Tikal has worked well enough for me that I'm still playing it and enjoying it but indeed, it's not perfect. With Puerto Rico though, if there are major issues, the developer will just be killing his chances for future releases, so I think the impetus is for them to get it right and hopefully, find the time for fixes for Tikal and especially Ra, thereafter. Unfortunately, Ra is virtually unplayable.
To be clear, it's not just that online is completely broken (at least it is for me), but that the app is, in general, poorly designed. The worst yet from Sage Games. I listed some of the problems with it before and I won't reiterate those. I'll add one that wasn't listed, which drives me batty: Every time a turn starts, it zooms all the way in. Actually not *every* time, but most of the time. Why the heck does it zoom all the way in when you are placing a tile?!?!? If anything it should zoom all the way out so you can see what's what, but really it should just leave the zoom as it was. As it stands I have to manually zoom back out every single time. If this were the only quirk it wouldn't be a big deal, but the quirks are piled on in this app. Every time I play it I seem to get more aggravated with it. Oh, and here's another. When I go into the app and it shows me the moves of other players, I can't change the view and, worse, part of the board is covered up on the right by the scoring things. If I could just move the damned board left, I could see it fine, but I can't move it! Why!?!? EDIT: Oh! Oh! Another one that bit us yesterday. I was playing with my kids and after his scoring round, one of my kids tapped "End Turn", which I have to say that I've been tempted to do every time as well. The problem is it wasn't his turn any more, but that wasn't obvious and it seems like you are supposed to tap it. So then my other kids' turn was ended prematurely and there was no way to undo that! Nope, you can't undo it once End Turn is tapped, even in an offline game. Aggravating! More important then the lack of undo in that case, is that it wasn't dead obvious that it was the next persons turn - the game depends on those incredibly irritating dialogues to announce stuff like that, but it shouldn't be depended on that. It's just bad design. It did do one thing, though - it made me want to buy the real game.
I like this game quite a bit, but I agree that it needs some serious polishing. Pinching, scrolling, placement...all need work.
This is sort of a bad news/good news thing: The bad: Tikal is a bit of a disaster. About the nicest thing I can think of to say is that it feels rushed and incomplete. The good: Codito/Sage has a really good track record of listening to concerns and then implementing fixes. Both Medici and Ra had some problems out of the gate, and both are much better now. The interfaces are better, bugs have been squashed, etc. So, kudos to Codito/Sage for that. (Of course, I haven't touched on the whole asynch multiplayer problem, which I consider a separate issue. Personally, I think they'll be forced to scrap whatever it is they're doing there if Puerto Rico doesn't work well right away. Their devotion to OpenFeint is not doing anyone any favors ...)
If they were using the same OF-based online in Puerto Rico, they should just scrap the online and wait until they can figure out how to do it right. I don't know if the problem is OF, or with their implementation of it. Or both. Are there any games with OF-based online that work well? I don't think I have any, so I don't know.
Fed Up Fed up with phantom moves in multiplayer. I touch a truck to bring it into another hex and a truck in a different hex enters the hex where I touched my truck. These phantom moves have occurred way too often and the lack of an UNDO button in ASYNC is just incredibly dumb. Why no UNDO button? It's async for crying out loud! There's an UNDO vs. the AI, why is it so difficult to update this with the same UNDO for multiplayer. As is, your turn is not over until you confirm, right? So what's the problem? Well, I've had it. I'll finish up the games I'm in and I'm done until there is an UNDO for multiplayer. These issues damn well better not surface in Puerto Rico. Ra was virtually unplayable multiplayer and we're still waiting for a fix. And Tikal has problems. C'mon Codito! Fix please.
Our apologies again for any inconvenience and the delay in updating and fixing. Puerto Rico has taken a lot of attention since Tikal came out. Things are settling down again now that we're in final testing of PR though, so we hope to get Tikal and Ra fixed soon. We're also committed to a longer and more rigorous testing phase on all future games and updates. We've never knowingly released major bugs, but obviously there have been some significant issues not caught in testing in the past (particularly with multiplayer). As always, we will continue to improve our games and our development processes, and maintain our track record of listening to your feedback. Thanks for your support and patience. Happy gaming!
I had a gaming session this afternoon. Played Carcassonne, Ticket To Ride and Neuroshima Hex. All local v AI and all played flawlessly. Then I played Tikal. On my turn one of my workers (without prompting) decided to return to my base camp. I tried a couple of undos and the app crashed. I give up! I have 24 board games on my iPad and the only one that gives me a problem is Tikal which I am now going to park until it's updated. I believe that Codito are good guys but unless Puerto Rico is a massive step up from Tikal (i.e. comparable to the three mentioned above) then I feel that they may have real problems.
I saw the sale and considered purchasing but, the feedback on this thread gave me pause. I'll wait for an update addressing some of the major concerns addressed in this forum. I can't make a good faith purchase and hope for updates that are promised but never come to fruition (case in point: Puzzle Quest 2).
