Shadow Craze

Triple Town - What Next After Floating Castle?

2011-11-20T00:55:00.001+08:00

After numerous games of Triple Town, I finally managed to get a floating castle (formed from three castles). Of course, my high score of 377 185 is nothing compared to other seasoned players. Some forum postings indicated that this is the 'ultimate' object in the Triple Town, i.e. no more objects to be formed from combining floating castles.

However, when I moused over the floating castle, there is some hint that by combining 4 (not three) floating castles, a player can get something more! Is there anyone out there who have combined four floating castles and see this new 'ultimate' object in Triple Town? If anyone has done that, or know of this new object, can send me a link to the pic? Thanks!

Afternote: Just read on the Triple Town Tribune page that the 'ultimate' object is named 'Triple Casle', worth 1,500 coins. Wow!

See related:
- Triple Town - Screenshots

Triple Town - Screenshots

2011-11-09T01:24:00.001+08:00

Recent days I've been spending some precious nights playing an extremely addictive game - Triple Town! It is a simple game created by Spry Fox, and indeed simple games are the ones that insidiously sapped away long hours without me even realising it! I'm not that good a player, and thus I've only achieved 85,860 points in Triple Town.

The concept of Triple Town is simple - match three similar items and a new item is created. For example, three patches of grass creates a shrub, three shrubs and a tree is born, and three trees make a simple house and so on.

At the end of each game, some coins and awards will be given. One point to note is that there are limited number of moves. While the total number of moves can last more than 1 game, eventually you will run out of moves. Then the player can use coins to purchase moves from the store in order to carry on the game (of course, you can pay real money to get coins for moves and items). Well that is how Spry Fox makes its money via Triple Town, and I do think it is worth it. For those looking for an engaging simple game that can last you hours, try Triple Town!

Trade Nations 3.3 - Far East Additions

2011-08-22T14:04:00.001+08:00

Trade Nations update 3.3 has been released for a few days now. This time round Trade Nations has introduced a touch of Far East by adding a number of new oriental theme shops / items. I am not sure where exactly to place these new additions - house, shops and decorative items, and maybe I should create a new oriental enclave for these far east 'immigrants'.

Trade Nations also changed the game mechanics a little by increasing the gold and experience cap to 300%. Well, the villagers will also be working harder when players enter the Trade Nations game - incentive to keep the players in the game longer each day.

For the new Far Eat items, the players need to build the 'Traveling Merchant' as a prerequisite.It cost 50,000 gold and other than a decorative item, I don't really see much use for this 'Traveling Merchant. Oh, it also unlock a new achievement when the Traveling Merchant is built. I was sort of hoping that this Traveling Merchant can actually sell exotic goods, i.e. as a new shop, rather than just decorative in nature.

The other additions that I have is the "Imperial House" and "Tai Chi". Imperial House cost 10,000 gold, 2,000 lumber, and 1,200 cut stones to build and it can house 4 new villagers. For this higher cost of built, the Imperial House rewards players with 20 experience and 25 gold (compared to 10 experience and 20 gold for Stone House) over a much shorter time frame. Quite worth it I must say. Tai Chi is just a new shop that helps to earn gold and experience, giving slightly higher rewards compared to the Firebreather and Juggler.

Other than the headache of where to place these additions such that they don't jar badly with my exiting layout (the themes are very different), overall the new additions are worth the effort for players to construct them.So update your Trade Nations to version 3.3 if you have not done so!

iPhone: Hospital Havoc 2 by Bitwise

2011-08-16T00:08:00.000+08:00

If you like those 'Diner Dash' type of game where time management is a key element of gameplay, you might want to try out the newly released Hospital Havoc 2 (by Bitwise Design). In Hospital Havoc 2, the player started out as a Doctor (what else) who will need to manage multiple patients, often times with crazy tight timeline (and funny comments from the patients). The game requires a fair bit of dextrous finger movements to score more points (and also levels) - good for finger exercise!

Gameplay is standard of such games, i.e. touching the screen to activate the doctor (i.e. you the player) and the nurse for various functions (e.g. admit the patient, diagnose the illness, use equipment, entertain the patient, clean up, discharge the patient and so on). Simultaneously activating like functions will earn the player bonuses, and the same for keeping the doctor clean (use the sink often, especially when the patients only need the attention of the nurse). Touch the garbage to clear them into the bin, and touch the bin so that the nurse can clear it.

There are many different scenarios to explore, i.e. the local clinic, research centre and so on, each with different tasks to maneuver. The different 'medical facility' can only be unlocked once the player reached certain levels.

Medical School (Level 1+) is where the tutorial session starts
Doctor's Office (Level 5+)
Graveyard (Level 10+) - more deaths = more muffins!
Local Clinic (Level 20+)
Metropolitan Hospital (Level 35+)
Research Center (Level 70+)

The game player can also customise the layout of the clinic (i.e. add new beds, new chairs etc), and also utilise boosters to aid the game (e.g. muti-tasking will be useful). Boosters will be a must at the higher levels.

While the tutorial is helpful, one thing they didn't mention is that game players can go to the graveyard to 'rob' the deceased of muffins. Muffin is the main currency of the game, and of course Bitwise Design welcome players to get them with real world cash. If not, graveyard and bonuses will be the main pah for obtaining muffins. Once the graveyard is 'robbed' there will be a time counter to indicate when the graveyard is reset. Set the alert so that you would know when the graveyard is reset.

The features of the Hospital Havoc (as described in iTune store) are:

100+ levels and 20+ different scenarios
35+ different patient types and thus more weird comments from these patients
Customisation of game character
More doctor skills hospital customisation and quirky machines, medicines, and tools

What I don't like about the game is the use of large amount of text (especially at the tutorial stage). Some words in white and set against a light background makes them quite hard to read. An iPhone is definitely a small device that is not suited for reading of text of that small font size. The other drawback of the Hospital Havoc 2 is the loading time. Each new scenario or switching between World view and particular locations, will take up a long time, especially when the iPhone is not latched onto the local wi-fi. Thus playing the game while on the go can be a challenge. Nonetheless the hilarious comments and quirky game functions made Hospital Havoc 2 a good game to try. It is currently ranking among the top ten free games on the iTune store.

