2012-10-29 15:16:38

Hi,
So this one seems to be rather new. I don't even think it's on apple vis yet.
Lost cities is basically a card game, focussing on strategy. You have five lanes - red, blue, yellow, green and white, and you have to place cards into those lanes. However, these lanes start at negative value points so you have to build them up. It's basically a game that ends when the draw stack of cards is empty.
The game automatically reads what the opponent does each turn, and it has both computer oppponents and online possibilities through game center. This includes around 90 achievements, but some of these are incredibly rediculous -- win 100000 games, and they have the exact achievemnts for online too, so both single and online play achievements.
It apparently has some sort of soundtrack too, but for some reason I can't hear any music when I play.
There is an interactive tutorial included near the bottom of the screen in the rules section of the app, and it can also be spoken. The rules section also has a speak button, which, when pressed, has a narrator reading the section for you.
Unfortunately, there is no AI voiceover in the game, but the game fully works with the screen reader.

2012-10-29 19:31:08

Hi Aaron, how does this one compares to kings corner? Because for 3.99 it's a bit expensive for a card game considering that cards alone and kings corner cost 0.99 each. I'd gladly pay 5 dollars or so if we had different games like monopoly, the game of life, etc.

contact info
email:
matrheine at gmail . com

2012-10-30 09:14:42

Always remember that spam is crap. Try to understand that this is not welcome here on the forum! smile
Excuse me for my pointless post and weird humor. I just have an awesome day! smile

Best regards SLJ.
Feel free to contact me privately if you have something in mind. If you do so, then please send me a mail instead of using the private message on the forum, since I don't check those very often.
Facebook: https://facebook.com/sorenjensen1988
Twitter: https://twitter.com/soerenjensen

2012-10-30 18:04:35

Hi,
This is easier than king's corner. Seems more polished. Now for those expecting a story, there is, unfortunately, none. I haven't tried cards alone yet.

2012-10-31 09:50:39

Is there a storyline in King's corner?

Best regards SLJ.
Feel free to contact me privately if you have something in mind. If you do so, then please send me a mail instead of using the private message on the forum, since I don't check those very often.
Facebook: https://facebook.com/sorenjensen1988
Twitter: https://twitter.com/soerenjensen

2012-10-31 14:53:40

Hi,
No, not at all.

2012-11-02 02:04:24

I have no idea why I waited days and days before trying this!  This is, without doubt, the best accessible card game on the iPhone.  Things I love:
1. The tutorial voice. This makes the game so quick and easy to learn, so you can start having fun within 2 minutes.
2.  The vast number of achievements.  I expect that, even if this game is never updated ever again, I will be gaining new achievements 10 years from now.
3.  The well thought out interface.  If you highlight one of your cards, voiceover will describe other cards on the table in relation to that card. This makes it much easier to decide if I want to discard or play a particular card, without having to go looking through 10 different piles on the table.  When the other person plays, voiceover automatically reads out what they did, but if I want, the text is also shown at the left of the screen, so I can review it just in case I missed it the first time.  It's little touches like this that make it clear the developer actually put a lot of thought into accessibility, rather than just doing the minimum.  Also, the sound effects provide good feedback, without being annoying.  Oh, and the emoticons are labelled. 
4.  The actual game.  At first, when I read the rules, I thought it just looked way too easy and simplistic to be any fun.  Well...I was wrong.  I've been playing for, like, 5 hours, and I'm still not even winning 25% of my games.  But even though I'm losing most of the time, I'm still having a blast! 

I just can't say enough good things about this game.  If you have an iPhone, I don't even know why you're still reading this, when you could be playing lost cities!  The only reason my thoughts are even getting written down is because my iPhone battery is completely dead, so I need to let it charge before I can go back to playing again.  Seriously: go buy this game. Now!  It'll be the best 4 bucks you ever spent.

2012-11-02 10:21:25

Lol, quite an indorcement, and another reason for me to look at getting an iphone pronto sinse I've fancied trying a tactical  card game similar to a ccg before.


One thing however.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2012-11-02 13:37:55

Hi,
I can safely say that me and pitermach had an online gam last night, and it was really close! I actually managed to win completely by accident and get a 20 point bonus in the blue card category, and the game was won by me, with around 68 points to 28 or so!

2012-11-02 21:02:51

the one thing I meant to ask was, if there is no story, why is it called lost cities? big_smile.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2012-11-03 16:11:31

It has to do with the card graphics.  Basically, every colour is an expidition to a different lost city.  That's why when you start a new colour, you get negative points, because you need to invest them in travel costs etc.  Then based on how you play, you recover your investment or not.  But the story is just a really thin excuse for a fun card game, IMHO.

2012-11-03 17:07:59

Ah, fair enough. Well I suppose it makes as much sense as a game involving taking tricks and matching cards being named after something you cross rivers on big_smile.

