NaNoWriMo
is taking up a lot of my writing time and energy (writing a novel takes a lot
of effort. Who knew?) So this is a bit late, and a bit brief. My apologies.
Mini-Musings
-Obviously, the biggest news of the last week was the launch
of the Malifaux app. If you haven’t gotten a chance to check it out yet, you
should probably go download it here. I’ll be taking a look at it in more detail
below.
-There’s 2 days(ish) left on the Iron Painter. Good luck to
everybody who is competing.
-The last several Malifaux Monday Preview articles have been
showcasing pursuits coming with the next Through the Breach sourcebook, Above
the Law. This book details the Guild and its various iterations. So far, we’ve
seen the Marksman, Commander, Magewright, and Bureaucrat. One assumes we’ll see
some of the various members of the Special Divisions detailed therein, perhaps
akin to the Death Marshall Advanced Pursuit from the Core Rules.
***
Malifaux App mini-review
The new
app for Malifaux launched this week for Android and iOS. The app allows players
to build crews, track their collection, and set-up and run games all from their phone.
Furthermore, for only $10, players gain access to the full stat cards of
everything in Malifaux, from now to perpetuity. You read that right: you aren’t
going to have to pay $5 for every new expansion book that comes out. A one-time
payment gives your Google or iTunes account lifetime access to every Malifaux
model’s stat cards. That seems like a great freaking deal. I honestly expected
it to be much higher and work like so many other fremium apps, with
micro-transactions from here to the end of the game’s lifespan every time something
new comes along. Plus, this prevents the need for constantly reprinting stat
cards from Wargames Vault every time an errata comes out, which is a welcome
change for many players, especially those who have to pay to have their new
cards to be shipped overseas.
It feels slightly unfair to do a
full review of the app at this time, as it’s still early in its release and,
with a game as complicated as Malifaux, there are certain to be bugs at launch.
The actual release itself was a little shaky as well, as there was an
unexplained “region lock” that Wyrd had to scramble to repair that prevented its
download in other markets (that should be sorted out now.) The main thing the
app has to overcome in many people’s minds is the ease and speed of the
Crewfaux app, which has served in this capacity for several years prior to
this. The first major difference between the two, besides the inclusion of the
stat cards of course, is that the Malifaux app is a lot more resource
intensive. I have an older phone, so it takes a couple of seconds to load and
switch between screens. Not a huge issue, but it definitely makes using it feel
more ponderous than Crewfaux. The trade-off, of course, is having an app that
can use images from the game without breaking IP. The Malifaux app is visually
very pleasing. It comes with several pre-loaded backgrounds (mine is an interesting
piece of art featuring a battle between the Dreamer and Dr. Grimwell. It’s not every
day you see someone in a lab coat holding a kid hostage with a syringe.)
So far, crew construction is easy
enough to understand, though replacing one set of muscle-memories from the old
app to with the gestures for the new one is taking some time (I keep double
tapping models to add upgrades to them, which of course deletes them.) Most of
the hiccups experienced so far involve oddities of crew construction, as would
normally be expected. For whatever reason, I can put Warped Reality on
Changelings right now but not Bultungins. That kind of thing is to be expected,
and I would expect that they’ll be corrected over time (though expect to have
more hiccups from every new book.) And as I said, access to all the stat cards
is a huge advantage. It’ll be nice not to have to scroll through a pdf or dig
out a book every time I want to look up an interaction. Plus, when I’m testing
something new on Vassal I won’t have to drag books around with me.
Of course, the hotly debated topic
right now is whether the app can replace bringing cards to games. People go
back and forth on this one. Personally, I think I’ll still bring the cards as
long as I own them. I don’t like having to flip between pages on my phone while
I’m playing the game, especially while mine is having to chug a bit to load
everything. That’s one of the main concerns for tournaments, effect on speed of
play. The other is the possibility of player misconduct. If your phone is not
visible to the other person, there’s nothing stopping you from changing
something mid-game to protect yourself other than your own honesty. That’s
unacceptable for some people, and inevitably some jerk would get caught
cheating in a major tournament if the concern isn’t addressed. It would be
technically quite a bit more challenging than what’s currently available, but
the only way to really address this would be to have the game records update
live between people’s devices. Personally, I don’t mind using it on my own
during games to keep track of things, but I can see where some people wouldn’t
be alright with it. So, the debate is ongoing.
Overall, I think the app is a great
start. It’s visually quite good. $10 for lifetime access to the stat cards is a
surprisingly good deal. Most of the crew construction works find, and the kinks
can be ironed out over time. I think it’s well worth a download.
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