Prior to today’s release, Kyle Poole’s adaptation of Battle of Wesnoth [iPhone: 99¢ / iPad: 99¢] existed only on the iPhone, and while the game was good, it really seemed like it was never intended to be played on a screen that small. Battle for Wesnoth is a turn-based RPG with tons of user created content originally developed for the Mac and PC available for free. Since the game was designed to be played on a computer with a keyboard and mouse, we thought that quite a bit got lost in translation to tiny touchscreen controls in our review.
I’m happy to report that the interface issues found in the iPhone version have been completely eradicated thanks to the massive screen of the iPad. At 1024×768, the game is rendered just as it is on the Mac/PC client, and all of the various buttons and menus work great even with my fat, pepperoni greased fingers. The increased screen resolution also allows you to see much more of the battlefield at once, resulting in much less scrolling too.
Unfortunately, right now the iPad port is a little rough around the edges still. There’s an annoying bug where the screen goes black momentarily when the iPad is rotated, but launching the game with the rotation lock enabled fixes this. Also, while you don’t need to do much scrolling around anymore, panning about battles feels much slower and laggier than it should.
Developer Kyle Poole has been very active on our forums and has consistently been adding content, fixing bugs, and tweaking performance in the iPhone version since its release. Sure, the iPad Battle of Wesnoth has a few issues, but it’s completely playable, and with the current 99¢ sale, you really should grab this game if you’re a turn-based strategy lover with an iPad.
App Store Links: Battle for Wesnoth, 99¢ (iPhone) – Battle for Wesnoth HD, 99¢ (iPad)
