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Apple Watch Games Provide Gameplay Bursts With Incentive to Revisit Often

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Although the main purpose of the Apple Watch is the wearable's at-a-glance look at bite-sized content on the wrist, many game developers showed up out of the launch gate with new game experiences for the device. Some games appear to still be stuck in the mind-set of play sessions that are slightly too lengthy for a wrist-worn gadget, but a few clever dev teams have built fun, short-burst apps that are perfect for killing time in long lines, before a movie, or even at home.

Many of the games are free extensions of iOS games, but a few range in price from $1.99 to $3.99 on the App Store. Our sister site, TouchArcade, gave its initial thoughts on most of the games listed below in a roundup of Apple Watch games and companion apps.

Starting off with the free games, Nimblebit's word game Letterpad tasks players with deciphering the spelling of a word using only a short hint and the number of letters within the hidden word. Solving the word progresses players to the next puzzle, the game slowly amping up difficulty along the way. The game uses Force Touch to let users spend hints, shuffle letters and clear spelling attempts. Letterpad is free on the App Store.

watchquestheroesoftime-800x494.jpg
Watch Quest! Heroes of Time is designed specifically for Apple Watch and lets players view and interact with a hero on an epic quest. The catch is that the hero is on auto-pilot, fighting enemies and delving into dungeons on their own, but requires help from the player to ensure success.

So, for example, if a user fails to check in after a specific notification (open a treasure chest, battle a particularly tough foe), the in-game hero will fail to succeed at the mission. Watch Quest! Heroes of Time is free on the App Store, with the added caveat that it's essentially a tutorial mission and the full game can be unlocked at $0.99.

runeblade-800x498.jpg
Another interesting RPG-like game is Runeblade, which tasks players with dispatching a rotary of enemies every time they re-visit the app. Upon victory, players win gold that can be used to upgrade damage and attack speed, and then points them onto a new quest and enemies to defeat all leading to bigger boss battles.

Players can look forward to unlockable spells, harder enemies, and "a wealth of items to unlock" as they progress, according to TouchArcade. Runeblade is free on the App Store.

spywatch-800x495.jpg
One of the more notable paid apps is called Spy_Watch, which provides a bit of a meta game in letting its players role-play as the offspring of the former head of a famous Spy Organization. While playing, they are faced with the immense task of rebuilding the shuttered group from the ground up while simultaneously digging through clues regarding the player's mysteriously killed father.

What all this essentially boils down to is the player's input on the main menu in deciding on which missions to take to advance the story, earn more cash, or training to advance the player's skill set. After initiating a mission, a timer counts down in real-time, eventually alerting players to return to the game to continue their mission of espionage and discovery on the game's world map. Bossa Studios' Spy_Watch is $1.99 on the App Store.

As TouchArcade points out, many of the first wave launch games on the Apple Watch appear to be designed for quick bursts of gameplay with some form of motivation to keep checking back into the experience. While some games still fall flat on either (or both) of those fronts, and are subsequently not worth much of a mention, we will keep updating this roundup of new and notable games for the Apple Watch as they become available.

More notable games for Apple Watch:

- Rules! ($2.99, currently available as a free download within Apple Store app)
- Trivia Crack ($2.99, ad free)
- Letter Zap (Free)
- BoxPop (Free)
- Lifeline... ($2.99)

Article Link: Apple Watch Games Provide Gameplay Bursts With Incentive to Revisit Often
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2015/04/28/apple-watch-games/
CrAkD

CrAkD

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Feb 15, 2010
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Battery life has been so bad for me lately I'm afraid to do anything but receive notifications and it still is almost dead by the time I get out of work
 
K

knemonic

macrumors 6502a
Jan 14, 2009
682
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I see the apple watch being great for turn based games, like scrabble and trivia, things that take people a while to take turns but having a watch will make it easy to do so
 
ArtOfWarfare

ArtOfWarfare

macrumors G3
Nov 26, 2007
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knemonic said:
I see the apple watch being great for turn based games, like scrabble and trivia, things that take people a while to take turns but having a watch will make it easy to do so
Click to expand...

Hmmm... you'd need to have a different set of controls from normal for scrabble to work well on such a small screen. You can't just tap and drag tiles onto the board...

