What: Frag physics fun

Where: Many themed worlds

When: NOW! $0.99 on iTunes

Why: Blowing stuff up is always entertaining

Physics is the science that just keeps giving in video games. Angry Birds, Cut the Rope, Where’s My Water, and Fruit Ninja are just some examples of games that use physics as a prime game mechanic; maybe you have heard of them? Fragger is similar in mechanics, and throws challenging level design and explosions on top of it.

Void of any story, your goal is to blow every character in the level apart with small explosives, most often grenades. You chose an angle and strength for the trajectory of your frag and let go, much like you did in Kitty Cannon back in the day. Once it stops, or comes very close, it will explode setting of triggers, destroying barriers, or disuniting your foes. This concept is simple enough but the gameplay lies within the level design.

Desert Strike is the name of the first world you must deface by blowing everything up. It is also the name of a terrific game on the Sega Genesis that occupied much of my youth. Things start out pretty simple. Some punks are hanging out in holes and behind walls hoping you are incapable of placing your finger on the screen and then lifting it. Difficulty progresses quite nicely, giving a player the chance to get a feel for how powerful this SWAT dude’s arm is. At perhaps the 8th level, because the guy standing at the top of the crates is surprisingly hard to take down, you will realize you are out of ammo… FAIL! Though, now you mean business. Each toss is carefully planned. Sometimes you may even take out two birds with one.… frag, and by birds I mean Counter Strike-like terrorists. Your rating, 3 stars max, depends on the number of grenades you have once the level is clear.

If you are having trouble on a specific level you can view the solution or skip it, but these are in limited supply and additional ones cost REAL money. A “SAVE MY SOLUTION” feature is a nice addition. It lets you show off your amazing understanding of physics when applied to grenade tossing.

There are several Achievements to unlock and Fragger works with Game Center, so you can compete with your buddies. Completing a level often gives you remote bombs that you can set off whenever, and at some point you get infinite ammo, but I don’t remember the exact requirement for that. The remote bomb buff will help you tremendously if you are a completionist and want to go back through levels with perfect stars. This is currently what I’m working on, and some levels are still extremely difficult to perfect. One of the best Achievements asks you to ENRAGE 3 enemies and blow them up. To ENRAGE (I can’t seem to type that without using caps) someone you must bean them in the head a few times. Yes, it is funny.

I do have a couple gripes, but the main one is common with any, “aim & fire” mechanic: pixel perfect accuracy. Some grenade placements require a perfect angle and power level to attain, and force you into a throw then reset loop until you find the sweet spot. This can feel extremely monotonous. That paired with levels requiring a sort of progression with the eagle eye shot at the end will make you put the game down. This must be how they sell the Skip and Solve packs. Another small irritation is the UI flow. There is no way to exit a level from the completion screen, and no way to exit a world from the in game menu. For example, now that I’m going through levels and trying for all 3 stars I want to go into a specific level, finish it, and return to the level select screen or even the world select screen. Currently I have to choose Next or Replay to reload a level and then exit to the level select screen. Only from there could I go back out to the worlds. It’s a minor nuisance, but there’s no reason it needs to require that many clicks.

Fragger currently has 12 worlds with around 30 levels a piece. These worlds are quite unique, and give everything just enough of a new taste that it feels different from before.

Desert Strike & Lost City have a very similar theme. You’re a counter terrorist eradicating terrorists in new and old urban areas.

Planet X places you on an alien world riddled with shinnies and slimies.

Atlantis puts you into some underwater ruins with shirtless dudes that look like ‘Baby’ Brent from ‘Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs’.

Artic Storm was released around Christmas last year I think so everyone is bundled up to look like santa, but that doesn’t matter you still want to blow them up.

Heart Attack is where things start getting a little strange, and I assume this came out last February. No longer are you a law enforcing officer. You are Cupid in a diaper, armed with deadly hearts, and forcing your love explosion on heart broken bandits. They die in an explosion of hearts so I assume you have helped them.

Horror Ville brings Frankenstein’s Monster out for you to bombard in dilapidated buildings just in time for Halloween.

Ancient Times throws you back to the middle ages against dumb-witted goons in Egypt, Rome, Greece, and South America. Your weapon of choice this round is a golden ball of some sort. Golden apple maybe?

Honey Bunny is another holiday themed world. This time you’re wearing a bunny suit and chucking deadly eggs at painted targets. It seems a little sick.

Treasure Bay was definitely inspired by ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’. You’re cannonball toting avatar can hardly stand up. I found the integration of pirate items into the construction of the levels particularly well done in this world.

