Hi guys, I've just started playing and as for now it's great - big thanks to everyone involved in development of iPad version. Just one question - are you able to enter the storehouse in prologue?
I'm having difficulty keeping my enthusiasm in check at the office at the moment... Holy hell how I want to get home!
Ok, so I will edit this post with my findings! First of all, I have to say I am impressed by the menu. One tip is that under options it still says "mouse speed" maby this should be adjusted to scroll speed or something?
I love it. BG was MADE for ipad, the interface works great. All the tasks that a mouse or keyboard would have done, can now be done by touch. The interface is fluid.
I never played TUTU, however I can see the influence of BGII art assets in BGI, I'll miss the BGI avatars, but oh well. There do appear to be a few rough edges with the interface...perhaps this will be fixed in the forthcoming patches.
Speaking of Avatars...they do look noticeably pixelated when zoomed in to the max. Of course, there is nothing we can do about this, and it actually reminds me of playing the game on my old imac in certain respects. I can live with it though. I LOVE the fact that there is ZERO wait for transitions, its like magic.
Will now have to spend a few agonizing hours creating my character!
I would love to review it, but I must wait for Apple to approve the iOS 5 version. Does anyone have any idea why Apple is so hard to deal with as a developer? I will not upgrade my iPad to iOS 6. Ever.
I would love to review it, but I must wait for Apple to approve the iOS 5 version. Does anyone have any idea why Apple is so hard to deal with as a developer? I will not upgrade my iPad to iOS 6. Ever.
Ever? Why not? iOS6 improved performance on my iPad 3 noticeably.
I like the new interface and look of the game and was very happy to play it. However, I quickly got frustrated with the iPad version. The biggest problem is entering a building or picking something up very small, as there is no such thing as mouseover. There's one door at the Friendly Arm that I did not manage to walk through, for minutes. Moving your group is also something you need to get used to, as you often change the place their walking to if you're trying to move the map while your group is walking. Fights work fine, though I found it frustrating to no longer have the blinking circle under your enemy's feet once you've selected it as the target of your attack. As you unpause, you just have to hope that your click on the enemy was successful. My problems may come from me not using the iPad often; it might get more intuitive with experience, but after a good hour of playing, I decided to stop and wait for the Mac version. For some things a mouse just works a lot better than a finger.
I would love to review it, but I must wait for Apple to approve the iOS 5 version. Does anyone have any idea why Apple is so hard to deal with as a developer? I will not upgrade my iPad to iOS 6. Ever.
It's not Apple, Beamdog has to get it running on the iPad 1.
I'm absolutely loving it, it's brilliant on the iPad! I've had one crash in about 6 or more hours of playing. There are a few small issues, like when area of effect with animation spells are in effect he game slows down about half speed until the effect has finished (entanglement, stinking cloud etc) this is on an iPad 2 so it might not be a problem on the newer iPads with more ram. The other issue is doorways without a door don't show up when you press the "tab" button so its very hard to get in some doorways even if you know they are there, next to impossible if you don't. I think these are the only real issues I've had. I'd write more but I'm going back to play! Oh, and one more bug, if I click on Boo the game crashes. Beware the miniature giant space hamster!
Overall the game is great, but there are some quite annoying flaws: -Spell descriptions are only viewable if the spellbook is filled. -Scrolling works badly if there are selectable items (e.g. proficiencies menu, behaviour menu). -Blackouts after minimising and returning to the game. -As noted above: picking up small items is nigh impossible. In fact, even selecting units isn't exactly easy.
Well, that's quite obvious, isn't it? However, constantly having to zoom in and out makes the gameplay a bit irritating. I'd rather they just increase the collision sizes of the models.
I'm having difficulty keeping my enthusiasm in check at the office at the moment... Holy hell how I want to get home!
Ok, so I will edit this post with my findings! First of all, I have to say I am impressed by the menu. One tip is that under options it still says "mouse speed" maby this should be adjusted to scroll speed or something?
more to come!
This is my problem, spending a little time at lunch means I didn't even leave Candlekeep (still amazed at the roll I got for my Druid Avenger in under 5min, never thought I'd have to do "how do I spend these last 6 points.")
Just got done playing the Tutorial (nice way to do it BTW) so with at least a little bit of experience under my built, here is my official review on the BG:EE iPad and it's interface.
