I’m just joking.
It’s not like my blog is that big or, you know, active at the moment. 
Compared to some blogs, yours is more active than the NYT. 
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Can anyone comment on Le Havre online functionality? I know it’s asynch, but is it currently working well? Notification/badge icons? I’d like to recommend this one to some friends but I want to know that it would work for us first.
Hell, I wouldn’t mind trying a game if it works well.
I’m out on a farm for the next 10 days with little to no connectivity, but if you’ve got no takers I may be willing when I get home.
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Fluxx was great on iOS. We used to have a pretty regular group going back in the day.
Like a lot of card games, though, it really needed to have some expansions or added cards available as IAP.
In order to start a game you’re sending text messages to people as Game Center has basically been gutted overall.
Dr. Mario World is our for iOS.
It annoys me to no end that there are three currencies in this game. I haven’t played far enough to see what impact this will make in the game, but I was hoping for a puzzle game I could happily let my kids play without having to worry about everything being locked behind timers or currencies.
The game itself looks like it may be good, though it is certainly a bastardization of classic Doctor Mario. Nintendo seems to have taken the modern match-3 approach of giving you a limited number of moves to make the most out of.
Ah well.
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Compared to how many currencies there are in the actual world, three seems like an improvement.
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He’s here all week, folks! Two shows on Friday. Top your veal; try your waitress!
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Santorini is out on iOS and Android -
$4.99 with iap for expansion packs, maybe? I’m not certain what the iap is, downloading it now.
You weirdos on Android will have to find your own link… 
eta: it’s a universal app for iOS
eta2: iap is for God expansion packs; there are 5 priced at $1.99 each with 5 Gods, or get the whole kit and kaboodle for $7.99; there seems to be a great deal of them without buying the iap
eta3: it has local, online, and a journey type mode. Local has 5 different levels of AI and appears to have a pass and play option, since you can select two humans. Online matchmaking seems to be by room codes and calls people Player 1 and Player 2; there doesn’t seem to be a setup for email. You can setup a private room, but the other player needs to know the “room code.” I’m unsure of sync vs async, although I’m leaning towards sync - when I create a private room it gives me the code and says “wait here.” That’s… not promising.
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Are you kidding me with that online garbage!?! How long has Ascension been out? Has it been a decade yet? How can developers still not k ow how to do what has already been done to perfection for years?
I’ll end up getting this one when I have WiFi since it looks beautiful and my son loves it, online warts aside.
Does anyone know if you can play without god powers?
Yes, there’s an option to play as “mortal”, which has no powers. There’s also a random selector.
And fully agreed on the room code system
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Suburbia updated a week or so ago. I think it looks good on my XS Max screen. Unfortunately, online multiplayer was removed. Also, either I don’t have a clue what I am doing, which is entirely possible, or the game isn’t scoring correctly as I’ve played some tiles that I thought would add to my income but the game said it would add to my population. Again, this could be entirely my own misunderstanding.
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It was 8 years ago at the end of last month. But the Ascension online model was based on what Samurai had done, and that was released at least a year before Ascension. Galaxy Trucker and Through the Ages iterated on that same model (as well as all the other Playdek games), so it’s not like there aren’t more recent examples available.
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Playdek and CGE’s models are the holy grails of async design - playing them should be mandatory for game devs. It amazes me how many studios fall short in this area and then wonder why their games sell poorly (looking at you, Evolution, Terraforming Mars, Among the Stars… and that’s just off the top of my head).
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It is nice of you to give credit to Samurai, but humble as you may be, you know you totally nailed it with Ascension and as it is still an amazing app, it could still serve as an example to any developer interested in creating online play. And yes, CGE does a wonderful job but they shouldn’t be the outliers with the technology we have available, just the norm.
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but Strangiato is right when pointing to the Samurai app.
Samurai was absolutely groundbreaking: nice async, replays, excellent log, consistent chat, fine UI.
a masterpiece. closed down nonetheless…
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I do wish I had gotten it when I still had the chance.
I’d even settle for the RftG friend code model if it allowed me to leave the damn game while awaiting other players… Why do dev’s think I want to be glued to my device while awaiting someone-on-another-continent’s login?!
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