Some thoughts after a few plays After three games here's my take on the app: It plays quite smoothly, never had any glitch and the presentation in general is very good. The potion action animations, while only a few seconds long do get tiresome. Not a deal breaker by any stretch by the ability to disable them would be nice. No notifications for async play is downright inexcusable in my opinion. The AI is adequate I guess. I had never played the game before and barely beat the hard AI the first game, but by the 3rd game I nearly doubled its score. The game itself is really fun with enough depth to make decisions fun. The potion actions is where you can really get some combos working and crank up the score. So much so that if I can't finish off both potions each turn I feel as though I'm not playing efficiently. The app does seem to be a bit of a battery hog. I dropped about 40-45% playing two games on my iPad. I should probably note that I've only played against one AI each game, so I suppose playing against 2 or 3 might prove a harder challenge, I just prefer two player games in general but will give this a go against more to see if it is a harder game that way. My bottom line... I think it was worth the 5 bucks and if they implement some notifications then definitely one I'll suggest to friends. As it, the online multiplayer is basically useless. Nobody I know will want a game they have to remember to go in and check to see if it is their turn or not.
Thanks for the feedback - I have Colt, but have found Mysterium and this to be a bit lacklustre. They looks lovely, but no notifications seems very odd, not sure who was making the requirements backlog for multiplayer! This is all the more important as the AI for Colt is pretty awful and the reports of the others sounds similar. Basically with AI that won't support long term play, the non async requirements for non invited multiplayer game setup and the lack of notifications means 'pass until rectified!'
It's funny you say that. I have all three, and while I love this one and Mysterium, I've deleted Colt already. Too random. How can I plan three moves ahead when I have no idea what my opponents will be doing in the meantime? With this one, there is a good deal of luck of the draw too. Sometimes, the AI gets all the combos lined up for him, and I'm stuck with taking one or two ingredients each turn. "Easy" or not, that AI doubles my final score. Next time, I get the lucky ingredients, and I win. Still fun, though.
This is a fun social game. Everything works great and the play is fun and addicting for sure. Was wondering how come there's only easy and hard AI? Easy I'm beating but getting my ass kicked in hard AI just seem like there should be medium AI as well? Can we setup a game and instead of waiting online forever because there's hardly anyone online, couldn't we just setup a new game and have it out there for people to join instead of people waiting around and can't even switch to another app or game without disconnecting to the server to get a game going? This is def a fun social game, just need more people online to play it, join us!!!
Another game I've been playing today on my day off and while it is pretty fun it's also pretty ridiculous how they handled multiplayer. Once/if multi is fixed it'll be worth playing online, right now though it's a hot mess.
Pretty fun until the game started crashing on me since last night. Specs: iPad air, 10.2.1 iOS with > 5.5 gb space freed up Edit: no more crashes. But, either the game balance is askew or I suck at this game or both. I'm playing the easy level and I've won less than half the games. It is fun, but yeesh!
I agree with everything you said. Plus I've been unable to setup games with others online. This is just plain inexcusable. They delayed release of this game for online play issues so they were aware of them. If I cannot get online play working in a few days I'll just ask for a refund. Bought it on sale, but not worth it if I cannot play others.
Asmodee has been ruining their async multiplayer games in a row. Not surprising if this one is not true async. BTW, update is out, notification has been added, but I cannot login... I strongly suggest to all boardgame coversions there should always be an option to turn off animation!
The update has greatly improved the game with notifications and app badges. You can also switch between online games. Enjoying this game. Still needs some improvements to make it great. Would like to see replays of other players, this only works occasionally. Open games disappear if you close the app before others join. I've heard there are problems with games in progress disappearing. If you are looking for someone to play: KYakerDude