Monster Dash … I can’t help but think of River City Ransom when I see the art for this one.

Stick Man makes me happy. I don’t know if it reminds me of the stick men duels from forever ago, but this world is entertaining.

The levels create some great puzzles that range from making tough throws, to destroying barriers to launching other explosives in sequence or tandem in an effort to reach a hidden enemy.

Quantitative Review:

• Gameplay: 9.6 — The quality and variation in level design that’s crammed into the limited real estate of a phone is terrific. The game could use a few alternative bonus features like napalm grenades, or cluster bombs. Even if they somewhat break the game, sometimes the reward for beating something as intended, should be rewarded with something ridiculous.

• Visual: 8.9 — The visuals are quite good, but nothing groundbreaking for the iPhone. The different themes are well designed, but I’d like to see a bit more variation in the enemies. Perhaps some defining characteristics in their visuals to establish a type of nemesis throughout the worlds.

• Sound: 9.1 — Sound effects were pretty standard, but the soundtrack is great. There is some bad ass music in the Monster Dash world, and there’s a song in Heart Attack that will bore itself into the base of your skull.

• Presentation: 7.8 — The whole navigation thing is a pretty irritating, but the reason it dropped below a B are the ads. You can’t load up the app and complete a new level without them pimping one of their other games, and you will get harassed to rate the app often, even if you have already taken the time to do so.

• Humor: 8.6 — The developers definitely had a sense of humor with this game and the level themes are a strong indication. Just reading through the list above you can tell things are getting more and more silly as you go along. I look forward to a new world!

• Overall: 8.8 - Fragger has been in my arsenal for a while now. I’ve lost my progress a few times though phone upgrades and jail breaking, but I continue to go back and play through it.

It has been quite some time since I threw a Starcraft II related post up here on the blog. Hell, it has been a while since I’ve updated this blog at all before this week, but I vow to be vigilant! I vow to type stuff! And I hope to get into Diamond League before Diablo 3 comes out. Why that timeline? Well…

1. The game is a ways out yet. This gives me till AT LEAST March 7th when the game is currently rumored to be released.
2. Once Diablo 3 comes out, it will occupy all my game time, so Starcraft II will likely fall by the way side. I’m sure I’ll still get the urge to play once a week or so, and maybe Diablo will feel too easy and it won’t hold my interest.

So in an effort to get to Diamond, I have been trying to play a few games every night. This usually means about 30–60 minutes of game time each night. It’s not going to make me pro, but I’m hoping I can at least get promoted.

Who: Developed and Published by NimbleBit (they sure are)
What: Sim Tower condensed

Where: Eight bit world that can only go up.

When: NOW! Free on iTuens

Why: Stacking pixelated stores for little people to NOM NOM through is quite addicting for 53.6 second spurts.

What makes mobile gaming so popular? Easily accessible? Simple to pick up? Relatively cheap? Those are all good reasons, but add addictive gameplay and the ability to play anywhere at anytime and you have Tiny Tower. Tiny Tower can be played in under a minute at a time. If you’re waiting for your lunch order, you could build your own deli floor, staff it, and start gaining money toward your next floor.

You begin the game with a lobby as the first floor, where you go from here is up to you, as long as it’s up. I was amazed by how much the size and aspect ratio of a cell phone screen catered to a game like this. It felt natural to flick up and down between the floors ensuring their employees were busy.

Each floor can be filled with 1 of 6 different business types: Food, Service, Recreational, Retail, Creative, and Residential. A residential floor can house 5 bitizens max. These guys pay rent, and are willing to work anywhere within the tower. This tower is their only world, they know nothing outside of it so I suppose they have little choice. The tower seems to have a wide variety of things to do so it’s pretty all inclusive though I’ve never seen a bathroom. They do seem to hang out off screen to the right from time to time so maybe they take care of that over there.

Each bitizen has  their own unique talents ranging from 0–9 in each of the 5 business areas. Placing them in a business that corresponds with their skill will reward you with faster stocking and overall more coin. Placing a full proficient (9 skill) bitizen in an accompanying job will reward you with a tower buck. Tower bux can be used to expedite stocking floors, construction projects, upgrading your elevator, and other things. Bux can also be gained by finding a lost bitizen somewhere in your tower. Misplaced bitizens can be fired and rehired somewhere else, or if you dislike them you can kick them out of the tower all together. Occasionally you will roll a bitizen of all zeros and ones and it won’t feel too bad evicting them, but it’s easy to get attached to these little guys. They come in all sorts of different flavors. The amount of variation in such a limited number of pixels is pretty incredible, and their environments look great. 8 bit graphics will never die.

