Waiting for this and Neuroshima Hex is totally killing me. Great to hear that it'll be submitted soon. Man, I've never been so eager to spend five buck on something.
Don't worry, once we get a critical mass of players it will definitely take more than 10 games for people to get in the Hall of Honor. Right now since we only have a handful of people, the minimum required honor is pretty low. For newer players, you'll still be able to see your current global ranking even if you're not in the hall of honor.
Game Impressions Got in some of my first online games this weekend and, GOSH DANG, does this game have buckets of polish and panache! I mean, not even getting into the brilliance of the RK game design, but the actual stuff that Conlan has designed around it with player rankings, push notifications when it is your turn, ability to create your own list of game buddies (complete with detailed stats on each of their online careers in the game), being able to see at a moment's notice which tiles you and your opponent's haven't played yet as well as the current idol count in the game (just in case you're coming back to a game after a few days or have several games running concurrently). Heck, in this regard the game even keeps a written history of all moves made so far in the current game so you can come back up to speed that way as well. Now, back to the RK game in question, this one is a hoot with so much strategy within the strategy. The key to success in this game is only exerting just enough influence to win, and even then not being tricked into a big influence showdown with your opponents if you could simply let them take a given idol while you lay the ground work to snag up three others they're not even paying attention to. This also is made trickier, as only RK can do, in how the game counts both the game ending (there are at least 4 or more ways a game can end) and winning conditions. As you may have already seen there are three different types of idols so if you are in a game that you know is nearly over getting that fifth warrior idol, no matter how easy it might be to pull off at the moment, doesn't really do you any good if you already are well ahead of everybody in warrior idols. As a matter of fact the game only cares about who has the most in each of the three categories and, if a tie, it will be broken by the number of idols you have in your NON-WINNING categories. So getting that fifth warrior would be meaningless whereas getting another peasant idol, even if not getting you anywhere close to winning in the peasant category, could prove far more useful in the end. Be afraid, be VERY afraid (just not of me as I still suck wind at the game)!
Almost there guys! Thanks LordGek, we're really lucky to have gotten you and the other early testers in
My problem seems to be not letting the others snag up the several that I've been paying attention to. I haven't yet mastered the skill of setting things up correctly to be able to grab multiple idols at a time. Inevitably, right as I think I have things set up will, one of the other players comes along and steals them or swaps the idols out from under me. It is rare that I pull one over on the other players in this game. Other Reiner Knizia games (I've played a lot of his board games) I don't seem to have as much trouble with. This is just one of those games that I need to play a bit more to get good at. Ra, another upcoming iPhone release, took me several plays of the board game to get the hang of. Then things finally clicked for me. I keep hoping that Samurai will as well. I've had the board game for years but only played a few times before regaining interest with this upcoming release. Personally, it's nice to see a computer opponent that gives me a real challenge in a game like this. As for the polish and attention to detail, I think that people will be very pleased. The graphics are clear and easy to view and you can zoom out easily to get a good overview of the entire board. The computer players are definitely competent and will give people a good start before jumping into games with other players. The only thing that I really want that isn't here is an iPad native version so that there isn't a need to zoom in and out on the board. That is true for pretty much every non-Universal or native iPhone board game adaptation so far, though. I like the iPhone, but the iPad was seemingly born for this type of board game adaptation. Hopefully sales will prompt Conlan to want to put the effort into an iPad version as well.
@Finandir: No worries man, universal iPad support is under development and will follow the iPhone release as soon as we can!
I can remember playing this g Board game !! Any news as to when it will be getting released ? Still on target for late august ?
