Dungeons & Dragons - Tiny Adventures on Facebook

There are a good number of interesting Facebook applications. Other than the Pet Society which I covered earlier, there is also this Dungeons & Dragons - Tiny Adventures application.

In Tiny Adventures, one could choose from over 16 classes of characters, including Tiefling Warlock, Eladrin Wizard, Human Rogue, Dwarf Warlord etc. Each character can level until they reach level 11, and the application will automatically retire the character. At this point in time, the player can choose an item from the retiring character to pass on to the next character, and the next character will be labelled as Generation 2. This retiring process can carry on, and each generation will unlock new ability. At Generation 5, a new class of Swordmage will also be unlocked.

As per other Dungeons & Dragons game, the character will come with a set of attributes but for Tiny Adventures they are pre-rolled. There will also be equipments for each 'slot', including weapons and armour. The equipments will come with different attributes enhancements but not all classes can wear all the equipments, e.g. wizard can only wear light armour.

In order to level up the charater, the character could choose from a number of available adventures of around the same level as the character. There are quite a number of interesting quests / adventures to choose from. As the character level, bonus attribute points will be given at level 4 and 8.

Prior to the start of the chosen adventure, the character can choose two potions to bring along, including healing potions or others that boost the attributes, e.g. Potion of Heroism giving +5STR for 4 encounters.

Each adventure provides multiple encounters / parts (from 5 to 12 parts & higher levels seem to have more encounters), and each encounter comes with a description of what is happening to the character, as well as a dice roll that determines the outcome of that particular part. Occasionally there will be 'rare' encounters that provide better challenge and rewards. Success from the encounter will reward the character with experience points, golds and sometimes items.

The different adventures could also be reviewed later and the review log includes the different dice rolls as well as rewards from each adventure. Tiny Adventures has many tabs and statistics that keep track of the character's progress.

Generally the Dungeons & Dragons - Tiny Adventures application is quite fun to play with. The option of 'drinking potions' with triggering of certain conditions is also useful. The irritating part is that many of the encounters requires AC checks, and certain weaker classes like mage will have problems. It does not help that each healing potion costs 130 golds, i.e. expensive potions.

Will try the application and see if I have the patience to reach Generation 5!

Blooming of the free browser based online games

Those who have played MUD (pure text based multi-user dungeon) games in the past would know that there were a large number of different MUDs to choose from. When online games with graphical interfaces became popular, there were inclinations of free games with large thick clients, i.e. you have to download a large files (typically in the hundreds of megabytes) before you can play the game. In part this is due to lack of high speed connectivity since graphics and video will consume a large Internet bandwidth. In part the advance of gaming interfaces with ever more realisetic graphics for PC games, demand that other online games provide a minimal degree of good graphics.

Today, despite the increase in bandwidth, there seems to be a trend of a blooming free browser based online games. A simple search would have reveal many. Other than Travian (browser based strategy game), which I covered quite extensively in other blog posts, let me give a few other examples.

Thos who prefer Role-playing games with character stats to manage, we have Domain of Heroes. This is truly a simple RPG game; nothing complicated about skills or character stats. Items and quests are fairly straight forward. There is a good story plot, but the overall simplicity may not attract a large group of gamers. Domain of Heroes is part of the examples of newly created browser based games on the Internet. Revenue is earned by advertising and also user purchase of 'wishes' that allow for other in games activity, e.g. creation of guilds.

Not everything is new in these fields of browser based games. A different example would be Nile Online. Those who have played Children of Nile (e.g. me!) would find this game particularly interesting because it is sort of the same game, i.e. playing Children of the Nile together with hundreds of other players. Trading becomes important, and yes, Nile Online allows for trading of the 'bread' (in game currency) with resources. Would there be a trend of translating existing popular PC based games (e.g. Children of the Nile) into multiplayer persistent online games? Perhaps... there are a large potential and attractiveness for such games because the learning curve o play the online version would be much shorter.

Another category of free browser based games would be those provided via social networking sites. An example is Elven Blood that one could access via Facebook. The interface, gameplay and other mechanics are simple, and there is the added advantage of you playing with those among your own social network. The drawback is that you have to invite more people in order to explore certain part of the game realm. Nonehteless, the fact the game provides certain interface with your own social network is enough to draw more casual players into the game.