The floors of this pocket tower are just as varied as their inhabitants. Frozen yogurt, hat shop, comedy club, pharmacy, coffee house, and many more will be constructed at your request. Choosing a business type that’s in high demand, or could be stocked with some very talented unemployed bitizens is a generally a good idea. These floors will take a while to be constructed, which takes longer the higher you go, but once complete they are ready to be staffed with up to 3 bitizens and 3 items or services. Stocking takes some time too, and it depends on the type of business you are running. Making a sandwich takes less time than building hospital for example, and each subsequent item per floor takes a bit longer, but nets a higher profit so it’s best to fully staff and stock every floor.

All this time waiting for things to build and stock items can be part of the fun. Special characters will show up that speed the process up and delivering them to the desired floor via the elevator is a large part of managing your tower. Also, with everything having a countdown, you can schedule your Tiny Tower around your day. Going to bed? Build a new floor or stock something that will take all night then watch it make you money the next day. The app can easily send you push notifications when something needs your attention so I found it fun to set several 15 minute actions at once then just wait till I was pushed a notification. Tiny Tower integrates itself so well into the lulls of your day it’s hard NOT to play.

Quantitative Review:

• Gameplay: 8.4 - The game is very simple to play, but it’s hard to tell if you are playing it well. Most of the enjoyment comes from timing everything perfectly so you can set up as much as possible the next time you load up the game. You feel best when you spend the least amount of time in the actual game because you set everything in motion that you could. The lack of “active” gameplay is made up for in the games ability to fuse with almost every routine during your day. Walking to a meeting, brushing your teeth, cooking a hot pocket, and yes of course making poo.

• Visual: 9.3 — The 8 bit graphics strike a certain chord of nostalgia back to the NES days. It’s fun to see what each floor will bring and NimbleBit adds new and interesting bitizens to the game from time to time. I can’t get over the hilarious “nom nom” animation the bitizens make as they consume items on a floor.

• Sound: 8.5 -  Sound is fairly minimal in this game. Most of the sounds come from alerts or UI inputs. This seems like a conscious decision as it can get a little noisy when you have 50 floors.

• Presentation: 9.8 — As I’ve said, the joy of this game lies in small bits of management. Getting in, setting a bunch of timers, and getting out in less then a minute is made possible by the quick loading of the app, and great in game performance. The 8 bit graphics and vertical layout of the world make it possible for you to scroll through a seemingly infinite number of floors. I have 50 floors rendering on a iPhone 3GS and the performance is flawless.

• Integration: 10.0 - I cannot think of a better, more casual way for a game to integrate with your everyday life and I’m sure things have gotten even better since I last played.

• Overall: 9.2 - Between the art style, simple interface, and ability to play for seconds at a time I found Tiny Tower very addictive. The strengths of mobile gaming materialize in Tiny Tower, and no matter how busy you are day to day you downtime that could be filled with this mall like sim. Now if only they could integrate more multiplayer features, like allowing you to zoom into the towers your friends have built. Tiny Tower is the ideal mobile game for the new wave of casual gamers.

This is a problem I have been running into a lot lately. It wasn’t until I put about a hour into Bioshock 2 and found out I couldn’t SAVE, that I got frustrated enough to want to fix it. Let me reiterate that. I bought a game, but couldn’t save my progress until I was signed into my Windows Live ID. This DRM shit is getting out of hand.

So the problem is this: 80048821

Basically Windows Live doesn’t recognize your username, or your password is wrong so it’s unable to authenticate.

Surfing the Google will point you at a variety of culprits. The most common is to open a list of ports on your router. Others have you check your version of Games for Windows, reinstall the game, or even hack some registry files.

Solution?

Your password IS wrong! Apparently passwords with special characters trip up the whole system and you can’t log in EVEN if your password is correctly inputted. It’s recommended to use alpha-numeric characters only and stick to 6–10 characters.

Do I even have to point out the irony of Microsoft requiring a simplified password for it’s online environment to access it’s own game system on it’s own OS?

Google+ or G+ is an interesting name. It’s simple, easy to remember, and takes ownership over a very popular mathematical symbol. It is also quite bold. I wonder if it will be able to live up to the hype. Not just the hype of being Google’s effort in the social networking site wars, but also the hype that the name implies. “Plus” is defined as being positive, more, or adding to something to create a greater value. Google revolutionized search engines and in many ways the Internet as a whole. For a search engine that surpassed 1 Billion unique visitors just a couple months ago, the concept of a “+“Google is something quite momentous. The standard is now set and I suspect even Google is a bit intimidated.

