Universal Puzzle Craft 2 (by Chillingo, Ltd.)

Discussion in 'iPhone and iPad Games' started by Echoseven, Jul 17, 2015.

  1. Echoseven

    Echoseven Moderator
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    The red Skittle
    #21 Echoseven, Jul 20, 2015
    Last edited: Jul 20, 2015
    My main impression walking away from the game is that it is definitely more streamlined than the other game, but at the same time that makes it feel worse.

    There's an example that I feel is an analogy for the entire game - you used to be able to tap on the tools that pop out of your buildings. I made it a mini-game to tap them before they hit the ground.
    In both games the functionality remains the same - the tools get auto collected regardless of your input. In this sequel, the tools are auto-collected as soon as they hit the ground. The game is more streamlined, but it's missing that tiny character and playfulness of the original and feels worse off for it. I feel the same can be said for the entire thing - it's a much better game but a (marginally) worse experience.


    That said, mine (and I'm sure most of your) memories of the first game are misinformed because by late-game, yes, you never needed to worry about money or income or anything of the sort. After a few hours in the original Puzzle Craft, resources mean nothing and you can play whatever style of game you want. At the start you still had the same issues.
    I feel this game is better balanced (and perhaps slightly balanced away from the player) but nevertheless remains playable and enjoyable. I played and replayed the original Puzzle Craft several times and it IS great to see this make a come back.

    One big feature which may be confusing you guys is this - you have to optimize. Seriously. By the end of the second town, you have to go into the farming game with a clear purpose in mind and choose the resources that will help you reach that goal.
    For example, it takes six Oak trees to make a plank. It takes TEN birch trees. And if I remember correctly, it took even more before I researched the birch trees.
    If you want to have the best results, you can't just start a year with "whatever".

    And it's no accident that I used wood as an example - if you're strapped for cash, wood is a great resource to collect and sell. Optimizing for wood with Oak trees and going on a wood-centric run, I can make enough planks to pay for the run and 50% of the second. (which works out to be 10+ planks in one run, with a Well to extend the harvest time).

    Long story short: optimize, get wood, sell wood. It only gets better.
     
  2. ste86uk

    ste86uk Well-Known Member

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    #22 ste86uk, Jul 20, 2015
    Last edited: Jul 20, 2015
    I'm not an idiot like I said I completed the last game, I just haven't spent long with this one yet. Of course I've seen the resources selling and always go into a game to gather what I need for the next quest or building I don't just go randomly grabbing things.

    But I'll see how it all unfolds, should have some time to play tonight now though. So far for my shipwreck I seen it generates 100g every so often and I can go back to gather resources to start new missions in that town, do you do that too?

    So far I was just going to focus on getting the second one better established first, I do have the video building and have watched all that it would let me so far. My comments are just my initial impressions and feelings.

    Initial impressions and feelings are as important as those of someone who has completed the game, if not more so because if somebody doesn't like the game or is put off during their initial play, then they won't want to play.

    Edit: aww what you said I thought I could harvest cheap in the first village and then sell for gold but it only lets you buy. Are the quests lucrative enough to do the first village more to unlock more quests there?

    Also I personally like the autopickup of items. Anybody purchased any of the IAP? Tempted by the one that says it doubles building production but wondering if that's just tools or gold also
     
  3. ste86uk

    ste86uk Well-Known Member

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    Not keen on the quests since I have nobody that can help with them yet and it seemingly costs me but gives nothing back worthwhile if you don't have piles of friends to help complete it.
     
  4. L.Lawliet

    L.Lawliet Well-Known Member

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    #24 L.Lawliet, Jul 20, 2015
    Last edited: Jul 20, 2015
    I did say "100 (coins) or some food" to mine. Which means there are two ways to mine. If there's something other than food or coins to mine then that's news to me.

    Also in your PM you keep implying that I'm not as far as you in the game and that's probably true by now but as of our previous posts we were probably near each other. All the things you mention I already have. Food for mining, market, etc.

    The only thing I can take out is that if you look around for certain items I should focus on selling them for money. I already knew about this but none of the items looked easy to make quick bucks. I guess I'll look into it a bit more. Otherwise, I DO HAVE everything you mentioned unlocked. Food for mining doesn't make you have an infinite amount of mining time because you have to get the food.

    So it's not as simple as you make it sound, you have to spend some time to research and hunt down stuff in order to try and keep the cash flow going. If you play just "normally" you will run out quickly.
     
  5. ste86uk

    ste86uk Well-Known Member

    May 9, 2012
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    So I've played for hours and hours and not run out of gold but dropped considerably, obviously I can now mix it up and mine too. Some quests aren't worth their effort and for some reason collecting pigs and carrots in large amounts still eludes me.

    It seems pointless though this time...before I did all the work and constantly made progress but this time this second town is taking a lot of work but then I'll be moving on again? How many towns are there anyway?
     
  6. ste86uk

    ste86uk Well-Known Member

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    Also booted up the game on my iPad and sued on that all night as it seemed to load my save but just tried on my iPhone and it's still where it was before tonight no iPad save on it
     
  7. hellscaretaker

    hellscaretaker Well-Known Member

    May 27, 2012
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    Im a youtube gamer/streamer
    Im on to the three statement and this opens up fishing in the sea, im finding now im going to be doing some back tracking going to my other statements to get the necessary tools needed to farm and mine etc cause farming drops down to 20 gold at a time. Untill my third statement has got the necessary buildings running.

    Yes i do agree with you carrots and pigs are not easy to get a hold of, i worked around this by using the gathering tool for carrots and pigs. This may not be ideal but it gets the job done.
     
  8. YvesHohler

    YvesHohler Well-Known Member

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    Wow the first one is my favorite mobile game!!! We take so much inspiration from this game developing our game!!!
     
