Skulls of the Shogun

[segadc]

Oh no I forgot to redeem my Windows Phone points so waiting for that before I buy Skulls of Shogun...

edit: That was quick...got it!

 

[segadc]

I'm loving it. The cloud saves a brilliant too/ It's nice switching between the phone and the surface.

So for Windows Phone I don't see an option for cloud save in the campaign...unless its mean it just uses cloud save automatically? I know with 360 you actually have to choose it.

 

[I Spiritus I]

Anyone fancy going for a 4 player multiplayer game? and the achievement to go with it?

 

[Letros]

Aside from the low resolution, frame rate drops, and excessive battery drain, this game is really good. Hopefully the developers are aware and get it patched.

 

[uselessrobot]

Now that I've spent some time with the game I really like it. Great art style, fun but tense gameplay and consistently smooth framerate. It's one of the best games on Windows Phone, especially because it doesn't feel like a mobile game.

That said, I feel even more strongly about the need for HD. When units are clumped together it's hard to make out individuals because everything turns into a pixelated mess.

 

[alaskanjackson]

@Spiritus - invite alaskanjackson. You may get me if your lucky. If not my 9 year old will walk on the shattered remains of our corpse.

 

[theefman]

Anyone getting invites from random people? I went into the versus menu but didnt start a game and now I get invites and notifications.

 

[Banstyle]

Guys I have an issue. This game is awesome but it is BURNING my phone up. I played it for a bit, it got a little heated and then I closed the phone. I checked it a few hours later and it's EXTREMELY hot and the battery is drained almost completely (this is after charging it 100% this morning). I think that Shoguns being in the background is continuing to drain the battery. Insane!

 

[Keith Wallace]

Aside from the low resolution, frame rate drops, and excessive battery drain, this game is really good. Hopefully the developers are aware and get it patched.

It didn't seem to mess with my battery life any more than other games. After playing for 30-45 minutes the other day, my battery life had only dropped by about 6%, and that was with Skulls and Xbox Music going. It quoted my battery life as being about 1 day 2 hours, but maybe excessive play (meaning 2 hours or so) is where it starts wrecking the battery?

 

[Keith Wallace]

Guys I have an issue. This game is awesome but it is BURNING my phone up. I played it for a bit, it got a little heated and then I closed the phone. I checked it a few hours later and it's EXTREMELY hot and the battery is drained almost completely (this is after charging it 100% this morning). I think that Shoguns being in the background is continuing to drain the battery. Insane!

Well, if you shut the game down and that persists, reset the phone. That'll dump everything left in the phone's memory, and it'll cool off. That's something you should do once in a while, just reset the phone to make sure that no tiny files get left running in the background.

 

[Banstyle]

Is there a way to end a task without turning off the phone? I never had to do this before, I didn't realize that saved game states burn down the battery.

 

[Keith Wallace]

Well, backing out SHOULD end it, but there is a chance (and since I do not know the makeup of the OS or its applications, I have to kind of go on hearsay) that applications can leave small processes running in the background upon exit.

For example, there is a threads in one of these forums about a battery drain related to Bluetooth and Xbox Music. Someone suggested that it might be independent of Bluetooth and be 100% on Xbox Music. Why? When you close out Xbox Music after starting a song, hit the volume rocker. It still shows the last-played song, and if you hit "Play," it will resume where you left it, no? There might be a small process in the background keeping that going, and if you have that going on with multiple apps, it can be a substantial battery drain.

Oh, tip:

With Portico, when you reset a phone, the brightness automatically goes to high. I have mine set to low, but I have to set it to something else, then back to low to get the brightness back to low.

 

[Eirenarch]

Disclaimer: I'm a competitive multiplayer junkie. As a consequence I'm a big Armed fan

I find Skulls of the Shogun a big disappointment. When I read about it for the first time like 2 months ago I was really excited. It seemed like the Skulls had it all - cross-platform, turn based multiplayer, years of development, etc.

When it was released I bought it on both my Windows 8 touch machine and on WP (7.5 device). I played through the campaign on Windows 8 (using touch controls) and I played just a few turns on WP to see how it works (I used the cloud save and it worked). Here are my impressions:

- The general idea of the game is very good and promising. I like the game concepts in general.

