iOS •
Here’s a “fun” game to play if you’ve updated to iOS 10.3: Go to Settings > General > About > Applications and take a look at the list. These are the apps you have on your phone right now that won’t work at all once Apple removes compatibility for 32-bit apps in a future iOS version.
Here’s my list:
Almost all of these are real bummers to me in some way, but I’ve got to say that Honeycomb Hotel is personally the worst potential loss. I think there’s some hope for an update still, but most of the other apps on my list probably won’t be getting one, for a variety of reasons. TouchArcade and AppShopper, for instance, haven’t been able to release updates for years, thanks to a rules change that banned apps that watch the App Store for price changes. Flappy Bird was infamously pulled from the App Store by its developer at the height of its popularity over concerns that it was too addictive. Perhaps the saddest story behind an app on this list is I Am Level. Stewart Hogarth, the developer of the excellent pinball exploration-platformer hybrid, tragically passed away in 2015.
My heart skipped a beat the other day when I checked my list for the first time and saw 868-HACK. Luckily, Michael Brough gave it an update on Tuesday that adds 64-bit compatibility and also tweaks the balance a bit. In his blog post for the update, he opens with a mini-rant against the continued inconveniences that Apple is putting developers through to keep their apps available on the App Store. Luckily for us, he’s going to soldier through and try to get his other apps up-to-date, too.
This impending 64-bit requirement once again hammers home the need for software preservation and exposes a major downside to Apple’s “walled garden” approach to iOS. Frivolous as it may seem, Flappy Bird is a historically important game that will soon become (even more, considering that you can’t even download it anymore) unplayable, at least on iOS. And even games that aren’t necessarily “important” deserve to be preserved! Projects like the Video Game History Foundation, The Internet Archive, and byuu’s work give me some hope for the future, but between the 64-bit requirement and the yearly developer fee required to keep even free apps on the App Store, it seems like Apple sees apps as disposable. I’ve been paranoid enough to keep backups of nearly every app I’ve downloaded and my old 5s on an older firmware, so I’ll still be able to use these apps in some form, but it’s a shame that that looks to be the only way.
What does your list look like? Feel free to speculate/mourn in the forum thread.
Update 4/10/2017:
Everett Kaser, the developer of Honeycomb Hotel, let me know today that he’ll be working on updates over the next couple of months. Rejoice! We’ll be keeping an eye out for news on the apps you’ve listed in the forums as well.
This is another reason to not upgrade. I’m still on iOS 9 because I wanted to keep Game Center and I didn’t see any compelling reasons to upgrade. I may finally relent because I’m tired of telling my iPad that I don’t want to update and Game Center doesn’t really do much anymore. But the benefits of 64-bit don’t seem to be promising enough to outweigh the loss of some apps I actually use (AppShopper and TouchArcade; there are probably others I don’t know about).
I own an iPad 4, which won’t run 64-bit apps. How will this 64-bit mandate affect me? Or will it affect only those apps that are not both 32- and 64-bit compatible?
It should not affect you at all for the apps you have. You will not be able to upgrade you iPad 4 to the future iOS that is only 64-bit. However, you may no longer be able to buy new apps because they will only be 64-bit apps.
That’s what I had figured based on the initial reports. Thanks for the confirmation!
Most of the ones on my list aren’t surprises. Samurai hasn’t been updated in forever. I’d be sad to lose it, but not shocked. Same story with Stone Age.
Trainyard was one of the first games to really get me hooked on iOS apps, so that’s a bummer.
The lone shocker in the bunch: Lords of Waterdeep. I don’t play it often–and maybe nobody does, which is why it hasn’t been updated–but I do really enjoy the game.
Don’t we have somebody from Playdek who posts here?
Hopefully he’ll chime in.
Penny Arcade is also on the list. I have an ongoing game set up with two of my friends.
@Strangiato
I admit I’ll be sorry to see LoW go too, although admittedly I haven’t played a game of that in forever. Went through my phone after seeing this and the only app I’ll miss is FlightTrack 5. I’ll check out the iPad later…
Definitely concerned about LoW. Is this just an iOS issue?