Visuals and Sound --------------------------------- If you enjoyed the original BG you will enjoy BG:EE. Don't come into it expecting an HD game with perfect visibility, it's not there yet, and I don't believe it was intended to be. Things are grainy and the lighting is typically terrible...but that's what the game is about...what it's always been...it's not a problem with the application code, it's how the game was originally intended to play.
Things ARE clear, but generally you will end up doing A LOT of zooming. Having not played in years, I'd forgotten that dead corpses drop items visible to the world on top of themselves (so a kobold dropping a dagger means the dagger will appear in the game world on top of the kobold's corpse). It is tough to see (mixed in with the corpse colours and pixels) the item on top of the corpse without zooming in...and tougher yet to click on the item...but more on all of this later.
The music is, as you would expect, well done. From the main screen through the tutorial it's the background music you will remember from the original and it does exactly what it's supposed to...provides a good background.
The environmental sound is great. I forget what it was but I had a couple times on the tutorial where I was playing around and I actually turned my head at an environmental sound expecting that someone had come up behind me as I was playing with headphones in...only to realize that the sound came from the game, not my surroundings.
Overall, the visual and sound components will be what you remember (not much better either which is either good or bad based upon your nostalgia for the original game).
iPad Gameplay ----------------------------- Before I get too far into this review, I need to make some comments on game play on the iPad itself (vs Gameplay on a computer). Surprisingly enough, managing the iPad itself is somewhat difficult with all the click/tapping you have to do in the game.
For anyone used to being able to keep 2 hands on the device while playing a game and/or being able to comfortably rest the iPad in some kind of neutral position, you may find it somewhat difficult to manage the game on the iPad. I kept wanting to lay the iPad down on my lap in some way to make it stable and then use 2 hands to play the game...or to pick the iPad up and try to hold it in both hands while tapping and clicking.
While not "uncomfortable", the game plays in landscape mode, and you're going to have to keep the iPad stable in that mode AND be able to tap/swipe/press on the screen to make the game work...a somewhat difficult task when trying to use 1 hand to stabilize the device and another to play. You'll find your best configuration is to play this with some kind of hard surface that can do the work of holding the iPad for you or curled up in a chair with a real lap.
Bathroom play is easily possible but significantly more difficult than you would expect.
Lack of a mouse and the need to scroll in/out all the time is probably the most off-putting part of this release. The tap and scroll interface does work, and works well (scrolling text boxes is a dream, but you have to be careful with some boxes, like the chat boxes) as scrolling back in a chat box by finger dragging the chat box will automatically select / make clicks of the next option when you release).
More in "interface".
Lastly is battery. I started this morning with full charge on my iPad. I did spend about an hour this afternoon reading which I believe drained my iPad 3's battery to somewhere around 92% or so. From there when I exited BG:EE my battery was at 80%, a good 10 - 12% gone through play of the game for maybe an hour...but probably more like 45 minutes. This is to be expected: the game is not Angry Birds...but just keep in mind if you're going on a long trip somewhere, you're not going to get 10 hours of game play on a fully charged device like this...bring a charger!
Combat -------------------- For anyone wondering if the iPad version maintains the same "turn based real time" combat as the computer version of the PC game did...it does. The Pause button is prominent in the lower left hand corner of the screen and is the first thing the game introduces you to.
"Pause when Combat is Engaged" is NOT on by default. I haven't dug into the interface to turn this on yet, but assumably it is there. Given the location of the pause button and the manageability of the device itself, you'll likely want it to turn pause on automatically on combat start. There are too many troubles with the interface to try to play this "real time" without pausing.
The combat system works exactly as you expect it to from the original game and all the hints (something on the portrait telling you what action your character is currently performing for instance) are there. Managing to GET combat instructions to your characters can be challenging at times, however.
I think the original game had the same problem, but issuing orders and having them carried out can definitely be challenging. After picking up the Flame Strike staff in the tutorial I was never able to get it actually USED by the cleric in the party...I tried 3 times and never did get the "use" of the staff to take.
Movement --------------------------- The only thing I can say for movement is that it works and works as well as the original used to (which isn't saying a lot since some of the issues are obviously inherited with the game).
The biggest thing missing in the movement department is the ability to circle the party configuration 360 degrees around the cursor pointer. In the PC version of the game you used to be able to (correct me, this may be off) right click (center cllick?) and hold on a movement position and drag your mouse around...this would circle the group configured movement in a 360 degree arc around the main point, allowing you to turn your party in the direction you wanted and avoid standing them on top of things or in your way. I don't see an option for how you would "twist" the party configuration locations so that if you're moving due west, the main party member would end up as the farthest east or to line you your party in a north south facing method.
