148 Apps on Facebook 148 Apps on Twitter

Tag: MOBA »

Hammer & Chisel Raises $8.2M for Planned Multiplayer Online Battle Arena Game, Fates Forever

Posted by Rob Rich on November 21st, 2013

Jason Citron is something of a Founding Father for the App Store when you think about it; what with the work on OpenFeint that popularized achievements on iOS and arguably resulted in Apple creating Game Center. He's since founded a new company, Hammer & Chisel, and has begun work on a new Multiplayer Online Battle Arena (MOBA) game made specifically for the iPad called Fates Forever. And this AAA vision has just received some major financial backing.

It was announced today that Hammer & Chisel has completed an $8.2 million funding round, with none other than Riot Games/League of Legends top investor Mitch Lasky doing his thing (investing lots of money) again. Lasky will also be joining Citron and Silicon Valley Alum Peter Relan on the development company's board of directors. If ever there were a clear indication that Fates Forever will definitely be amazing, this is it.

Hammer and Chisel's Fates Forever - First Gameplay Footage

Posted by Jeff Scott on September 9th, 2013

It's been a while since we got a status update from Jason Citron on his new game Fates Forever. Today at an event in San Francisco, Jason revealed the first gameplay footage from the game and we've embedded it below.

The game looks like it's coming along nicely and we should see the release of this free to play, tablet-only MOBA later this year.

Champs: Battlegrounds Review

+ Universal App - Designed for iPhone and iPad
By Rob Rich on August 12th, 2013
Our rating: starstarstarhalfstarblankstar :: A MUDDLED MOBA
Champs: Battlegrounds offers an interesting take on the MOBA genre, but its mismatched mechanics only serve to get in the way.
Read The Full Review »

Arena of Heroes Review

+ Universal App - Designed for iPhone and iPad
By Rob Rich on July 3rd, 2013
Our rating: starstarstarstarblankstar :: GOOD GAME
A lot of people are familiar with MOBAs at this point, but how many of them have played one that's turn-based?
Read The Full Review »

This Week at 148Apps: June 10-14, 2013

Posted by Chris Kirby on June 17th, 2013

Your App Experts


Need to know the latest and greatest apps each and every week? Look no further than 148Apps. Our reviewers comb through the vast numbers of new apps out there, find the good ones, and write about them in depth. The ones we love become Editor’s Choice, standing out above the many good apps and games with something just a little bit more to offer. Want to see what we've been up to this week? Take a look below for a sampling of our latest reviews. And if you want more, be sure to hit our Reviews Archive.

Solstice Arena

League of Legends may not have invented the MOBA (Multiplayer Online Battle Arena) genre, but it certainly had a hand in popularizing it. It’s actually become so popular that there have been more than a few attempts at recreating such an experience on iOS. And I have to admit that while Solstice Arena has a few snags, it’s probably the best mobile iteration I’ve played yet. The basic gist of a MOBA is that two teams of players beef over turf until one has wiped out the others’ base. What makes things a little different than every other team-based multiplayer game out there is that the characters feel more like MMORPG classes than anything; each with specific skills that are meant to pair well with other characters’ and each with their own role to play. In Solstice Arena, players must take down the other team’s towers in order to weaken defenses, while simultaneously battling other player characters who are trying to do the same to them. There’s no major penalty for death except for waiting to respawn, although it’s a good opportunity to spend gold on better gear for the match. --Rob Rich


Avengers Alliance

For several months now I’ve been seeing little Facebook updates about friends and their Avengers Alliance progress. I had about gotten to the point where I was going to see what all the fuss was about when I found out it was coming to iOS, so naturally I decided to check out the more portable version instead. The Earth is in danger (again) from some sort of enigmatic presence. Also super villains. As a new S.H.I.E.L.D. recruit, players must team up with a host of notable Marvel heroes as they try to thwart nefarious plots and figure out just what in the heck is going on. The majority of these missions involve turn-based battles with various baddies, but it’s also possible to send characters off on side missions (over a set period of real time, of course) for extra cash and experience. Players can also train their heroes when they’ve acquired enough experience in order to access new abilities that can make a huge difference in a fight. --Rob Rich


Rando

“You have no friends.” This is a tagline for Rando, a photo-sharing app from ustwo. Initially the statement seems hostile, but it reveals the philosophy behind this app: it’s anti-social. It’s not about status or appearance, like Instagram, the service that this app stands in marked contrast to. It’s all about sharing photos to someone, or no one in particular. See, how Rando works is that it lets users take a circular photo, and then launch it into the universe. It’s saved to the camera roll, but there’s no way to share that photo to any social networks from within the app itself. Later on, a push notification may be received that will say that someone in a certain spot will have received one of the user’s Randos, but that’s it. This is about sharing to just one person. One random person out there in the universe. They might like the photo, they might not, the photographer won’t know at all. --Carter Dotson


Other 148Apps Network Sites

If you are looking for the best reviews of kids' apps and/or Android apps, just head right over to GiggleApps and AndroidRundown. Here are just some of the reviews these sites served up this week:

