Greetings. I have been playing for several levels now because I really love Sword and Poker and am very enthusiastic about the update. Unfortunately, I can confirm based on experience that the gems required to unlock the more powerful weapons require extravagant amounts of money. If you have a free 5 gems per zone at 52 zones you are looking at a mere 260 gems, a little over $4 worth. Even the lowest grade of premium weapon will set you back 100 gems. This is not to mention the cost of third tier spells which you need more gems to access. The game has minimal functionality with the 4.99 timer unlock, but for a full gameplay experience, you are going to have to spend an extravagant amount of money. At this rate going back to the originals will be a better investment for those new to the game which is sad because this one is so well done and the others are a bit dated now.
He knows, he needs to be as neutral as possible on these matters. You think Eli even completes any of these F2P games to their end, he's discussing the game as a piece of entertainment to kill 5 minutes here and there. End game statistics aren't taken into consideration when promoting these things for a reason.
Yeah I don't see any problem with "attacking" this game because you can earn gems but as stated, the rate is SO SLOW and it's obviously capped. If you beat the entire game (which will probably get hard toward the end), you can probably by 1 or 2 low tier weapons OR shields. Spend a little money, buy 1 more. That's it. That's not a premium experience even if you removed timers. Besides, the original game let you equip multiple magic to add variety. This game makes you pay to unlock them and slots to use them (coins AND gems). I don't see how you can defend this game aside from saying "it's free." Someone new to the series should buy S&P2 and compare them. They'll notice a huge difference.
Really liking this game, very polished. I'm up to level 5 and there is a replayability factor to go back and five star the levels I've finished. With each level the requirements for the stars changes so there are always new challenges. I can see this staying on my phone next to Fairway Solitaire as a nice distraction game when I have time to kill. Not sure if I'll buy the IAP yet as I don't plan on spending hours at a time on it. I'd go back and buy the original if they were widescreen but I'm not going to spend that much on a game that's been abandoned.
Where exactly do I buy magic spells at, or when? So far I'm on stage 5 and I see nothing in the shop for magic and the only option I see is to pay 10 gems to use a different spell. Is this the case? If so I don't see myself playing much longer if I'm stuck using Berserk for the rest of the game. And I spent 10 gems hoping that the magic purchase would unlock it permanently but nope it's a consumable use.
Lots of crashes for me on 4s. Reboot and reinstalls haven't helped for very long. Not planning on reinstalling it after this delete because of the gems either.
If you have the originals you won't be missing out on much as the gameplay is substantially the same. The biggest differences are appearance, menu interface, and monetization. An excellent parallel can be made to the relationship between Kard Combat and its prequel/sequel Spectromancer.
and some people defend (some) freemium no matter how dire it is. aaaaand I'd still like to know why S&P vanished off my purchased list if it's still there for others. I might email Apple and enquire.
Sword & Poker 2 was the first game I every bought for the iOS platform, and I'm glad to see an update. I've enjoyed it so far, and while I'm a little sad about the freemium angle, I was able to play about a half hour today. I did have a pretty major technical issue; after I completed stage 2, the game froze - I ended it using the iOS task manager, and when I restarted the game it would show the white Konami screen for about 20 seconds then drop back to the home screen. I had to delete the app and re-download it. It lost all progress in stage 2, but I'd done the account-link thing, and it retained my progress up to starting stage 2. After that I was able to complete the stage without incident. This was on an ipad mini 2 with the latest iOS installed. I'm impressed with the level of polish they've given to the looks of the levels and the monster design, but it seems a little ... soul-less, maybe? Generic? Kind of like Gyromancer struck me.
I don't think it was an either/or situation; S&P's release has no connection to Star Realms. But yeah, this is pretty lame. This game needs a gem tripler as well as the unlimited energy IAP.
I think the mix of poker with puzzle is interesting but each game board only has 8 moves so there is not a lot of variation in how each game will play out? Once the board fills up (in 2 ways generally), contesting for the slots which can deal multiple combo hands seems important and you can just pass your turn, even though you have playable hands, to get them: - Only corners left: you definitely want or want to deny the A.I the final corner as that is usually worth a lot of combos. - Corners taken early: there are 2 "combo slots", the last slot of each side (vertically and horizontally), where again you will want to take or deny the A.I. There is the risk of not having a playable hand when you are at the "combo slot" move but I generally just play to get the "combo slots".
Looks like the infinite health purchase is only $2.99 until August 1st as its currently at 50% off. See the "What's New" section, not sure why is in there and not the mail description.
Think I'll stick with my fairway solitaire, hence I liked the concept of this... Mahbe give it a try if it gets fair
