Rogue Touch Reviews!

Discussion about Rogue Touch for the iPhone and iPod Touch
Jessica
Posts: 47
Joined: Tue Feb 17, 2009 2:02 pm

Rogue Touch Reviews!

Post by Jessica »

We thought we'd put up links to some press that Rogue Touch has gotten! If you've seen another review floating around out there, let us know! Oh, and if you haven't left us a nice review in the iTunes App Store we'd appreciate it very much if you did so :D It would help balance out the meanys who delete and rate one star :lol:

The short list so far:

Blake at TouchArcade.com gave us a really nice review this past weekend, as well as a preview the week before that probably led most of you here!

Eric at FrapStr.com also had a lot to say about us on Saturday!


Both of these sites are top notch! FrapStr may be the less visible of the two, but they are very thorough and dedicated guys. I recommend reading both of them daily, as CD and I do :D


New on 2/26/09:
Swain at iphoneappreviews.net just reviewed us and had a lot of positive things to say. Thanks Swain, we'd like Rogue Touch to be the perfect iPhone version too- and we're working on it :lol:


New on 3/03/09:
Gary at 148apps.com wrote a positive review on RT. We know the graphics are dated compared to modern gaming (our design decision... a lot of people would love to see us include ASCII characters for really old school charm :lol: ), but totally agree the gameplay and replay value are what makes Rogue Touch such a great experience!


New on 3/05/09:
Chuck at AppVee.com covered Rogue Touch today with a fair review. My guess is that Chuck's not familiar with Rogue's roots based on some of his sticking points, so he's most likely not a big fan of the genre. It's interesting to see an outsider's take since most of our reviewers have been roguelike players at one point or another. Could we do fancier dungeon graphics? Sure, but we were aiming at a specific target when drawing these. I guess older geeks like us are more easily wowed by the old rogue in a new suit! Still a passing grade of three stars though, so he did at least enjoy playing RT! :lol:


New on 3/07/09:
Blake at TouchArcade posted a follow-up about us, and the updates we've been making for our fans! Seems he's become one too! Thank you so much Blake, we're glad that RT has made it to your short-list of things you play when you're not actually playing for the job! :D


New on 3/09/09:
Steve at SlideToPlay.com posted a pretty comprehensive review of Rogue Touch. He definitely enjoyed it, but admits the old world gameplay is not for everyone! We're still working on the game balance... Things were done to make the game less punishing to newcomers so they were not discouraged immediately, plus new types of magic and equipment were introduced that did not exist in the original Rogue. It's teetered toward the easier side, and that is being corrected as we go forward with even more new features :twisted:


New on 4/02/09:
Bob at AppVersity.com reviewed our 1.3/1.4 combo update and really liked it! We loved the bits of humor in his review about the good old days of gaming and "darn kids!", he also seems to genuinely appreciate the hard work we've put into this. Nope, Rogue Touch is definitely not for everyone but we've tried very hard to make it appeal to a broader audience than the original would have these days :D
Mojo
Posts: 7
Joined: Tue Mar 24, 2009 8:12 am

Re: Rogue Touch Reviews!

Post by Mojo »

I have a review for you...it's from ME!! :mrgreen:
Rogue Touch is AWESOME!!!!!
I'm a gamer for life and have been playing games of all sorts since the days before systems like the Commodore 64 (and even before that!) I learned long ago that with nothing more than a few pixels (or ascii characters) and my imagination, I had my very best adventures. Coming from a background of the pencil and paper D&D days\nights\days, I can remember getting so excited that I almost wet my pants when encountering a hobgoblin in a dark corridor. Things played out in my mind that make the LoTR movies look like claymation. I grieve for many of the younger generation, because in most cases, they have never had the adrenaline rush of playing a game with nothing more than their imagination. Due to advances in gaming technology and movies, little is ever left to one's imagination anymore. I admit that I get sucked into the incredible graphics of today's games and I often wonder how different I would be if my childhood had been inundated with such. I truly feel that I would have missed out on SO MUCH. Anyway, sorry for the ranting...
My review is a short one, because the only limits Rogue Touch has are the limits of one's imagination.
This game is simple, yet challenging. It's old-school in the best kind of way, as it acts as a catalyst for your imagination.
Buy it, love it, live it!

Thanks for such a great game!
Mojo
skizzybiz
Posts: 4
Joined: Thu Apr 09, 2009 11:19 pm

Re: Rogue Touch Reviews!

Post by skizzybiz »

Here's the review I posted to the app store today (with 5 stars, probably the only 5 star I'll ever give):

Rogue is a game that I keep coming back to. I've played a descendant of it, Nethack, for more than 10 years and I haven't managed to beat it yet. This version of the game has real graphics (instead of the original ascii characters for each monster and item) and a much improved control scheme -- since you interact with the game by tapping it, the old scheme of one command per letter on the keyboard would be pretty cumbersome. From my understanding, the developer rewrote the game more or less from scratch, and he's been fixing bugs and adding features (new weapons and items! secret characters that you can play by guessing their names!) as quickly as possible.

