Try out different stuff and play with it for awhile. You're just starting out, and your skills and gear are as low as they can get. Make sure the weapons you're using correspond to skills that you're strong in. In other words, use a light weapon if your light weapon skill is highest, make sure your accuracy is decent if you're trying to use a bow, etc. You can buy better weapons at the weapon shop in town. And the shop repopulates frequently, so keep checking it every time you play for upgrades. Also, certain spells are a lot more damage/magic economical than others, and to some degree this will depend on how strong your skill is in their respective category. Check out their detailed stats...some of the close range spells are pretty cheap on magic cost, and allow you take out a couple of enemies in one shot. Good luck!
I originally played it on a slow Pocket PC, so this iPhone version is more than twice as fast/smooth as when I previously played it. I suppose it's all relative to what you're used to.
Yeah I thought as much. I just know that the Iphone can handle this without much effort so I would be surprised if they didn't optimize it further to bring it up to the PC version's speed. I only get 10-15 minute periods to play though out the day. On the PC version that would be enough time to clear the Cavity of Wolfcreek (the little dungeon inside the tree near the starting point of the game) and go into town and get that quest going or pick all the flowers in the starting zone. On the Iphone I barely cleared the Cavity in the same amount of time. I'm glad that the Iphone is faster than the PPC but it's just not a comfortable game speed to have on a short session portable gaming device (I can say that about the Iphone/touch now, right?) in my opinion. I think the control options are serviceable but can be implemented better, the turning gesture is just not accurate enough to work all the time and the onscreen buttons are a little mashed together. I think an option to turn one or the other off would help with onscreen clutter(removing movement buttons for pure gesture control) or unintentional actions/movement (accidental swipes/button press).
But how long would that have lasted? We've seen apps priced at that price point shoot up to the top of the charts and then come a' tumbling down in a very short amount of time. On the other hand we've also seen apps priced at higher than $2.99 have longevity. And that's key. You price at $2.99, there's not much you can do to spur sales. Release a "lite" version, spur sales, but, alas, it's still just $2.99. Do the same at $5.99 and, guess, what? Probably better returns all around. Add to that the increased maneuverability one has with the higher price point (more room for future price drops, and ones that don't hinder the bottom line) and one can see the long road strategy works best for games of this sort. For quick one off games, and games with straight up indy devs (with very little funding) the "shoot to the top" strategy probably works best. But for games with a little more funding the long road is often the better road.
I dunno if that control scheme is all that much better. I mean..tapping the top for forward, bottom for back, and sides for sidestepping and corners for turning as you've stated seems a bit awkward and uncomfortable, as one would either have to play the game one handed, and in landscape mode that's not what people usually do (they usually tend to hold with both hands ala portable game systems or sidekicks). And holding the device in that manner would mean moving one's thumb to the top and bottom center to move forward and backward respectively. No...I think a virtual control stick/pad, but one ala Dropship would be the best solution. In that game the virtual pad would appear wherever the player would put their thumbs. A similar method can be used in this game. And attack/potion/rest icons could be handled in a similar manner. So when placing the left thumb onscreen the "virtual pad" would show up, and when placing the right thumb onscreen a submenu of attack/potion/rest would appear. Turning can be handled either via quick swiping diagonally right or left to turn in each respective direction. This would actually free up screen real estate, allowing for a larger map.
I finally found my favorite RPG game on the iTouch . I enjoy it very much, but I have one complaint. I do not really like how to controls are laid out and scheme.
yeah from what I've played so far this game is great. deffinitly worth the money. some may complain about the graphics but I like the old school feel myself, back when games were reviewed based on gameplay rather than flashy graphics. yeah the controls can be a little awkward, I find it easier to use holding the iPhone straight up rather than landscape, but I still think this is the best rpg experience on the iPhone.
Yeah, an unobtrusive, translucent virtual D-Pad could be a cool solution. Anything to free up that sidebar for a larger minimap and to allow for a more intuitively-positioned set of controls.
A few hours later, I'm still enjoying the game. Since the graphics and controls seems to be the hot topics, I figured I would weigh in on them. The graphics may not be high resolution bump-mapped wonders, but they are quite beautiful and effective. As has been mentioned, they do look much nicer in motion on the iphone screen than they do in screenshots on the web. They may not be stunning in the most technical of senses, but anybody who has played a game of this style before will be able to ignore the low resolution and see them for what they are - very well done graphics. Controls, as always, are a subjective thing. I was pretty annoyed with the controls at first. The swiping doesn't do it for me at all, having to gesture for every movement was quickly tiring. The buttons in landscape mode are pretty awkwardly placed, but once I switched to portrait, they largely disappeared. My finger will occasionally slide to the wrong button, but such is the nature of touch screen controls. To me, the controls in portrait work well as they are, they're comfortable, well-placed, and responsive. I think I prefer the controls as they are to any of the other methods proposed here. Touching the edges of the screen would be awkward at best, and probably quite tiring. I use the buttons in their current setup as a virtual d-pad. Once you log some game time, your fingers get used to where they are, and they are dependable. A d-pad that pops up anywhere on the screen would annoy me in this kind of game.
