Adventure Time Card Wars

On Saturday morning (when I was meant to be studying) I downloaded Adventure Time Card Wars from the iTunes store.  What followed was a day spent justifying study breaks every 5 minutes and running my phone battery flat at least twice!!  I read about Card Wars about a week and a half ago and didn't realistically expect to find it in the SA iTunes store so fast.  We're usually pretty behind in these things.

If you remember the episode where Jake and Finn play card wars then you already know more or less what this game is going to be about.  Basically, you have a deck of card that you start with containing creatures, spells and buildings.  Like most other card games, you deal your cards to a certain points value and then see how you far up against your opponent.  As you progress you can win, buy or craft new cards to improve your deck.  The game also allows you to customise two different decks that you can switch between when facing opponents.  You start as Jake and eventually unlock Finn.  So far I have battled Finn, BMO, Marceline and Princess Bubblegum.    Here's a few pics from the game play so you can get an idea of what I'm talking about:

Each game you play earns you experience points which allows you to level up as you go.  You also get a specific set of landscape cards which you deal before the game starts. Different creatures work on different landscape cards so you definitely need to give this some thought.

Once you've dealt your initial hand, you defend, attack and keep dealing until you have a winner.  Or, in this case, a loser.

The game costs R32.99 but it's worth every cent I spent on it.  There are a few in-app purchases available but so far, I haven't felt the need to use any of them.  And finally, for those of you who have no idea what I am talking about, here is a clip from the episode in question.  Enjoy!

Oh!  And before I forget, there is a real, physical version of this game being released tomorrow!  There are two box containing Jake's Corn Deck, Finn's Blue Plains Deck, BMO's Useless Swamp Deck and Lady Rainicorn's Sandy Fields Deck.  Who wants to buy me a very, very early birthday present???

Tiny Death Star

The week before my exam, I made a HUGE mistake.  I downloaded Tiny Death Star.  In my defence, it was free and I couldn’t help it:

Based on something called Tiny Tower, Tiny Death Star is full of glorious 8-bit Star Wars action.  Engadget describes it much better than I could hope to:

Tiny Death Star puts you to work for the Empire as you buy, build and oversee the development of its moon-sized space station. It's the result of a partnership between Disney, LucasArts and NimbleBit, bringing together all of your favorite Star Wars characters in the familiar Tiny 8-bit style. You'll also employ 30 unique galactic "bitizens," including Wookiees and Ewoks, as you build as many as 80 residential and commercial Death Star floors. Like other freemium titles, Star Wars: Tiny Death Star uses its own in-game currency, called "Imperial Bux," which boost construction and lift time restrictions, meaning you probably won't go it Solo in your fight against the Rebels.

I can’t even explain to you how many hours I have lost to this game already.  I currently have 40 bitizens in my death star and 31 levels:

My favourite aspect of the game is Holonet, the Tiny Death Stars facebook equivalent.  The things the bitizens come up with are hilarious!!  Its also a great test of my patience because new levels take longer and longer to build.

Now excuse me while I go and restock my levels….

Angry Birds Star Wars II

So, somehow a new Angry Birds Star Wars was released and I didn't even know about!!  Clearly university is distracting me from the important things in life!!  In all seriousness, I didn't know this was coming until I saw a trailer for it on Friday evening.  I checked for it on Saturday and was pleasantly surprised to find it already available.  Yay!  

While the original focuses on the original trilogy, part two follows the plot-line of the prequels.  Unlike the first one, you can choose weather to follow the Bird Side or the Pork Side every step of the way.  This gives you more character and storyline options which is never a bad thing.  In the first stage, Naboo Invasion, you can move freely between the Bird Side and the Pork Side.  

Once you move to level two, Escape to Tattooine, you have to commit to a specific side until you achieve a certain number of stars.  Another new feature is the various achievements you can earn by using specific characters or scoring a particular amount of points:

And you can earn points which allow you access to a whole range or characters:

Everything else is as you would expect from an Angry Birds game which means it's a combination of fun, frustration and addictiveness!!  Have any of you guys tried it yet?

PS:  Happy Heritage Day!!  Hope you all have a super awesome day off:)

Fionna Fights

I thought that I had all of the Adventure Time iPhone games but I was wrong.  Somehow, I missed Fionna Fights which features the show's gender swapped characters Fionna, Cake and Marshall Lee.  Here's a quick look at the story:

And bust up some bad guys is exactly what you do.  The swarm of monsters is never ending and for each one you hit, you earn gems.  For each monster you miss, you lose energy until eventually you drop out of the sky.  You can actually fly so each hit actually keeps you afloat.  If you fall and you still have energy then Cake and Marshall Lee come to your rescue.

The gems that you earn allow you to buy all sorts of awesome extras that make your monster-fighting easier.  These include sword upgrades (the best is the demon sword) and potions to freeze your enemies, make you bigger and replenish your energy.  The most expensive extras come in the form of raining knives, a ride on Lord Monochromicorn and backup from Neptr and Marshall Lee.  I think the best of these are Lord Monochromicorn andMarshall Lee.  With each upgrade, your chances of picking up the extra while fighting increases until you can pick up multiple powers at the same time.