Of course when I get an Iphone myself and can try this and other games, I'l also be able to start adding   more Iphone stuff to the db as well, sinse the enthusiasm over this one sounds as if it certainly needs an entry.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2012-11-05 17:25:43

hi all, ok fastfinge, i surrender! after reading your first post in this topic i decided to go and buy the game, i'll never regret it, these
achievements are going to make me always come back to the game, one particular thing that i like about it is the level system which make you feel
you're advancing and getting more experienced, the shields are also very nice, besides defeating the opponent it makes you want to put their shields
to 0! i'm currently level 5, i've defeated all the computer opponents once but these last games have been hard for me, i've lost 5 in a row..
i've never finished an online game, but the nice thing is that you can play several games at once using a similar system to hanging with friends. if
anyone wants to play with me, my gamecenter id is
matheus_rheine
hope you all buy / enjoy the game

contact info
email:
matrheine at gmail . com

2012-11-05 20:02:40

The $3.99 game can be found at,
http://lostcitiesapp.com/
or purchased from the US iTunes store,
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/lost-ci … 62454?mt=8

2012-11-05 21:11:38

I'll agree that this game is fantastic, however, there must be some sort of bug which  makes it drain battery life, reduced mine from 90% to 32% in an hour.

2012-11-05 23:51:29

robla, maybe it depends on what device you are using, here with the 3rd gen ipad i haven't noticed this battery bug, i always run all my apps
with the screen curtain on and brightness at 0%, but i understand that the ipad has so much power that it takes days to discharge the battery
if you use it a little every day. that's why i'll always prefer the ipad as my main ios device for that matter.

contact info
email:
matrheine at gmail . com

2012-11-06 15:26:41 (edited by Phil 2012-11-06 20:17:52)

I like this game so much I found two sound files on youTube and converted them to mp3.
First is the tutorial from the IOS version of the game,
http://www.pcsgames.net/Lost_Cities_by_ … torial.mp3
Second, a description of the original card game that could be brailled to become accessible,
http://www.pcsgames.net/lost_cities_card_game_rules.mp3

I like the way the game relates locations to colors,
the Himalayas, white, the Brazilian Rain Forest, green,
the Desert Sands, yellow, the Ancient Volcanos, red and
Neptune's Realm, blue.

I may have to take these files down in a few weeks, but I will try to remove this message then.

2012-11-07 15:33:11

Hi Phil,
If you have to remove the message, can you please keep the colour location names in for interest sake? as in, blue neptunes realm?

2012-11-12 17:52:44 (edited by olivia5678 2012-11-12 17:55:45)

Hi,
I absolutely love this game! I've been experiencing a bug when playing both online or offline, and I was wondering if anyone else was having this problem. Let's say I wanted to play a yellow three. I select it, and drag it to the upper half of the screen, and it plays the card to the right of the selected card even though I'm sure I didn't select the card it played. Can anyone please help with this? Thanks!

Olivia

2012-11-13 01:09:49

Hi,
I think the voiceover mode of this game works much better with double tapping the card and choosing play. Now that you mention it, the drag feature would be awsome.

2012-11-16 02:12:16

Well  to celibrate my navigation of the  apple id, I've now bought the game (look me up as darktenor).
very nice idea for a game and lots of fun, also I was quite pleased that I beat Mrs liddenbrock by 28 points in my first game!  though I confess this was due to some rather lucky runs on white cards towards the end of the game.

I do however have a couple of questions. First, as Aaron said, there seems to be no music or soundtrack in the game, though I noticed the sfx and  speaking tutorials and those were nice, indeed I plan to go through the tutorial again to just refign my stratogy.

Second, and more seriously,  flicking left and right and double tapping, plus occasionally doing a  double finger downwards(I think of this as document read), was okay for reading the game, but it'd be nice to navigate more swiftly to some parrts of the screen, in particular my own cards when I just want to check  one of my opponent's   lanes.

Of course, going along the bottom of the screen works here (I like how in vo I can just tap the bottom right corner to get to the discard pile), but this doesn't seem absolutely efficient.

Is  there an instant go to top or go to  bottom with vo that would help in the game? 

I  also do not see  the game listed in the apple games center, which seems a little whacky to say the least though this might be because as the  mobile account isn't activated the phone doesn't get infinite internet (I did all the setup at my parents, but was offline when playing against liddenbrock). .


Either way, where do i find people online to play at lost cities? can I do that from within the game?If this is a dim question I appologize, remember I've only owned my Iphone  yesterday evening, and I've only in fact owned lost cities for about four hours! big_smile.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2012-11-16 03:20:36

your cards are just above the bottom.
And seriously, going straight to top, or to bottom is as easy as actually doing it, making sure you don't creap into the status bar when going to the top. It'll come with practice.

2012-11-16 15:21:42

Hi,
Agreed, you just tap near the bottom left to find your hand. works much quicker actually.
@dark: I may add you to game center later, but if you wish to add me, add: jukesy1992
This is also my twitter username for anyone interested, although please send me a mention on there saying what your forum username is if anyone follows me, so I don't accidentally block you.

2012-11-16 19:32:06

I will see about  doing that, indeed I would've been playing today if my guide dog weren't ill, and if  I still! weren't trying to get three to activate my phone.


As to navigation, well  this is obviously a vo thing I need to get used  to, not that that is a bad thing, indeed it was  partly to practice with vo that I bought lost cities.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2012-11-16 21:54:56

Sorry for the double post, but a quick newbie question. I am in the middle of a game of lost cities with Matheus, (actually a very intricate one, or at least so I hope), he sent me a pause immoticon and has obviously gone off for a while.

This is fine, but how do I know when he gets back and takes his turn with the screen locked? will the phone notify me even when locked? or do I just need to keep checking, in fact do  I need to run lost cities at all to check whether matheus has made his turn or will it just tell me on the phone?

Is  there a way  to save a game to resume later while I either play another online match or play one of the computer opponents?

appologies if these sorts of things are all Iphone standard type questions.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)