Maybe something like, scroll around the board, tap where you want to start your word, tap to indicate direction, then spell out the word from the tiles you have? I can see that working on a screen the size of the Apple Watch's.

A big problem though, is that scrabble involves a lot of looking and thinking. I think turns generally take 30-300 seconds, and Apple suggests a user shouldn't have to interact with your app for anymore than 30 seconds.

So it would have to be a turn based game where you can make your move really quickly.

Trivia is probably fine.

But most traditional games probably wouldn't work well at all. I could imagine some AR game mostly using GPS as working well on it.
 
Chrjy

Chrjy

macrumors 65816
May 19, 2010
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CrAkD said:
Battery life has been so bad for me lately I'm afraid to do anything but receive notifications and it still is almost dead by the time I get out of work
Click to expand...

Sounds like you should take your watch back if that's the case, I have between 40-50% battery life left when I go to bed and that's receiving a lot of notifications, replying to emails and texts. The lowest it went to was 28% when I took a call on it for 15 minutes during the day.

It seems most people are surprised at how long the battery lasts on these things.

As an example today, I put my watch on at 9am and it still has 68% battery left and my iPhone 72%. I'm in the UK and it is now around 18:30.
 
CrAkD

CrAkD

macrumors 68040
Feb 15, 2010
3,180
255
Boston, MA
Chrjy said:
Sounds like you should take your watch back if that's the case, I have between 40-50% battery life left when I go to bed and that's receiving a lot of notifications, replying to emails and texts. The lowest it went to was 28% when I took a call on it for 15 minutes during the day.



It seems most people are surprised at how the battery lasts on these things.
Click to expand...


On Saturday that's exactly what I got something weird happened tho and since Sunday I've been getting terrible battery life I uninstalled all new apps I put on it but it's still bad. Took it off the charger today at 630am it's 122pm and I'm at 37% and I've gotten like 4-5 notifications that's it.
 
Chrjy

Chrjy

macrumors 65816
May 19, 2010
1,095
2,098
UK
CrAkD said:
On Saturday that's exactly what I got something weird happened tho and since Sunday I've been getting terrible battery life I uninstalled all new apps I put on it but it's still bad. Took it off the charger today at 630am it's 122pm and I'm at 37% and I've gotten like 4-5 notifications that's it.
Click to expand...

Whoa...that's really bad, definitely something up there. It's likely a bigger issue than this but try fully closing the companion app on your iPhone to see if that helps.

There's a serious amount of battery drain going on that clearly shouldn't be, at least in my experience. Might be worth popping into an Apple Store if you get the chance.
 
JosephAW

JosephAW

macrumors 603
May 14, 2012
5,959
7,913
Waiting for the VR monocle watch attachment so I can hold the watch up to my eye and play Halo.
 
M

mateytate

macrumors regular
Apr 10, 2014
181
179
CrAkD said:
Battery life has been so bad for me lately I'm afraid to do anything but receive notifications and it still is almost dead by the time I get out of work
Click to expand...

Then you're doing something wrong, I receive notifications all day and after 12hrs I'm still 70%, you're using it too much, it's just a watch designed for glancing at occasionally not trying to run it as a full phone replacement.
 
CrAkD

CrAkD

macrumors 68040
Feb 15, 2010
3,180
255
Boston, MA
Apple Watch Games Provide Gameplay Bursts With Incentive to Revisit Often

mateytate said:
Then you're doing something wrong, I receive notifications all day and after 12hrs I'm still 70%, you're using it too much, it's just a watch designed for glancing at occasionally not trying to run it as a full phone replacement.
Click to expand...


I'm barely running it at all I uninstalled just about every app I get notifications from messages tapatalk and ESPN and Facebook on the rare occasion it decides to send one. I barely touch it otherwise.
 
L

LordBeelzebub

macrumors regular
Aug 22, 2013
179
237
Chrjy said:
Sounds like you should take your watch back if that's the case, I have between 40-50% battery life left when I go to bed and that's receiving a lot of notifications, replying to emails and texts. The lowest it went to was 28% when I took a call on it for 15 minutes during the day.

It seems most people are surprised at how long the battery lasts on these things.

As an example today, I put my watch on at 9am and it still has 68% battery left and my iPhone 72%. I'm in the UK and it is now around 18:30.
Click to expand...

But ten months from now after the battery has been cycled hundreds of times, it probably won't last half the day.
 
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