Capsuleer Doomed?

Roc Wieler posted a link to this forum post in his twitter feed yesterday.

It’s not a rumour. It’s true. The iPhone application Capsuleer, written by PyjamaSam and Roc Wieler, is no more.

We thank the community for their tremendous response and encouragement, and this has been a decision we’ve been struggling with for quite some time, but have agreed it is the correct decision to make.

We also feel a responsibility to explain to our users how and why we came to this decision.

This sucks. Capsuleer is a professional looking app on the iPhone that allowed obsessive compulsives like myself to check on skills and account balances. The blog feed reader was handy for distraction during hospital stays and other appointment waiting. And I was looking forward to the other features talked about in future editions.

Nashh Kadavr's got a petition to help keep Capsuleer alive. Check it out.

NON Eve Post! You've been warned...

So on my iPhone I've been playing a lot of Battle for Wesnoth in my spare minutes. It has lots of campaigns and I like the style of game, turn based hex based unit strategy, a lot like Panzer General and Panzer General II which I loved to death in the '90s.

The main campaign, Heir to the Throne frustrated me a lot when I first started playing. One scenario crashed the game every half turn so I had to save every minute to not lose a lot of progress (this was fixed with the latest free update, game is far more stable now and rarely crashes) and I reached another scenario where I could not win. Just could not beat the mission. I tried like ten times before I stopped playing and went back to other games for a while.

But then I came back, tried some other smaller campaigns, and then finally started the main campaign over again. I asked myself, why am I dying so badly in that mission? What am I doing wrong? Well, for starters the enemy hits hard with his attacks and my small but elite forces were getting chewed up. Every unit killed or wounded to near death left the rest that much more vulnerable. I realized I needed more cannon fodder to take the enemy charges so I could counter charge with my veteran units and then follow up with yet more cannon fodder to take the ground.

The problem was I didn't have enough gold to recall my veterans as well as recruit newbs to throw into the grinder. Until I realized there was no penalty to going into debt with the gold and making the money back through taking villages for income later in the mission or getting the early finish bonus.

With this change in tact I found I had a lot more success and not only got through the stumbling block mission, but defeated it on the first try in my new run through. With that momentum I completed the rest of the campaign successfully (25 missions) and have moved on to other campaigns, some long, some short.

Moral of the story? Sometimes you are just doing it wrong and you can't tell until you are 7 missions in.

(I was going to post a bunch of Eve screenshots but left them at home. Oh well.)

iPhone Games

No time for Eve besides updating my buy and sell orders (about 35 of them all told) so today I'd figure I'd discuss some of the games I have on my iPhone for those moments between twins.

Ant Wars Lite - Free version, very fun. Will buy the full version some time in the future.

Plants Versus Zombies - Kind of a tower defence game, it is really fun and well done. I went through the campaign and only died once. Definitely worth the three dollars.

Simcity - I love the Simcity franchise and this version is merely ok. While it manages to capture the feel of Simcity 2000, the lacking parts such as no highways, elevated terrain, advanced buildings (fusion power and garbage incinerator for examples), subways, etc made the game feel tiny. Plus the map felt very small too early. Not a game I plan to come back to.

Space Miner: Ore or Bust - This is my current go to game, its essentially an updated Asteroids game with story and achievements. Having lots of fun and can see myself playing this for a while. I like that the first two levels of the game are free to try as a demo, and you can export your progress to the full game once you buy it. Definitely worth the money.