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Sonic Dash: offputting microtransactions

Posted on 12/05/2014 Written by Xexyz

Sonic Dash may be the best Sonic game for years - in that it's not trying to be anything other than a fast run through scenery.  It's an endless runner, with controls which match Sonic's standard abilities - jumping in a ball, rolling in a ball, and running fast.  You have to jump over, roll under or dodge obstacles, and roll into enemies to kill them.  From time to time there's an easy boss battle.


There's a bit of added complexity which sits behind the main game.  By completing missions, which vary from simple things like "collect 200 rings in a game" to difficult things like "avoid rings for 1000m", you can build up the multiplier applied to your score.  You can also double the multiplier by filling up the dash meter (the bar in the bottom-right, filled by collecting rings) and not activating it.  By doing this I now have an X38 multiplier, and my high score is 997,000 (compared to the next highest on my friends list of 67,000).

One thing to note that I couldn't find elsewhere on the Internet - one of the missions is to "use 5 revives in one run" which I assumed meant that you had to revive Sonic five times; since the number of tokens required doubles each time I assumed this meant I'd need 31 tokens.  Instead, the mission completed when I revived for the third time, which was annoying after I'd been saving up revive tokens for two weeks.

There are other bits to the game as well.  Over Easter there was a special event whereby collecting eggs randomly placed throughout the levels let you earn additional unlockables.  I managed to collect about 220 eggs over the period, which meant that I unlocked Cream the Rabbit.  Yes, real name.


So, all rosy.  The downside to the game is that it's full of microtransaction rubbish, where you spend rings to get new characters or upgrades, and collecting the rings in-game takes ages so you feel like spending real money to get more rings.  And it's not as if it's really hidden.


It's odd, I would happily have paid a few pounds for this game given how well it works and its production values, but I won't spend 69p on virtual currency in the game even though I got the whole game for free.  They're making significantly less money from me.

Filed Under: Gaming Diary Tagged With: iPad, iPhone

1000 Heroz: completed!

Posted on 03/03/2014 Written by Xexyz

I can't remember when I first started playing 1000 Heroz; it was some time before September 2011, but I'm not sure how many days I'd been playing by that point.  I went back and completed all the levels at the start that I missed quite early on.  If I wanted to find out, I suppose I could look at every leaderboard and find the first one for which I had a time registered, but doing that involves opening every level and waiting for the leaderboard to open - it's not happening.

Even if I estimate that I've been playing since day 80, that's still over two and a half years of daily challenges.  I've played the vast majority of those; there were times when I had issues connecting, and there were very occasional times when I simply forgot.  I've always caught up on the missed days, though, and made sure that I had gold starred every level.

And then, today ...


Today is the last day.  Day 1000.  It was with a mixture of relief and sadness that I opened the level, not sure what to expect - a really long level, using all obstacles, or a long flat run with a credits sequence?  No, it was a normal level, 20 seconds long, with annoying bouncy blobs.  Not exactly going out with a bang.  The most fun part of the level came right at the start, with a swing just after an up-ramp, where it was tricky to set the swing going without overshooting.  These two scenarios were both seen many times.



And then the level was over.


Unfortunately, Onze has rejoined the RLLMUK leaderboard, meaning that I was unable to finish with a win.  I may have played this game a lot, but that doesn't mean I'm that good at it.  Still, at least I beat everyone else on the last day.  I'm the only UGVM player left, so I did at last win (by default) on that leaderboard.


And with that done, where have I finished?  First, the good news.  Through simple volume, i'm top of the UGVM leaderboard.


As predicted, I wasn't able to catch up with Don Rosco on the RLLMUK leaderboard, though I did make some progress.  My second place has cruelly been snatched by Onze's return.


And where did I place globally?  I am the 330th best 100 Heroz player in the world.


So that's it.  Every level completed with three stars, all relics obtained (including five from the tutorial levels which evidently aren't included in the total below), and all but one achievement gained.  The one I'm missing is for collecting 250,000 gold, which I'm still some way off - and given that you tend to get about 100 gold from fifteen minutes of playtime, that's not something I'm going to chase.


Thank RedLynx for the game.  Thanks to the UGVM and RLLMUK players for the competition.  Thanks to the elite players showing me every day that there were limits to my skill - or my patience and time, at least.  I suspect that tomorrow I'll find myself at a loss of what to do ...

... who am I kidding.

A couple of great posts about 1000 Heroz:

  • from when it started,
  • and from today.

Filed Under: Gaming Diary Tagged With: completed, iPhone

1000 Heroz: nearly there

Posted on 19/12/2013 Written by Xexyz

Up to day 926 now, and I'm all-but-out of the RLLMUK leaderboard, as Donny Rosco is 40,000 points ahead and while I beat him on most days, that's only gaining me 100 points a day on average.  My period of not playing has come back to haunt me.

Most days see me getting a global rank of around 200, which is pleasing.  I think at the moment I'm 50th in the world, but there's a fair bit of time still to go.

Filed Under: Gaming Diary Tagged With: iPhone

Drop 7: I hate 1s

Posted on 13/10/2013 Written by Xexyz

Stupid pieces who never disappear and just get in the way.  Grrr.

Filed Under: Gaming Diary Tagged With: iPhone

Conceptis Puzzles: freemium done right

Posted on 10/05/2013 Written by Xexyz

According to Mr Kavanagh, I have somehow missed the launch of the follow-up to my third most-played 3DS game.  I'm somewhat loathe to download this, as I know I'll end up playing it exclusively for the next few weeks.  I'm frequently tempted to do so anyway, but only at work and I can't connect my 3DS to the Internet there.

But yesterday I fancied a bit of a puzzle.  As I'm unable to buy Picross E 2 using work's WiFi network, I investigated what was available on the iPhone for my journey home instead.  There are, as you'd expect, a lot of picross puzzles, at various prices. There are also slitherlink puzzles, and other such grid games.  Some of the best I've found are by Conceptis, who provide a decent number of free puzzles in their (free) apps, with lots of additional puzzles available at a cost.  The controls of the puzzles have been well thought out given the limitations of the touch screen - a lack of accuracy in particular.

Investigating their catalogue has introduced me to some new puzzle types as well - link-a-pix and hashi in particular.  Hashi is a bit tricky to work out the logic at times, but I'm getting there.

Filed Under: Gaming Diary Tagged With: iPhone

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What is this word “late” which you are saying? I do not recognise it and I do not understand it and I do not wish to believe it exists! Episode 96 cannot be late, for it was never scheduled. Sir, you embarrass yourself.

Arguments about timetabling aside, we would like to invite you to enjoy this most recent (at time of typing) episode of your favourite podcast! deKay, Kendrick and Orrah huddled round a warm bucket of cocoa and discussed, to varying lengths, the important news of our time – including Nintendo’s Mario Direct, more unfortunate developers losing their jobs because Money, Microsoft increasing the price of Game Pass (again, because Money) and Starbreeze getting several years into developing an eagerly anticipated Dungeons & Dragons game before pulling the plug because, well, Money. Thankfully, there’s some Good Stuff too, like chat about these games.

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