'm writing this post does not mean that I will be active on this blog again.)

Also, the comments.  The majority of them are from spam bots.  Most of the genuine comments are from people playing Aurum Blade.  I'm sorry, but I can't help you with Siren.  I had (had) Aurum Blade on my Android phone around last year.  Then my mom took it away (yes, I am still a minor).  So I forgot almost everything.  I still remember Siren was a b*tch (excuse my language) to defeat.  Good luck, have fun, don't ragequit.

So where has the time gone, and what have I done with mine in the past year?  I'll try my best to cover this.

In my final post of last year, I cited YouTube as a reason why I was stopping my posts.  My last YouTube video was published in June, not too long after April/May.  So that didn't really go anywhere.  By then, I had grown sick and tired and tired and sick of the monstrosity that was EpicDuel Omega.  The purpose of Varium was near nerfed into the ground (that is, it provided no advantage other than getting gear more quickly).  I was a semi-free player, and prior to Omega, I enjoyed my spot between the people who bought a promo pack of Varium every month and the hardcore free-to-players.  Both were still a good challenge to defeat, though.  I'm pretty sure the true reason why I left, however, was because of the FUCKING STAT REVAMP.  I liked it better when all weapons had a set amount of stats and damage that could not be changed.  And when cores were an idea posted only in the ED Suggestion Forums.  Maybe I was just too used to the old ways.  So I left. I expressed no regret- after all, I had been playing the game for almost three years and had probably outgrown little Flash games.  Time to move on to bigger and better things.
No, this is not me.  I googled "fate".  Never knew Steam sold Fate, though.  Go buy the game or pirate it like I did.   Go play it.

At this point in time (beginning of summer 2013) I had only one computer game I played consistently and on a regular basis: Minecraft (oh, and I also bought legit premium shortly before my last post here.  I believe I played almost exclusively on Hypixel's Server.  (I also remember playing quite a bit of Fate- the original Fate.)


During the summer, however, most of the time I was away from the computer (summer school and whatnot).  So I turned to my phone.  I eventually found a mobile TCG called Spellstorm.  It's a husk of its former self from a year ago- don't play it.  But back then, it was in the prime of its life.  New content updates on a regular basis, a thriving playerbase, and probably the best forums you could ever ask for.  There were almost exclusively adults on there.  As a result, the forums were always civilized.  I spent a lot of time playing Spellstorm, and even more time on its forums.  Eventually, I became a moderator there, but that's not important.  What is important is that I played Spellstorm almost every day (phone app= more accessibility) until about October/November.  Then, my mom stepped in and took away my phone.  This was the base for my stopping of playing Spellstorm (yes, that is grammatically correct).  I fell behind new stuff, and eventually, I got bored with the app.  Just in time, too.

The Spellstorm team seemed to be falling apart.  The content updates were obvious rehashes of old stuff, the new pieces of content were money grabs, and it became apparent that the game was a huge clickfest.  Plus, the bugs, which had always been prevalent in the app, almost ran amok now.  That is, I'm pretty sure the programmers got up and left.  Many times, these bugs made the app unplayable.  And the app's customer service was sadder than shit (lack of people, not skill- those who did man Customer Service were extremely nice and well-known on the forums).  It was obvious that Spellstorm's developers under the helm of TinyCo had almost ceased work on the app.  Which really, really sucked, especially since Spellstorm was the only one with potential on the app market (and half-decent graphics).

But I must go back a bit.  During late summer of that year, I had found an SNES emulator for my phone (SNESDroid).  It opened up a whole new world of games (thanks, CoolRom) to me.  I downloaded three SNES games: Final Fantasy VI, The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, and Chrono Trigger.



But wait: I must go back even further (yeah sorry, I know, fuck chronological order).  Prior to summer, a classmate at school had introduced me to The Sandbox (you should check it out if you don't already know what it is).  It was fun- very fun.  But that's not my point.  There was (and probably still is) a user gallery.  In one of the top rated works, I found a Sandbox version of "Chrono Trigger 600 AD" (using "Note" pixels one can create tunes in The Sandbox).  I listened to the song and I liked it (this was back when I still though Chrono Trigger involved a gun).  I liked it enough to go looking for Chrono Trigger.  That brings me to the previous paragraph.



