Game Review: Spirit Stones (Mobile)

Spirit Stones is a mobile phone game from Korean developer Gamevil.  Salty Liver's fiance introduced this game to Conklederp and myself about a month back.  Before we get down to it, I want to say that I do not take this game seriously at all.  I find the combination of match three with a trading card game with a turn based RPG very refreshing as far as mobile phone games go, although I know there are other options our there.  The fact that the game is free too is an added bonus.  These are aspects of this game that I really like, especially the way the game mechanic is constructed, but it is how the game is executed that I would like to get into now.

Spirit Stones is a great example of all the sexist and misogynistic views that is wrong in the video game industry.  As the people at Extra Credits have said, a lot of people in the industry are awaiting the time when video games as a medium are taken, at least as seriously as the movie industry is to the rest of the world.  The games take on female sexuality is pretty bad in the fantasy adventure setting with its sadly common take on female armor.  In Spirit Stones, a card you have can be combined with another identical card to evolve into a more powerful card along the same character lines.  Often times, that evolution to a new card means that the female becomes more scantily clad.

While there are some male cards that the same effect happens to, there are clearly more female cards than there are male cards and some of those male cards depict beasts-type-creatures that appear male, but only because they have bulging muscles and no breasts.

I feel like it has taken the fantasy genre of video games a long time to get to the point where armor for women is comparable visually to that of their male counterparts.  Breastplates no longer just cover the breasts and groinal region, but all vulnerable areas as in, the entire body.  You know, like armor is supposed to do.  The visual depiction of women in this game I feel is a big step backwards.

And yet, I keep playing.  Why?

Like I mentioned earlier, the mechanics that make this game I enjoy in a mobile game.  

First off, it combines the match three aspect that sky rocketed the Candy Crush games to their current popularity.  

Secondly, there is the key aspect of the game, which is the TCG, although the "trading" part is welcomely absent.  I am unable to trade cards with Conklederp or Salty Liver if either of has a card that the other does not.  There is no way to create multiple accounts in order to overpower a single account.  Players can help out in timed mega boss battles, but rewards are in items that can be used to refill stamina or "buy cards."  

The third aspect to the game that I like is the turn based RPG battle.  Each on the continent map is made up of six individual stages which in turn have six levels.  Levels 1, 2, 3 & 5 are made up of a three round battle against a set number of monsters while levels 4 & 6 are made up of a five round battle with the last battle in the sixth stage being a boss battle.  Damage is determined by the match three puzzle and each board contains bonus "gems" that help clear out more "gems" which in turn do additional damage.  There are complications though that crop up on boards such as unmovable blocks that are unaffected by the removal of gems.  There are also objects that will hold onto and spread amongst the gems which are only removable by normal gem selection.  There are even Skull blocks that damage the players if not removed from the board in a certain amount of turns passes first.  At the end of each level, you have to fight a boss who has significantly more hit points than the previous monsters and often a reduced timer to attack (usually 2 - 3 turns).

While there are all of these positive aspects of Spirit Stones that are enjoyable, the over sexualized depiction of women overshadows the game quite a bit.  Even though I have not experienced any other overtly sexual instances in the game (innuendos and such), I cannot say that they do not exist in the game.  Maybe they were just too subtle?

During the process of writing this article I have come to the conclusion that I will be looking into other mobile games, albeit free games, to replace Spirit Stones.  Now I just have to hope that the other people I know who play this will not be too upset by my inevitable absence, but maybe I will be able to find something else for everyone else to become addicted to, because there is nothing quite like infecting your friends with video game awesomeness.


~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian
Light That Ass On Fire

Plants vs. Zombies 2: It's About Time - Updated (Android OS)

A while back, I'm not 100% sure when, but I want to say late last November (and it easily might have been early December, 2013), Plants vs Zombies 2: It's About Time updated on my phone.  My phone probably let me know that there was an update for the game and I thought, "Sure, go ahead, that's cool."  I'm not even 100% sure it did that as I recall, I opened my phone and noticed that the icon for the game had changed.  Maybe I just picked "Update All" and didn't pay attention.  Okay, let's assume that's what I did, as that makes the most sense.

so PvZ2 was updated.  And it wasn't just a simple update either.  This update was a complete overhaul of the game and the way it was played.  If you remember from my original look at the game, the world looked, I thought, like something out of Super Mario Bros. 3, which isn't a criticism, just an observation.

As you can see, there are multiple paths within the first world, Ancient Egypt.  You will also notice a few locked doors (you can tell they're doors because they have keyholes) along with Pyramid-Keys next to them.  These could be opened with said Pyramid-Keys which you earned randomly throughout the game, depending on which world you were in.  Ancient Egypt = Pyramid-Key, Old West = Some-Other-Key-I-Never-Got; you get the idea.

Now that the update has taken place, things not only look a bit different, but the fundamentals of how one plays the game have changed.  The gaming world, and we'll stay in Ancient Egypt, looks like this:

You will first off notice that the game is now very linear, not that that is a problem as the first PvZ was linear without a world map.  The world specific keys were turned into gold coins (10,000 I think for each).  A mini-boss level was introduced into each world stage where you have to fight the standard horde of zombies, but now Gargantuars have been thrown in for good measure.  You may have also noticed that a strange blue-orbal key has replaced the world keys.  These keys are supposed to unlock an as-of-yet released world and these keys, supposedly, can only be obtained in the Gargantuar levels, but are only dropped at random.

