I completely agree. The thing with small text is that it's subjective. Some people (like many here) don't mind it at all while others like me will get a bit irritated at some point. There IS space to enlarge it but since it was supposed to be ipad only my guess is they didn't want to spend time to optimize for iphones. Again it's subjective but in my opinion I agree that it would be more well received if they actually made a different interface for iphone (also text advance buttons on the right / left corners instead of center). Some of your examples were spot on like Skulls of the Shogun works flawlessly on a smaller screen.
I was really enjoying this until just now when the game appears to have frozen. The app isn't locked up, the snow is still falling and the sound is still working etc., but I can't click on anything. I've tried to touch every part of the screen but nothing is happening.
It's deep without being cumbersome, the combat is enjoyable but I'm finding it a little difficult to follow.
You're making A LOT of assumptions, first of all that this game has any mass market appeal. It doesn't. It's a niche game for a core audience, one that tends to overlook slight imperfections in an otherwise quality game, more so than the casual audience. That said, I'm not questioning your assertion that an optimized UI for small devices would be a better experience, but I'm guessing that you've never been a software developer. It's all about balancing time, resources and quality. You stack rank every feature and decide what is a "must have" and what is a "nice to have." Every team has a burn rate, for established mobile teams often around $10,000 per team member per month, which has to be balanced against projected revenue for the game. For a niche game such as this, my guess is that redesigning the interface for small devices didn't offer the return on investment that justified spending around 1-2 additional months on development. It's a calculated risk, it always is, and the project manager must use his/her experience to make a judgement call on whether not shipping with a feature will compromise the launch. In addition, because the game was an AppStore Editor's Choice, they had a deadline. Apple doesn't spontaneously decide to feature you, they tell you when you have to launch the game or you don't get that all important brick on the front page. If I was their project manager and it was down to the wire, AppStore Featuring > Small Device UI optimization, especially since the current iteration is passable and can be updated. It's not perfect, but not unplayable.
Somehow all of my post didn't go through, only the part about text . Prob operator error. In regards to the UI on iPhone, I honestly don't feel cluttered or finding it difficult to maneuver any movements. You were spot on with baldurs gate on the iPhone, that UI is packed and very difficult. But with this I believe they did an excellent job making it work for smaller screens. I could be proven wrong as I'm only 2 hours in or so, but my opinion on good may differ from others as well. As an old school gamer (aged) I may have a bigger tolerance for things that the younger generation may find as an annoyance. Just my 2 cents worth
First impressions: I've put in about four to five hours at this point, and I'm pretty sure things are just getting started. Let's get the easy stuff out of the way; everything related to the aesthetics of this game is gorgeous. The music, the art (my God, the art!), the voice acting, even the background sound effects pull you into the world and grab you by your respective genitalia so that you can't ever come out again. Unfortunately, I have had some framerate issues and stuttering visuals my iPad 3, but not enough to ruin the experience by any means. It just means that it pulls me out of it's iron grip of immersion ever so slightly. Speaking of immersion, the story is stupid-good so far, they clearly put a butt load of work into world building. I eat that junk up. I spent about 30 minutes just reading all of the lore built into the map, getting a feel for the little universe they created. I guess I haven't even touched on the gameplay itself yet. The battles are fun and just tactical enough to keep your brain working without overheating and causing that messy smoke-coming out-of-your-ears business. I play on "normal" and it is difficult enough so far that I lose at least one person for each fight. Note that this does not mean your character is now defunct, a loss in battle (so far) just weakens your character until they have time to heal up. It's a nice balance between "hardcore" and "wait, was that gameplay?" The other half of the game play is the story itself. If you don't love a good dialogue tree, it will hurt your experience something fierce, but you can be consoled by the fact that the characters are well written and interesting. So far I care about everyone I'm supposed to care about, and I feel like things are just starting to pick up and throw in some old-fashioned intrigue and moral dilemmas. Not lame "do good and take the hard way, or steal kill and destroy your way to riches," dilemmas, but down and dirty "I'm trying to do what's right, but I don't know what that means" decisions. I haven't been able to see how decisions affect my path yet, and I expect I won't have a good idea until my second play through. Or when I ruin the Magic by reading the plot online. As far as controls go, they are *ok* in my opinion. I mis-click a good bit and in battle things can get... finnicky. The TA "Game of the Week" article raved about how natural everything felt, but honestly I was a bit disappointed with the touch implementation. I would not have guessed from the controls that The game was designed with touch in mind. Not that it is terrible, not by any means, it just isn't as spot on as I would like it to be. But, different strokes or whatever, I guess. This is getting way too long for a forum post, let's wrap it up: While I do wish it had the multiplayer "Factions" component, I am more than happy that I dropped my 10 bucks, and I'm really excited about digging in to this story. Also, better optimized touch controls would sweeten the deal, but it isn't a deal breaker (for iPad).
I want this soooooo bad but I don't have the space. Please Apple gods, release the iPad mini 3 already!
I have a mini retina, 128gb. This game is flawless on it. Both in speed and graphics. I am pleasantly surprised how nice it looks actually. It's like Norse version of Oregon trail! I haven't tried it on my 5s and I don't have any intention of it. I play KoToR on my phone though and it's perfect. As for the thingy in the bottom of the screen to make the game continue..... It doesn't bother me in the least! All good here. Well worth every cent. Made me stop playing hearthstone and pokemon ccg. Haha. You guys won't regret getting this. I'm going to play some more.
MIND BLOWN by this game!!! MIND BLOWN, by the stupidly low price. MIND BLOWN, by the fact that this is also universal!!!!
The game is like 1.7 GB installed. How much room do you think that I would need to install it? If it's the size is realistic than I will buy it. I will have to delete a bunch to have room.
Thanks for the info. I don't think I can do it. Hopefully the iPad mini 3 will come out this month. I'm gonna go all out and get the 128GB so this won't happen again.