Well, from Brough’s blog it seems like it’s not actually that huge of a deal to change. A licensing issue could maybe prevent an update there, though? I’m no expert on such issues.
i just updated to iOS 10.3 and it shows me 40 of my 201 installed apps as incompatible with “future versions of iOS”
many high priced apps (Final Fantasy Tactics, Baldur’s Gate, Space Hulk), many board game apps (SmallWorld2, Kingdom Builder, Stone Age, Through the Desert, Qin, Samurai) and many classics (Elder Sign, Galaxy on Fire2, Bard’s Tale, Greed, Baphomet, Osmos).
i must be crazy to update to iOS 11. so thx, but no.
Your mention of Space Hulk is what finally made me realize that Deathwatch obsoleted Soace Hulk for me. I never liked the narrow channels of SH.
I’ll be sad to see Battle of Hill 218 go, if it does. That’s been a superb short game for years, and I still play it a few times a week.
I cleaned out a lot of my old apps when I bought a new iPad. The only games listed for me are XCOM:EW and Motorsport Manager.
Seriously? Wow. So many of my old games I keep around and play every so often are on this list: Elder Sign, Nightfall, Le Harve, Stone Age, Nightmare Coop, Ridiculous Fishing, Canabalt, Groove Coaster, Monsters Ate My Condo, Peggle, Joe Danger, WOPR (which seems apt for this thread…), Dungeon Raid… Yikes. Not to mention a few non-gaming apps I still use.
This wasn’t a very fun game:(
If ios 11 is expected in the autumn, then that gives is 6 months for one last blast of our favourites before they split the community.
I could handle a few more async games right now, like le havre for instance
Argh! I knew it was coming but still ARGH!
Definetly staing at 10.3…apple can bugger of with their policy…
censored red hot fuming rage
A small piece of insight from a dev talking about “just going into the App and only changing 3 lines of code to get it working in 64bit mode…”
That even more spells gloom and doom for me :-/
Caylus will not be updated. Just heard from the developer:
No mention of Eclipse, but at BoardGameGeek, it sounds like Eclipse will be updated.
I hate to sound like a broken record, but if Caylus ever had a functioning multiplayer system it might have developed enough sales to make the update worthwhile! I bought this day 1, spent 2 weeks trying to get a multiplayer game to work without the game disappearing, then gave up and never played it again.
Here’s some good news: Everett Kaser told me today that Honeycomb Hotel and his other apps should be updated in the next couple of months.
Caylus is in my yet to play folder. But it is low on the list for that very reason. I may never get to it before it is obsolete.
Yeah, Caylus was released and left to die. By its own developer.
Big Daddy’s, frankly, seems to understand marketing even less than it understands multiplayer.
Spit my coffee out at this. Well done, sir, well done.
I would like this post twice if I could.
really? just to fix the multiplayer? for making private games happen?
app is installed on my ipad, and the compatibility check shows no problem for Eclipse.
No. Fix mulitplayer? That’s crazy talk. Just so it will work on 64 bit. Wait, it works? Then that’s all you can expect.
This situation, plus a lot of my older games just falling by the wayside, is making me be very discerning about what I buy digitally. Books, no problem for the most part, same for comics from comixology. Steam has some staying power so I don’t mind buying games there. But ios/android? Each major update of iOS is bringing an apocalypse similar to WinXP to Vista, or Vista to 7, etc. Stuff I’ve paid for, just cast aside and no real concern. Square/Enix has been one of the biggest disappointments on the app store. 20.00 games and no updates for years. Hadn’t been able to play Final Fantasy Tactics for a long time, until a surprise update hit sometime last year… and even then it was hit or miss. 20.00 or 2.00, if I pay money for it, I expect it to function for years (5+).
It’s even worse if the game has some sort of online component or cash store to buy into the game’s currency. I don’t care how much I like Fire Emblem, Final Fantasy Record Keeper, or the Fate series. If the dev can just arbitrarily turn the app off because they don’t want to maintain it anymore, I’m unlikely to being supporting it.
Sorry…I think I’ve been saving up this rant over app stores, oses, and money for some time. I hope it makes sense.
Recent Examples:
Secret of Mana iOS
No Cloud Saves, so no transfer between iPhone 6 and iPad. I have found that playing action heavy games like SoM on my Go-to device (the iPad Air) can tire you out especially if you go for the longer sessions.