I may just be missing something here, but it would be nice to change the direction the party ends up facing at the end of a move.
Interface --------------------------- Now to the crux...the iPad interface. First off I have to give huge kudos to the dev team on this for even being able to translate this to iPad...the total effect is absolutely awesome and overall the interface is exactly what you'd expect from an iPad game...taps, clicks, click and dags, etc.
There ARE problems, many of them documented in other threads here.
As with most iPad games that are built for larger screens originally, tap accuracy can become a bit of a problem. You will find yourself scrolling in and out significantly often...if not ALL THE TIME. The farthest out scroll provides you a good overview of the battle but you can't see ANY of the drops. The shortest in scroll will definately allow you to see drops and items, but will limit your view of the battlefield. However, as with the original, in many cases if you're not right there zoomed in all the way, it can become hard to get a target you want.
The lack of solid "target acquired" feedback in the game also causes a significant amount of trouble...Since you have to go through a few tap steps to attack an enemy, it would be nice for a visual indication to show you what party member has what characters engaged, or even from an "overview" perspective what characters are marked to BE engaged. Again, I'm not sure this is a Beamdog issue...I believe it was this bad in the original game also.
Memorizing spells is a PITA. It's easy enough to memorize but if you do not "know" what the icons stand for anymore, you're not going to get help from the interface...you cannot "tap/hold" on a spell icon in the memorization interface to get a description of the spell. Still looking for my work around to this.
I've found it easier to play zoomed out, and then when you want to do anything pause, zoom in, select character to work with, interact with object, zoom out. Unfortunately this does seem to be what you have to do with EVERYTHING...zooming in and out over and over again.
The other thing missing is any indication of an interactable object BEING interacted with. Lets say you want Imoen to unlock a chest. In today's games you're used to telling the character to unlock the chest and getting some kind of indicator on the chest that it's going to get interacted with. This is missing from this game (again, I don't believe this is an iPad only issue). You click Imoen, you click the thief skills button and you click the object...however you have NO idea if you actually properly clicked the object in question...you DO NOTE that Imoen begins to move, but whether she's going to interact with the tapped object or if you just happened to tap the ground instead of the object you don't know till she moves and stops.
A finger is not a mouse pointer, and these objects (particularly if not zoomed all the way in) are SMALL on the iPad 3 (let alone the mini). Some indication of whether an object was going to be interacted with (Say keep it glowing blue like when you press the "hint" button) would definitely help.
Speaking of the hint button, this needs to be expanded. Again, I know the original game didn't highlight exits and doors and such with the press of tab, but the original game was for a big screen with mouse-over also. Given the lighting and dark dankness of the game's feel indoors, some of these area transitions are just about impossible to find...it wasn't until I zoomed all the way in and started looking around that the way down into the cellar of the tutorial was visible...I certainly never noticed it till I actively started searching for it.
Conclusion ---------------------- All of the above said DO NOT LET IT SCARE YOU! If you're reading this and other threads describing issues with the interface and saying "oh geez, maybe I shouldn't buy the iPad version", you're missing out.
Overall the interface is fine. There ARE inconsistencies and minor annoyances with the iPad interface, no question about it...target selection and interaction are two of the biggest of those issues. Still, it's not HARD to deal with. If you abuse Pause, you'll get the hang of it really quickly and shouldn't suffer too much. If, like me, you bought the game on iPad for the convenience of being able to carry it with you, the minor annoyances like this shouldn't be that big a deal...nothing is game breaking and I suspect with play it'll become much easier and clearer.
Other than spell descriptions on the memorization page, I haven't found anything that doesn't work or can't be made to work in some way...this is GOOD. The game feels solid and certainly non-crashy.
In app purchase should be clearer...I haven't started the main campaign yet, so I don't believe I've hit the place where to purchase additional characters and such, but I'd think it would be big and emblazoned on the front page for where to buy in game app purchases. A button on the main interface would go a long way toward making the in app purchases more visible.
Overall I'd give the iPad version of the game anywhere from an 8.5 to a 9 out of 10. The game is the original game, no question about it. The tutorial did a great job explaining the what's and hows, and the look and feel really is the original game. The only things I ding the game for is the interface and, as I said, many of those issues I believe is more an issue with the functionality not being in the original game than the iPad port of the interface.
