More Geomon

I wrote about Loki Studios‘ Geomon a while back.. it’s actually become my bedtime and waking up game, as it’s fairly easy to grab the iPod and have a battle or two.

Unfortunately, I can’t make full use of the game as I’m playing on an iPod Touch: for the most part, I’m limited in location to a few wifi points.  As well as appearing in certain weather conditions, and at different times of day, Espers appear in certain locations, such as in parks, near graveyards, and so on.. so I know I won’t be able to fight all Espers, or therefore be able to complete certain missions.

However, that still leaves enough missions to be getting on with, and with the game having been updated to version 0.7.1, the Bounty system has now been added.  Bounties are simple tasks for quick reward.. collect three of a particular sample, defeat a set number of Espers, or train a particular Esper up a few levels.  I like this task the best, as it gives me a new Esper and new abilities to try out.

I also finally caught an ‘Iris’ Esper!  I had my eye on this particular Esper since I first browsed the website and saw the image.

Yes, I named her Rainbow Dash.. this one’s for a brony friend! 😀

Mists of Pandaria – Pet Battle!

As well as adding the Pandaran race, a new continent, the new Monk class, and an overhaul of the Talent Calculator, the Mists of Pandaria expansion also brings with it a pet battling system.

There’s a review of the system on MMO Champion.. collection, levelling and training of pets, battling and stats, which sound a little like Pokemon and Geomon, two ‘pet’ collecting and battling games I’ve been playing a bit of recently.

Pets will now be tradeable, even once trained.  Some pets will only be out in the wild during certain seasons or weather conditions, so trading will be a nice option for those pets you can’t find yourself.  This reminds me rather a lot of Geomon, where I’m a little frustrated by the idea I can’t collect all the Espers myself.. and I like to aim for a full collection once I start!

I particularly like the idea that pets will become account wide.. I have a great collection on my main character, Kirria, including many which were gifts from friends, and I wouldn’t fancy my chances at collecting them all again.  I look forward to trying the system out for myself when I eventually get enough spare time to make it worthwhile re-subscribing to WoW.. but I’m not sure about naming all the pets I’ve collected!

Catching More Espers

A few weeks ago, I came across Geomon, a role-playing game by Loki Studios, where you fight and capture spirit-based creatures called Espers.  The game makes use of geolocation, time of day, and weather conditions to determine which Espers will appear on your radar, and it is this part of the game which has really had me coming back.. I love the fact the enemies are different every time I turn the game on.

Missions were added to the game today, adding a little more direction to the game.

These are optional, and rather simple: for instance, “Where is my Mind?” requires me to scan and dissipate (defeat) four Mind Espers.  “Night Glider” suggests using a particular Esper to complete the mission, so I think there is a potential for more challenging missions later, but for now, it’s nice to have something else to make progress towards.

I also came across an Alpha this week..

The Alpha appeared as a star on the radar, and when I clicked to look, I found he was “only” level 12, compared to my level 13 Varg.  He turned out to have rather a lot of health, and after a few strikes on either side, he summoned minion drones to fight in his place, which I had to defeat before fighting him again.

I would have liked to capture him.. I should probably note that I really love the creature design and sheer variety between the Espers I’ve seen so far 🙂

On defeating him, I received a huge XP boost to all five Espers in my party, even the ones that died in battle.. they don’t normally receive XP after a fight where they are defeated, so this was unexpected, though I’m not going to complain about it 😉

Geomon is still being developed, so there a few features are still incomplete, such as Bounties.  I have collected some items listed as Bounty Samples, and at present they don’t have any use that I can see.. but they don’t take up any room in the inventory so it isn’t a problem.  I’m guessing that Bounties will be PvE, with powerful Espers to hunt down rather than any kind of PvP, as I think this would be easier for people to drop in and out of.

There is some PvP in the game, in the form of Duels.. though when I’ve looked at the mode so far, I’ve only turned up an AI Sparring Drone.  Duels work like the fight against the Alpha, with minions being brought out first.  There is also a 30 second time limit for you to make your move or lose it, and you have no access to your inventory for healing items, I guess so it can’t be exploited by somebody buying a large stockpile of improvement items 🙂

Geomon

Geomon is a role-playing game for the iPhone or iPod featuring collectible spirit-creatures called Espers, which you need to fight to capture.  You play the part of an Agent in the EsperCorp company, charged with capturing the Espers to study.  Espers can be found at different locations around the world, and the game uses geolocation to determine which Espers appear for you.  Some also only appear at night, or when it’s raining.. so collecting them all may be impossible.. I’ll have to see.

A friend was involved in the creature design for this game, so despite my initial resistance to a game which can track my location, I decided to take a look.  The game is currently free.. I’m not sure if some elements will turn out to be paid, or if the company have a plan for merchandising later on.

Anyway.. I started the game up, and was asked to choose an Esper from a small collection.  Each has different stats, strengths and weaknesses.. such as the ability to use toxins or fire, or being weak to physical attacks.  I chose the shadow wolf Varg..

The Varg’s strength lies in Shadow: sneaking and debilitating attacks, and whose weakness is light.

This is where the info falls a little short, or at least relies too heavily on game-genre knowledge.. which I don’t really have!  The information I get here tells me that Espers using light rely on healing and shielding.. but tells me nothing of what the weakness would be.  Does the Varg have less healing?  Will he be less able to penetrate an enemy’s shield?  Guess we’ll see! 🙂

After choosing and naming my new pet, I was given a radar screen, with little blips showing me nearby Espers.  Clicking on any blip allows inspection of the Esper, which tells me what the Esper is, as well as providing a difficulty rating.  All the Espers on my first screen were rated as “fair” difficulty.. I’m guessing that harder fights are left until you’ve passed the first few levels and know what you’re doing.

The fights are very easy: you choose an attack, which is applied to the enemy before they take a turn at you, and so on until you defeat the enemy.  The Varg’s special ability at this point is a Curse, which in addition to taking away some HP, also has a chance to apply “Afraid”, which I guess makes the enemy miss a turn, or fail to attack.

After the second fight I found an item.. a Flawed Quartz.  Crystals can be used to capture other Espers, when you fight and weaken them first.. and so I collected my second Esper!

So now I have two Espers in my party, which can contain up to five.  I’m guessing they can all come to fight at the same time too, maybe with the option to select two to send out, though I’ll have to capture more to see 🙂

To collect more, I can fight everything I see, or even trade with people, assuming they have different Espers.  I believe this is all very similar to the Pokemon games.. but I’ve not played that for myself so I’m only going off what I’ve been told.. for now.. 😉