So I played Chrono Trigger- my first SNES game.  I loved it.  Until I got to a certain point in 2300 AD (for those retro gamers, it's when you enter 2300 AD for the first time).  I had to enter a certain combination of buttons to go further by pressing the buttons all at once.  I couldn't.  The emulator didn't accept multi-input.  I did my homework and found that other emulators did, as did the original SNES (duh).  Well, crap.  I was stuck there.

I eventually gave up on Chrono Trigger and moved on to Final Fantasy VI.  I think I got stuck somewhere very early on (before Narshe, for those who played the game).  I gave up on it as well, and was considering deleting it (luckily, I didn't).  So I moved on, this time to A Link to the Past.



I went somewhere with that game.  It was fun, and the dungeons challenging.  In order to beat the first boss, I spent almost an hour circling him around a table in order to avoid his extremely damaging ranged attack.  Often was the day where I would have SNESDroid and Firefox open on my phone.  Thank you, StrategyWiki.  I loved the game, and all of the extra things in it that one didn't necessarily have to find.  I ended up with only one more dungeon to go.  Unfortunately, I had had enough of Link by then, so I got bored.  Then I gave Final Fantasy VI a second chance.

It worked out this time.  I loved the traditional RPG style game it was and the huge (14!) character cast.  I loved the storyline and the monsters and bosses.  I ended up just one dungeon away from the final boss (what a coincidence).  I was steamrolling over the game and ready to beat it.  Then my mom took my phone away (keep in mind that at this point in time, I was playing these SNES games as well as Spellstorm).  So, too bad.  I didn't get to hand Kefka's ass to him.  Oh well.

So the school year started up again.  I started playing Minecraft again.  However, this time I found a nice new server (PlayMindcrack) with its own textures, sound packs, and minigames.  It was a smaller server, but still, I loved it (and its level up system!).  That's pretty much all I did for the first half of the 2013-2014 Minecraft/school year: Hypixel and PMC (not to be confused with Planet Minecraft).  Then I found Hearthstone.



Hearthstone had been in closed beta for quite a while, but one of my friends told me about the game one day at school.  Intrigued, I tried it out.  I was a scrub and lost a crapton at the beginning, but I loved the game and stuck with it.  Hearthstone is a CCG (not quite TCG, but I'll take it) that really introduced me to real cardplaying games and strategy (I would rather not rant about how most if not all- including Spellstorm- TCGs on the mobile market have crappy automated random-ass battle systems).  I owned some MTG cards, but I never really tried to play the game (mostly because no one in my physical area wanted to play MTG.  Also, I tried Magic 2014, but much of the app is locked to all but those who shell out ten dollars.  Hell no.)  Hearthstone was the perfect F2P card game I was (not really) looking for.  I took a liking to it and stuck with it.

Now, time for a bit of bragging (depends on your point of view, actually).  I created my Battle.net account and installed Hearthstone somewhere in mid-December 2013.  December was Hearthstone's first Closed Beta ranked season, but I didn't rank at all (Angry Chicken please).  R25 scrub, woohoo.  The second season, January, I did slightly better.  Rank 16.  And on it goes.
Season 3: R14
Season 4: R14
Season 5: R14 (pattern much)
However, this season, May, I am rather happy to have finally broken that invisible wall and continue onto rank 13!  I probably could have gone further, but I will explain why I didn't.

Actually, wait a sec.  I must go backward a few months first.  Just a note.  I pretty much stopped playing Minecraft in February.  I know, too bad, no more Island of Doom videos.  (Well, the hard drive on which the world is on is screwed up, anyway.)



Okay.  Back to May of this year.  In early May, one of my friends told me about Smite (a MOBA, like League- another game I voluntarily don't play, but all of my friends do).  I downloaded Smite.  Was hooked fairly quickly.  (I swear, the smartest decision the game devs have made was making Smite a third-person viewpoint game.  Gets all the MMO(RPG) players.)  So now I play Smite pretty much every day.  (Case in point- I played about ten hours today).  I still play Hearthstone some, but not a whole lot.

A very, very, simplified history of my gaming life since April 2013.  Goodbye all, and I hope I get around to posting here again.  But for now, I need to complete a history project and get my ass off this toilet already.

~ReconnaisX

PS: I am also an avid Twitch watcher (of Hearthstone and Smite.  I also watched the original Twitch Plays Pokemon).  Also, some nice FFVI fanart.  As you probably expected, I can name everyone here.