Hello Everyone, This is Sylon from Redshift. Just checking in. : ) Thanks for all the comments, we'll try to do our best. About the controls: thanks for the suggestion, probably in the next version we'll build in the 'touch the screen on the edges' method. Optionally, of course, in the game's Settings. It seems like a good idea. The 'virtual d-pad popping up anywhere on the screen' seems weird for a hardcore RPG, but if you have any good idea how it would look good we'll think about that too. About the price: I think it's useless to debate about that because it's still way too low. So sad Apple's politics forced iPhone developers to use those 'few bucks' prices which simply can't be enough for a serious game developer team. Yeah, sometimes you can hear about a few success (from thousands of apps) like iFart, but these were mostly made by one person in a few days. While The Quest's development took 18 months, for 4-5 persons. This is not a little casual game for a few minutes of fun - it's a hardcore RPG so we can't expect millions of sales. About the graphics: since I'm the game's graphic artist and world designer, it seems weird for me to read those 'this looks ugly' comments. : ) OK, probably we're not up to date to the newest 3D bump mapped wonders, we have a partly sprite-based 3D game engine, but it's mostly about style, not about graphic quality. It's not an action game - we love mostly the oldschool RPGs. Also this game originally was developed for the Palm/Pocket PC market where it was already too strong to those devices' graphic capability. But I can promise one thing: if this game will be a success here, we'll have the time and money to develop even the 3D wonder engine you need for our following games. : ) But until that we must use what we have and do what we can do in our spare time. We are just a few Hungarian guys, not a big company. About the framerate: probably we'll be able to increase it a little, but it was already optimized for the iPhone/iPod devices, and we think it seems OK now. (It has a limit now - probably it could run a little faster on some devices but could be slower on others.) About a demo version: we've tried. We love demos. We always had demo versions from all of our games back on the PDA market. But again, Apple's politics forced us to leave the method we used for this. So we'll see the success and probably if we would have to make one, we would make one somehow. BadYeti: thanks for all the help you give to other players here! : ) If somebody has any more questions, I'll be here for support, but I can't promise I'll be able to follow all the discussions every day. BTW, if the ingame help is not enough, you can download the iPhone-based Game Manual from our site (www.redshift.hu). It contains the complete spell, enchant, skill, card lists, all the descriptions, rules, tricks etc. Hm, just a final note here, as I saw those 'it's like Daggerfall' or 'it's like Morrowind' etc. comments - we loved mostly the Eye of Beholder era with Dungeon Master, Ishar, Black Crypt etc. back in the early 90s. Personally I never played with Daggerfall or Morrowind or Might and Magic etc., but yes, we've tried to make a bigger, wider game than the Beholder era had.
This game confuses me, haven't played much and am just wandering around without knowing where to go or what to do. Can someone help and something I am suggesting is that maybe some in-game tutorial at the start of the game?
I'm really like this game so far-very well made, I'e played it for hours today an ran down the battery once, it hasn't been fully charged since this morning. Question about the cemetery quest-anyone know what to do once you kill the ghoul? It seems like I need to collapse the tunnel but I can't seem to figure out how.
This was the only game I was willing to pay 6 bucks for, and I am not disappointed. I am still amazed by the level of detail it has to offer. You'll know how deep it is when you actually get to play it. There are so much skills to to learn and develop, and items to obtain that I find it annoyingly hard to let go of the game when I absolutely have to. The fact that you can just explore, get lost and find random adventures (like that quest with a kid in the middle of.. somewhere trying to search for her silver mirror, lest her father will give her a good beating! lol). The graphics is nowhere near Morrowind and Oblivion obviously, but you gotta be tasteless not to appreciate each and every single iPhone pixel of it. Seriously. Love how the world was designed, and it definitely gives you that fantasy feeling. But I do have a tidbit issue with the battle sequences, wherein the frame rate of the sprites seems to skip a bit, but nothing major and that is just what I think. Like when my mage uses the magic missile spell, it sorta feels like I'm shooting blanks. Casual gamers might find it a bit difficult to play at first, but with the depth and detail it offers, it is the kind of game that you have to spend a lot of time trying to develop.. especially for those who are not familiar with RPG's. But if fantasy is your cup of tea, I have no doubt in my mind that this would definitely be one of the best places to start your adventure! The key is to just get lost and explore... and to save your game a lot of times
It's kinda similar to Etrian Odyssey I / II or vice-versa. Personally I like EO better as we battle with a party instead of solo.
Sainter: the game has an ingame help, check 'Help' in the main menu. (You can access the main menu from the game if you tap on your face, then on the floppy disc icon.) nuclearpunkrocket: when you first step on the spot under the cemetery you get a notification. (You even can see the poisoning gas bubbles there.) You should try some action to collapse the tunnel - there is not that much action button on the game screen. : ) D.Sync: if we'll get there we'll port our other RPG to iPhone too, Legacy, which had the classic party-based system. (Just it's too old now and needs at least 6 months of work for a full remake, including a better graphic engine.)
this seems to be a good game......and since i already wasted some bucks for an unpolished game like Dragons Bane II, which has a really awkward UI, i guess it can't hurt to give this one a try. i am still waiting for a iphone-version of Dungeon Master. I can still remember most of the spells there^^
Hm... is the game so free-form that you can't just end the demo after the first couple of quests, like PuzzleQuest Lite did? Or maybe just throw a couple of quests together for demo purposes? I have to say that it is the sticking point for me - I love the genre, I love the mechanics and art direction (what I have seen of it), but without trying the actual control scheme I am still on the fence. I really think that for niche titles like this, demos are critically important. YMMV, of course.
