iOS, Android, PC/Mac •
Summer is a huge pain in the ass. Instead of talking to developers and actually playing games, I’m spending my days going to amusement parks and museums “building memories” with my kids. Gross, right? The worst part is that a small part of me is actually kind of enjoying it. Fear not, it’s only a matter of time before they ask me for money and the warm fuzzies quickly dissipate.
The worst part of all this involves Stately Play getting the short end of the stick. A bunch of stuff happened last week that I didn’t get a chance to talk about simply due to time constraints. Considering that this week is probably going to be worse–tomorrow is a holiday here in the US, and I won’t be around to post–I figured a quick news dump was in order. Let’s start with our old friend, Solitairica.
Solitairica
Solitairica received a fairly major update last week, including IAP that will bring you four new characters. The new characters each have their own deck and, if you’ve played Solitairica at all, you know that trying to master each new character’s deck and tendencies is what makes the game fun. Even if you don’t want to spend $1, the update has new content for you. Righteous Hammer has added something called “Epic Journey” mode, which adds ten new encounters to your quest and toughens everything up by limiting store purchases and beefing up the baddies.
The update went live last Thursday, but there were some issues with restoring purchases and whatnot, so a hotfix was released on Friday that should have cleared everything up. That said, this is what my screen looks like, and I can’t figure out if the problem is mine or theirs.
I’m sure they’ll get the wrinkles ironed out quickly, so I’ll keep trying. If you already have Solitairica on your device, check and see if you can download the new decks. If you don’t have Solitairica, you really should. It’s one of the best solo time-wasters on the App Store. Pick it up at the links below:
- Solitairica for iOS Universal, $4
- Solitairica for Android, free
- Solitairica for PC/Mac via Steam, $4 (on sale)
Friday
When I’m not wrangling kids or trying to put more than two words together here at Stately Play, I’ve been trying to teach myself how to code. I did it for money a long, long time ago, so “teaching” is really more “remembering” at this point. I’ve been tinkering with the thought that, maybe someday, I could start converting all the solo/cooperative board games I own into apps, because no one else seems to be doing it. For my first project, I had brought Friday from game designer Friedemann Friese upstairs with the intent of converting it to a digital version. Last Thursday, however, BrettspielWelt surprised everyone by releasing an official digital version, saving me a whole lot of time.
The titular Friday refers not to Frigg’s day nor to any Dragnet detective, but instead the companion of famed castaway, plantation owner, and slave trader, Robinson Crusoe. In the game, you play RC and are trying to survive, eventually defeating some pirates and sailing home on one of their ships. It’s a solitaire card game that utilizes light deck building and some push-your-luck mechanisms. On the tabletop, it’s quite fun. The app is quite fun as well, but you’d better come in knowing what’s up.
The app is on the “less-polished” side of the aisle [or, should we say ‘isle’ in this case? -ed.] and has many rough edges, the first of which is the lack of a proper tutorial. There is in-game help, but I’m not sure that someone unfamiliar with the game going in would learn to play using the feature. Otherwise, it works fine, but feels a bit more like a VASSAL module than a proper app. It does enforce the rules, but everything else feels a bit rushed. To be fair, it’s probably 10x better than what I would have coded up, so I can’t complain too much.
I’m pretty sure Kelsey is on the case, so we’ll try and get his review of Friday up before, um, Friday. If you could care less what we think and want to dive in on your own, links are below:
Fighting Fantasy Legends
Last week also saw the first real trailer for Nomad Games‘ next title, Fighting Fantasy Legends. Previously, all we had was a short teaser that revealed nothing but the title. This video shows off a lot more and it looks very, very cool.
The game takes three classic Fighting Fantasy books from the 80’s (Warlock of Firetop Mountain, Citadel of Chaos, and City of Thieves) and turns them into a Warhammer Quest-like RPG and I went from mildly interested to rabidly eager, if that’s a thing. This article is getting long enough that I’m starting to feel like I’m just putting random words together. Orange octopus!
We also know that Fighting Fantasy Legends will be arriving on our devices as well as Steam on July 27, so it’s only about three weeks away. We’ll be trying to dig up as much dirt as we can on this one as the release day nears.
I saw cornucopia and thought you were going to mention plants vs zombies heroes - expansion.
The FF: Legends looks to be a day one purchase for me, assuming I can clear out the backlog first…