Of the major issues, the lack of spell descriptions on the memorization page and the tap to target interface's lack of good feedback to the user are the two most egregious. If those get fixed to the point where you can clearly select a character and select a target and know you've made that selection, the game would certainly gain a 9.5 or 9.75 of 10.
My main issue is no doubt, the accuracy of clicking and no real feedback on targeting. I think I've targeted a spell at a Gibberling, but instead I'm walking to it. I did find out how to get spell descriptions (click and hold... wait... release, there it is.)
But the finger clicking, sometimes I move and sometimes I slide the screen. It's really hard to tell which will happen, and that can be frustrating.
Still, it's BG and it works on my iPad. I'm thrilled, just with reservations. I think they can improve this over time, give us more feedback in the clicking interface. Also, maybe allow the "tab" function to be sticky (as an on/off instead of click.. release and hope you clicked on the right hay bale.)
My multiplayer ipad experience today with 2 friends at work:
Connection: Connected fine to me (over a wireless router), character setting seemed decent. My Ipad went to sleep after like 3 minutes if I wasn't actively using the game and it would disconnect them. I feel like this is a bit short, but maybe I can change my ipad settings
Once in game, any time anyone starts a dialog, everyone jumps into it. 4 times during our 2 hour session (mostly in candlekeep) people got stuck in dialog boxes and couldn't do anything until we opened a new box. We couldn't buy items all at once at the shop, we had to do it one at a time. 4 times my friends could only see me (as the host) and themselves, but not the other players, frequently when entering/exiting buildings.
Overall it seems... almost there, but not quite. I wasn't able to keep up my friends enthusiasm for the game and we resolved to wait until some patches come out before we begin to play.
I've found that if I tap to attack, there'll be an audio response from the character, also in the dialog box. If nothing happens, I've missed my target. The same with thieving, the dialog box will inform if the chest is locked, lock picked successfully or failed.
But I really, really miss being able to see what spells are available to me in combat. It's no use having to go to the spell book and waste time to "hold tap" to see what the spells I have memorized do. This ought to be done via the button equilavent of the pc's "TAB" button. (Can't recall what it's called on the iPad). This will really put newcomers to the game off. It boggles my mind they haven't thought of a solution to this.
It might also have been a good idea to implement two and three finger touch to different functions, and even double tab to some functions. In fact, now that I think about it, it would have been excellent to be able to just double tab on an icon to get a quick tooltip. Again, it's not rocket science.
Wow, very insightful reviews. Thinking about the lack of rollover, we almost need another button in the main interface, such as a query button, like what one may find in Word or photoshop, press the '?' Button, then it could allow you to hover over any interface item, spell, chest, door, ect... And give a simple ( no more than a word or two) popup description. This would solve the lack of rollover ( which is impossible for touch) rather nicely. I wonder if the BG engine wold supports feature like this? @trentoster
It started out pretty cool, but as soon as I got a full group, things started to fall apart. Fights feel incredibly unresponsive. Because of lack of cursor, I can't know if I targeted the enemy or clicked on the ground beside him. I already sent my archer to his death this way once =( Commands also feel very unresponsive. Sometimes your characters simply ignore commands, I even had the whole party ignore the "STOP" button several times.
The iPad version needs a LOT more feedback options to compensate for the lack of cursor.
These UI issues needs to be adressed in order to make this game really enjoyable:
- targeting feedback/confirmation - interactable object visualization is implemented, but needs to be turned into a 'toggle' instead of 'keep pressed to invoke' since keeping the TAB key pressed and still moving and clicking the mouse might work on the PC but not on the iPad - area entry end exit points require some kind of highlighting and defined 'tab-here-to-enter-or-leave' locations
I will probably curb my enthusiasm until this is remedied and hold on playing this game.
I am thoroughly enjoying the game, but I do have one complaint so far about the tutorial (I realise this may not be an issue limited to the iPad). I am completely new to BG, and it would have been helpful having some indication as to what all of the buttons mean DURING the tutorial. For instance, certain action buttons are relatively obscure, and I have to basically go through a process of elimination when trying to find the one I'm meant to be clicking on. Same with spells. The little icons are not particularly useful in describing exactly what the spell does, and I find myself randomly selecting a 'hand' here and an 'arrow' there in order to find the one I'm meant to be using. Perhaps I should spend a bit of time on the forums and with the manual, but if this had been implemented in the tutorial itself, the process would have seemed a lot more intuitive for a new BG'er. As I have played many RPG's over the years, I'm fine with a bit of hunting around, but others' may abandon it out of frustration - just want to make sure BG:EE succeeds, because the effort was immense!