A minor addition to the game is that it's played a lot faster.  Suns now give 50 points instead of the usual 25.  Zombies enter the level a lot faster and they move faster, but your plants also attack faster, basically, everything is faster. And, if that's not enough fast for you, you also have the option to speed the game up further by pressing a "Fast-forward-type-button" in the upper right portion of the screen that doubles the game speed.  Not a bad idea until you realize that your reaction time is the same as before, but now the zombies are coming at you and twice their normal speed.  It would be like taking Ben and Barbaras experience from Night of the Living Dead and putting them into the Dawn of the Dead remake.  I've clicked it once and said, "Yup, they're faster," and promptly went back to standard (albeit faster than original) speed.

One other major overhaul to the game that I am not at all happy with, are the conditions to how a level is beaten/completed/finished.  In the first iteration of the game, you were given specific conditions in order to earn a Star.  Earning Stars just acted as additional challenges that increased in difficulty for a specific level.  Such conditions would be something like, "Spend No More Than 1500 Sun & Don't Lose Any Lawnmowers."  If you were to fail in any one of the conditions, you were still allowed to finish the level and often continued to earn coins, but no star was earned.  Now, if you fail to meet all of the conditions, the level ends the moment you fail.  Accidentally spend 1525 sun when you could only spend 1500, the level ends immediately.  It's kind of annoying and frustrating, especially with the lawnmowers.  Why bother even having them as an option if losing even one means you lose the level?

I actually feel sad that since this update has taken place, that I've lost a bit of interest in PvZ2.  A lot of the levels feel like they're trying to force the player to use up gold coins to buy power boosts.  There have been levels where I used any one of the boosts at least four times because I knew my defense that I had planted (sort of the whole point of the game) would not hold against what I was going up against.  Nowadays, all I look forward to are the Piñata parties, even though I wish I could turn off the costumes.

Initially, I would have given the game a "Must Play" rating, you know, if we did official ratings here.  Now, I would probably give an "You Could Live Without Playing."  Maybe I'm just becoming cynical in my old age.


~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian
Because You Don't Do Like They Think You Should

The Smartphone As A Portable Gaming Device

A lot of what I would want and could say about this topic has already been gloriously covered by Extra Credits from season 6 episode 18 titled, "Designing for a Touch Screen."  Now, if you haven't seen it, the episode looks at touch screens in the development of games for all touch screen devices.  Right now, I'm going to take one step more and look at specifically smartphones and since I've had a smartphone now for less than a month, I am an obvious expert on this topic.  What else is the Internet for?

I don't have a whole lot of experience in this arena, only what I've played on one of Conklederp's iPhones and her iPad.  Oh, and I've played a bit of Tetris and Snake on an old Nokia, but those weren't "smart"phones, so moving on.  Game-wise, there's been Fruit Ninja, some ice cream balancing game, Tiny Wings, Angry Birds, Bejeweled Blitz, you know, games that came out a number of years ago.

When thinking about smartphones, you have to take into account the size of the screen as most are anywhere between 4 - 5.5 inches, any larger than that and you're delving into tablet sized platforms.  Granted the smartphone I have is titled a "Mini" although it has roughly the same size screen as an iPhone 4, so it's not really miniature.  I didn't acquire a smartphone because I wanted a new gaming platform, but because I would be paying nearly the same as for my previous phone.

Taking into account the size of my hands which measure 6.5" x 7.5" and the area each thumb takes up (.77312 sq in).  Let alone just the size of my thumbs when pressed up against a screen, that's 13% of the screen covered if I'm just using my thumbs on touch buttons in the corners of the screen.  With this in mind, imagine that you're playing a console game, and two football keep moving in front of the screen at the corners.  The standard response would be some variation on "Move!"  This is all taken for granted with touch screen games that there will be something obscuring the screen for at least a portion of the gameplay.

Taking all this into context, I was considering purchasing the Dead Space mobile game, at first on Conklederp's iPad then on my phone when I saw it was available through the Google store.  I was excited at first, then I watched the trailer to see how the game would look on my phone.  That's when it dawned on me that I would most likely not want to buy the game on my phone but on Conklederp's iPad (with her permission of course).  Dead Space is a game that deserves to not only be played, but to be explored and looked at.  I mean there were elevator service checklists in the first game.  I want to look at those and be immersed in the world.  I don't see that happening with my fingers/thumbs covering 13% of the screen; depending on the control set up for touchscreens. 

Presently I have 10 games installed, six of which are from Humble's recent Mobile Bundle 2 and of those six games, only two really take advantage of touch screen controls, and just barely at that.  Are the games themselves any good?  I'll get to that later.  Three of the games I got for free (Bejeweled Blitz, Angry Birds and Angry Birds: Star Wars) make perfect use of not only touch screen controls, but also the fact that the screen is only 4.8 by 2.5 inches and not 32 inches.  My finger (not my thumb!) is on the screen for only a portion of the time spent playing the game.  Another perfect usage of a touch screen device.  The last game Words with Friends I got because I plan to piss off flight attendants, but not really.

So in answer to my title, which really was not a question: no, my smartphone will not replace my 3DS as my portable gaming device of choice.  And developers could take a lot from the people at Extra Credits.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

I Could Bare This Burden With You