Like Super Jumping Finn, Fionna Fights doesn't really have an ending and you can keep on going for as long as you have the energy to do so.  It's not very complicated but still a lot of fun.

If you don't have an iPhone then you can play Fionna Fights online and for free here.

Adventure Time Rock Bandits

Is there any better way to end an already good week than to find out there is a new Adventure Time game for iPhone?  Adventure Time Rock Bandits!  The story goes like this, Lemon Grab’s band has no real fans while Marceline and the Scream Queens have plenty.  The Ice king offers to steal Marceline’s fans in return for becoming Unacceptable’s manager.  Of course Finn and Jake get their hero on and go off in search of kidnapped fans!

So far, I have only gotten through the first one and defeated the Tree Witch (remember she is the one who tried to suck Jake into her butt?).  I have just started in Lumpy space which is already more complicated and makes use of Finn and Jakes flying skills.

My only complaint is the controls.  Finn doesn’t always stop when you need him too which means I have dived off many cliffs and walked into spikes while furiously taping my screen.  To be fair, it might be because my screen protector is crazy scratched and can be a bit unresponsive.  I will have to replace it and see how that affects the controls.

I am looking forward to playing the rest of this but if the beginning is anything to go by, it’s another win for Adventure Time iPhone games.  Now I hear rumours there is another game called Fionna Fights which unsurprisingly features Fionna and Cake. Excuse me while I go and download it immediately!!

Bad Piggies

Well, I have definitely developed a liking for the Angry Bird universe!!  After playing my way through Angry Birds Star Wars, Angry Birds Space and Angry Birds Seasons, I found myself downloading Bad Piggies!

I'd be lying if I said I didn't kind of prefer the concept of this game.  In each stage you need to get the piggy and the egg safely to their destination.  To aid you in your quest, you get given a set of tools to build yourself a contraption to carry you there.

Every level unlocks something new like rockets, motors, balloons, fans and soda bottles.  The catch is that each level gets more complicated and each contraption you build requires more and more thought.  There are bonus points (stars)  for getting to your destination without crashing, picking up all the star boxes or doing all of the above within a specific time frame.  Getting all three stars unlocks various bonus levels so it's well worth the effort of playing each stage until you get it all!

Overall I would definitely recommend Bad Piggies even though thinking through each solution can get a little frustrating.  Have any of you guys played this?  What did you think?

Angry Birds Star Wars

I am pretty sure I am a marketer's dream.  Slap the right name on something and all of a sudden you have my attention.  Terrible right?  Anyway, the most recent example of this is Angry Birds Star Wars, my current iPhone game of choice.

I'd never really played Angry Birds before although I knew the basic concept from another game I love, Pirates vs Ninjas vs Zombies vs Pandas.  The minute I started playing Angry Birds Star Wars, I was hooked.  You unlock various characters based on the Star Wars stories starting with normal Luke Skywalker and Obi-Wan.

The game's story-line follows the movie story-line meaning you start with normal Luke and Obi-Wan in Tattooine.

You then move on to the Death Star where you unlock Chewy and Han followed by Hoth where you can unlock Princess Leia.

The levels get increasingly harder and you need to put more thought and strategy into each one.  Currently I am trying to get all the stars in all the levels in Tattooine, the Death Star and Hoth so that I can unlock the full Path of the Jedi stage.  Right now I can only play one level:

As you earn more stars, you unlock different levels in the Bonus stage.  Here you get to use R2-D2 and C-3PO although to be honest, I haven't quite figured out their unique powers.

As much as I love this game it also frustrate me because try as I might, I just can't get all the stars on some of the levels.  One the plus side, at least it keeps me playing.  Have you guys played Angry Birds Star Wars?  What did you think?

P.S. I've also just started playing Bad Piggies.  It's giving Angry Birds Star Wars a serious run for its money!

Super Jumping Finn

I am such a huge fan of Adventure Time it's not even funny.  I have posted before about another Adventure Time game called Legends of Ooo which I loved even though it was fairly simplistic.  Super Jumping Finn is also fairly simple but much, much more playable.  

The object of the game is to kick Finn from the tree house all the way across Ooo to rescue Princess Bubblegum from the Ice King.  You kick Finn off to start and then you can keep him in the air by kicking him again and again.  Each time you kick, you have to wait for it to reload before you use it again. At the beginning, it's really hard to get any decent distance but this is where the upgrades come into play.

You can max out your initial kick, your in-flight kick and your bounce to help Finn get further.  You can also buy various upgrades (including Marceline, Lady Rainicorn and a comet) which hang out in the sky to help boost Finn while he is in the air.

As you get closer to the Ice King, he sends many, many penguins to try and freeze you while you are airborne.  These little guys can be defeated by taping them but as you get closer and closer, their numbers mutliply.

Even after you've recused PB, the game still offers plenty of challenges.  At the top of every screen, as you start off, there is a little green box which challenges you to complete a different task from destroying a 1000 penguins, to riding 7 comets.  The object them is to stay in the air for as long as it takes to complete these!  

The best part of this game is the fact that it's an easily accessible Adventure Time fix!!  Has anyone else played it? Thoughts?