Tiny Tower - New Elevator, Costumes & Shop Upgrades

2011-08-11T23:51:00.006+08:00

Tiny Tower update 1.3 is out! This update has more exciting features that impact the game play. A more obvious introduction is the new lift upgrade - Infini-Lift Lightspeed, that runs at 42ppm. Well, this Infini-Lift comes at a great cost - 499 Bux. Even though it is a chore down to send visiting Bitizens to the highest floor via lift, I don't think I'll be upgrading my lift anytime soon.

The next exciting feature is the introduction of new costumes. Yes, players can know clearly differentiate the Bitizens from each other by giving them very unique costumes. The Costumes option can be activated after the player selects 'Dress up' for the particular Bitizen. Imagine Bitizens dressing up in Doctor, Nurse and Surgeon costumes in a Doctors Office (Service) shop, or as Groom and Bride in Wedding Chapel, that would be fun. Even if costumes is now your thing (maybe because the Bux involved is not worth it), Tiny Tower now allows easier change of appearance (at the Dress Up option again) for each Bitizen, at no cost to gold.

Another feature that affects the gameplay is the shop upgrade. That's right, shops can now be upgraded (Bux will be charged of course - 3 Bux) to hold more stocks. Thus players who wish to balance out their shops re-stocking time can now do so.

Other features that were released with Tiny Tower 1.3 update are:
- Customising Bitizens via web tools (not sure how useful that is)
- Real Estate VIP now fills entire floor (instead of just 1 Bitizen, which is kind of lame previously)
- Dream jobs rewards 2 Bux now (I prefer the original 3 Bux but it is an improvement over current 1 Bux)...

Well, I am still looking forward to future Tiny Tower updates that allow for more players interactivity with each other's Tiny Towers. Playing Tiny Tower is fun, but playing it together with friends will be more fun. P.S. oh, with this new update, many players had complained that they experienced a drop in the coins earned per minute. I had the same experience too, with about 25% - 33% drop in coins earned per minute.

See related:
- Tiny Tower Update 1.2.1
- Tiny Tower Achievements
- iPhone Tiny Tower - Shops &amp; Stocks
- Tiny Tower - Diary of a Bitizen

Tiny Tower - Diary of a Bitizen

2011-08-06T17:38:00.003+08:00

Extracted from Bitizen Gregory Craig's diary*, whose dream job is to work in a Toy Store.

Day 1 morning

Just moved in, party at my place! Bring chips & dip. Moved into a new place called Teeny Towers or something like that. Wow, when they say Tiny Tower they aren't kidding.

Day 2 morning
Been here for a day and some stranger just walks through my apartment.
Someone keeps following me, or maybe they just live here.

Day 2 afternoon
I can't believe I get paid to work at the Toy Store. Awesome! Thats right, I work at the Toy Store :) Jealous? I am going to own this Toy Store in 10 years. Just watch!

Day 3
Jane Lambert my new roommate is really awesome. New friend!
Our new roommate Jane Lambert has a cat that can do math.

Going on a date to the new Shoe Store. Wish me luck!
I wish I had some new clothes :(
I'm thinking about changing my outfit, what do you think?

Day 4
These elevators are almost like a carnival ride :)
People can be so two dimensional sometimes.
I just ran into a bitizen that looked just like me! Maybe we are twins!

Day 5
Anybody up for a rooftop barbecue?
I did not just spit off the roof. Did not. I promise.

Sometimes I get the feeling that we are being watched.
Just saw a ghost! Tiny Tower is haunted by the spirits of evicted bitizens! don't Panic!

Day 6
Nice weather we've been having. It's always blue skies!
Just passed someone on their way to the roof with a parachute.
Parachute for sale. Only used once, never opened, small stain.

Day 7
So... is there actually any way to leave the building?
Been looking for like 20 mins, I can't find a way out of the building!
I know I'm paranoid, but am I paranoid enough?

*: Diary is a work of fiction about Tiny Tower. Any resemblance to persons fictional or real who are living, dead or undead is purely coincidental.

See related:
- Tiny Tower Update 1.2.1
- Tiny Tower Achievements
- iPhone Tiny Tower - Shops & Stocks

Diablo III - Online Only & Cash Accepted!

2011-08-02T00:23:00.003+08:00

News is spreading that Blizzard has made some very fundamental changes to Diablo III. I saw the news on both Slash Gear, as well as Daily Tech.

Online Only

The 1st impactful change will be that Diablo III can only be played online. This is a big departure from the previous Diablo games, where gamers could play their Diablo on a standalone, and the multi-player / online mode is optional. Thus Diablo III is the new 'World of Warcraft'? So is it going to be subscription based, or a one time payment much like Guild Wars? MMORPG wasn't how Diablo started but now Blizzard would make it so. Blizzard's Executive VP, Rob Pardo cited a number of reasons, including game piracy and character persist-ency benefits.

I am not sure if this will appear to Diablo fans. If I want to play MMORPG, I could stick with World of Warcraft, which I am already paying for, instead of a new Diablo III. The fun of tinkling with the characters, and different mods to see the super-duper items will no longer be possible. There will of course be the pressure of leveling up and competing for gears in a 'MMORPG' like environment for Diablo III.

A further search on Blizz Planet indicates that Diablo III is likely a one time off payment and no monthly subscription is needed. Of course, one will need to pay for further expansions, which were the case for previous Diablo games anyway.

Real-world Cash Accepted

The other impactful change is the introduction of real-money option to buy / sell loot in Diablo III's Auction House. If real money option is used, Blizzard will charge an actual listing fee, and a subsequent fixed transaction fee when item is sold.

Wow, that is like legalising 'gold farmers' in Diablo III. I am sure there will be plenty of gold farmers who hunt in areas where precious loot drops. Now the trade is actually legal when the loot is sold. Add a PVP element and I am sure the game play will not be as enjoyable. So I want to play Diablo III, I better play the game in group, where I have buddies who look after my back before I am being muscled out by gold farmers.

