I really wish I could understand the appeal of that game. I find it extraordinarily dull. It's essentially a single game mechanic.

Not that Angry Birds is the deepest gaming experience I've ever had, but at least there's some variety.


Wow, that's troubling. That might actually be the first thing I've heard that genuinely sells me the problem of fragmentation. I didn't consider it an issue before, but if this is true, that's a huge problem. The JIT was an astonishing improvement, IMO, and it worries me that not all phones with Froyo are getting it!


Man, sorry, Tom. I really do want to hear about and discuss your Windows Phone 7 experience. Perhaps if you share some early thoughts?

Am I the only one that doesn't get the appeal of that game? It's boring, often times insanely difficult (not well play balanced), doesn't look all that great, and to me, the premise is just damn bloody stupid.

In terms of originality, play balancing and enjoyment, I much prefer Cut the Rope. I also quite like Zen Bound 2, but I wish it were a little bit more challenging - at least for the levels I've played so far.

I am of the opposite opinion. I find Angry Birds distracting entertainment and Cut the Rope is very tedious and feels more like work than play.

Oh, to put my comments in perspective... I've only played Angry Birds on an iPad and have played the other games on both an iPad and iPhone. But my thought was that if anything, the iPad's screen should have made Angry Birds that much better.

I recognize there will always be a market for a half-decent game, but the attention and popularity it's gained is just insane. There are a lot of really good games on the App Store - just very difficult to find. Like everything on the App Store. IF anything sucks worse than the worst software in the store, it's the App Store itself.

True. It was just about workable when there were a couple of thousand apps, nowadays finding things is just about impossible.

90% of my app purchases come from recommendations rather than trawling the app store.

Mind you, given how many apps there are, it isn't immediately obvious how you would change it to make it workable.

Based on its popularity, you might be!


Yeah, I disagree with all of that As far as the difficulty, perhaps it's just a game that doesn't jive with you or whatever, but the real challenge is finding the correct way to win. One or two levels were a real challenge for me, but the rest were easily beatable after a couple tries.

Anyway, I'm just psyched that new levels came out today


Quite frankly, I don't think ANY smartphone game is really all that great. I'm still waiting for a deep, rich playing experience, and all we have so far are casual games.

Hmm.. There are adventure games for the iPhone, third-person 3D shooters, first-person shooters, driving games, etc. A lot of the same stuff you'd find on a console or portable gaming system.

I finished Monkey Island on the iPhone. Still have to start MI2. I also have the iPhone Splinter Cell game which I thought was pretty good, though played through the free version, I haven't played it yet since buying the full version.

Personally, I think the mobile gaming market is Apple's to own - and to some degree Android's as well. I'm not certain Nintendo or Sony will ever do the volumes they used to previously.

I don't see Windows Phone being a serious platform for games until they can achieve critical mass of units shipped - something that may never happen. This platform is hurting right now.

With some recent Nokia/MS rumors circulating, I have a suggestion for MS. Cancel the Windows Phone licenses of every manufacturer and go exclusive with Nokia. And Nokia, cancel all your crap OS ventures and go exclusive Windows Phone. And together, change the name of the platform, the word "Windows" is, to put it in a US-centric way, retarded. And off-putting. No one wants (or has ever wanted) Windows on their phone.

They'd have a much better chance of competing unified. Right now they're both still on a slide to the bottom. But it will never happen. I can't see Nokia giving up its production of crap dollar-store phones, nor can I see Microsoft changing its business model.

I haven't played Fruit Ninja- just seen the TA play it a lot. Doesn't look compelling to me.

The only iPhone app I've played a lot is Soduku. I also played through Sword and Poker 2 which was enjoyable enough.

Flight Control and Plants vs zombies were both fun. I play Words With Friends lots.

I'm fearing the upcoming Android port for Words With Friends. I play Wordfeud at the moment (a Scrabble clone), and I'm obsessed with it.


What kind of adventure games? I know Android is far behind iPhone at the moment (though more developers are thankfully making their games cross-platform), but there isn't a single decent adventure game on Android that I know of, and I'd like to know about any on the iPhone.


But that statement is the reverse of the argument you need to make. I'm saying that yes, iPhone/Android-quality games can by found on other consoles, but that other consoles' best types of games can't be found on iPhone/Android.

I still have yet to be shown a game that compares in depth with the old guard. Certainly I've seen plenty of $1-5 games. I haven't seen any worthy of $10 or more...


***edit***
And wow, Tom, I really apologize, this has gotten out of control Please, I really want to hear about your comments on the phone. I think we should take this into a new thread if we really want to continue discussing mobile gaming. Although, it's all stuff we've discussed before...