Sunday, October 21, 2012

100 Floors

100 Floors is one of those puzzle games that really wreck your mind and make you desperate to do anything to pass the level.  As per the title, there are 100 floors (I believe 15 more for Halloween or something- I haven't played in a while) for you to go through to reach the elevator of doom, which takes you to the next level.
The game is very unique in which it takes control of your phone to access several resources (an example is the clock) to make the games challenging to the point of mindblow.  There are tons of different types of puzzles.  Very rarely will you encounter the same type of puzzle again.
iTunes
Google Play
Amazon Appstore

And there's an Official Cheat Guide (funny putting the "Official" in it).
iTunes
Google Play
Amazon Appstore

However, when I get stumped on 100 Floors, too often I turn to the cheat guide.  It will tempt you.  Really.
iTunes
Google Play
Amazon Appstore

And 100 Floors has a Twitter, too!

Cartoon Wars

Oh hell yes, CW (at least #2) is awesome!
It's another one of those *certain* games, distinguished (well, not really, there are lots of games out there that have this battle system too) by its battle system (defense).
There are 3 CW games, each with a different plot (copied from Amazon Appstore's description):

Cartoon Wars 1: 
Two tribes existed in the Cartoon World; the vicious Color Tribe and their slaves, the Black and White Cartoon Tribe.
For generations the Black and White Cartoon Tribe were treated as property, and forced into slavery.
Fortunately... some with bigger ideas existed amongst them.
They gathered and began a revolt to free themselves, taking the battle to the Color Tribe.

The inevitable war has begun: become the hero of the Black and White Cartoons and set your people free.


Cartoon Wars 2:
After generations of war in the Cartoon Kingdom, King K and his army were expelled with the prominence of Captain J. The people praised Captain J and crowned him as their new King. The exiled tribe swore vengeance as they embarked on their journey to find the King of the Monsters. The second chronicle begins as the battle to defend the kingdom continues!

Cartoon Wars Gunner+:
In the midst of war in the Cartoon World, a king devised a deadly plan to slay the much-praised Captain J, as his presence was threatening the king's position.
Chased with ferocious troops on his back, Captain J fled into the mountains with a serious injury.
The arrogant king, who once hailed his troops for the victory, faces an iminent danger yet again with his foe, Captain J.


I don't really like Cartoon Wars 1, but you can tell it is the original base for CW2.  As in a good idea.

Cartoon Wars 2 is my favorite.  There is the normal battle system, which is a blend of defense and offense (somewhat obvious there) where you must defend your castle from an oncoming horde of invaders and at the same time attack and conquer the enemy castle.  As you go deeper into the game, the enemies become harder (obviously) and to troll you, the game throws in a couple of flying enemies that you can only efficiently take down with your spear-shooting bow located on the castle.  After all, the flying troops available to you are really weak.  Maybe they're airsick.
Aside from that, there is another battle mode starring just your character (aka the hero).  You have to fight a bunch of enemies on foot by yourself.

I really dislike CW Gunner (or 3, whatever you want to call it).  It's just "hero mode" (your character goes out and gets slain by a bunch of black-and-white cartoons) all the time, 24/7.  And as far as I know, the game doesn't end.

And yes, I understand that the permissions are a bit sneaky.  But if you don't want it, oh well.
Cartoon Wars 1: iTunes Google Play Amazon Appstore
Cartoon Wars 2: iTunes Google Play Amazon Appstore
Cartoon Wars Gunner: iTunes Google Play Amazon Appstore

~ReconnaisX
PS: Upon further inspection, I find this.  Interesting!

Quell

I'm a bit of a Quell fanatic.  I love Quell Reflect.  I haven't tried Quell yet, but what I do know about Quell is that Quell Reflect's soundtrack is better than the original's.

Anyhow, you can thank me for recommending this app without even saying why (for the most part).
iOS download:
Quell
Quell Reflect
Android:
Quell
Quell Reflect
Amazon (which is an Android OS, by the way):
Quell
Quell Reflect

~ReconnaisX
PS: Hit the fan in Quell Reflect for some secret levels that are really hard.  I'm serious.  Hard.
PPS: Quell is working on their next game already. 


EDIT: Steven Cravis has made all of the original three tracks on his website "previews", and added new "previews" of other pieces of music, therefore rendering the above music player useless (should display an error message).  I highly dislike.  But if  you want to, fine then.