Fortress! - (by Hindrances to Progress) - Universal App

[TouchArcade Bot]

[ElBueno]

Developer here! Just wanted to let everyone know that the current price of $2.99 is part of a pseudo-pay-what-you-want event that'll be lasting for the first two weeks of the game's release. This will give anyone who wants to help support indie developers a chance to do so. At the end of those two weeks, the price will be dropping to 99¢, so if you feel like $2.99 is out of your price range (times are tough!), by all means hold out for the price cut coming in two weeks!

Thanks for checking out my game!

[Filing Cabinet]

Originally Posted by ElBueno

Developer here! Just wanted to let everyone know that the current price of $2.99 is part of a pseudo-pay-what-you-want event that'll be lasting for the first two weeks of the game's release. This will give anyone who wants to help support indie developers a chance to do so. At the end of those two weeks, the price will be dropping to 99¢, so if you feel like $2.99 is out of your price range (times are tough!), by all means hold out for the price cut coming in two weeks!

Thanks for checking out my game!

very decent of you to mention this.

[ElBueno]

Originally Posted by Filing Cabinet

very decent of you to mention this.

Glad to! That's how PWYW works!

[ElBueno]

Originally Posted by Filing Cabinet

very decent of you to mention this.

Originally Posted by ElBueno

Glad to! That's how PWYW works!

That said, I hope some of you will indulge me and pay the measly extra two bucks.

[drelbs]

Finally got a chance to play the game this morning, and it's good!

Game plays well and is polished.

Basics: each side gets a king drawn at random, then you get to place cards (7 through Q) into your royal guard (3 spaces in front of the king) and the fence (5 spaces in the very front.) Object is to take out your opponent's king.

Suits have a strong impact - black suits have a bonus to offence, penalty to defense (and vice versa for red.) Cards that match the suit of your king have a loyalty bonus, and cards that match your opponent's king have a penalty.

Cards in the royal guard have bonuses, and cards defending through a hole in the wall in front of it get defensive bonuses for those cards (meaning you won't be very successful just punching a hole straight to the king.)

At the beginning of your turn, you can replace a card, then attack until you lose a battle, or have attacked with all available cards. Cards eliminated from the royal guard can't be replaced, and if the wall is completely cleared out, you can't put any more cards there.

Battle starts with each card's stats, then each player draws two cards from the "dice pile" which contains all the A-6 cards. You get to draw again if you draw a pair. A pair of sixes eliminates the opponent. Then you add the points to your attack/defense stat and see who has the most. >=5 more eliminates the opponent. <5 damages the opponent. Ties damage both cards. Damaged cards have weaker stats, making them easier to eliminate.

If you managed to read through all that, you might be able to see why I found a lot more meat to this game than I was expecting. No need to worry about mechanics - the game will show you a breakdown of cards' current stats and handles all the drawing for you. Everything is animated and quick. Games take a couple of minutes, making this a great strategy-on-the-go game. There is an AI, or you can play against a friend on the same device.

Cons: Not much. Games can be one-sided depending on what you get on your initial draw - you can't replace those guard cards, and you can get pretty lucky/hosed with loyal/disloyal suits. Games go fast enough that it's not a huge problem, but perhaps with alternate fixed deck layouts this could be mitigated. I'm not sure yet if each player starts with equal numbers of each rank card, but that might be one possibility. It might also be interesting to see games where each person gets all of their suit, and an even mix of the other two (meaning they get one each of 7-K, but the suits are split up.) Perhaps one card could be a guaranteed disloyal.

I'd also like to see final attack/defense stats displayed on the cards at all times (right now you get stats if you tap on a card, and tapping again gives you a breakdown of how those final stats are generated) to speed things up a tad. Also, the initial draw of kings is random, and could probably just be skipped/automated, especially in two-player mode.

EDIT: A basic rulebook/manual screen would be welcome for refreshing the memory without having to step through the good interactive tutorial.

tl;dr A great game for a buck, more to it than it seems. Did I mention it's universal?

[MrMojoRisin]

I wish the art was a little more "serious", but I guess it fits the lite tone of the gameplay pretty well. Other than that, looks like another great lite strategy game on iOS!!

[ElBueno]

Originally Posted by drelbs

[lots of words]

Wow! Awesome feedback! Thank you so much!

[drelbs]

Originally Posted by ElBueno

Wow! Awesome feedback! Thank you so much!

One more I forgot: I'd love a quick number total to appear at the end of combat resolution - since the stats are in the middle, and the dice cards are dealt to the top/bottom of the screen, it can be difficult to catch the A vs D numbers since things animate fairly quickly.

[ColeDaddy]

Thanks for the write up, drelbs. You made me a believer. Buying right now...

Edit: waiting...anticipating...downloading...(wish the icon was a bit more attractive, though)

Hmmmm...game crashed as I was going through the tutorial. I have the latest iOS, non-jb with about 6.5 gb of space available. Anyone have this problem?

Also, it'd be cool if "Universal" was included in the thread title. It may pull in iPad owners to take a look-see at the thread. Perhaps a mod can fix?