Yeah, autopause on spot enemy. Characters seem to behave better when you give commands in real time for some reason. In pause, they seem to ignore commands sometimes.
I'm in chapter 2. Overall, I'm pretty pleased and I think BG:EE has been a massive achievement. At this point I'd give it 4 out of 5 stars. I'm only going to mention a few of the negatives, just so it's easier to pinpoint what possibly needs to be looked at for patching. If it's not mentioned, you can assume I had no problem. These are the main issues I've seen from playing on an iPad 4.
1) Unresponsiveness. There are buggy moments where I'll enter a room and stuff won't be interactive: npcs, items, etc. I'll be pushing everything but it just isn't selectable. Usually, leaving the room and coming back remedies the problem. Usually.
2) Crashes. I haven't noticed a ton, but it has happened a 2-3 times over 6+ hours of gameplay. Usually when I'm unsuccessfully trying to press on things and there's been no response.
3) Force-fed intro video. This might have happened in the original game, but it makes sense to only play the intro video when someone is starting a new game, not whenever they're selecting single player to load a game.
4) Difficulty of picking up items. Picking up items from fallen foes has become a fine art. It's like a mini-game by itself almost. You have to precisely hit the item just right in order to select it. I have no idea how folks on the 7-inch iPad are doing this, 'cause it's difficult enough on the 10-inch. I almost wish there was an option where you could vacuum up items by walking over them, like (dare I say it?) Diablo 3.
5) Spell effects. Overall it's ok, but there seems to be a few which completely slow down the game. There are times when the frames will literally crawl. This feels strange since I'm using an iPad 4 (should have enough horsepower, right?). The entanglement spell is the biggest culprit that I've noticed. This spell used to be one of my favorites. Not anymore, I don't feel like I can use it on the iPad.
Other than those quibbles, I've been having fun. I plan on buying the extra content, so hopefully the game is successful enough to merit some enduring app support in the future.
"My main issue is no doubt, the accuracy of clicking and no real feedback on targeting. I think I've targeted a spell at a Gibberling, but instead I'm walking to it. I did find out how to get spell descriptions (click and hold... wait... release, there it is.)
But the finger clicking, sometimes I move and sometimes I slide the screen. It's really hard to tell which will happen, and that can be frustrating."
My main issue is no doubt, the accuracy of clicking and no real feedback on targeting. I think I've targeted a spell at a Gibberling, but instead I'm walking to it. I did find out how to get spell descriptions (click and hold... wait... release, there it is.)
But the finger clicking, sometimes I move and sometimes I slide the screen. It's really hard to tell which will happen, and that can be frustrating.
Plus 1 million. The gameplay is seriously hampered by a touch interface that isn't really a touch interface at all. This needs serious work.
Space_hamster
Member Posts: 950
Comments
I've just started playing and as for now it's great - big thanks to everyone involved in development of iPad version.
Just one question - are you able to enter the storehouse in prologue?
Holy hell how I want to get home!
Ok, so I will edit this post with my findings! First of all, I have to say I am impressed by the menu.
One tip is that under options it still says "mouse speed" maby this should be adjusted to scroll speed or something?
more to come!
I love it. BG was MADE for ipad, the interface works great. All the tasks that a mouse or keyboard would have done, can now be done by touch. The interface is fluid.
I never played TUTU, however I can see the influence of BGII art assets in BGI, I'll miss the BGI avatars, but oh well. There do appear to be a few rough edges with the interface...perhaps this will be fixed in the forthcoming patches.
Speaking of Avatars...they do look noticeably pixelated when zoomed in to the max. Of course, there is nothing we can do about this, and it actually reminds me of playing the game on my old imac in certain respects. I can live with it though. I LOVE the fact that there is ZERO wait for transitions, its like magic.
Will now have to spend a few agonizing hours creating my character!
Oh, and one more bug, if I click on Boo the game crashes. Beware the miniature giant space hamster!
-Spell descriptions are only viewable if the spellbook is filled.
-Scrolling works badly if there are selectable items (e.g. proficiencies menu, behaviour menu).
-Blackouts after minimising and returning to the game.
-As noted above: picking up small items is nigh impossible. In fact, even selecting units isn't exactly easy.
