November 29, 2011

Explore Here, Please. I’ll Pay You.

Okay, let’s reach back on the ol’ list of blog ideas that I haven’t gotten around to writing yet.
Oh, okay, here’s an old one. Majesty.

Majesty is a series that one Matthew Essner really enjoys. I knew that, but I didn’t know much about it until I watched a quick look of the new one on Giant Bomb. The idea of not having direct control over your units, just how you spend money, seemed really appealing, so when I saw that there was a Majesty game on iOS for a buck, I figured I’d pick it up and give it a try.

First off, let me just say that the controls are not that great. They feel like someone shoehorning in normal PC controls on a touch screen. It’s very hard to set items down exactly where you want them, because you have to double tap on a grid that is actually very small. This can create problems when you’re trying to place important structures like defense towers. It also is near-impossible to set “Defend this” flags, which is kind of an issue, too.

The other thing that really confused me is that this isn’t a port! Apparently the levels in this are completely different than in the PC version, which is just… crazy. If they were going to make new levels, why not make controls that aren’t ass? I only found this out when I went looking for help on a level I got stuck on, and Essner told me that level simply isn’t in the game he played. How crazy is that, right?

Still, the basic concept is still cool. Instead of issuing orders to your adventurers, you post various bounties. “Explore here, get 100 gold.” “Kill this, get 200.” The more money, the more people will want to do it. When you pay the adventurers for doing this, they will spend the money in your shops buying a new enchanted sword, or some healing potions so they can take on harder jobs. It’s like you’re controlling the random sidequest board in an RPG, and I am down with that. There were certainly some points where I was like “Dammit, just kill that thing!” but most of the time I enjoyed the feel.

This version has problems, though. It apparently works on an iPhone, but I have no idea how shitty the game would play on that small of a screen. It’s a weird product, but I suppose if you enjoyed the original game, and had a buck, picking it up wouldn’t be a bad move to have some more of that action on the go. I know Essner was certainly interested when I showed it to him.

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