by vfitzjarrald | Dec 16, 2014 | App Reviews, Game On!, On the iPad
Wow, Terraria…
It takes forever! As an iOS gamer, I have been following the pulse of iOS game development. It seems like three genres of Games have been steadily growing over the past year. Those genres are Crafting, Card, and Survival Games. Terraria is one of the most popular iOS Crafting/Survival games on the market.
The basic premise is that you are stuck on an alien world and need to survive. With rudimentary tools (at first), you create your own kingdom. As the game progresses, you have access to more intricate tools and resources, allowing you to create more and more items. Games like this tend to drag on forever! With Terraria, there is an end. You do reach the end of the crafting table after many hours in the game, and you can then spend your time developing your holdings.
by vfitzjarrald | Dec 16, 2014 | App Reviews, Game On!, On the iPad
FTL is a game that has been out for some time. I have been playing it for months and it still has me firmly within its grip. The basic premise is that you command a ship that is fleeing an aggressive fleet. As you progress, or jump, to new systems, you are presented with missions. Those missions earn you commodities that you use to upgrade your ship and destroy your enemies.
The gameplay is fairly straight forward, but the game is insanely challenging. After a few hours of playing, I had not beaten a single game. To this day, I still have not progressed to defeating the final boss of the game. It will take you hours of gameplay just to make it to the final confrontation, and even then, you will be lucky to survive. FTL is another game with an insanely high Game Hours / Dollar ratio. I still continue to play hoping that one day I will unlock all of the ships – it seems unlikely, but I am still hoping. Check out my video below for Gameplay analysis.
by vfitzjarrald | Dec 16, 2014 | App Reviews, Game On!, On the iPad
In case you have not figured it out yet, I am a bit of a Nerd. When I was a teenager, my friends and I played a lot of Magic: The Gathering. As I grew up, I started chasing girls more than I roamed the plains. That continued throughout my adult life, focusing more on social interactions than epic card games. Well that is until I started playing Hearthstone.
Hearthstone has reintroduced me to the genre of Epic, Deck-building Card Games.
by vfitzjarrald | Dec 16, 2014 | App Reviews, Game On!, On the iPad
What a game! I have always wanted to be able to fly across the galaxy and build my own vessel. Galaxy on Fire allows me to do that, and I can do it in style! The main story line is that you are taking on a hostile alien race that is destroying the galaxy. As a former military fighter pilot, and now a pirate, you engage the enemy and eventually destroy them (with a bunch of help from some scientists). GOF2 is a Space Piloting game in the truest sense, giving you the ability to control, upgrade, and fight with the ship of your choice.
by vfitzjarrald | Dec 16, 2014 | App Reviews, On the iPad, Productivity Apps
Platform: iOS Cost: Free Trello is a great program if you understand how to use it. Like most things, there is a bit of a learning curve to setup and start using the Trello tracking system. I find that it works best when I use Trello in a team. When edits are made...
by vfitzjarrald | Dec 16, 2014 | App Reviews, Game On!, On the iPad
In the Genre of “Console Ports” there are relatively few options for iOS. With EA Releasing the Mass Effect and DeadSpace titles, there was some hope… it continues to fizzle. The Knights of the Old Republic port is a fantastic console quality game on the iPad, but for those of us who played that game to death on the PC or Xbox, it is an old hat. iOS gamers have been chomping at the bit for another Console quality game to hit the store.
This year, we saw the most notable game of our generation hit the App Store: BioShock.
by vfitzjarrald | Dec 16, 2014 | App Reviews, Game On!, On the iPad
World of Tanks – Simply one of the best iOS Shooting games out there!
You roam a small set of maps in a wide range of tanks trying to wage war and destroy the rival team. There are now more than 50 tanks in the game that meet all gameplay styles, from running-and-gunning to sniping. The game is monetized, but for additional experience boosts (aka. spending less time on the leveling grind). The interface is smooth and crisp, with a great dual analog style. Unfortunately when I play the game with my connected SteelSeries Stratus, the game is clunky and the control mapping does not seem to match with gameplay.
by vfitzjarrald | Dec 15, 2014 | App Reviews, On the iPad, Productivity Apps
As a mobile professional, and one who logged 50,000 miles of travel in the last year alone, I have a remarkable need to be able to work on the go. In all of my work, the only thing that is remarkably difficult from a mobile device was updating web content. The Wordpress App has such a terrible interface, that I found it hard to work for hours at a time on each post. What is strange about this situation is that I love using Diet Coda on the iPad – it is intuitive and a great HTML/Code editor.
Where Wordpress stumbles, Blogsy takes off at a sprint.
by vfitzjarrald | Dec 15, 2014 | App Reviews, On the iPad, Productivity Apps
It has taken a long time, but I have been converted to using Evernote for all of my online note-taking. I was first introduced to the program in 2012 at the ISTE Conference. I hated it. At that point in my life, I was an avid doodler, spending the majority of my page area on drawings. When I downloaded and started using the Evernote platform on my PC, it was lacking in the ability to integrate services and features that I wanted. Since my account was created in 2012, there have been some significant changes to the platform and my use of it. The biggest change in my use of note-taking services is my reliance on my iPad.
by vfitzjarrald | Dec 15, 2014 | App Reviews, EduGame, Game On!, On the iPad
Democracy 3 is a game that snuck up on me! I was happy and minding my own business when an article came across my desk about a new App with an in “Depth Government Simulation.” I scoffed a bit because who would be able to explain the nuances of government in a single Application. I downloaded the game, and there it sat while I was waiting to review a couple of other simulations. During this past summer, I was cleaning off my iPad and stumbled across the app again, in my queue to delete. It did not seem fair that I delete the App without even launching it, so I took a few minutes to fire the game up. An hour later, I but the game down unable to think straight.
At its core, Democracy 3 is a government simulation game. You take on the role of the newly elected ruler of a country of your choice. Each turn in the game is the span of three months of your reign. During that time, you earn and spend political capital, try to balance the budget, and make changes to further your society. Where the app excels is in its description of the interconnectedness of policies. I was immediately tasked with wanting to reduce the crime rate in my country. I banned drugs, criminalized prostitution, and provided additional support to the legal system – which all made logical sense. After six months, my GDP was down, my parents were upset, and crime had drastically increased.
In an education context, I see this game as a very powerful way to model government. Students have the ability to manage policies and then see the downstream effects of those policies. In the skilled hands of a seasoned educator, this will be a wonderful way to engage students in Government.