These are but examples of a few free browser based online games, and I'm sure there are many other categories of such games.

Golden Joystick Awards Results - Straw Hat Samurai came in 2nd

I got interested in the Golden Joystick Awards due to the review of one of the flash game finalists - Straw Hat Samurai. Straw Hat Samurai is a great game developed by LUT!.

Well the results were out last Friday, and Straw Hat Samurai got 2nd in the category of E4.com Grand Master Flash award. The other results could be found on the website, and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare seems to have won quite a number of the awards.

It's great to have such Awards events that helped to pull attention to games and their developers, since oftentimes there are simply too many distractions online and too little opportunities to showcase good nascent game developers. :)

Ok, I'm going to try out other games mentioned in the Awards!

See also:
- Flash Game: LUT! Straw Hat Samurai

Flash Game: LUT!'s Straw Hat Samurai

I was visiting one of the local blog aggregators and came across this website with a game nominated for Golden Joystick. The local game developer LUT! has done up a couple of games on his own, and the nominated game is 'Straw Hat Samurai' for the category of 'E4 Grand Master Flash Award'.

Out of curiosity, I decided to try the game out. I managed to finish it, and here's a couple of screenshots about the game. In the game, the player control a samurai character in his quest to 'beat' the enemy chief. It's basically a 2D scroll game with very simple control. The samurai has his sword as a main weapon, with option of bows and arrows. This is the general overall screen, where the samurai (guy in white with a straw hat) can 'move' about.

In the game itself, the player presses the mouse left button and 'draws' lines across the screen to use his sword. If the player is using bows and arrows, the control is via the shift key and mouse button. The health level of the samurai is shown as a green bar located at the bottom of the screen.

Once the last 'enemy' is killed, the screen turns red. Enemies come in different forms, including knife welding types (easiest), archers, and spearmen. Spearmen may try to rush the samurai, and thus a bit tricky. The more tricky enemies are those with shield. Since the shield could block any fronter attack, the trick is to 'slash' low, i.e. below shield level when the enemy is walking, or slash from behind when the shield bearers squat down.

Along the way, the player could pick up items boosting health or increase the chance to dodge. Locations with treasures are marked with a mini-treasure box.

There is a second phase to the game where the player could 'deploy' troops (in blue) to help him break thru enemy grounds. So the trick is to slowly make the way towards the main enemy camp. The game mechanics for this part is not well explained, but generally if the blue number is bigger, it is easier to win over the red area. Seems a little bit like the board game of 'Risk'.

Here's another picture. The player could move the samurai into red area, which will trigger another fight, similar to the first phase, i.e. 2D scrolling with mouse button as 'slash'.

Once the player reaches the centre camp where the big boss is located, it will trigger a big fight between the two. Killing the boss ends the game, where general statistics will be shown. Generally this game is worth a try. The gaming experience is alright, with short learning curve. Needs a bit of intuition to figure out some of the game play though. My only complain is the game music, which lacks variety. I guess that could be improved in due time.

See also:
- Golden Joystick Awards Results - Straw Hat Samurai came in Second

Simple Review of Titan Quest: Immortal Throne

Recently I was busy playing this game 'Titan Quest: Immortal Throne'. This is a good game for those busy working adults who can only spare an hour or less to play games during weekdays. The reasons are that the learning curve is short, and the game is relatively simple to play. Those who have played Diablo would have some appreciation of this game. Conversely some players may feel it is another 'Diablo-like' game which is nothing new.

Oh well, different players prefer different things. Nonetheless here's some screenshots I took of three different characters. The following three shots are those of a corsair class player fighting the three gorgons, the dead gorgons, and the story plot of a girl from ancient China talking to the character (who is from ancient Greece). "I used character and player inter-changeably."

Overall the story is quite linear, taking the player from ancient Greece, to Egypt, and to ancient China. The fighting is relatively simple, with mouse clicks and number keys. Not much of a big tactics is involved unless one choose a higher difficulty level of play. The graphics is attractive, with relatively alright background music. Here's a screenshot of ancient Memphis in Egypt.