Starcraft II has been booming in the last couple months with pro tournaments popping up all over the place.

I did another small write up of a current tournament still in progress over again on the Clan eP website, which now has a new look! If interested, go ahead and check out my write up of the current HD World Tournament.

Just to give some of you an idea of just how popular Starcraft II and eSports is becoming, here is an abridged list of some of the tournaments out there for pro Starcraft II gamers held here in the United States. Keep in mind, this list leaves out S. Korea where Starcraft is a national sport!

IGN Pro League

MLG Columbus

North American Starleague

TeamLiquid Starleague

A GUI used to add flaws to a sealed package so it can later be inspected by trainees for flaws.

]]> http://www.theschap.com/2011/04/07/inspection-gui/feed/ 0 http://www.theschap.com/2011/04/07/spray-paint-gui/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=spray-paint-gui http://www.theschap.com/2011/04/07/spray-paint-gui/#comments Fri, 08 Apr 2011 02:42:29 +0000 Brandon Schapekahm http://www.theschap.com/?p=543 Spray Paint GUI

This is a spraypaint GUI I designed for a simulation which allowed users to change different settings. These settings and changes emulated that of a real spray gun.]]> Spray Paint GUI

This is a spraypaint GUI I designed for a simulation which allowed users to change different settings. These settings and changes emulated that of a real spray gun.

]]> http://www.theschap.com/2011/04/07/spray-paint-gui/feed/ 0 http://www.theschap.com/2011/04/06/starcraft-ii-clan-ep/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=starcraft-ii-clan-ep http://www.theschap.com/2011/04/06/starcraft-ii-clan-ep/#comments Thu, 07 Apr 2011 04:52:53 +0000 Brandon Schapekahm http://www.theschap.com/?p=518

Finding a good community in any online game is very important. It’s something that can keep the game fresh and exciting as well as providing a great social outlet. In a competitive gaming circle this is especially important as finding people that can challenge you is essential. As anyone who knows me “in the real world” will attest, I’m not very good at keeping in touch. I’m bad at returning phone calls, and often prefer a text. I check Facebook a couple times a week; Maybe. Best example of them all, a party or friendly gathering can often feel like an intrusion into an otherwise creative, or nerdy night.

In my last post New Level of Nerd, I mentioned the Starcraft II clan eP or Eternal Plague. I was drawn to them because of that tournament which allowed people such as myself, Platinum Leaguers, to compete for professional coaching. I have since joined their writing staff and my first assignment was to follow the recent MLG Dallas. I spent a large deal of my leisure time last weekend watching the tournament stream, which was tough technically, but overly entertaining. If any of you out there are interested in eSports go ahead and check out my write up at MLG Dallas 2011 Postmortem, and check out the MLG site for yourself. You may find it something else to veg out with a beer and snacks to on Sundays.

The struggle began when I wanted to test out some new plugins, and found I was unable to unpack and install them to my site. This pointed me to the elusive .htaccess file. Nobody is friends with this bastard. Windows doesn’t like him, and FileZilla would rather punch him in the face. Finally, after studying and understanding why he was such a prick, I realized he didn’t exist! So I built him. He was very confused in this new world of theSchap.com, and reluctantly got along with some things. After a firm talking to, he would work well with other features, but hate the former. Eventually, after much hair pulling and coffee drinking I bowed lower than usual before the majesty of Google, and Google came forth with an answer; a formula. Sir .htaccess now allows the fully implemented, but, for some stupid reason, hidden php5 to shine on. New plugins are installing like Carpet King in an empty apartment, fast?, and working like a charm even when compatibility is questionable.

Now, all that isn’t the new found level of nerd. This plateau comes from the realm of Starcraft 2. I have entered myself into a <=Platinum League tournament qualifier! Prizes include free coaching sessions from gosucoaching, and of course notoriety of the highest caliber. If you’re curious or need flack for offensive comments, head over to clanEP for details and if you hurry, sign up yourself! It’s sure to be a good time, and hopefully I don’t get knocked out in the initial round of 64. I don’t plan to stream my own games on this site, as they will be streaming and I believe commentating as well.

On a closing note, I’ve invested in training videos from lynda.com where I plan to expand my web knowledge and pick up a few tricks in other software packages. I plan to share, and show some of this newly gained knowledge here, and plan to put a lot of it toward the advancement of THIS very site!

UPDATE!!! I did end up getting knocked out in the first round of 64, but the guy was good, and went on to RO8 before he lost. No worries! I’m signed up for the third qualifier, which will be going on the same time and channel this Thursday. *crosses fingers*