I understand the commercial reasons that persuaded Blizzard to adopt these changes, but as a gamer, I am not sure if I can appreciate the new Diablo III. O.k., I may have over-reacted to the news, and maybe Blizzard will introduce certain limitations and flexibility that continues to make Diablo III fun. We will see when we actually get to play the game - launch date remains unknown.

Expiring Playfish Cash - 31st July 2011

2011-07-27T16:55:00.002+08:00

For those who have received the free Playfish cash last year, you would have receive a reminder email that the Playfish Cash is expiring by 31st July 2011. I received the email about 1 month ago, and the alert included this picture:

So if there are players who do not check the emails (or didn't give the emails to Playfish), these players might miss out the chance to use these Playfish Cash over the next few days. I wasn't very active in the various Playfish promotion and thus I only have 2 Playfish Cash. Folks who played the Hotel City and leveled up to 25 within the promotion period last year could have up to 10 Playfish Cash. I didn't have anything in particular to 'buy' and thus I just opted for a decorative item (Cup of Flames) for the Restaurant City.

Tiny Tower Update 1.2.1

2011-07-20T18:59:00.001+08:00

Tiny Tower has released its new update yesterday. This new update has provided a few more perks for the Tiny Tower players. The most obvious one is to increase the probability that lift riders tip Bux for the players. Well by now the Tiny Tower players will have known the importance of Bux to the game play - increase coins, instant sock re-stock, find new Bitizens etc.

But there are also other useful perks from Tiny Tower 1.2.1. The ability to sort Bitizens will make it a lot easier for re-assignment of Bitizens to the correct shops. Often, when we get new Bitizens, we have to compare their usefulness before we decide to keep or evict them. Now these comparisons can be made wih a touch of the button, and the Bitizens will be sort according to their rank points in each of the category, or according to their 'happiness'.

Just in case this has not occur to the players of Tiny Tower, the ability to rename shops will actually take away some pain for players when they need to find a particular Bitizen. Often times, the similarity of looks between Bitizens consume much precious time to find them. Now, players can just rename the shops, e.g. use the initials of the 3 Bitizens manning the shops (or other short forms) and viola, the Bitizens can be found, even when they are 'hiding' by the right side of the shops.

I was sort of hoping that Nimblebits can improve the interactivity between players of Tiny Tower in its updates. Perhaps there could be some form of competition (other than achievements and rankings) or even collaboration (e.g. can I lend coins to other Tiny Tower players, in exchange for interest?) that will encourage me to add friends to the Tiny Tower game. Well next time I guess.

Related posts:

- Tiny Tower Achievements

- iPhone Tiny Tower - Shops & Stocks
- Tiny Tower - Diary of a Bitizen

Tiny Tower Achievements

2011-07-09T00:21:00.005+08:00

One of the fun part of playing a 'farming' game like Tiny Tower is the list of 'Achievements' within the game. From the Game Centre, there is a list of about 47 Tiny Tower Achievements (see list below). I've only had 6 achievements in Tiny Tower so far.

~~Triskaidekaphobia: Build 13 floors. (10 pts)~~ Done
~~First Quarter: Build 25 floors. (30 pts)~~ Done
~~Five Oh: Build 50 floors. (50 pts)~~ Done 20 July
Cloud Topper: Build 100 floors. (100 pts)

~~Tiny Village: Have 15 residents. (10 pts)~~ Done
~~Tiny Town: Have 50 residents. (30 pts)~~ Done
~~Tiny City: Have 100 residents. (50 pts)~~ Done

Pizza Roll: Fully stock a Pizza Place & Bakery. (10 pts)
Funny Money: Fully stock a Comedy Club & Bank. (10 pts)
Sub Par: Fully stock a Sub Shop & Mini Golf. (10 pts)
Say Cheese: Fully stock a Dentists Office & Photo Studio. (10 pts)
iGlass: Fully stock a Mapple Store & Glass Studio. (10 pts)
Dance Fever: Fully stock a Night Club & Doctors Office. (10 pts)
Book Worm: Fully stock a Book Store & Plant Nursery. (10 pts)
Field Trip: Fully stock a Tutoring Center & Museum. (10 pts)
Fish Tacos: Fully stock an Aquarium & Mexican Food. (10 pts)
Blockbuster: Fully stock a Cineplex & Video Rental. (10 pts)
Keep Rollin: Fully stock a Bike Shop & Bowling Alley. (10 pts)
~~Something's Brewin: Fully stock a Coffee House & Soda Brewery. (10 pts)~~ Done (11 July)
Bar Fight: Fully stock a Pub & Martial Arts. (10 pts)
~~Fortune Cookie: Fully stock a Fortune Teller & Asian Cuisine. (10 pts)~~ Done
Decked Out: Fully stock a Mens Fashion & Hat Shop. (10 pts)
Fashionista: Fully stock a Fashion Studio & Womens Fashion. (10 pts)
Nerd Alert: Fully stock a Comic Store & Arcade. (10 pts)
Stellar Record: Fully stock a Planetarium & Record Shop. (10 pts)
Dirty Laundry: Fully stock a Laundromat & Private Eye. (10 pts)
Desserted: Fully stock a Cake Studio & Scoops. (10 pts)
Cold Medicine: Fully stock a Frozen Yogurt & Pharmacy. (10 pts)
Spike in Sales: Fully stock a Volleyball Club & Ad Agency. (10 pts)
Fat Quarter: Fully stock a Health Club & Fabric Shop. (10 pts)
Cut an Album: Fully stock a Barber Shop & Recording Studio. (10 pts)
Bet the Pot: Fully stock a Casino & Pottery Studio. (10 pts)
Printer Ink: Fully stock a Print & Ship & Tattoo Parlor. (10 pts)
Green Screen: Fully stock a Vegan Food & Film Studio. (10 pts)
Joystick Junkie: Fully stock a Game Studio & Game Store. (10 pts)
~~R&R: Fully stock a Day Spa & Travel Agency. (10 pts)~~ Done (11 July)
~~Oakinawa: Fully stock a Wood Shop & Sushi Bar. (10 pts)~~ Done (20 July)
Tea Square: Fully stock a Tea House & Architect Office. (10 pts)
Code Freeze: Fully stock a Software Studio & Smoothie Shop. (10 pts)
Please Be Seated: Fully stock a Theatre & Wedding Chapel. (10 pts)
An Eye for Art: Fully stock a Optometrist & Art Studio. (10 pts)
Burger Bytes: Fully stock a Sky Burger & Cyber Cafe. (10 pts)
~~Designer Shoes: Fully stock a Graphic Design & Shoe Store. (10 pts)~~ Done
Musical Chairs: Fully stock a Music Store & Furniture Store. (10 pts)
Nice Shot: Fully stock a Paintball Arena & Racquetball. (10 pts)
Rags to Riches: Fully stock a Diner & Fancy Cuisine. (10 pts)
Amusements: Fully stock a Toy Store & Tech Store. (10 pts)

