for Pocket Frogs players, this from PF's Facebook page:

puzzle mini-game? interesting...

FM

So I installed Pocket Frogs but don't really see any way to get any different fronts. I keep breeding the same colors over and over and I'm barely crawling along toward level two.

go to the FrogMart, there you'll be able to purchase some different breeds. They change every day. You can access FrogMart via the menu at the bottom right.

Another way of discovering new breeds and colors is by spending time on the pond. Wander around and you might see a new one there and you can breed there, or you might come upon a gift (yellow or red one) and they sometimes have frogs in them that will be delivered to your mailbox.

FM

huhoh, from Pocket Frogs' Facebook page:

FM

okay, I was wondering since my iTunes doesn't even say an update is available for PF but they're now saying they have pulled it from the App store completely...

FM

FM, DK, I sent frogs to you to complete the Bacon Bits award.

Thanks for the level three frog. I'm slowly learning the game. Why is it important to keep the frogs happy? Are they worth more if they're happy? How many frogs do you keep at once? I'm just now getting to level two frogs and have two habitats and a nursery.

no problem for the frog, you'll be able to breed it soon enough. :)

I don't really see any importance to keeping frogs happy, unless you wanna race them. Yes, they are worth more if they are happier, but all frogs I just checked that were at about 66% happy were still worth 93-94% of their max worth, so not worth it to go hunt flies to earn that tiny bit more to be honest.

I have 7 habitats not counting the nursery, so my game is quite different than yours. I keep many frogs, almost all my habitats are full. I do that in order to have some diversity to fulfill the awards and also because some of them now take more than 36 hours to be fully grown, so I let them grow out of the nursery once they've hatched.

The catalog is also a nice place to keep frogs you might want to use in the future. They are not yours per se, but you can order them, at a premium, if you want to use a specific frog for a specific purpose.

Right now, I'm having fun picking one award and trying to get it done. One reasonable one for you might be award #4, "I Choose You" which asks of you to collect 8 yellow tingo anura in one habitat. You simply need one yellow anura frog and another anura with tingo as its second color and you try to get one yellow tingo. Once you have one, you try to breed and create a second one. Once you have two, you breed them together and make 6 more and boom, you have the award and some extra experience.

FM

dola, more testing regarding frog value vs happiness. I had an adult roboris that was not tamed, sat at 23% happy and was worth 349 coins out of a max of 412, or 85% of its max value. Went to the pond to tame it and get the exp related to it. 15 flies later, it's now at 46% happy and was sold for 368 coins, or 89% of max value. I was not really worth it to continue eating flies only to push up its value. Now maybe to hunt some gift boxes, or other frogs to breed with maybe, but not simply to boost its value...

FM

picked up Carcassonne for $4.99 today after reading updates that the iPad version is coming soon and that the price will jump to $9.99 when it's released. What a neat game. I know it's port of a board game but still, well done and lots of fun.

For those who don't know about the board game:
Carcassonne (board game) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I had never played the game, only had read very good reviews about the iPhone port. I'm sure many here have played the board version and it might be interesting to get some sort of internet game of the iOS version of the game if others do get into it (and once I stop sucking at it which might take some time;)). I found playing the game to be quite relaxing, a fact probably due in no small part to the soothing medieval acoustical music playing in the background.

They have included a solitaire version in the game in which you they have different towns comprised of a 70 tiles set and you have to build roads and towns of sizes 1, then 2, then 3, up to 6. Your solitaire game ends either when you have built both a road and a town of size 6 or when you run out of tile. You start with a thousand point and every tile used costs you point. I ended my first game without getting to 6 in either sizes and at -86 points. So, yeah, I suck... Still, I had a lot of fun and completely tuned out of everything that was happening around me while playing my game...

FM

also picked up Backbreaker 2: Vengeance ($2.99) but only got to play it this afternoon. What a blast that is. It's not really a team game of football as much as you against the defenders, trying to run in the ball for a TD. You can spin and juke left & right, jump over low tacklers, then showboat on your way to the endzone. There's also a defender's way of playing the game, where you play the opposite role, but I have yet to try it.

Another I played this afternoon, and that is currently free, is doodle fit where you try to fill a certain shape with many other smaller ones. Played for 20 minutes completing the first 27 of some 100 puzzles.

FM

FYI, pocketgamer is reporting that the developper of Carcassonne is to submit the new version of the game tomorrow, making it then universal and that the price will jump to $9.99 at that point. In other words, last day to get it for $4.99.

Played the solitaire game a couple more times this weekend and it is good, relaxing fun.

FM

Touch Arcade is reporting the same about Carcassone.

Funny, I picked it up ages ago and never really played it. But this thread got me to try it out. I'm BAD. Like awful. But I'm really digging the solitaire version...while I have some games I go back to often (like HR Battle), I do like having a game that doesn't have a time limit or anything and is low stress.

/tk

yeah, I'm really bad too. Was pretty stoked to finish a game in teh positives at lunch today. Didn't make it to size 6 in roads, only in towns, but the whole thing was compact enough that it allowed me to finish with some points left. Also helped me to read the rules.