I'd rather they just increase the collision sizes of the models.
Visuals and Sound
---------------------------------
If you enjoyed the original BG you will enjoy BG:EE. Don't come into it expecting an HD game with perfect visibility, it's not there yet, and I don't believe it was intended to be. Things are grainy and the lighting is typically terrible...but that's what the game is about...what it's always been...it's not a problem with the application code, it's how the game was originally intended to play.
Things ARE clear, but generally you will end up doing A LOT of zooming. Having not played in years, I'd forgotten that dead corpses drop items visible to the world on top of themselves (so a kobold dropping a dagger means the dagger will appear in the game world on top of the kobold's corpse). It is tough to see (mixed in with the corpse colours and pixels) the item on top of the corpse without zooming in...and tougher yet to click on the item...but more on all of this later.
The music is, as you would expect, well done. From the main screen through the tutorial it's the background music you will remember from the original and it does exactly what it's supposed to...provides a good background.
The environmental sound is great. I forget what it was but I had a couple times on the tutorial where I was playing around and I actually turned my head at an environmental sound expecting that someone had come up behind me as I was playing with headphones in...only to realize that the sound came from the game, not my surroundings.
Overall, the visual and sound components will be what you remember (not much better either which is either good or bad based upon your nostalgia for the original game).
iPad Gameplay
-----------------------------
Before I get too far into this review, I need to make some comments on game play on the iPad itself (vs Gameplay on a computer). Surprisingly enough, managing the iPad itself is somewhat difficult with all the click/tapping you have to do in the game.
For anyone used to being able to keep 2 hands on the device while playing a game and/or being able to comfortably rest the iPad in some kind of neutral position, you may find it somewhat difficult to manage the game on the iPad. I kept wanting to lay the iPad down on my lap in some way to make it stable and then use 2 hands to play the game...or to pick the iPad up and try to hold it in both hands while tapping and clicking.
While not "uncomfortable", the game plays in landscape mode, and you're going to have to keep the iPad stable in that mode AND be able to tap/swipe/press on the screen to make the game work...a somewhat difficult task when trying to use 1 hand to stabilize the device and another to play. You'll find your best configuration is to play this with some kind of hard surface that can do the work of holding the iPad for you or curled up in a chair with a real lap.
Bathroom play is easily possible but significantly more difficult than you would expect.
Lack of a mouse and the need to scroll in/out all the time is probably the most off-putting part of this release. The tap and scroll interface does work, and works well (scrolling text boxes is a dream, but you have to be careful with some boxes, like the chat boxes) as scrolling back in a chat box by finger dragging the chat box will automatically select / make clicks of the next option when you release).
More in "interface".
Lastly is battery. I started this morning with full charge on my iPad. I did spend about an hour this afternoon reading which I believe drained my iPad 3's battery to somewhere around 92% or so. From there when I exited BG:EE my battery was at 80%, a good 10 - 12% gone through play of the game for maybe an hour...but probably more like 45 minutes. This is to be expected: the game is not Angry Birds...but just keep in mind if you're going on a long trip somewhere, you're not going to get 10 hours of game play on a fully charged device like this...bring a charger!
Combat
--------------------
For anyone wondering if the iPad version maintains the same "turn based real time" combat as the computer version of the PC game did...it does. The Pause button is prominent in the lower left hand corner of the screen and is the first thing the game introduces you to.
"Pause when Combat is Engaged" is NOT on by default. I haven't dug into the interface to turn this on yet, but assumably it is there. Given the location of the pause button and the manageability of the device itself, you'll likely want it to turn pause on automatically on combat start. There are too many troubles with the interface to try to play this "real time" without pausing.
The combat system works exactly as you expect it to from the original game and all the hints (something on the portrait telling you what action your character is currently performing for instance) are there. Managing to GET combat instructions to your characters can be challenging at times, however.
I think the original game had the same problem, but issuing orders and having them carried out can definitely be challenging. After picking up the Flame Strike staff in the tutorial I was never able to get it actually USED by the cleric in the party...I tried 3 times and never did get the "use" of the staff to take.
Movement
---------------------------
The only thing I can say for movement is that it works and works as well as the original used to (which isn't saying a lot since some of the issues are obviously inherited with the game).