Judging from the list, that means I can build about 80 different stores? That means I will need 80 x 3 Bitizens which translate to 48 (80 x 3 / 5) floors of Residential levels. So I guess it is Tiny Tower - Game Complete upon hitting a total of 1 Lobby + 48 Residentials + 80 Stores = 129 levels. Wow, 129 levels in Tiny Tower!

See also:

- iPhone Tiny Tower - Shops & Stocks
- Tiny Tower Update 1.2.1
- Tiny Tower - Diary of a Bitizen

iPhone Tiny Tower - Shops & Stocks

2011-07-06T14:36:00.003+08:00

Tiny Tower is a big hit on the iPhone apps store, and I am sure many gamers out there have already read reviews or even try the game out. Well, an addictive game is what one would expect from NimbleBit, who developed the Pocket Frogs.

For those gamers who are playing Tiny Tower, I've compiled a list of the shops (non exhaustive), and more importantly, the snapshots of the stocks in the shops. By now, those who are playing the game would know the importance of the stocks (stocking time and quantity) on coins and level / VIP management. Using a Big Spender VIP on shops with a large quantity of stocks will help to earn coins much faster. .

Food - Asian Cuisine, Coffee House, Scoops, Sub Shop, Sushi Bar

Service - Barber Shop, Day Spa, Fortune Teller, Health Club, Laundromat,

Recreation - Arcade, Bowling Alley, Comedy Club, Night Club, Planetarium, Racquetball

Retail - Bike Shop, Furniture Store, Game Store, Hat Shop, Shoe Store, Toy Store

Creative - Graphic Design, Photo Studio, Soda Brewery

I'm not sure how many different stores there are in Tiny Tower, but gauging from the unsatisfied dream jobs of the Bitizens, I'm quite sure there are many other shops. Well, when I have more levels in Tiny Tower with more shops, perhaps I can update this blog post again.

See also:
- Tiny Tower Achievements
- Tiny Tower Update 1.2.1
- Tiny Tower - Diary of a Bitizen

ICANN - Singapore & New Domain Names

2011-06-27T11:23:00.000+08:00

The ICANN meeting had ended in Singapore last week, and the decisions made in this little island nation would have great impact on our global village.

The biggest impact is the introduction of new domain names, both the internationalised versions and more importantly the new gTLDs (generic Top Level Domains). Currently there are about 22 gTLDs, which include .com, .net, .org, .gov etc. Internet users are well used to such gTLDs in additional to country specific TLDs, e.g. .sg, .uk and so on.

The introduction of new gTLDs will have great consequences for Internet users. Primarily the concerns will be:

Confusion & Security Issues

Internet users will need to be accustomed with the new gTLDs when websites offer their services under the new gTLDs. There will be confusion. For example, should Yahoo obtain their own .yahoo domain, should an Yahoo email user in Singapore give his email as xxx@yahoo.com.sg (which is the current situation) or xxx@yahoo or would there be new variants e.g. xxx@mail.yahoo? These different variants will create possibilities for phishing scams if the websites do not manage their consumer education properly.

Intellectual Property - Trademark & such

Beyond security, there will be trademark issues between websites with confusingly similar names. While this issue exists currently, the magnitude is amplified when companies in different countries have to 'fight' for their trademark in the new gTLDs arena. These companies may be contented with their current country specific domain names, but they will have issues when the gTLDs are introduced. Don't believe me? Try typing in flower.com, flower.com.sg, flower.com.my, flower.co.uk and you will go to websites of different companies. If they are all fighting for the .flower gTLDs, who should ICANN give this domain to?

Thus, would ICANN be the WIPO equivalent for Internet domain names, i.e. setting trademark equivalent framework for domain names? Interesting...

Costs for the new gTLDs

Of course, the issues above will not be apparent for the next couple of years. The reason is simple - cost. ICANN has set very high entry barrier for anyone to apply for the new gTLDs. The first step for ICANN to evaluate the application of gTLDs will be a whopping USD$185,000. Anyone who want their own new gTLDs will of course have to spend more than that amount overall. Thus I believe only limited number of companies will embark on this new route within the next few years. By 'limited' on a global basis, perhaps we are looking at a few hundreds in year 1.

Well, what will the new domain names be? For a start I believe Google, Yahoo, Apple, Nokia, IBM and other companies in the technology space will clamour for the new bragging rights. We will all know by 2012, when ICANN opens the application period (Jan to Apr 2012) for the new gTLDs.

Trade Nations - Building a Citadel without using Magic Beans

2011-06-16T00:30:00.002+08:00

The Citadel is the latest 'castle' building in the Trade Nations game. It is also the most resource consuming building to build in the game so far! The option to build the Citadel is made available once the player reaches level 30 in the Trade Nations. However, it took me a long period (about 3 game levels) to accumulate the resources sufficient to build this enormous building.

A player will need 500,000 gold, 50,000 lumber, 75000 cut stones and 30,000 cloth to build the citadel. Of course, there is much satisfaction (and also experience to level up in Trade Nations) once the Citadel is built. I leveled up to 34 immediately upon building the Citadel. It is fun to see the little red Citadel icon when I logged into the Trade Nations.

