25 June 2012

Gone Missing?

A recent App Store review (five stars, if you were wondering) wrote:
I have noticed some things are missing from the iPhone version (this one) that the old PC version had. Like allotting magic points to children and hunting and the ability to slaughter sheep, pigs and horses for food when the clan is starving. I can only guess what else is missing, though I hope it's not a lot. I'm not sure exactly what is affected but I personally am something of a perfectionist and would love to have the entire full game same as before.
I’ve written about this before, but in summary: I disagree. The new edition is better. A lot better. It removes a lot of fiddly bits that made little difference (Children magic, for example, was very rarely used), and we added over two dozen new scenes and a bunch of treasures. We improved the maps and added Game Center achievements. There are new advisors, and a lot of new advice. And you can play the game via VoiceOver.

One thing that was removed for practical, rather than design reasons, was the Tula screen. It was certainly a fun screen, but it really didn’t impact game play a lot. (And to answer another App Store review, no, it will not be in a Universal update.)
list of fixed bugs
Fixed Bugs

We also made a lot of bug fixes, many of which were impossible to fix for the original.

Oh, and you can still slaughter horses if you’re desperate for food.

So, I too am a perfectionist, which is why the game is not the same. I believe it’s a much better game than the original.



For more details about what’s changed, see these articles:

What’s New
Crafters
Livestock
Treasures
Map
Automatic Save
Choices
Back-Patching
(Or search all Design articles)

18 comments:

  1. I played the original KoDP and still would if windows would not crash it.

    I kid you not, it is the main reason I am buying an iPad. Hope to make a Let's Play series once I get it. Can't wait to see the improvements on the new version.

    Your game is great. Cheers from sunny Brazil.

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  2. Any news on the progres of the iPad Version?

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  3. But... But... I loved overcrowding my village with childrenses and trying to manage starvation. Honestly, I want the option to slaughter thralls. :3

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  4. I too worry that I am not getting the full (PC) KoDP experience on my iPhone, but my concern only lies with the challenge of the game. I read somewhere on here that the new KoDP was made easier than the old PC KoDP.

    To the developers, can you confirm or deny this? Can you elaborate on it any?

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  5. We are still working on a Universal version but have no release date.

    You can still perform human sacrifice, should you choose to.

    You are getting MORE than the PC experience due to additional story content and treasures. Yes, the game is a little easier (see http://kingofdragonpass.blogspot.com/2011/09/whats-new.html). But not radically so — a lot of the effort was put into avoiding a death spiral. If you really want the insanely hard level, I think you’ll find it’s still very challenging.

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  6. Oh, and I know one player of the PC version finds the iOS version harder, because we fixed a bug he took advantage of.

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  7. So you're saying the hardest difficulty wasn't changed that much from the PC version to the iPhone version?

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  8. Love this game - just beat it for the first time when the girl who was raised in a shield ended up becoming our Queen of Dragon Pass...

    One quirk I noticed is that the ring's farming/animal expert often pops up around Sacred Time to say that we don't have enough farmers. But then when I go to the Farmers screen, everybody on my ring (including the farming expert who was just complaining) says that we have enough farmers.

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  9. David, do you remember what picking each of the ancestral enemies does exactly? I've played quite a bit and this is still somewhat unknown to me. Do you remember all the potential consequences you programmed in? Does it make that particular group more likely to attack you, or to bring about an apocalypse-type event from that group easier?

    I've heard that picking the Ice Demons makes it easier for you to raid during dark season, and other such unsubstantiated rumors.

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  10. Pravit: sometimes it’s the difference between farmers (the carl class) and farmers (plant-tenders). If this happens, please send a bug report: http://a-sharp.com/kodp/bug.html

    Lost, I don’t recall the specifics. I guess it’s not in the manual, though advisors will often remark on them. The apocalypses are based solely on what you in the game. BTW, this is a good post to piggyback on, because at least one of the original choices had pretty much no impact, so we removed it.

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  11. Sorry to beat a dead horse David, but would I get a significantly more challenging experience with KoDP if I were to order the pc version (burned copy) from you? I find the most satisfying achievements are those you really need to work for.

    Or is the iOS hard difficulty setting not much different from the old pc hard difficulty setting.

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  12. Crap, just realized this isn't the top blog topic. Hopefully you still see my message!

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  13. I think you would get a somewhat less interesting experience, with more bugs and fewer interactive scenes. Assuming you could get it running (most people can, but there are some Windows configurations that it’s not happy with).

    If you can run KoDP on iPhone or iPad, I highly recommend that over a PC.

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  14. You didn't mention the difficulty though, is there much difference between hard on the pc and hard on the iOS? The pc version might be cool to try out just for kicks (I already own KoDP on two separate iTunes accounts), but if the difficulty on hard between the two versions isnt that different then I'll just stick with my iPhone and iPad versions. Last question for the month, scouts honor. Thanks in advance if you answer

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  15. I'd love to know how less likely deathspirals are and how much challenge was taken from hard mode as well if any developers can please answer. I was a huge fan of the pc version, and worry that the game was made easy for the casual iPhone gamer base. Hopefully I'm wrong, but feedback from a staff member would be great. Thinking of picking either this up, or dusting off my old pc copy.

    Cheers

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  16. I have designed casual games. King of Dragon Pass is absolutely not a casual game. So far as I can tell, Hard is still pretty darned hard.

    A death spiral you cannot possibly pull out of, no matter how well you play, is not fun. I don’t have any way to measure the difference, or put a number on difficulty. We made a few changes based on many years of experience in game development, but it’s the same game. It’s true you don’t have to worry about running out of sheep, but we had a dumb bandaid for that in the original, and I think 2.0 simply does a better job fixing that bug.

    Nothing wrong with the PC version, but the new edition fixes bugs (which can be annoying when you run into them) adds new scenes (which are hopefully interesting as well as fleshing out the game world slightly). Given the choice, I don’t see why you would want a more annoying and less interesting experience.

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  17. Thanks for the detailed reply. Sounds like the iPhone version is the way to go, your advice is much appreciated. Can't wait to dive back into Dragon Pass

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