The first time I played Choice of Games’ The Fleet ($4.99), the hideous Tribbles succeeded in their conquest of Altair 4. The second time, my homeworld, Earth 2, wound up in the horrid reptilian clutches of the Republicans. It was only on my third try that I liberated Duroon from the Kargham (I went with default names that time.)
The Fleet is Choice of Games’ latest iOS gamebook, and at a glance, looks similar to their recent sci-fi release, Choice of the Star Captain ($4.99). After all, both feature space ships and megalomanical aliens. The style, however, couldn’t be more different. Choice of the Star Captain is farcical, somewhere in the cosmology of Red Dwarf, Bill the Galactic Hero and the Space Quest games.
Don’t let my Tribbles and Republicans confuse you: The Fleet is a serious game, more in the genre of Babylon 5, the Mass Effect series, and particularly Battlestar Galactica than anything Douglas Adams-inspired. You command a fleet, and spend part of the game escorting civilian vessels under difficult circumstances that force you to weigh their needs against those of military preparedness.
While that tension is distinctly reminiscent of the conflict between Admiral Adama and President Roselin, and may be the strongest part of the game, The Fleet is not a wannabe Galactica licensee. The plot of The Fleet turns on alliance-building and a politically complex universe in which the enemy is neither superhuman nor inherently evil, and the game is better for it.
I was a bit surprised not to see some of the customization options typical in Choice of Games’ releases: there are no dialogues for the protagonist’s name, sex, or sexual orientation. The reason becomes clear if you pay attention while playing the game: your avatar’s gender is indeterminate, irrelevant to the plot and so never addressed. The dialogue flows naturally, and the character’s authority as Fleet Captain is derived solely from the player’s decisions (as it should be).
That’s part of the similarity to the Mass Effect series, where FemShep never has people second-guess her because of her sex. The other similarity is that both games feature a colorful cast of fractious space aliens. The difference, as should be obvious by this point, is that there’s no sex in The Fleet. If seducing your crew is a core component of sci-fi gaming for you, you may need to turn elsewhere.
Otherwise, The Fleet offers a compelling interactive story where the elements of simulation, while very simple, feel meaningful. The possibility of playing through the entire game only to come a cropper at the end was a risky call, but it makes your decisions feel more cumulative and consequential, and enhances the replayability of the game.
Among Choice of Games‘ offerings, The Fleet is neither the longest nor the most original in it’s premise, but it does a very good job with the story it wants to tell, and with the integration of system and story. If anything, I’m left wanting more… and there is more. I doubt I’ll unlock all of The Fleet’s endings, and I’m fairly certain I know everything about the Grix that the game has to tell me, but I’m not done with this one, not yet.
This might be my all time favorite iOS game, top 3 for sure. Anyone missing this needs to get on it.
What are your other 2 favorites?
Fieldrunners 2 and Sword and Poker, probably.
free https://itunes.apple.com/pt...
Super Mole Escape
De [adult swim] is free
Any sign of it getting an iPhone 5 update? Not such a big deal as there is no touching involved I guess. Def good to pick up for free, always fun!
What is happening with the missing pictures in toucharcade posts? I cannot see any picture...
Slingo Supreme is also free. It's a classic mix of slots and bingo which is very addictive.
"The iPad version isn't just a scaled up version, either. Instead, the characters in the game are the same size and the arena itself is actually four times larger, offering quite a different experience from its smaller counterpart."
^^^ this is something that I wish ALL iPad versions did. It pisses me off when an iPad version is just the iPhone version scaled up. One of my biggest pet peeves with lazy iOS development. The larger screen requires more thoughtful redesign.
For example, in Pocket Planes when the map is zoomed out, it is the exact same on the iPad as on iPhone. It should have the functionality of the iPhone map when zoomed in since there is the space to show everything. ARRRGGGHH
You have to make a difference between an iPad only version (which is the case here) and an universal app. A universal binary, IMO, is just an iPhone game that you can play on iPad too if you wish, at a minimum adaptation cost for the developer. An iPad only version, which is the case here and I agree with you, should offer more than a scaled version of the iPhone version.