I built the citadel without using any magic beans, and the solution is quite simple actually. Just build a lot of 'Large Stockpile' to store all the necessary resources. Whenever there are any excesses, just sell them (when the price is right) in the market. Activate the magic tower to accelerate the resource accumulation in the mean time.

So yupz, the Citadel is yours to have soon enough in Trade Nations. Hopefully they don't introduce yet another mega building - I need time to replenish my resources and complete the other interesting buildings.

World IPv6 Day - 8 June 2011

2011-06-10T15:30:00.000+08:00

The news reported that World IPv6 Day (8 June 2011) passed without too much problems (Facebook has a short glitch I heard). I guess it's not so for me, despite the fact that there is no participants from my country. Not sure how the glitch for me came about. At 3am (GMT + 8 timing), my Internet access was lost and I couldn't get it up. Of course I went to sleep shortly after.

Guess whatever problems there might have been had been resolved and Internet access is fine now.

For those who are interested in the entire day event for World IPv6 Day, Ars Technica has a good writeup about it.

iPad - Trade Nations: Review & Guide Part 2

2011-05-30T10:11:00.001+08:00

After Part 1 of the iPad Trade Nations Guide, here is the Part 2:

Build Menu

Under the Build menu, i.e. the hammer icon, a player can choose to build buildings, decorations, castle or to expand his land. Various description and information of the buildings / deco are available by clicking the small little 'i' circle. There are decorations which add to the gold and experience gained. Often these additions are in small amount, i.e. <1% to a few %. Some decorations, especially those purchased with magic beans, can have much more pronounced effect.

Shops come in different varieties. Some shops, e.g. the stalls selling fruits, meat etc need a villager to man it and no resources are required (wonder how they get their fruits and fishes). Other shops, e.g. Pubs, Carpenter, Baker do not need villagers as staff, but they will consume resources instead.

Personally I don't think the percentage boost is not as critical as managing the different goods production, i.e. a player in Trade Nations can level up and gain gold more easily by managing the goods production in his shops.

The keep / castle buildings are often the most expensive to build. For example, the current most expensive Citadel will need 500,000 gold, 50,000 lumber, 30,000 cloth, and 75,000 cut stones! These expensive advancements are needed in order to build other buildings.

The other expensive item to 'build' is the land expansion option. At some point players in Trade Nations will run out of space to put new buildings and decorations. There are current 9 land expansion stages. Resources are not needed for land expansion but he gold required is significantly more than the Keep / Castle selections. For example, 'Increase Land 8' option will cost the players 1.5 million gold!

Among the newer buildings and decorations available, those in the Carnival category are interesting. Trade Nations introduced them as a mean to liven up those little towns and villages that players are building. So players can have Theatre, clown, Big Top and many little carnival tents. These buildings seem to add more gold and experience faster than the traditional shops.

Market & Trade

Last but not least, Trade Nations has an innovative world wide 'market' function. When players produced too many resources to keep in the storage, it is profitable to sell them at the market. Click on the picture below to get a sense of the buying and selling prices of the different resources.

Here's a personal tip: buying and selling of resources from the market can yield great golds for the smart players in Trade Nations. For example, cut stones can be bought from as low as 220 gold for 100 cut stones, but it can be sold subsequently for near to 300 gold! So if a player has more space for storage, buying and selling of these resources will be worth the effort.

The trade cycle in the market is not refreshed in real time, i.e. prices do not change instantly. Thus this means that when prices are high or low, the player could sell or buy respectively in infinite amount, barring the capacity of the storage.

Trade Nations is a fun game on the iPad platform. It is somewhat therapeutic to see the little villagers moving about in the town you created. Decorations and the buildings help to keep a flavour that reminded me of the story of Jack and Beanstalk somehow. The amount of time spent for Trade Nations is not all consuming, unlike other games with conquest elements. Thus overall Trade Nations is one of those games that keep the players coming back, and is worth your time to give it a try (if you have not).

See also:
- iPad - Trade Nations: Review & Guide Part 1
- Trade Nations - Building a Citadel without using Magic Beans
- Trade Nations 3.3 - Far East Additions

iPad - Trade Nations: Review & Guide Part 1

2011-05-24T15:05:00.003+08:00

Trade Nations is one of those city building games that sucked up small amount of time each day. It is addictive, in part due to the cute graphics, but mostly because it is fun and easy to play. As a social game on iPhone and iPad, Trade Nations has earned quite a number of good reviews. The Trade Nations is developed by Z2Live.

When the player first starts the game, Trade Nations will prompt the player to build cottages and basic resource gathering. Creating buildings in the game is done via pressing the 'hammer' icon located at the bottom right of the screen. There are 4 options when the 'hammer' icon is activated:

1) Functional Buildings -e.g. farms, cottages, shops etc

2) Decorative items - e.g. tiles, flowers, trees, statues etc (some of the items grant bonus for gold and experience gathering)

3) Castle - upgrading of the Tower to more impressive buildings, including the Citadel.

4) Land expansion - the little plot of land is insufficient for your Trade Nations to grow and thus expansion will be needed

After the buildings are built, they can still be shifted around or be given a different orientation (or even sold for gold). Pressing the icon to the left of the 'hammer' icon will activate this re-decoration mode.

Resources

In Trade Nations, the basic block of resources comprises of four basic types:

a) Wood - Gathered from Logging camp (need 2 villagers) and available early part of the game

b) Rock - Gathered from Quarry (need 2 villagers) and available early part of the game

c) Wheat - Produced from Farms (need 2 villagers) and available early part of the game.

d) Wool - Produced from Pen (need 2 villagers)

Picture of farms (4 farms in lower right corner), some shops and 3 quarries (upper right corner)

These basic resources are later processed into three other secondary resources. Wheat is just wheat, and is used directly by the shops for goods production.

a) Wood is made into lumber in Lumber Yard (2 cutter and 2 haulers)

b) Rock is made into Cut Stones in Stone Cutter (2 cutter and 1 haulers)

c) Wool is made into Cloth in the Loom (2 weavers and 2 haulers)

Cottages, Villagers, Jobs, Gold & Beans

Villagers are available if you build cottages for them. Higher level cottages will allow for more rooms, i.e. more villagers are available. The player needs to level up in Trade Nations in order to build more cottages as well as upgrading the cottages to higher level ones.