GiggleApps

Helping Me and Dad, and Just Grandpa and Me

Helping My Dad – Little Critter and Just Grandpa and Me – Little Critter are charming apps adapted from the storybooks of the same name, now developed by Oceanhouse Media – great choices for Father’s Day. In these tales, Little Critter tries hard to be helpful to his loved ones although he is unaware of the mess he makes in the wake of his helpfulness. In Helping My Dad, Little Critter tries his best to take care of his father, creating more work for him along the way as kids are known to do, such as waking him up early on dad’s day off or making breakfast, causing terrible disarray in the kitchen. --Amy Solomon

Sago Mini Forest Flyer

Sago Mini Forest Flyer is a delightful, universal app from Sago Sago, a new developer to be aware of as it is a combination of talents from both Toca Boca as well as the creative minds who developed zinc Roe’s Tickle Tap Apps. As some readers may know, the Tickle Tap Apps are a series of apps that were my son’s first experience with applications, now having been re-developed into new apps. Sago Mini Forest Flyer is a new variation of the earlier app, Field Flyer. Sago Mini Forest Flyer maintains much of what we have enjoyed from Field Flyer as well as adding new elements to have fun with as well. --Amy Solomon


AndroidRundown

Block Story

Block Story is a quest-based adventure in the same vein as Minecraft that puts an adjusted spin on survival style gaming. Gameplay starts straight away: a mini-tutorial greets you with basics of the action. Players learn movement, collection of items, hunting and the procurement of sustenance, and more. The options give a good idea of what to expect; players get to name a new “world” and “world seed” and select from three modes: Story, Creative and Hardcore. Then you can pick or create a character and push on. --Tre Lawrence


Uno & Friends

UNO & Friends is a re-polished take on the classic shedding-type card game that tosses in some interesting new features and multiplayer functionality. The standard gameplay applies. Play commences against three other players, each player being dealt seven shuffled and random cards from a deck of four colors (yellow, green, blue and red). The rest of the cards, face down for surprise chance effect, make up the deck and the topmost deck card is turned over and becomes the starter card. The first player then places a card that matches the color or rank of the starter card; each succeeding player then takes a turn in clockwise fashion, also trying to play a card that matches the last card played. If a player does not have a card to play can take it from the bank; if it is playable, it has to be played immediately. The first player to play all his/her cards wins. --Tre Lawrence

Tilt Arena

Tilt Arena is a classic type of game for a modern type of gamer. If the game brings back memories if the iconic arcade shooter Geometry Wars, don’t feel alarmed; that’s a good thing, and the developer isn’t ashamed of the potential mental connection. The gameplay is fairly simple; the goal is to stay alive. It’s set up in a rectangular grid, with the player in control of a white trapezoid spacecraft. Armed with perpetually shooting guns, I had to avoid the randomly appearing enemy spacecraft that were oh so eager to exhibit their contact-based lethality. Darting around and dodging them helped to a small degree, but directing the guns at them destroys them and earns valuable points. --Tre Lawrence

Solstice Arena Review

+ Universal App - Designed for iPhone and iPad
By Rob Rich on June 14th, 2013
Our rating: starstarstarstarhalfstar :: BRB
Solstice Arena is a very solid attempt at a mobile MOBA, but actually playing against other people can be a chore.
Read The Full Review »

Fates Forever, the new MOBA from Jason Citron's Hammer & Chisel Announced

Posted by Jeff Scott on June 6th, 2013
+ Universal App - Designed for iPhone and iPad
Our rating: starstarstarstarhalfstar :: OWNING THE ARENA :: Read Review »

In the conversations I've had with Jason Citron over the past five years, one thing has always been very clear, Jason Citron is a very talented young man. But lately it's like he is a whole new man. Excited, proud, and full of ideas. Could partially be because his newly renamed games company, Hammer & Chisel is showing off an early version of their first game, Fates Forever, a massively online battle arena game (MOBA) for tablets only.

Fates Forever is a MOBA game and yeah, we've heard a lot about MOBA on iOS in the past few months. For those not familiar with MOBA, see Wikipedia an MOBA. But Fates Forever shows some real promise in ways others we've seen have yet to.

The fact that we are seeing more MOBA on iOS seems logical as for many months it was a genre that was conspicuously missing on iOS. League of Legends has been very popular on the desktop; why can't we have a mobile MOBA?

Jason and his team at Hammer & Chisel are taking a bit of a different angle that what we've seen so far on MOBA for iOS. They are building out a lushly detailed, large scale MOBA game that closely resembles the depth and length of gameplay of League of Legends, but updated for tablet. In my short time with the game I found it, incomplete, yes and that's to be expected, but also amazingly easy to get into and really hard to put down. The unique characters, their voice overs, their special moves, gameplay aspects--all combine for an interesting and promising game.

Some of the interesting changes to the MOBA formula seen in Fates Forever, and remember it's still early, are that minions constantly regenerate when killed, they won't keep running back to the base to heal. The only power ups are to the three special powers each player has, and those reset between matches. Everyone starts out even, every match.

Hammer & Chisel have a lot of work ahead of them to finalize Fates Forever, but the progress so far is amazing. It is certainly one of my most anticipated games. We'll keep you up to date on the progress as it moves toward launch.