The biggest thing missing in the movement department is the ability to circle the party configuration 360 degrees around the cursor pointer. In the PC version of the game you used to be able to (correct me, this may be off) right click (center cllick?) and hold on a movement position and drag your mouse around...this would circle the group configured movement in a 360 degree arc around the main point, allowing you to turn your party in the direction you wanted and avoid standing them on top of things or in your way. I don't see an option for how you would "twist" the party configuration locations so that if you're moving due west, the main party member would end up as the farthest east or to line you your party in a north south facing method.
I may just be missing something here, but it would be nice to change the direction the party ends up facing at the end of a move.
Interface
---------------------------
Now to the crux...the iPad interface. First off I have to give huge kudos to the dev team on this for even being able to translate this to iPad...the total effect is absolutely awesome and overall the interface is exactly what you'd expect from an iPad game...taps, clicks, click and dags, etc.
There ARE problems, many of them documented in other threads here.
As with most iPad games that are built for larger screens originally, tap accuracy can become a bit of a problem. You will find yourself scrolling in and out significantly often...if not ALL THE TIME. The farthest out scroll provides you a good overview of the battle but you can't see ANY of the drops. The shortest in scroll will definately allow you to see drops and items, but will limit your view of the battlefield. However, as with the original, in many cases if you're not right there zoomed in all the way, it can become hard to get a target you want.
The lack of solid "target acquired" feedback in the game also causes a significant amount of trouble...Since you have to go through a few tap steps to attack an enemy, it would be nice for a visual indication to show you what party member has what characters engaged, or even from an "overview" perspective what characters are marked to BE engaged. Again, I'm not sure this is a Beamdog issue...I believe it was this bad in the original game also.
Memorizing spells is a PITA. It's easy enough to memorize but if you do not "know" what the icons stand for anymore, you're not going to get help from the interface...you cannot "tap/hold" on a spell icon in the memorization interface to get a description of the spell. Still looking for my work around to this.
I've found it easier to play zoomed out, and then when you want to do anything pause, zoom in, select character to work with, interact with object, zoom out. Unfortunately this does seem to be what you have to do with EVERYTHING...zooming in and out over and over again.
The other thing missing is any indication of an interactable object BEING interacted with. Lets say you want Imoen to unlock a chest. In today's games you're used to telling the character to unlock the chest and getting some kind of indicator on the chest that it's going to get interacted with. This is missing from this game (again, I don't believe this is an iPad only issue). You click Imoen, you click the thief skills button and you click the object...however you have NO idea if you actually properly clicked the object in question...you DO NOTE that Imoen begins to move, but whether she's going to interact with the tapped object or if you just happened to tap the ground instead of the object you don't know till she moves and stops.
A finger is not a mouse pointer, and these objects (particularly if not zoomed all the way in) are SMALL on the iPad 3 (let alone the mini). Some indication of whether an object was going to be interacted with (Say keep it glowing blue like when you press the "hint" button) would definitely help.
Speaking of the hint button, this needs to be expanded. Again, I know the original game didn't highlight exits and doors and such with the press of tab, but the original game was for a big screen with mouse-over also. Given the lighting and dark dankness of the game's feel indoors, some of these area transitions are just about impossible to find...it wasn't until I zoomed all the way in and started looking around that the way down into the cellar of the tutorial was visible...I certainly never noticed it till I actively started searching for it.
Conclusion
----------------------
All of the above said DO NOT LET IT SCARE YOU! If you're reading this and other threads describing issues with the interface and saying "oh geez, maybe I shouldn't buy the iPad version", you're missing out.
Overall the interface is fine. There ARE inconsistencies and minor annoyances with the iPad interface, no question about it...target selection and interaction are two of the biggest of those issues. Still, it's not HARD to deal with. If you abuse Pause, you'll get the hang of it really quickly and shouldn't suffer too much. If, like me, you bought the game on iPad for the convenience of being able to carry it with you, the minor annoyances like this shouldn't be that big a deal...nothing is game breaking and I suspect with play it'll become much easier and clearer.
Other than spell descriptions on the memorization page, I haven't found anything that doesn't work or can't be made to work in some way...this is GOOD. The game feels solid and certainly non-crashy.
In app purchase should be clearer...I haven't started the main campaign yet, so I don't believe I've hit the place where to purchase additional characters and such, but I'd think it would be big and emblazoned on the front page for where to buy in game app purchases. A button on the main interface would go a long way toward making the in app purchases more visible.