  9. ste86uk

    ste86uk Well-Known Member

    May 9, 2012
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    Anyone have any ideas about my saving issue? I started on my iPhone and got to level 7 and then downloaded on my iPad, the iPhone is connected to Facebook and the dev said the game has iCloud. Opening on my iPad I connected to Facebook and I had my level 7 from where I left off so thought great I can play on whichever device I want.

    But after playing for hours on the iPad and getting level 13/14 I open back up on my phone and it still has my level 7 town and isn't loading the iPad save at all, any ideas?

    Both are connected to Facebook and signed into the same AppStore account, although were downloaded on a different account but I imagine they would have saved on my since I signed right back in anyway? Besides that it says to connect to Facebook to save progress.
     
  10. Misguided

    Misguided Well-Known Member

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  11. ste86uk

    ste86uk Well-Known Member

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    I put that post but now I give up with this game, reopened on my iPad and it's reset me back to level 7....lost all of what I did with my night off last night so that was a waste. I don't recommend playing this on more than one device
     
  12. mateusz.janczewski

    mateusz.janczewski Well-Known Member
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    stek86uk thanks for info! We found the problem that causes this bug and currently our dev team is fixing it :)

    We also had a report about mixing the progress (you have to start game again but first village is built at the beginning) when you're changing kingdom name. If someone would be able to reproduce it and describe it here, it would be awesome.
     
  13. ste86uk

    ste86uk Well-Known Member

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    So how do I play and stop it happening? I haven't played since it happened as it's just put me off the game
     
  14. mateusz.janczewski

    mateusz.janczewski Well-Known Member
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    At the moment there are two ways:
    - avoid playing on two devices simultaneously
    - if you're playing on two devices be sure that iCloud save (with higher level) is synchronized 5 minutes breaks between playing on two devices should be enough for iOS to synchronize the game)

    In general avoiding this problem is tricky :(
     
  15. ste86uk

    ste86uk Well-Known Member

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    How can I be sure it's synchronised? Can you not add an upload to the cloud button and download from the cloud button? That way it saves onto the cloud whenever you tell it to? Due to the nature of the game I need to be able to open it on my iPhone to collect tools and gold from buildings, but while at home playing properly why would I want to play on my phone when I have an iPad.

    I don't even know if I have the heart to give it another go anyway, like I said reset to level 7 and it'll just happen again after losing a whole night off worth of gaming on it.
     
  16. ste86uk

    ste86uk Well-Known Member

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    Just bumping my question above incase any devs are about.

    I have started again now anyway, although too worried to open it on a second device now which sucks.

    I still feel the economy so far where I'm up to level 12 I think it was it feels unbalanced, whenever you get anything to improve your harvest or amount of turns you can take it increases the cost of going to harvest...so it's like upgrade and instead of being rewarded it feels like things stay the same. You earn more but it also costs more.
     
  17. L.Lawliet

    L.Lawliet Well-Known Member

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    I definitely agree with your points though I do encourage you to keep going, if at least on one device to avoid data loss. I've been spacing out my game time to try and build up coin to make things easier and they will be if you can hold off from playing too consistently at the beginning. Once you get a good cash amount, you'll be more laid back (unfortunately, early on this isn't the case).

    A lot of very cool new game mechanics are ahead like capturing treasure chests and item collections for museums. Unlocking "rare" plants / animals is also a really cool idea that adds a new collection aspect.

    I really like how the boat game mechanics require a totally different strategy than the normal harvesting. There's also a butt load of tools that I often forget to use some of them. There's just SO MUCH content here.

    ==

    I still think the biggest gripe is actually how you "lose" everything when changing settlements. I get so invested and then all those items basically can only go into making tools once you leave. I do understand that it'd be too easy to carry everything over and suddenly build up everything easily, however I feel like the experience points can keep the player from advancing too far even with an abundance of items.

    And the hardest area is definitely mining. I think the lava needs to be toned down considerably. The gas is already a huge road block but the lava adds too much obstacle that it's a hassle to mine now. Even with upgrades to remove them, they come so frequently that you can barely ever make combos for rare ingredients. Some of the higher ranked items are near impossible to get since gas appears randomly along with lava, destroying everything nearby.
     
  18. ste86uk

    ste86uk Well-Known Member

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    Thanks for your reply that made me happy : )

    I am going to stick with it although stuck to my iPad now so I can't collect things as often as I could on my iPhone sadly so hopefully that's all fixed soon.

    That's good to hear that there's even more to come as I can see the game is huge and has a lot of scope, but I have to agree with you as even though after starting again I'm only on my second settlement it feels like I'll just be working hard to move on and then start all over again whereas in the first game it was all one town and you felt you were constantly progressing.

    But then I think what else could they have done to expand the game, but it would be nice to feel everything you do earns you something and helps as the 100g from my old settlement every so many hours only actually gives about 5 minutes gameplay with the current costs.

    I really really want to like this game as the first was one of my all time favourites on iOS and I do like the game but I feel a few tweaks would make a world of difference.

    Edit: Any idea how many settlements there are by the way? Wondering if there is a kind of endgame town like in the first game.
     
  19. indalico

    indalico Well-Known Member

    Aug 25, 2011
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    Bug?

    I've unlocked the 4th location in the game. I've backtracked to the 3rd place and bought up some of the workers I didn't have from before that I didn't need then. Now I was able to buy 5 Peasants from the third place, and the 4th place shows I could only have bought 4.
     

    Attached Files:

  20. ste86uk

    ste86uk Well-Known Member

    May 9, 2012
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    I'm still on the third place and not convinced everything carries over too, I also sell everything I can before moving on. I still can't play cross device and it still feels much harder than the first game to gather livestock and veg.

    I like it but progress feels like more of a grind than the previous game so much more...
     

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