Picture of cottages - different designs are available in Trade Nations

Cottages will also provide gold and experience in small amount. Gold is the basic currency in the game.It can be earned via processing the resources into goods in the shop. Not all the shops need resources to produce but the earlier one do.There are also magic beans that can be used to purchase special buildings, speed up resources gathering / processing etc. Magic beans are given when the player level up in Trade Nations (1 bean per level) or be purchased via real life cash.

The villagers will need to be assigned to different jobs, in both the shops as well as resources processing buildings. Of course, some shops do not need villagers. To assign jobs, it is easier to first select the idling villagers (they will be standing next to their cottages), then select the shops. The vacancy will be shown. Select the vacancy to assign that job to the idling villager. There is no difference (or I did not see any so far) between assigning jobs to male or female villagers.

I guess this is long enough for 1 part of the Trade Nations guide, and the others (market, castle, etc) will be covered in Part 2 of the Trade Nations: Review & Guide.

Blogger is currently unavailable - for quite a while actually...

2011-05-14T01:43:00.001+08:00

"Blogger is currently unavailable" was the message you get if you tried to access Blogger for the past many hours.

Apparently Google's Blogger had been down for between 19 hours to 36 hours, depending on which news source. Guess that means millions of blogs will not have new content for the past day. Someone should investigate if there is a significant drop in new web content as a result, as a measure of Blogger's influence on web content creation.

There were also news that some latest blog posts went missing. According to info from Blogger, there was a data corruption during the scheduled maintenance (see pic below). Hopefully it is just a technical glitch, something that is unavoidable when Blogger is testing new features.

Well at least Blogger is no long 'unavailable'.

iPad Apps by URA - Property Market Info & Master Plan 2008

2011-04-14T21:48:00.008+08:00

With the increasing popularity of iPads among the Singapore residents, it is not surprising that we have more Singapore related apps. Nonetheless I am still pleasantly surprised that the government authorities, specifically URA, developed not just one, but 2 apps for the iPad. And both made it to the top 10 free iPad Apps when I checked at the Apps Store.

The 2 apps (in bold red ovals) are the Property Market Information, and the Master Plan 2008. URA's Property Market Information allows potential home buyers to compare prices (including rentals) across private properties in Singapore.

Since URA is only in charge of private properties and not public housing (which is under HDB), the app is restricted in its range of info. Nonetheless the info provided is pretty up to date, since the Property Market Information app can directly draw information from URA's servers.

It will be fun to use this app while while shopping for condos, especially when potential property buyers can compare the condo prices of near by properties in front of the property agents, that might help in their price bargaining.

The other URA app is the Masterplan 2008. Honestly this is less impressive. It is a digitised version of the Master Plan for Singapore, which shows how the different plots of land will be used. This includes the plot ratio and other details.

I am not sure how useful this app will be, other than for specific land developer users. Nonetheless Master Plan 2008 made it to the top 10 apps, so there are others with a different opinion about its usefulness.

WoW - Plants vs Zombies

2011-04-07T22:18:00.004+08:00

The recent changes in the World of Warcraft include a lot of new innovative segments. I was pleasantly surprise to see a mini-game of a Plants vs Zombies in the Hillsbrad Foothills. The mini-game is the quest given by Brazie the Botanist.

Seems like PopCap had consented, or even helped Blizzard with this mini-game. There are multiple parts to this mini-game.

Oh, for those who have difficulty completing the quest - try having two rows of sunflowers, it would help.

Group Buy via Internet

2011-03-31T00:01:00.006+08:00

I first heard about Groupon when I attended a conference at Jerusalem last year (2010). Groupon, as in 'Group Coupon' was touted as an upcoming trend setter for the Internet commerce sector.

True enough, there was a flood of stories about Groupon and its clones in the subsequent months, and viola, Groupon is now in Singapore!

Groupon entered the Singapore market via a purchase of Beeconomic (the deal rumoured to be in the range of millions). Groupon.sg is now very active and there have been a number of different deals on the site.

But other than Groupon, there are many other Singapore group buy sites. The one that caught my attention is Deal.com.sg. For some reason (perhaps due to different target audience groups), I am more attracted to the deals on deal.com.sg. Maybe Groupon / Beeconomic has young female audience in mind, while travel and food are more attractive to me.

These sites have also utilised the social networks, e.g. Deal.com.sg is on Facebook, to create groups for the viral marketing effect. Afterall, group buy and viral marketing should easily go hand in hand together. Other than social networks, the sites would also send out email alerts of their latest deals, and as I understand, there are even mobile applications on iPhones and such to allow for 'instant buy' via the mobile apps. Innovative!

However, as with any Internet trends, there are also issues about sites dying off and the customers not getting what they bought. We heard about such stories in China, where the concept of 'group buy' a.k.a 'tuan gou' gave birth to hundreds of sites and some have since died. Of course, China is a big market with its own unique set of consumer norms and Internet culture.

Hopefully the Singapore sites can survive well, and continue to offer such attractive discounts for our local shoppers. I think we need alternatives that offer better deals throughout the year, instead of just during the Singapore Sale or year end holiday sales.

iPad - Syndicate: Review & Guide

2011-03-13T00:27:00.011+08:00

Ever since iPad was released, there has been numerous games. Some of the games are similar to what are available on Facebook (e.g. Mafia Wars) where players engaged in tasks to build up gold / experience points for leveling and construction of their little empires.

One of the more interesting games in iPad is the Syndicate, a game that focus on building up a commercial empire with workers and a nice commercial building. Here's a screen shot of the Syndicate game on iPad. The building in the centre is built only after much leveling has been done, level 17 to be exact.

Jobs
There are a few activities for the player that are listed on the left side of the screen. The main focus of the Syndicate game is the doing of jobs, that yield experience points and various amount of gold. The jobs come with pre-requisites including number of workers (i.e. staff), the player level, and the facilities that the player has. Facilities can be built and each new addition with have impact on staff morale and productivity. Productivity also affects the monetary rewards for the jobs.