The game featured many 'classes' to choose from. While one is classless when the game started, the player gets to choose which of the 8 classes he/she wants to be in from level 3. Each level will grant 3 skill points and 2 character points. Classes are either melee or spell caster based. Some spell caster classes (and later for melee classes) can summon 'pets' like the lich king or wolves to assist them.

The character points could be used to upgrade 'Health', "Energy', "Strength', 'Intelligence', or 'Dexterity'. Sufficient combination of Strength, Intelligence, or Dexterity is needed to wear higher level equipments. Equipments could also have skill enhancers / attributes, and there are also 'sets' which give additional bonus for each additional equipment of the same set when worn. Skill points are for different skills (obviously) and the player could put the active skills into the number hotkeys. When the player reaches level 8, he/she can choose another class, and thus get the best of both classes. The 'designation' of the character also changed once the second class is chosen.

There are certain scenes where special effects are present. For example, when the player enter the burning olive farms in Greece, there are special smoke and fire particles effect. Since the graphics is quite good, one could occasionally zoom in to look at the finer graphical details.

Overall it is a good game and quite worth the money spent I think. I'm not sure if I will complete the game though, or if I will be distracted by other new games. Lolz.

Canyon Defense on MiniClip

I read about this game Canyon Defense on one of the blogs aggregator and decided to give it a try. It is a wonderful flash based game for a short 15 mins play. The game is hosted on Miniclip and has a short learning curve for those impatient peeps like me.

The basic mission of the game is to protect your people (i.e. lives) by building weapons around the path used by the invaders. Weapons come in different forms, and could be used against ground or air based enemies. After each wave of enemies, you would be rewarded with more gold that could be used to buy better or more weapons. New weapons and buildings are also unlocked along the way for more options, e.g. a new goo gun that slows down the enemy. As the game progress, you could purchase special buildings that allow for 'missiles' (area effect bombing) or 'walls' (obstructions) as benefits.

There are three maps for the player to choose from, and each map has three different difficulties (in terms of attack waves). Here's a few pics of the game in progress. The only thing I don't like about the game is the background music, a tad too noisy I feel.

See also:
- Bomba by Nitrome - Miniclip Flash Game

MyMinicity reaching 51 population

After 7 days of play, MyMinicity has reached a population of 51. The rate of growth is nothing great, but along the way I discover a few things. Here's a gif of the different screen-shots I took. Gif was created using online gifninja. The gameplay is very simple, and I guess that's what attracted people. With each population growth you could see little changes on the map that is quite interesting. (afternote: blogger doesnt support direct gif file upload so i break it into a few jpeg files.)

Firstly, those tools I recommended earlier could be used to grow the village by 1 population each. This is because these tools will 'query' the website about the statistics, and thus contribute to 1 population. Thus I've searched around, and also found this Japanese website which does comparison of two cities, and could be used to grow the population as well. Just key in the name of the two cities at the bottom of the site will do.

Secondly is that once the city hits population above 50, there are other options available for growing industry, transport...etc. I only have the option of industry so far. Once I reach other options, I'll do an update of what each means. :)

Simple Review of MyMiniCity

I was first attracted to the MyMiniCity when I saw the MSN message from my MSN buddy. Then I did a simple Wiki search and found the description of the game. After a couple of months, I finally decided to give it a try.

Signing up for the game is very simple. First you select a country (I couldn't find mine, apparently the selection is not comprehensive), and then you give your city a name. Voila! That's it! The starting city would have 1 inhabitant, and you need visitors daily to help the city grow. That's the simple mechanics of the game, i.e. attract visitorship. The more visitors per day, the faster it grows. Once a certain size is reached (i.e. 50), there will be other options available.

After starting the city, I searched around for various tools. Found a couple of tools and simple tricks to help grow the city. Other than asking for friends to visit the page, a player could also put up a java script of the minicity onto his blog to monitor the development. One good example of the script could be found at the WidgetBox. Here's a pic of the widget.

There are other sites that provide pop-up windows for blogs that automatically link to the MiniCity. I think that is not as good a suggestion though for the blog visitors since many people do not like pop-ups.

Another useful tool for monitoring the statistics of the MiniCity could be found here, where the website offer comparison between two different MiniCities. Another site that offers statistics could be found here. After 'playing' the game for 2 days, and irritating my friends with requests for 'clicks', I got the city to a size of 13 population. Guess I'll explore more about MiniCity and provide more comments next time.