In comes the iPad Mini…I use it specifically for badly ported iPhone games (like Secret of Mana) because it is the perfect middleground…only I had to start yet again from Scratch. and had to look real long and work extra hard to get it re-installed on my iPad Mini (seems to be taken off the appstore)
Thank good for Cloud Save in FF5…too bad it wasnÄt implemented in FF Tactics -.-
Wayward Souls
Very very great game. Roguelike/ Roguelite from Rocketcat games. No way to transfer saves/progress. Possible victim of Apple’s Operation “32bit Killswitch”
Storm Casters (ultra)
A very very nice roguelite twin-stick shooter with unique card based Mechanic. Art direction cries Torchlight meshed with Hearthstone.
Great game, the game is F2P (generous F2P imho F2P done ight) and I opted specifically to bury it under 25 of my hard earned Euros to vote with my wallet and give the Devs some money for their hard work. But no way to transfer progress between devices or restore purchases.
One game is a rather high profile game from Sqare Enix, the other a damn good game with quite some invested cash…a bit salty now even if I still think the money was invested on the right basis.
The result will be when I update my iPad Air (or get an iPad pro down the line) I will consciously kill Storm Casters for good…because no way in hell will I restart over even if it was one of the three best Invbentions of mankind since sliced bread.
I will keep my iPad mini on the latest iOs 10.X forever and try to hide it in a well guarded ivory tower. Seing my 3 device-lists of soon to be dead apps makes me want to cry.
Hey, That’s My Fish! HD from FFG was just updated to support 64-bit iOS devices. Perhaps it’s a sign their other board game apps will be updated, as well.
Looks like the-game-I-suck-so-hard-at-suck-isn’t-even-the-right-word FTL just updated for 64-bit support and minor bug fixes… so I can keep sucking even in iOS 11.
Ha! I’m right there with you. I really enjoy the game, but wow, I am bad.
Isn’t the developer re-skinning Hill 218 as a sci-if game and re-releasing it in print and digital? Or am I just having another insane delusion?
You aren’t - he successfully kickstarted a reprint of Hill 218 and the remake, Sector 219. I’m embarrassed to admit kickstarting it and never playing either, so I can’t confirm if / how they differ. Sector 219 was also supposed to be released digitally, but I honestly have no idea where that stands.
Funnily enough, the android beta just opened today, with iOS to follow. I’ve played the physical card game only a little; in my experience, Hill 218’s artillery and Heavy Weapons are overpowered, leading to a very defensive game in which positional play can be summed up as “don’t leave a unit where your opponent will have a supported attack”. 219 nerfs the right units, and gives you a really neat unit which is great in support, but can’t attack at all. So there’s a more delicate approach to setting up good positions. I really liked it, and thought it shook up the formula in positive and important ways without making the rules any more complicated.
Anyway, we’re already in touch with Nils about doing something soon. Nils Hellberg, you may recall, is both the developer and also our old webmaster, back when we were at Pocket Tactics (and presumably still fills that role, for those of us who split our time).
This may be old news (9 June) but I found that LoW will get an 64bit Update later this year here (trough googling I don’t frequent that site…is it a good source for info?)
Since this seems semi-confirmed…off to the tournament section to ping interest for a LoW Tourney.
Hm…I hate it that there is no easy way in iTunes or Appstore to find out which applications will be nuked from orbit via the impending iOS11 Weapon of (M)ass Destruction.
Sure there is the new shiney option since iOS 10.3.2 to go to General/About/Applications to see which INSTALLED apps are soon-to-be-dead™, but what about the OWNED ones? :-/
The rules put out by Apple are that
NEW apps since Feb 2015 and
UPDATES since June 2015
had to be 64bit ready, but to go trough the whole storefront/purchase list to hunt for the “last updated” dates is…mindboggling numb…
(Just because I could with my new device) I went on an install-apps-like-crazy-spree to see how many of them are to be nuked…simply frightening.
Most prolific ones (for me) at least for the moment:
appshopper
X-COM:Enemy Within
Final Fantasy Tactics
iWesnoth HD
Shadowrun Returns
Shadowrun Dragonfall
Why are not more devs like the crazy guys at Kemco? 50 released RPGs on iOS since the dark days of the birth of the appstore back in whenever and only 2 apps (two!!!) are in my “apps-that-need 64bit-update” list.