Oh, and I also suck at the regular game, although I have only played one game. Finished third out of three, playing against the two easy AI players.

I agree with the no time limit and I like the ability to put it down and come back to it when I have some time.

Let me know if you want to play an online game someday. Way I understand how it goes, each player plays his/her turn and the other player(s) get push notified when it's there turn to play. Probably means a game could casually be played as fast as in a half hour, or over a few days, depending on the availability of the players... My playing time would mostly be in the evenings though, as I can't access the net with my Touch during the day...

FM

Too bad Carcassone doesn't have a lite version. It sounds interesting but $5 is steep for a game I've never played before.

yeah, it's the pricing structure of the app store that makes the $5 hard to justify. I probably would not have taken a chance on it if I were not playing with a $50 gift card.

Way I finally saw it after reading the many positive reviews was that I'd probably get enough playing time with it to make it worth my $5. :)

In other news, I finally took the plunge and got acquainted with Angry Birds last night. I got the newly renamed Angry Birds Seasons after reading it had a sort of advent calendar where they release one level a day until Christmas. Thought the idea was cool and I'm now hooked. I know you all know about it, probably have all played it, or a clone in some way, just saying I'm having fun. :)

FM

Ditto to all of the above. I think I played it for about two minutes. And I sucked.

PM me your email addy and I'll set up an online game and we can suck together :)

I started a game with TK and I like how it's going so far. A fun process.

FM

Finally downloaded game dev story yesterday.

In my first career so far, I got my first game of the year in year 16. Gonna post my totals to keep track of it somewhere - I understand that year 20 is the final "tracked" year, and I'm at 18 1/2.

So in my first career...

Highest Selling Title: 43,368,121 - 3rd in a Simulation/Architecture Series - 38 pt review

Popularity - 100
Games - 52
Hall of Fame - 30
Fans - 9727
Genre - 19
Type - 22
Gamedex Records - 89,024
My Console has 17% Market Share
Best Design - 15
Best Music - 18
Worst Game - 0
Runner-Up - 15
GotY - 1
Capital Until Year 20 - 405,760k (although I'm not sure I understand the benefit of a high number here)

The PC version is free.

Google Translate

Of course someone needs to port it to English first. :)

since I've started playing Angry Birds Seasons, I've be looking out for other clones of this type of game, i.e. catapult launching, destruction making type games. Found quite a few of them and have downloaded the lite versions of some of them.

Trucks 'N Skulls: slick looking heavy metal themed where you launch trucks from a ramp to break skulls (duh!)

Cannon Cadets: space themed but have not tried it yet

Crush The Castle: medieval themed where you use a trebuchet to launch rocks at castles trying to kill the persons inside. It's not as slick looking as the other ones, but launching makes it a bit different, less straightforward to try to launch stuff off a trebuchet than from a catapult/ramp

Fun with Death: one of the reason for this post. You are Death and you try to claim red soul by throwing imps at them. Thing is you have to protect the blue souls. Twist in this one is you can put items on the level to modify the way your thrown stuff will behave. Can be stoppers, little wedges, spikes, etc.

The other reason for this post is that Fun With Death is free today. :)

Yeah, sure, it's only a 99 cents saving but hey, free is free and FWD has some 60 levels so if the catapult launching type game is your style, or if you simply wanna try it, there your chance.

FM

for people who like Pocket Frogs, another frog related game from Nimblebits, Dizzypad is free today. You hop from lillypad from lillypad, trying not eat flies as you and avoiding to drop into the water. Your frog rotates when you are one the lillypad and you jump by simply touching the screen. The frog jumps in the direction it is facing.

Cool, kinda relaxing game that they were charging $1.99 for. Honestly, I would not have paid $1.99 for a game like that but for free, why not...

FM

anybody know anything about Blood & Honor? It's also free today (usually $1.99) and it looks like an interesting risk-like card/board game. Got multiplayer and I think it might be something cool to play with FOFCers...

Also, something completely different, Captain Rampage is a comic book they say was written and illustrated for the iPhone. Usually sells for $0.99 but it's free now...

FM

Just got Stick Golf HD for my iPad. It's free currently (normally $1.99 apparently) and it's been an entertaining time waster so far.

thanks for the recommendation. I saw this becoming free yesterday or the day before and it didn't grab at me too much. Just installed it and played my first 9 and it's indeed a lot of silly fun. :)

FM

Anybody going to try out Infinity Blade? Yeah, I suppose it's more expensive than most apps, but it looks like it'll be worth it. I plan on giving it a go, though not until I get back from my work trip next week.

/tk

I'll admit it is pretty tempting but I got so many to play right now that I think I'll wait a bit to see if the price drops a bit. Might be getting it during the holiday break when I have some more time, who knows...

FM

Blood & Honor's not bad for a free game. I wouldn't pay for it though. Played a max players game with the ability to choose your own starting territories and command centers. Once I got firm control of North America, the rest of it was pretty easy, especially once I established control of South America as well.