Hi folks, We didn't want to compete with ourselves after announcing Puerto Rico has been submitted to the App Store, but we thought you'd like to know that a Tikal update has been sent to Apple as well. Below is a peek at what's coming in this long-overdue version 1.1, but we also want to take this opportunity to apologize for the long delay in getting this update out. Future updates will be made in a much more timely fashion. We thank you for your support and patience. Happy gaming! Codito Development Fixes: - Eliminated memory leaks that were causing crashes - Online moves are sent individually rather than batched for online games (to avoid network issues causing games to hang or get out of synch) - Eliminated unintentional touch after pinch zooming Updates: - Added confirmation messages for moving explorers - Restore each player's last zoom level - Selected leader or worker "pulses" for easier identification - Added support for "table games" for iPad (select which side human players are sitting on; UI rotates to face players) - Adjusted iPhone player display when fully zoomed out so entire board can be viewed - Allowed extra scrolling space on iPad so tiles can be placed more easily - Created default game setup for fresh installations - Allowed game music to be restored after selecting iPod music from Options - Added GameCenter direct launch buttons for leaderboards and achievements - Added "Undo" and "Restart" for online games (these have also been clarified in the menu to "Undo Action" and "Undo Turn") - Added "Next Game" button for online games
Update out that makes the game MUCH more enjoyable. The swiping, scaling, and detection seems much improved. I played through a single-player game and had no issues whatsoever.
I've only just started playing again (spurred by my fellow TA friends), and there's a few observations I can make right off the bat: - tapping to rotate a tile for placement no longer results in you zooming in and out and in and out if you tap "too fast", which I have a tendency to do. Yeah! - so far, at least, using two devices (iPhone and iPad in my case) no longer seems to cause an online game to explode into glittery bits, which is good! However, it's pretty clunky. It gives you a playback of the moves that have happened since you last used that device, which is good, but if you have any dialogs on you get those dialogs and you have to tap through them as you go, even telling you it's your turn when it's not because you're watching a past "your turn", etc. It's pretty unrefined, but at least it functions without blowing up. I stand corrected on the above - apparently our game did get messed up. Oh well. I suppose I won't be bothered with the quirks now. However it will also make the game harder to play online for me. Other games like Carcassonne, Samurai and Ascension all handle switching devices fine. Seems like this should be able to too, but maybe this is a limitation of OpenFeint. I don't know. As it is I have to decide if I'll play only on iPhone or only on iPad. The game is a lot nicer to play on the iPad, but playing it online is more convenient on the iPhone since I always have it with me. Sigh. - online does have Undo now, and it works, but it's still clunky. Surely there's a better way to do this? At least it works, and that's good. - pinch to zoom doesn't always seem to work. It's not a big problem, but it's mildly annoying. Most of the time it works, but sometimes it doesn't. I think this is more of a problem on the iPhone/iPod touch. - I still find the pulsing method of showing which vehicle is selected to be too obscure. I inevitably fail to see that some vehicle is selected and then tap somewhere. I have the warning dialogues on so it asks me if I'm sure, but if it just highlighted a selected vehicle better I wouldn't need that. Actually, I think the main problem is the artwork is too busy and so things like that tend to blend in. - tapping to select a vehicle is still rather finicky. Sometimes I select the vehicle, sometimes it behaves as if I didn't, perhaps asking me if I wanted to move some other vehicle there. So the game is certainly greatly improved and with working online this will be a game I play now, but I still wish it were a more refined experience.
Tapping vehicle is really bad! I like the game and could really enjoy it, but the impossibility to tap ruins the entire experience! Also sometimes tiles disappear when I stop and start. I am utterly disappointed. I have all you games and dis not expect such a bad job.
I've tried to play two online games since the most recent update and neither of them made it to the end before blowing up. One of the two was particularly bizarre - it got stuck, and instead of showing me that game, when I'd go into it it would show me a previous mid-point turn of my other game!! The online still doesn't work, though I know some have had some success with it. I don't know if the problem is with OpenFeint or with Codito's implementation of online with OF. In any case, it's not working for me. Otherwise the game has certainly been improved with the most recent update, but it's still a very clunky design and I too have difficulty trying to tap vehicles. Still, if they'd get the online working right I'd play it.
Hi folks, We just wanted to let you know that the long overdue second update for Tikal is in the Apple pipeline and should be released soon. We think it addresses most, if not all, of the concerns raised in the past few months. It also provides a significant enhancement to the AI and replaces OpenFeint with Game Center for achievements, leaderboards, and turn-based multiplayer! Thanks for all your support and patience! - Codito Development PS. Multiplayer will now require iOS 5, and supports 2 to 4 players with possible AI in the mix. PPS. Updates for Puerto Rico, Tigris, Ra, and Medici are still in the works. Stay tuned!
I was privileged to test this update and can report my full satisfaction with every aspect. (iPad 2, iOS 5)