I completely disagree. I'm not sure if that is your opinion or if you think that's technically how it has to work, but it's not. Look at Apple's own iOS apps, for example GarageBand you get a much larger and better interface on the iPad (which it was originally designed and released for). Granted they did a great job of shrinking it down when they released the smaller iPhone/iPod touch version (as a universal app), but for example in a synth patch, on the iPad you get a few knobs to control parameters and a large keyboard to play in a single view. It would be IMPOSSIBLE to just shrink that down and put it on a smaller screen (you wouldn't be able to interact with it as the UI elements are already about as small as they can be), so instead on the iPhone you get a keyboard that basically takes up the entire screen, and then you can tap a toolbar button to scroll up to the knobs. I need to emphasize here that this scrolling view is not just the iPad view put into a scroll view. It is an entirely different interface designed for the hardware platform.
Another good example is SpellTower. It's universal, but the iPad version gets extra tiles to play with (and subsequently uses a different leaderboard since the scoring would be not the same).
My opinion is that a developer should *never* just do the minimum amount of work to get a universal build. That is the difference between truly quality developers and the rest. Developers: don't be lazy.
P.S.
the same is true for both ways. Cramming an iPad interface onto an iPhone screen is just as bad as putting an iPhone interface on an iPad.
It's not a matter of being lazy. Adapting the interface for iPad requires days of work. If your app is popular (like the examples you've picked), you make the free update. If not, you don't (or you make another app iPad only). That's all and that's fair to me. For you information, most of the game developers are not lazy.
Lazy may have been a bad word choice. I meant willing to accept the bare minimum when they very well know it isn't the right thing to do for the user. #1 goal is good user experience. You might be OK with it, but I am not. I'll never boycott a game for this reason, but let it be known this is the wrong thing to do to your users.
Actually, maybe lazy *is* the right word. They are avoiding work they don't feel like putting effort into because there is an easy way out that doesn't necessarily impact sales. Sounds like lazy to me. Solid devs go the extra mile because they know they should.
I think you are confused about the point I am making. I am not saying the work should be free if the developer wants to charge. I am not a cheapskate, I happily spend money to support developers. They should put in the extra work and charge for it if they want (best model for this IMHO is smaller cost iPhone only version, and a higher cost universal version).
Yes you're talking about 2 different apps (one for iPhone and one for iPad), and I totally agree on this. But when a dev provides only one universal app, you must be ready to accept a scaled version on iPad. That's beter than an iPhone only version right?
My universal games are just scaled versions, and I'm not a lazy person. I make this on purpose, it's a decision, not laziness. On the appstore, apps can be updated, if your app is popular, you can upgrade the UI on iPad. Do you have examples of universal games (from small teams if possible) that have been released from day 1 with dedicated iPad UI?
Yeah, good point, but the problem when developers make the same upscaled, universal app lik you, but at publishing, they separate it to iPhone and iPad only, and thats disgusting. (Rovio or like EA and GL did)
And that is lazy and greed developing! Apple should ban the pointless HD-s, but it never will...
In my last reply I kind of digressed from my main point. I don't mean to get into a discussion about universal vs not universal. What the Tilt to Live dev did is fine. I was commending the developer for actually redesigning his UI and layout for the iPad idiom.
Developers should never blow up an iPhone view for iPad support, nor should they shrink an iPad UI for iPhone. The changes might not need to be that big. Even the smallest change makes a big difference. Back to my original comparison to Pocket Planes, there is no good reason why the zoomed-out iPad map shouldn't have the full functionality of the zoomed-in iPhone version (it's not like they should release a different app bundle when it's A) already universal and B) free to play).
Also for the record, SpellTower always had good universal support from the beginning and was a viral success. Small one man team, not Rovio or Apple. SpellTower wasn't a big game out of the gates, and did not have much hype at all. Point is it doesn't take a huge team making a huge app to make this possible. Bringing it all back to my original post, the same goes for Tilt to Live. The iPad version is awesome and different than the iPhone.
I hope you are beginning to understand what I am trying to say.