I know, you are in disbelief, rubbing your eyes and blinking to make sure what you are reading is true and not the result of that weird concoction you downed last night or last year’s pizza you had for dinner (I know, it looked perfectly edible). The famous card game Dominion (Free) is now available on the App Store after many trials and tribulations and a 3-year journey. Quick context: back in 2012, Goko Games tried to introduce the world to HTML-5 gaming and decided to use Dominion as part flagship game part advertising. Well, the platform’s launch was horrible and Dominion was immediately pulled from the App Store. Even since that fateful day, Dominion fans have been looking across the ocean, waiting for the game to resurface once more and take its rightful (?) place among iOS card games. In early October, the game was submitted to Apple for review, and then, once more, the game went as silent as a ninja.
Rejoice, though, because the game is finally here, and the execution is…interesting? So, the game is free-to-download and comes with the entire base set for solo and multiplayer matches as well as a tutorial and three Campaign collections with cards mostly from the base set, a $45 value (or so the App Store description states). You can get the Dominion expansion sets as IAP purchases to access additional cards and Campaigns: Intrigue, Seaside, Alchemy, Prosperity, Cornucopia, Hinterlands, Dark Ages, and Guilds. You can’t buy the expansions with real money though; rather, you have to buy the in-game currency and then buy the expansions. Let’s just say, people aren’t very happy about this IAP system because you’ll often have in-game gold left over, something that wouldn’t be an issue if you could use actual money.
Buying all the expansions will set you back $89.99, not a small amount, but there are many, many expansions available. If you have any expansions from the PC version of the game, you should also have them on the iOS version. According to people in the forums, the game locks up in the tutorial, but I have no idea if this is a widespread issue or not. Given the game’s history, I would make sure the game works fine before buying any IAPs. The game can be played online against 1-4 other players (it requires an internet connection), and is available now. Unless it disappears again, or some kind of time vortex swallows it, or something.
What a great series. I missed the Pokemon image leading it this time; the brief instant of hope it gave me last time was worth the subsequent crushing disappointment.
As an aside, are you going to cover the N-Gage?
As another aside, are these going to be published in some sort of hard copy, at some point?
Yes and yes! I made the judgement call to lump N-Gage in with Pocket PCs and Feature Phones, so you'll see it when I get to that period.
The N-Gage, holy moly that throws me way back xD
I had the original Ngage and loved it so much I got the Ngage QD. I still have it with all the games in a box. Was the only Nokia phone I ever really enjoyed. I miss the Game Gear and even the Gameboy. Lugging all those cartridges around with me. Lol
To me its the gameboy advance that marked me the most, i enjoy this console so much, even today, so many great titles !
Really interesting reads Shaun, im getting both nostalgia throwbacks and huge missed points in my childhood, its both nostalgic and informative, keep it up, i promise ill read them all :)
Thanks Shaun, your articles always seem research-paper level.
Shaun, this is a history of Handheld RPGs part IV: A New Hope, and you still haven't even mentioned the faustpatrone or even the bloody recoilless rifles! At this point I don't think I'll still be alive by the time you cover any of the more modern MANPATS like the Dragon or Javelin! Let alone our most recent advanced laser-guidance methodologies! Or future tech like the gauss gun (which will surely be ancient history by the time you speak of them!)!
- How can I recommend this to the chaps and cadets at the war college if it's all about jibly-biblies and handheld moving-picture thingamabobs and ebullient characters in need of a good barbering!?
Oh wow, Fatal Labyrinth. Quick childhood memory: scrimped and saved to buy my first self-funded Genesis game. Took me months. Since this was before the Internet (for me), I basically had box art to help determine which game I should buy. I chose Fatal Labyrinth, rushed home, stuck it in my Genesis, and was really really....disappointed. Even at a young age, I knew there should've been some sort of save feature. I HATED replaying the same levels and enemies over and over again. This must explain my distaste for rogue-likes to this day.
Heck of an opening theme, though. That's some of the best video game music of the era, for sure. I can still picture (and hear) the giant castle rising up out of the ground, and that awesome, haunting theme kicking in.
Well, I had the Game Gear and it was betond standards of that time. Had great time with it in my childhood. Thanks for bringing memories of those years. Damn I miss Sonic....
I love this series. I remember scrambling around for Defenders of Oasis for about a year but never being able to find it. Had to settle for Crystal Warriors, which was OK. I did, however, play the trousers off the Master System version of Phantasy Star thanks to a cartridge convertor on my GameGear. Happy days...
GAME GEAR AND DREAMCAST TWO OF MY FAVORITE CONSOLES OF ALL TIME
Fun read! I was always a Nintendo-and-PC kid growing up, so it's
interesting to read about what was available on other companies'
platforms.
You bring me to tears with all these memories!
Downloading Defenders of Oasis now. . . Thanks Shaun!
this is great reading on the topic and really takes me back to junior hs with my GamBoy and Atari Lynx (my favorite of the two). My friend had a GameGear too so we traded from time to time. Really loved Afterburner and Lunar on GG! I have just one possible correction to suggest: I had Eye of the Beholder on my Atari Lynx and it was the first gamecart I ever owned that had an on board local save to the cartridge. It was a great FP style RPG with more than a few similarities to Dungeon Master. I'll admit, it was a clone of a prototype for the fully completed game that was ultimately never officially released, but still, that was an excellent Atari Lynx RPG ;)
Interestingly enough, Eye Of The Beholder Lynx was never officially released! It was basically complete, but Atari felt it was too complicated for the userbase and sat on it. Various parties championed for it, but in the end, the Lynx left the market before anything was done with it.
Of course, the beta version leaked out and is now a pretty regular fixture in the Lynx community. You can get reproduction carts complete with official-looking box and manual, even. But since it wasn't an official Lynx release, I didn't include it in my considerations for the article.
That said, thanks for mentioning it. I think if you are getting into Lynx stuff today, it's a great pick-up. Atari probably made a wise business decision when they canned its release, but it's too bad because it's really quite an impressive Lynx game.
This series of articles is very good. I didn't get to play any of those mentioned in this chapter, as I was a GameBoy only ..er... boy... at the time! btw Shaun, did you get to play ALL of those mentioned? My inner boy is kind of envious of your past one, hoarding all those consoles and handhelds!