- Music and art are very good.

- It is often hard to distinguish what units stand where. The unit you select becomes bigger and it is often hard to click on the unit you want when they are bunched together. The art style is actually a bad thing in this case as it makes distinguishing individual units harder. Of course playing on a small screen makes this even worse. Yes, I know you can zoom. It didn't help.

- The touch interface is just sad. It is very hard to make the unit stand where you want. It seems like the game is developed for a gamepad controller and touch is put on top of that. The unit does not move to a location you touch or follow your finger. Instead your finger acts as a direction key for the unit starting from where the unit started. The weird touch UI can make it so you move your finger in one direction and the unit moves in the other. It is so annoying. Of course the small WP screen makes this even worse.

- Multiplayer has a lot of potential but... no live matches for WP or Win8 only async play. OK I can deal with it but the UI for finding games is sad. It seems like there are no notifications on turns (at least on Windows 8 because I did not dare play multiplayer on WP). The strangest thing of all is that sending a turn takes AGES. I cannot imagine a reason why sending a turn would take more time than actually playing it. Due to this the game is progressing very slowly. I have 4 games started for like 3 days and I have lost hope that any would end any time soon because this slow gameplay just discourages you from checking for new turns often (remember no notifications on turns!). I don't even want to THINK what 4 person multiplayer would be like.

- As others pointed out the game makes a WP device BURN. I only played a few moves on it but I've never felt it so hot EVER. I guess in practice this means that it will burn the battery really quick.



On many occasions I've been critical for Armed matchmaking and UI (I hit you because I love you!). Skulls of the Shogun made me realize how good Armed actually is in terms of cross-platform multiplayer, actual multiplayer flow and of course touch-enabled user interface. I cannot fathom why people are calling this "the only 5 star WP game" and generally ignore armed in favor of this game but if you are into turn based multiplayer games go for Armed instead of this.

 

[Keith Wallace]

On #3, they have a "Next Unit," button specifically for that, so that complaint's not really valid. Also, I feel like people are WAY too sensitive about their phones' temperatures. That, or I have the best-cooled 920 ever. I mean, it certainly does get warmer, but never to a great extent. My stupid Droid Incredible frequently got so hot I took the case and cover off to cool it down.

 

[Eirenarch]

While it is true that you can select your unit with the next unit button (sometimes need to circle through all units) you cannot choose a unit to attack this way. I often need 3-4 attempts to make a unit attack the unit I want instead of capture building/rice field or attack another unit.

I personally don't care about the phone temperature. I am not scared it will break or something but this is a sign that the phone is working hard and usually burning through the battery life. Interestingly the game does not have some impressive 3D graphics to justify this. I am not saying the game looks bad. It looks great mainly because of the beautiful art but I just can't understand why it is working too hard.

 

[Keith Wallace]

I'm really not sure with the battery life. Mine got warm, but it never seemed like the battery life was seriously diminished because of it. I have not taken more than about 30 minutes to play it at a time though, so maybe that happens (the battery drain, not the heat) with extended play.

 

[busngabb]

Eirenarch, you can select units to attack. When its your turn you can cycle through your units with the icon, then select them with the scroll icon. This means moving your finger will move the unit rather than select other units you go near. Once close enough to attack you can press the blue attack button and if there is more than one possible unit to attack you can cycle through them with the next target button.

The touch interface on windows phone is fantastic, I really don't see how they could do much to improve it.

It just strikes me that this forum is full of people who just love to moan and ***** about pretty much everything.

Skulls is the best game on Windows Phone by an enormous distance, why not be happy about that?

 

[Eirenarch]

Oh I never noticed that there is a button to cycle through the targets. This would make it somewhat easier to play. One way to improve the interface would be to move the unit to the point you touch and not in the direction of your finger. Another improvement would be a more top-down view which will make it easier to know where your unit stands exactly. I'd also prefer some other way to mark the selected unit like color or something and not making it bigger.

 

[a5cent]

Were people here really fretting over a price difference that amounts to a pack of chewing gum??? Seriously???

 

[Eirenarch]

Were people here really fretting over a price difference that amounts to a pack of chewing gum??? Seriously???

I find this really sad with mobile apps in general.