Of course, I got lucky because the enemy in Asia was busy trying to conquer all of Asia, so I could pretty much leave my Western border undefended, until Asia got wiped out by a nuclear bomb and left white. Then I gradually moved in.

By the time it got to the final showdown in Africa between me and the last player remaining, it was pretty much game, set, match, and they conceded after I wiped out Oceania, their last remaining stronghold.

Saw there was an update to the game. I updated, but I'm not sure I'll play. I don't want to waste your time. I think it's one of those games that I've bought and will never play. Thanks for the offer though!

Picked up B&H for free, but it's showing up as the Lite version on my iTouch. Weird.

maybe if you play it with someone you know you'll start enjoying it, who knows. :)

As for wasting my time, no worries. The turn based style of the game is pretty well done. A game with you if you don't play would simply stay there in my list of online games. There are no limits between turns but you get a push notification when it's your turn, and the app's badge shows a number that I assume is how many games that you're in that it's your turn to play.

The offer still stands, pm me your addy and we'll get a game started :)

FM

Got it. It seems fun (as far as what I've played so far, which is a couple of fights). The graphics are great and the gameplay seems to be really good.

My son is level 27 and has defeated the boss a few times. He has the Infinity Blade.

I'd recommend this based upon how much my son is playing and the graphics.

same thing for me. Have not played with the game too much though...

FM

LOL. I had to register, I guess. PM coming.

ok, liked Stick Golf quite enough to buy Super Stick Golf for 0.99$. They call it a sequel but it actually includes all the courses (16 x 9 holes) of the original game and 72 more holes with some special balls and they are talking about future updates.

FM

sent you an invite through the game. You need to copy the link that starts with "carcassonne" into safari and it should start the game and link you into the game...

FM

TK and I just finished our game of Carcassonne we had started on Monday evening. Was a leisurely type of gaming, each of us placing a few tiles every evening.

Anybody else with the game, feel free to pm me an email address and we can get something going. FWIW, you can have more than one ongoing online game at the same time.

FM

dola,

Anybody here has played the MMA game by EA Sports? I bought it when its price dropped from $4.99 to $0.99 in early December and just got around to fool with it. It's surprisingly fun. Started a career and the controls are fairly intuitive. It's all two-finger swipes to attempt controls and takedowns and touches or one finger swipes for strikes. You are ranked and can train in order to improve your fighter's attributes.

FM

The iPhone port of Mirror's Edge is on sale for 99 cents this weekend, down from $4.99. Picked it up Friday and played it yesterday, cool runner type game with great visuals.

FM

Catan, the iPhone port of the well known board game Settlers of Catan has dropped in price to $2.99 from $4.99 for December 13th.

I have often seen this game mentioned as one of the very good board game by the crowd of FOFC so maybe some of you might be interested. It's got me intrigued although the multiplayer is said to be a "hot-seat-multiplayer mode" so I'm not sure if it's over the net or only on one device. I'll be reading some reviews about it before deciding...

FM

Reading your stories of Carcassone gameplay, FM, makes me wish I'd bought the game while it was at that cheaper price. I hope it goes on sale sometime. It seems intriguing even though I've never played or heard of the game before the iPhone version.

it is intriguing and honestly, I'm learning how to play as we go along. I also didn't want to make a bigger sales pitch at the time because, well, I didn't know the game too well either. I got two games going side-by-side. One with RA and one with TK. The push notification works very well with the turn based style of the game.

As I aid, I'm still learning the ropes. As RA said in chat in our game, he doesn't know who's winning, and neither do I because we're early in the game and players are still laying out tiles and it can all unfold with tons of points in the end.

FM

dola, it's almost a shame not more FOFCers are into it as I think it fits the crowd we are here very well...

FM

I guess I'll have to take a shot at it if it drops back down in price.

after reading many reviews of the game, the multiplayer mode is indeed of the "pass your iDevice around" type. It does take away from my possible enjoyment of such a game so I'll pass for now...

FM

Huh? I thought you just said that you were playing TK over the internet?

oh crap, didn't quote the right message, oops. Was tired yesterday and I goofed up. I'm indeed playing Carcassonne with TK and RA and it's going great, very well done.

My reply regarding the "hand your iDevice" multiplayer should have been in reply to this post:



It's Catan that has the local multiplayer only, and by local, it's really a physical locality. Doesn't make much sense since, well if you're gonna be playing it by handing the device over, you might as well play with the real board game.

Sorry for the confusion.

FM

dola, again, Carcassonne's multiplayer is VERY well done :)

In other news, I treated myself with a trip down memory lane this morning by getting the first volume of Gamebook Adventures called An Assassin in Orlandes. I've yet to play it but this is described as the "choose your own adventure" type of game, just like the tons of books I was reading in the early 80's, complete with dices and character sheets. Man did I have many of those, something like 20 of them.

The game sur looks really nice and for a buck was worth taking a shot...

FM

Just started playing Pocket Frogs...