Overall I'd give the iPad version of the game anywhere from an 8.5 to a 9 out of 10. The game is the original game, no question about it. The tutorial did a great job explaining the what's and hows, and the look and feel really is the original game. The only things I ding the game for is the interface and, as I said, many of those issues I believe is more an issue with the functionality not being in the original game than the iPad port of the interface.
Of the major issues, the lack of spell descriptions on the memorization page and the tap to target interface's lack of good feedback to the user are the two most egregious. If those get fixed to the point where you can clearly select a character and select a target and know you've made that selection, the game would certainly gain a 9.5 or 9.75 of 10.
My main issue is no doubt, the accuracy of clicking and no real feedback on targeting. I think I've targeted a spell at a Gibberling, but instead I'm walking to it. I did find out how to get spell descriptions (click and hold... wait... release, there it is.)
But the finger clicking, sometimes I move and sometimes I slide the screen. It's really hard to tell which will happen, and that can be frustrating.
Still, it's BG and it works on my iPad. I'm thrilled, just with reservations. I think they can improve this over time, give us more feedback in the clicking interface. Also, maybe allow the "tab" function to be sticky (as an on/off instead of click.. release and hope you clicked on the right hay bale.)
Connection: Connected fine to me (over a wireless router), character setting seemed decent.
My Ipad went to sleep after like 3 minutes if I wasn't actively using the game and it would disconnect them. I feel like this is a bit short, but maybe I can change my ipad settings
Once in game, any time anyone starts a dialog, everyone jumps into it. 4 times during our 2 hour session (mostly in candlekeep) people got stuck in dialog boxes and couldn't do anything until we opened a new box. We couldn't buy items all at once at the shop, we had to do it one at a time. 4 times my friends could only see me (as the host) and themselves, but not the other players, frequently when entering/exiting buildings.
Overall it seems... almost there, but not quite. I wasn't able to keep up my friends enthusiasm for the game and we resolved to wait until some patches come out before we begin to play.
If nothing happens, I've missed my target.
The same with thieving, the dialog box will inform if the chest is locked, lock picked successfully or failed.
But I really, really miss being able to see what spells are available to me in combat. It's no use having to go to the spell book and waste time to "hold tap" to see what the spells I have memorized do.
This ought to be done via the button equilavent of the pc's "TAB" button. (Can't recall what it's called on the iPad).
This will really put newcomers to the game off. It boggles my mind they haven't thought of a solution to this.
It might also have been a good idea to implement two and three finger touch to different functions, and even double tab to some functions. In fact, now that I think about it, it would have been excellent to be able to just double tab on an icon to get a quick tooltip. Again, it's not rocket science.
The iPad version needs a LOT more feedback options to compensate for the lack of cursor.
- targeting feedback/confirmation
- interactable object visualization is implemented, but needs to be turned into a 'toggle' instead of 'keep pressed to invoke' since keeping the TAB key pressed and still moving and clicking the mouse might work on the PC but not on the iPad
- area entry end exit points require some kind of highlighting and defined 'tab-here-to-enter-or-leave' locations
I will probably curb my enthusiasm until this is remedied and hold on playing this game.
1) Unresponsiveness. There are buggy moments where I'll enter a room and stuff won't be interactive: npcs, items, etc. I'll be pushing everything but it just isn't selectable. Usually, leaving the room and coming back remedies the problem. Usually.
2) Crashes. I haven't noticed a ton, but it has happened a 2-3 times over 6+ hours of gameplay. Usually when I'm unsuccessfully trying to press on things and there's been no response.
3) Force-fed intro video. This might have happened in the original game, but it makes sense to only play the intro video when someone is starting a new game, not whenever they're selecting single player to load a game.
4) Difficulty of picking up items. Picking up items from fallen foes has become a fine art. It's like a mini-game by itself almost. You have to precisely hit the item just right in order to select it. I have no idea how folks on the 7-inch iPad are doing this, 'cause it's difficult enough on the 10-inch. I almost wish there was an option where you could vacuum up items by walking over them, like (dare I say it?) Diablo 3.
5) Spell effects. Overall it's ok, but there seems to be a few which completely slow down the game. There are times when the frames will literally crawl. This feels strange since I'm using an iPad 4 (should have enough horsepower, right?). The entanglement spell is the biggest culprit that I've noticed. This spell used to be one of my favorites. Not anymore, I don't feel like I can use it on the iPad.
Other than those quibbles, I've been having fun. I plan on buying the extra content, so hopefully the game is successful enough to merit some enduring app support in the future.