Samorost 1 - equally interesting game

After playing Samorost 2 (review of the game here) and finding that it's a great game, it is only naturally to play Samorost 1. Overall I would think that Samorost 2 is better, with more interesting graphics and background music. The 'tricks' in Samorost 2 is also more challenging, which requires more 'thinking'. Nonetheless Samorost 1 is still worth a try.

In Samorost 1, you play a character on a 'rock' who realises that another 'rock' is heading for a collision with the same rock. So you set out for a rescue project to change the course of the alien rock. I realised that some readers may want to have a 'walkthru' of the Samorost 1. So I added the tips at the end of this post, but it's in 'dark grey' colour. If you need the tips, highlight to reveal them. Else scrolling down to look at the pictures still will not spoil the fun of the game.



When you landed on the planet surface, you will find a colony of farmers. Wonder if the face of the farmer belongs to one of the game creators?


Here starts the trip to the centre of the Earth, oops, no, it's the centre of the rock!


Don't worry if you're stuck. You got birds and squirrel as company.


The creature is more interested in ants than you. Heh, I guess humans in weird colour pajamas is less appetising.


You'll reach the main steam engine room. You will save your home!


Change your fate, change the direction!


It's not that hard isn't it?



Tips:
click the tower!
The burning tobacco. The Ski line. Press the button. Adjust the direction! Pinch his butt. Click me to fly!
Fish is biting. Get rid of pests! Shoo the bird.
Rotate the rock. Black hole is fun. Black holes are really fun. Light bulb. Open the hatch and get in!
Worms are irritating. Squirrel likes records. There are many records. Dancing owl is cute, don't you think so?
Don't block the ants! Open the hatch. He is busy during meals. The box. The lights on the door.
The blinking light. It says Q.50. Middle. Where the ladder points.

Samorost by Amanita Design

Read about this excellent Flash based games Samorost 2 by Amanita Design. This game has won an award, the Winner for Best Web Browser Game, Nominee for Excellence in Visual Art at the IGF, the Independent Games Festival. Try the game, it's quite fun. A point and click game with no need for any instruction.

In the game you played a human who lost his dog to a bunch of aliens. The aliens are picking your pears for their big boss, and you embarked on an adventure to get your dog back. That's Part 1, which is free to play. To play Part 2, you'll need to pay for the game. Here's the starting planet where you live.


Here's when the aliens arrived to steal your pears.


You have to think of a way to feed the snail properly, such that it will sleep after its meal.


Here you meet the aliens again, who is filling the bottle of pears to feed his boss.


Here you meet the alien boss who is eating your pear, while making your dog works like a hamster to fan him!


Do something to trick the alien boss and your dog is saved!


However, when you are on your way back, the fuel runs out and you will crashed onto another planet. That's where part 2 of the game starts.


The company also produces the Samorost 1, as well as other games and flash animations. This is an interesting company to watch.

Community Games Website - Viwawa

Found a new community games website from some friends - Viwawa.

They have a series of different games, and by playing these games, a player could earn enough gold to buy items for their 'Wawa', i.e. avatars. They could also use the games to buy special skills that players could use in the games. Overall the games are quite fun enough. However, the lag can be quite irritating when players experience 'timeout', and I feel that the website could improve somewhat with the games play guide.



Currently there are six games in this website. Each time you start a game, a new pop-up windows will appear. Games include Mahjong, Dai Di (Big 2), chess, ...etc.



Above is what you'll see when you enter that particular game's webpage. Once you clicked play, you will send the screens below.



Above is what you see when you start the Sushi game, a game which I don't exactly understand how to play. Once the program loads, you'll have to join a table, possibly waiting for other players to form a complete table. Here's the waiting scene for the Big 2 game.



Pic below is from the mahjong game, which I played quite a fair bit.


Once a game is over, there will be a tally of gold coins.


Other than gold coins, a player could also use real cash to exchange for items in the website. Payment is quite easy, either credit cards or via mobile phone shortcodes. Thus anyone in Singapore with a mobile phone account can obtain in game currency easily. Given the nature of community games website, it is unsure how compelling it is for players to pay for in game currency. Game players may pay cash for RPG like games, but for such community websites? Maybe, if the advantages of such items warrant it.