For example, if the job pays $1000 normally and the productivity is 150%, the monetary reward is actually $1,500. The amount is also affected by when the player 'claims' the job rewards. When the job is completed (after a set timing, from 15 minutes to hours), bonus of 25% or 50% will be given if the player can claim the jobs rewards in time. Over time, the bonus drops to zero.

Hire
To hire more workers, just click on the 'Hire' tab, and a list of up to 10 workers will be shown. The workers are given funny games with funnier descriptions, e.g. worker George Skipper - Supposes that he is a ship captain. Some of the descriptions are pretty lame actually. During the initial levels, it costs less to hire a worker, and the cost per worker increases with new levels of the player. At times, the new hire will also cause a decrease in staff morale and productivity. So it is important to improve the facility of the rooms that help to increase staff morale and productivity.

Buildings and Rooms
The player starts off with a single room when the Syndicate is first started; 'Boss's Office' and the player can have as many as 6 rooms - Canteen, Working Area, Warehouse, Guard Desk and Expedition. Each room has many facilities for the player to purchase. For example, there is water cooler, plants etc etc.

The facilities will take time to build. Each facility improvement also costs money, except for one of the item related to human - e.g. the secretary, employee that must be purchased with the gold coin. Gold coins are sometimes given when job levels are completed. Each facility has 3 levels with different types of rewards. Of course, facilities cost more with the higher levels, and in the more advanced rooms.

Other than rooms, the players can also improve their buildings. To me, this is the fun part of the game, where there is some sense of achievement to see the game character owning bigger and nicer buildings. There are two category of buildings, one purchased with money and the other using gold coins. The latter comes with additional benefits. Of course, to have ore gold coins mean the player needs to spend real life money to purchase them.

There are 3 pre-requisites to build new buildings, level of player, number of workers, and of course the amount of money / gold coins available. Buildings too will take some time to complete.

Rewards & Bonus
Rewards are given when jobs are completed, and the player can use these rewards to improve various game statistics. There are bonus that immediately completes all jobs, bonus that affect staff morale, productivity etc etc. Players can also purchase mroe of these bonus using money or the gold coins.

When the player levels up, bonus will also be given. To see what bonuses are given with each level, just tap on the portrait of the game character and the lists, as well as other statistics will be shown.

If you have friends playing the Syndicate game, do add them, and they can be relied upon for the Pyramid function, i.e. the player earns money when their added friends complete jobs. Of course, being a social game, the Syndicate also has the friends visiting function. Players can even visit other Syndicate players who are not 'friends' per se.

Overall the Syndicate game is pretty fun to play with. The jobs get repetitive after a while but since the game doesn't consume too much time, it is good to while away 10-15 minutes every couple of hours or so. Honestly, many games on iPad get repetitive after a while.

One small tip for the beginning player - do the jobs if you have enough staff, even after the jobs have reached maximum level and do not yield any more experience. This will help you gain more money faster.

Playfish: My Empire - Volcano Island, Barracks & Soldiers!

2010-07-26T00:20:00.010+08:00

Playfish has added a new dimension to the My Empire game. I guess by now many players have a shortage of land to build new buildings, and the game mechanics of 'Build & Build' is no longer as exciting.

So it is very timely that My Empire has a brand new island - Volcano Island, where players can explore and build their colonies. Of course, the game puts in a teaser in the form of a lost map to be discovered via multiple map fragments. So the players will have to click on the hidden map portions to reveal the entire map.

Everyday there is only 10 fragments to be found, but friends can send more fragments to each other. It takes a few days to reveal the whole map. From the revealed map, a total of three islands can be seen. The centre island is the home island. So far, players can only explore the Volcano Island, and the other island is 'locked'.

An important point to note is that players have more room to expand their empires when more lands are available via Volcano Island.

At the same time, Playfish introduced the Barracks building for players level 6 and above. This is an important building that unlocks the soldiers function. The soldiers are necessary to 'explore' the new islands and fight the barbarians.

The soldiers can be 'recruited' quite easily only time. 4 routes of recruitment are possible with 3 routes using coins over time, while the last option is an instant recruitment using Playfish cash. There is a limit to the number of soldiers that each player can have. This limit can be increased via the recruitment of 'generals'. Generals are basically friends who responded to the player's call for generals. More generals are needed or else the limited number of soldiers will definitely lose the battles with the barbarians.

At the beginning when the map is revealed, the storyline shows that the cousin of the player (i.e. the Greek looking girl) is abducted by the barbarians, and the player is supposed to save her. Thus the player will have to reveal more parts of the islands shrouded by clouds and obstacles.

Every time an obstacle is clicked, the player explores more of the Volcano Island. There are possibility of gold coins and resources to be found, including those needed to build the special wonder found only on Volcano Island. More often than not, barbarians will attack the player, and this is when the number of soldiers become important. As with any battle, absolute numbers is a critical factor. My Empire will also indicate the probability of winning which is based on the comparison of numbers from both the polayer and the barbarians.

When the player wins and also secures barbarian outposts, more generals slots can be unlocked. This means more generals can be recruited. Of course, not every battle will go smoothly, even when the probability of winning is high. Thus after the battle, more barbarians will 'run away', which helps the player's chance to win the battle the next round.

I've yet to rescue the 'cousin' or 'found' the temple of Zeus. So, come back for more updates in future for info about them!

See related post:
- Playfish: My Empire - Simple Guide

Playfish: My Empire - Simple Guide

2010-07-18T22:49:00.018+08:00

Playfish has been rolling out lotsa of new games recently, for example My Empire and Pirates Ahoy!

My Empire is as the name suggested, an empire building game. Unlike the PC genre of empire building game, this Playfish version is a relatively peaceful affair, without the war / soldiers / barracks element. The player is given a small island to build up a thriving little town. With higher levels, the buildable area expands and the little township can grown bigger.

Note: Playfish introduced the barracks and soldiers shortly after this post, and thus My Empire is not such a peaceful game afterall.