Big studios who fail to update their apps drive me nuts. I understand smaller outfits not having the time/manpower/money to dedicate to the effort, but what’s the excuse for the big guys?
Warhammer Quest is now 64-bit compatible!
Good news! I actually just passed up starting a new adventure because I assumed my game would be gone sooner or later. I’m actually surprised it got an update considering the sequel is in the works.
Probably my favorite game on my current app-ocalypse list is Battle for Westnoth.
It was developed as an open source project, so it is completely free on OS X, Windows, Linux, even BeOS for heaven’s sake. For some reason the iOS app cost $4 but well worth it IMO. It’s got an average review of 5 stars from over 300 ratings on the App Store and 9/10 on the reviews mentioned on the Wikipedia page.
It’s got lots of hex-based maps, quests, cool fantasy characters and artwork, and a good UI. You can tell it was made for the love of the game and not with money in mind.
I guess I’ll be trying to fill up my swear jar in time to buy a new iPad Pro and keep this older iPad on iOS 10 until the end of its days as many people have strategized on another thread. Bleepity Bleeping Bleep!
I believe Osmos got a 64 bit update. Beamdog also posted they are updating Baldur’s Gate:EE
I for myself am sad to see my beloved Nightfall leave my iPad.
Still clinging to the fantasy, that Playdek are working in all silence on updating all their brilliant apps and expand them. I would have loved to see more Nightfall decks, a “can’t stop” multiplayer mode, a tournament mode for SW. Hell even games I do not play much like Penny Arcade, Food Fight, Fluxx, Tango Cuore would be a shame to abandon. Not that I wouldn’t mind a new game from them either…
A pity.
long ago an online portal for all Playdek games had been announced.
and wasn’t it even in beta ages ago?
there should have been integrated tournament modes, ranking lists, chatrooms and total connectivity as far as i remember.
the whole project must have been buried, just like the two Unsung Story games?
Yeah, anyone with the inclination and the time could do some internet research and learn a lot about the ups and downs of Playdek.
For my own selfish part, I’d also put up-to-the-minute Ascension expansions on my wishlist, along with expansions/support for some of their lesser-known titles (Fluxx, Penny Arcade, etc.).
And I can add, with complete honesty, that I literally cringed when I first heard about Unsung Story. There was just no way that project was ever going to work out; business history is littered with examples of companies that lost focus on what they did well for the sake of trying something new. Blech. So glad I avoided that one.
As a sidebar, I’d guess that the FTP revolution has hurt Playdek. They are a group that makes great apps that they need to charge money for … but today’s app consumer wants everything for free.
https://www.boardgamequest.com/playdek-announces-new-social-platform/
Right now, I’d settle for being able to run Twilight Struggle on my iphone…
Good lord. I remember that announcement; I think we had a big discussion over at PT That Used To Be Good.
2014 … wow.
Speaking of Unsung Story …
Great news, everyone! Honeycomb Hotel got updated a couple days ago.
Final Fantasy Tactics has an update on the way.
What the Heck?
Uh…if i had the time I would gleefully sandboard over the huge dunes and waves of salty salt over at kickstarter and whatever social community discusses on that game.
Honestly: My favourite Genre is SRPG and I am totally able to bear with the pains induced by some of the more atrocious offerings that genre has - also for being a fan of Playdak because of Ascension…but that personal union was so strange even back then I was thinking…cool…but why not less “blue stary sky” ideas and more of the same old?
Some Genres actually benefit more from sequels than others…even after a Bazillion of Disgaea games it never gets old…same for FFT…so why are people going to such lengths on past pedigree to innovate for innovations sake (and big schmexy headlines)…
Truly a sad (unsung) story…not only because…
no new shiney SRPG ever (unsung story will never be released, never!)
no tratidional SRPG with established fanbase
no focus on core products from Playdek due to restless salvaging attempts
no goodwill by longtime fans of playdek and SRPGs in future
and no progress on said core products…where is the Playdek Chat upgrade?
…did manage a short fly-by on KS.
Yeah the campaign was a mess…but nevertheless the entitlement is strong there. People forget what kickstarter truly is. Was it badly executed? Sure, but all that “Refund” cries after investing into a high-risk project