Matt, look at the titles from the big guys like EA and Gameloft. Telltale is also now releasing pretty much everything for iOS, including the popular Sam and Max (currently for iPad only though).

Other than physical methods of input, the iPhone can pretty much do what a PSP or Gameboy/DS can do, and then some.

While I initially kinda bagged on Epic for their iPhone Unreal preview, I have to admit the game Infinity Blade by Chair Entertainment Group is quite a bit of fun. It's got the right mix of gameplay for a mobile, combine with a high production value. Part of the reason I disliked the PSP when it came out is that a bunch of Playstation developers simply ported their console games to the mobile space, complete with long cutscenes, and expectations that a play session would last a while. Infinity Blade still keeps that easy to pick up and put down aspect that I want when gaming on a portable device.

Bonus points for also making it a universal app, so one price to have it on both my iPhone and iPad. Now what they really need is to also have a way to sync back and forth. Maybe GameCenter in iOS 5 will add something like SteamCloud for cross device game saves. Rovio mentioned working on something similar for Angry Birds, but nothing yet.

Excellent, I'm glad the thread was split.

Bruno, I guess there are some games out there. I just wish the developers would finally realize that there are one or two Android phones out there and that they could make a buck or two there.

The company that bugs me the most is Popcap. They released Bewjewelled (1, not 2) for Android almost two years ago, and since then they haven't released a single game, have talked about it for months, and don't expect to release something for a few months at least, starting with Bejewelled 2 which I could care less about.

Lastly, I have to repeat my complete, intense, burning hatred for touchscreen controls.

I just downloaded Gun Bros (if you're not familiar, it's basically Smash TV), and the game is controlled by two on-screen "analog" sticks, one for movement and one for firing direction. The problem here is that on average I'm covering up about 25% of the screen, making it hard to even see enemies that are coming at me. God forbid I have to run down and right and shoot the opposite direction, because I'll end up covering half the screen!

I enjoy the game, but the controls are killing me.

I'm still hoping to find a good physical controller for phones (because I don't want that Sony Ericsson phone ).

A couple of controller add-ons have been previewed. I was under the impression that one, now using BlueTooth, would be coming out soonish for the iPhone with hopes it might make it for Android later - I have no idea how you're gong to get a tight fit for the Android dozens of different handsets.

I don't even need it to hold the phone. I would be fine if it just worked. I hate on-screen controls so much I'd be willing to place the phone on a table and kill my neck.

Ok, here it is:

http://icontrolpad.com/

Ships this month supposedly. And it works on different phones through the use of different sides that clip on. Seems functional, even if the design is a little rough looking.

Okay, that looks perfect. Of course, games would have to support that, but I suspect they will if the hardware becomes popular. I'm not sure if 3000 units will be enough motivation, but I guess we'll see...

I have a few games for my Desire HD, and although Angry Birds was okay (kept my son going for a few days before he finished it) the one I and my kids like best so far is Crazy Snowboard, which really uses the motion sensors.

For games that don't support the controller specifically, so long as they work with keyboard controls, they can work with it. Though I suppose that will only get you digital controls, not the analog found on the nubs.

Seems pretty straight forward to include support though. A developer will still have to provide a control scheme that doesn't use external controls of course.

With simple flat sides (that don't hold anything) this can be used as a straight-up wireless/untethered controller even for an iPad.

The hardware developers would be smart to provide a library for programmers to use that includes alternative input methods.

I'm surprised they don't have more information available up on their site. It's pretty sparse to say the least. It great that the guy has gotten this far in his home-spun effort, but a lot more attention should have been put into the web site. And once he got close to actual manufacturing, he really should have gone and put up a request on Kickstarter to be able to buy more than the initial manufacturer's minimum production run (usually 3000 to 5000 units from the Chinese OEMs I've talked to).

At a minimum it has to support HID if it works like a keyboard in some certain mode. HID would also be the mode to use for a game controller, so the documentation shouldn't need to be very complex. I don't think a dedicated library supplied by the hardware guy would necessarily be needed either.

The Zeemote, another BlueTooth gaming device, has been available for quite a while and so far I don't think there's anything on the iPhone that works with it. This is gong to be an uphill battle - and the iControlPad guy really needs to reach out directly to indy game devs first.

My point is that if he develops an easy to use controls library, it might be advantageous for people to use it for their control UI, regardless of the hardware support. If a lot of games use that library and it supports the hardware in addition to whatever other non-addon UI, then he's got a built-in base of supported apps.

Looks like that controller has started shipping. I don't know whether the current sides will fit my Nexus One, though. The price isn't completely outrageous, I suppose, but I don't think I'll be purchasing it at the moment. Besides, I don't know how much support it'll have in the games I'm interested in. I suppose that's a chicken/egg sort of thing, though...