Check out Arcane Clash - another TCG currently in development - it has that same tile UI you're referring to.
I contacted MoreGames this week and they confirmed that ORIONS: Second Age will be released this summer. Here is the e-mail: we have plans on releasing a new game in Orions universe - Orions: The Second Age with additional cards for iPhone/iPod touch this summer. Kind regards, Natalia Kovalchuk I am a huge fan of Orions, so this is good news.
Just checked the Orions developers web site and apparently Orions 2: The Deckmasters is their next iPhone game. http://imoregames.com/
In the meantime check out Heroes Blade. http://www.heroesblade.com/ Discussed here http://forums.toucharcade.com/showthread.php?t=71923 and here http://forums.toucharcade.com/showthread.php?t=69303
We will see, I would wait again till they make the game stable, relatively bug-free and rich in contents, this time. The campaign in the original is a bit silly but the duel mode, fortunately, is not.
Yup, now with GameCenter multiplayer, it'd be REALLY easy to implement real, remote multiplayer. As a lecturer on iOS, it only took me a day(!) to come up with a real remote multiplayer Pong with all possible configurations (public & private voice channels, 2 vs. 4 players, coordinate scaling between iPad and iPhone etc.) (Check out my thread for the complete sources if interested: http://forums.toucharcade.com/showthread.php?p=1416252 ) The MoreGames folks refused to provide lounge-based multiplayer back in the WinMo days; hope now they do implement it with GC.
At last official word from them I can, at last, bury my crappy iPad 211 (WinMo 6.1 PDA) exclusively used to play Deckmasters on it.
Just emailed the developer about considering multiplayer. Back in the day we exchanged emails back and forth.
A THOUSAND TIMES THIS. I sat here and read the entire thread. Orions is absolute GOLD, but the devs don't realize it. Online multiplayer and microtransactions will, no questions about it, make this game a total hit. Think about it, dudes. It's been TWO YEARS and there still hasn't been a trading card game that rivals Orions in gameplay and polish. How the hell are the devs NOT supporting and investing in the foothold they got on the market, I have NO IDEA.
Should have been here at end of November but got delayed a bit (as usual), just take a look here: http://imoregames.com/ and here: http://forums.toucharcade.com/showthread.php?t=72708 Have you ever heard of a forums search function? edit: just read that Orions 2 will be released January 2011. And forget Orions on iPhone! - on Windows7 mobiles, it was great with its two expansions and all that stuff (I loved it and played it for dozens and dozens of hours) - on the iPhone, I hated it because it was a bug-ridden monster without the expansions, also the devs didn't cared about the game - it even wasn't worth "just" 0.99$.
Have you ever heard of "not being a condescending dick for no reason"? It's this new thing people are trying out. In any case, thank you for the link. I'm very, very excited for Orions 2, and while I'm upset at the lack of support the first Orions received from the developers, we gotta keep in mind that was almost two years ago. The AppStore was quite different back then and I think they learned a few lessons. The real problem was that they don't realize the strengths of their product. Orions 2 would be massively popular, I believe, if they: 1) Axed the campaigned mode (most Orions fans will tell you they seldom, if ever, play the campaign mode). The gameplay in the duels lends itself perfectly to the mobile platform (I've tried every other CCG and they all suck), and I think the campaign mode is really just a hindrance. A better campaign mode would be to simply face a string of oponents of increasing AI level, with the option to get a card from their pool by winning. By the time you reach the final AI oponents, you should have enough cards to craft a number of different decks. Much more straight forward than managing resources, building buildings and buying cards. 2) They included multiplayer. This is a NO BRAINER for a game like Orions, especially when you consider that multiplayer games make their fans convince friends to buy them, so that they have more people to play with. 3) Adjusted the price to better reflect the nature of AppStore gaming. A relatively obscure game (yes it was a hit on the PPC scene, but how many iOS users even knew what a PPC was?) with a $5 price tag and no free trial version, and they wonder why it didn't sell well? Like many have said, I believe Orions is well worth the five bucks. But you're not going to convince people who never heard of the game to drop the cash on it. 99 cents is the golden price point -- as someone else pointed out, it's close enough to free that people will be willing to buy it if the descriptions, screenshot and reviews look promising. And Orions is not, at ALL, a hardcore game (the duel mode, anyway, isn't). I have an extensive M:tG background -- 10+ years -- but I've introduced Orions to many friends who have never played Magic, and they picked it up quite quickly. Give it multiplayer and you'd have fans teaching their friends to play it. They said they'd consider multiplayer, but I'm not holding my breath Oh well. I'll be buying it regardless. But just imagine how incredibly amazing Orions 2 would be with GameCenter-powered, voice chat-enabling multiplayer. Since we're in that topic, why so few games add voice chat?