Game Mechanics - Coins
The game started with a pool of coins for the player to build essentials like housing, storage etc. Thus coins formed the basic currency of the game, and it is vital to plan to earn coins. Coins could be obtained via the following methods:

- Daily log-in. The game reward players with a bag of coins every day. There is also a bonus to the bag of coins when the player log in consecutively over a period of 5 days.

- Daily visits to friends' cities. My Empire rewards daily visits by giving coins as 'rewards for trading'.

- Tax Collection. My Empire has a tax colelction function with 4 options (too little in my opinion) of 5 minutes, 4 hours, 12 hours, and 24 hours. Other than the 5 minutes option, it costs coins to hire the tax collector. Of course, the tax collected is related to the population size of the empire.
Note: Do remember to 'collect' the tax after the stated hours. The game will allow for a grace period of equal hours (e.g. 4 hours grace for the 4 hours tax collection), failing which the tax will be stolen, i.e. player loses both the tax collection as well as initial coin payment for tax collector.

- Traveling merchants. Occasionally when the player visits other friends, there will be a 'Traveling Merchant' who can reward the player with resources or coins when the player click on the icon. More about this 'Traveling Merchant' at the end of this post.

Game Mechanics - Building
Since the game is about building of an empire, it is only natural to have many building options. My Empire offers 4 types of buildings, 'Functional', 'Happiness', 'Decorations' and 'Wonders'.

Functional includes the basic housing and mines, and they provide essentials for the game, including population gains and the resources (e.g. wood, ores etc). With higher levels, more elaborated buildings can be built, that provides more housing space and happiness for example.

'Happiness' tab has the more interesting buildings like storage, farms etc. The buildings from this tab provide more happiness, which are essential for the empire. The 'Decorations' has smaller items like animals, flags, flowers etc to beautify the empire. Last but least of all are the Wonders. This allows the players to construct the pyramid, Stonehenge and such, i.e. the old Wonders of the ancient world.

All buildings are constructed using coins or Playfish cash, and some will require additional resources, e.g. gold ores, red bricks etc from the different mines.

The building of the Wonders require a lot of help from friends. Each of the wonder has an additional material that cannot be obtained from the mines, e.g. sulphur, diamonds, tar etc. Thus the player will need to receive such materials as 'gifts' from friends. Thus My Empire basically encourage players to add more friends so as to short cut the building of the wonders. The effort is worth it, since the wonders conferred a lot of happiness for the empire's population.

At the gifting option, it is not difficult to see which of the materials are needed for which wonder. However, the tricky part is that the player needs to know which wonders are being built by his friends or he could be sending the wrong materials. This also requires more effort to activate the gift sending options multiple times (for different wonders built by different friends). Quite troublesome I must say. The gifts could be sent only once a day to the other friends.

Game Mechanics - Research
My Empire also allow for alchemy research when the player reaches higher level. This simply means the mines can provide for more variety of materials to be obtained each day. Nope, each mine type still provides only 1 material per 24 hours. Research option will indicate what type of research is possible, and yes, unlocking of research will require a lot of coins.

Research also allow for enhancement of the market and townhall. This means more coins can be earned by trading between friends and the daily log in.

Game Mechanics - Other Notes
A small note for players of My Empire is that during each daily visit to friends, the player might come across an emoticon of traders with camels (e.g. in the picture below) and a small exclamation mark. Do remember to click on it!

Clicking on the icon means the player will get a chance to earn something more, quite likely additional resources, or sometimes merely coins. Unfortunately this 'trader / camel' icon of the 'Traveling Merchant' seems to appear only once a day and thus there is only a limit to the additional freebies.

Overall My Empire is a nice game, but somehow it is not as attractive as Restaurant City or the Hotel City developed by Playfish. Perhaps the amount of animation for the empire is not sufficient enough to make it interesting as yet. Gamers might already be spoilt by the wide variety of animations found in the PC based empire building games.

Of course, Playfish has announced that there will be new developments for My Empire, including teasers about visits to other islands not owned by the friends of the player. We will see how it develops.

See related post:
- Playfish: My Empire - Volcano Island, Barracks & Soldiers!

Playfish's Hotel City - New York & Night View Background

2010-06-16T00:39:00.008+08:00

The Background feature for Hotel City is finally out! Well it is not that easy to get these new beautiful background (of course) and some efforts from friends will be necessary to complete the items needed for each of the background.

The New York background has more requirements compared to the Night View background. For both, the items (also known as luxuries) could be obtained (once a day) from visiting a friend where a shopping bag icon is placed against the friend's avatar. A second way is for friends to send you the required items. Of course, there is always a way to meet these new requirements by using (and paying) for Playfish cash. It cost about 50-60+ Playfish cash to get the background.

Is it worth it to get the new background given all these efforts? Yes I certainly think so. Take a look at the New York background (seen from the Bell boy hotel) and I will say this is a much welcomed alternative to the original one.

So yes to those who are working hard to get the required items, all the best for your efforts! After the New York and Night View backgrounds (33 & 25 luxuries required respectively), Playfish will likely release the San Francisco background.

There is some level of satisfaction to see the required items being completeted, and I guess that adds a needed level of re freshness to a somewhat routine gameplay.

So do help out other players to get their luxuries and in return those who help out will also have luxuries from Hotel City.

Restaurant City - Sushi Bar

2010-06-13T16:41:00.006+08:00

The Sushi Bar of Restaurant City is old news, but heh I just managed to get my Sushi Bar! The Sushi Bar is free, but the player will need to level up the salmon sashimi to level 10 before it is made available. I'm not sure why is it called Sushi Bar when it is more commonly known as Sushi Belt?

With the Sushi Bar, two diners can eat (standing) at the bar and earn coins for the player, i.e. no need for waiter or cook. However, the dishes displayed are those Japanese dishes with level 10, and thus it will be a long way to go before my Sushi Bar is filled with the dishes.

So here's how the Sushi Bar looks like. I'm placing it in the garden for an outdoor sushi experience. The Sushi Bar has the additional function for the player to check on the level of the various dishes that can be placed on the Sushi Bar.