As for the game itself, it's a role-playing game that definitely feels like a throwback if you're more more used to WarCraft or the like, but it's a beautiful game all the same. It doesn't have level grinding in order to beat progressively more difficult monsters. It doesn't have a pre-written storyline that you have to follow as a mostly-passive observer (Final Fantasy, I'm looking at you). What it does have is randomly-generated dungeons with randomly generated monsters in a turn-based system that requires you to use your wits (and not a little luck) to survive. Because the items are also randomly generated and hard to identify, and the weapons and armor can randomly come cursed, you have to proceed cautiously. You'll spend a lot of time making beginner mistakes before you figure out a playing style that gives you a chance of surviving beyond the first couple of dungeon levels. There are no save games -- by design! -- but each time you play, you'll add to your arsenal of gameplay knowledge. The developer website provides a lot of information on what types of items and monsters you'll encounter, but it's up to you to figure out what to do with the former in order to defeat the latter.

The only story imperatives are that you must descend deeper and deeper, gathering as much gold as possible, until you find the Amulet of Yendor, at which point you have to lug it back up through all those levels. Yet, because there is so much you can do with each item, and because the turn-based system gives you so much time to think, you end up with a wealth of little stories about how you accidentally turned that slime into a dragon, or how you managed to paralyze the troll just long enough to retreat into the labyrinth where it's afraid to follow, only to find that you were running low on food and had to choose between starvation and slaughter.

There are still a few bugs that need to be worked out -- the pinch to zoom gesture frequently results in inadvertently moving my character, and the double-tap to run gesture only works half the time -- but even as it stands, this is far and away one of the best games in the store. Here's to hoping that I can beat it sometime in the next 10 years!
Jessica
Posts: 47
Joined: Tue Feb 17, 2009 2:02 pm

Re: Rogue Touch Reviews!

Post by Jessica »

skizzybiz, and of course Mojo before you, CD and I really appreciate the time you take to express your thoughts here and in iTunes! It's really the word of mouth that brings all of us here together... most people get too hung up on graphics these days and don't think about the gameplay. We are trying to change that, one little game at a time. Hopefully our next one will be as persuasive :lol:

CD's definitely looking into your only little gripes that mar the great experience- I think he's got a plan to fix the zooming already ;)

If anyone else has written an interesting review they'd like to share with everyone please feel free to add them in here. Just make sure you keep them up to date in iTunes too, as that helps our appearance and rating :oops:

CD pointed out that TouchArcade has a new article up about our update and sale so I need to edit my post now!
Mindfield
Posts: 1
Joined: Fri Mar 06, 2009 7:23 pm

Re: Rogue Touch Reviews!

Post by Mindfield »

I think CD is still in his meeting, so here is my review of 1.5 posted earlier today. Awesome, as always. :)
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Dex1138
Posts: 17
Joined: Tue Apr 14, 2009 8:28 am
Location: near Salem MA

Re: Rogue Touch Reviews!

Post by Dex1138 »

Didn't want to make a new topic but this isn't much of a "review"
Just wanted to say kudos on the special effects in the game such as hallucination, teleporting and especially the pit trap.
First time I hit one of those I nearly screamed out loud WTH?? :lol:
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LordGek
Posts: 86
Joined: Sun Feb 22, 2009 6:48 pm

Re: Rogue Touch Reviews!

Post by LordGek »

Dex1138 wrote:Didn't want to make a new topic but this isn't much of a "review"
Just wanted to say kudos on the special effects in the game such as hallucination, teleporting and especially the pit trap.
First time I hit one of those I nearly screamed out loud WTH?? :lol:
Yeah, some of that almost has a cool old school Monty Python's Terry Gilliam feel to it (dancing around the screen with little cutouts).
Ihateants
Posts: 23
Joined: Sat Feb 14, 2009 4:11 pm

Re: Rogue Touch Reviews!

Post by Ihateants »

There's a review in the new issue of Retro Gamer (UK Magazine). 89% and they said it was the best Rogue version they've played lately on any system.

Congrats guys.
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CommanderData
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Re: Rogue Touch Reviews!

Post by CommanderData »

Ihateants wrote:There's a review in the new issue of Retro Gamer (UK Magazine). 89% and they said it was the best Rogue version they've played lately on any system.

Congrats guys.
NICE! That's awesome news ihateants! How does one go about getting their hands on that outside the UK? I'll search around on the web, but if that fails maybe I can send some money via PayPal to have you box up two or three copies for me? :mrgreen:
Ihateants
Posts: 23
Joined: Sat Feb 14, 2009 4:11 pm

Re: Rogue Touch Reviews!

Post by Ihateants »

I've no idea if they sell it outside the UK but the website is here

http://www.retrogamer.net/

*Edit*. Looks like you can buy it online

http://www.imagineshop.co.uk/item_show. ... ction=home
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