The Future In Our Hands?

It's 2023 and I'm still playing Noah's Heart. Every day. I know! I'm as surprised as you are.

I sat down half an hour ago to write a post to try and explain why. I was writing it as much for myself as for anyone who might be reading. 

I got eight paragraphs in before I realised I don't really have a clue why I'm doing it. About the best I can come up with is I like the whimsy of it and it's really relaxing to play. Not a lot, is it?

Then, as I was sitting back, trying to come up with something a bit more substantial, I had a mini-epiphany. An epiphanette, if you will. You won't? Can't say I blame you.

Noah's Heart is a multi-platform game but it's fairly obvious that the core design comes from mobile. The placement of the UI elements gives that much away. 

I play the game on PC, where it works well for me, thanks to the free cursor that allows me to click buttons instead of pressing keys. Those buttons, though, would be even better on a handheld screen like a phone, tablet or iPad. 

And that's when it occured to me. Noah's Heart is a mobile game I would actually play on a mobile device. Not just occasionally but regularly. Maybe even every day. If only I owned a device that could run it.

I'm sure this is where we said we were meeting...

I am, theoretically, in favor of mobile gaming, particularly for the kind of games I enjoy on a desktop PC. I announced myself as a relatively early adopter of the form, albeit, once again, more in theory than in practice, back when I first wrote about playing mobile mmorpgs, more than a decade ago in April 2012.

Back then, I was playing a game called Elemental Knights on my iPod Touch. I still have the iPod and it still works. I use it several times most weeks, mainly for listening to music and checking if my lunch-hour is over.

If it's surprising the iPod is still going, it's a hell of a lot more surprising Elemental Knights is too, too. In fact, now that Apple have retired the Touch, I'd have to say the game I once described as "a standard Korean style grinder with anime graphics and a fairly obstreperous cash shop" has had the last laugh over the tech giant.

More surprising yet, at some point when I wasn't looking, Elemental Knights spawned both a PS4 and a Switch version. How come we never read about that on MassivelyOP?

Presumably for the same reason we never hear about anything much from the mobile side of the fence. It seems no-one really cares about mobile mmorpgs or wants to write about them. Or read about them. Although I wouldn't mind. Reading about them, that is. You couldn't pay me to write about them. 

Well, I guess you could. It would all depend on how much. Everyone, as they say, has their price. It'd be a grim job, though, wouldn't it? Or maybe it wouldn't. I mean, I'm writing plenty about Noah's Heart and no-one's paying me a cent.

I'm telling you, that flamingo cage isn't up to code.

Anyway, the point is that there are plenty of them. You only have to look. And I've played quite a few.

Off the top of my head, without going through my post history, I can think of Dragon Nest M, Black Desert Mobile, Celtic Heroes, Heroes of Skyrealm, Villagers and Heroes, AdventureQuest 3D, Mobile Legends, Animal Crossing Pocket Camp...

Of all of them, the only ones I really stuck with for any length of time were Celtic Heroes, Heroes of Skyrealm and Animal Crossing Pocket Camp. None of them was better than a run-of-the-mill PC mmorpg but reason I stuck with them is they weren't available on PC. Well, you could emulate them, I guess, and I did, but that's another kettle of worms.

Even that doesn't tell the whole story, though. It makes it sound as if I don't play mobile games because I prefer to sit at a desk and use a mouse and keyboard so I'd only go mobile if there was no other choice. While there's some truth in that, there's also the fact that I've never owned a really good mobile device capable of playing games effectively.

The best I ever had were two Windows tablets, both of which broke much too soon. And even that is cheating because although I did play mmorpgs on them, mostly I played games made for PC, using some kind of touchscreen AddOn or even with a mouse plugged into the tablet.

Unsurprisingly, that didn't feel as good as playing the games on an actual PC, making the whole thing seem fairly pointless, so when the second device gave up, so did I - on Windows. I went through a series of Android devices, eventually settling on a Kindle Fire just because I was fed up of the damn things breaking down all the time.

Spot the odd one out. (Hint - it's not me.)

 

There's not much wrong with the build quality and reliability of Amazon's device and the price point, at well under £100, is very acceptable. The problem is, it's pretty feeble when it comes to running games. Even with Google Play installed to break free of Amazon's own walled garden, there's precious little I'd want to play that will run on the thing.

All of which leads me back, in circuitous fashion, to my minor epiphany; that if I had a mobile device that could run it, I'd just as soon play Noah's Heart on a tablet. I already play the game, awkwadly, one-handed with the dog on my lap. It would be better for both of us if we were settled comfortably in the armchair next to the fire.

Except that a tablet or phone capable of running Noah's Heart or Genshin Impact or any of the other gorgeous, modern mobile mmo or mmo-adjacent titles would cost me hundreds of pounds. It's a bizarre irony that the games are free but I'd have to spend a fortune to get something to play them on.

Maybe I will invest in some kind of handheld gaming device that's fit for the next five years or so. The Switch looked good for a while but I hear rumors of obsolescence already. The Steam Deck is another obvious possibility or perhaps one of its inevitable copyists. Or I could buy a decent tablet. An iPad, even. After all, that iPod, extravagant a purchase as it felt at the time, turned out to be very good value.

I'll think about it. In the meantime, I guess I'll just keep playing Noah's Heart on PC. At least there it runs effortlessly on hardware I already own, even if I do have to sit upright instead of slouching in comfort. 

Probably better for my back, anyway.

The Magic Touch

Today I heard some sad news. Apple is about to discontinue the iPod. According to the report on Pitchfork, the iPod Touch will remain available in the Apple Store and via authorised retailers until current stocks are exhausted and then that will be it.

I bought my iPod Touch twelve years ago and it's still working perfectly. Until Covid put a stop to my regular commute (Mrs Bhagpuss started driving me to and from work during the pandemic so as to avoid travelling on public transport and we've stayed with that since.) I listened to podcasts or music on the Touch several days a week.

Even though there are many more obvious ways to listen to music these days, until this year I'd been in the habit of ripping new CDs to the iPod and listening to them that way. It's only in the last few months I finally decided to stop, mostly because the 32GB drive was so full I had to choose something to delete every time I wanted to add a new purchase.

The iPod Touch wasn't my first MP3 player. That was a Creative Zen Nano I bought in 2006. It had an amazing 512Mb of storage and an am/fm radio. I used it a lot and was very happy with it until I filled it up, which as you can imagine didn't take long. 

The Touch wasn't even my first MP4 player. That was a Sony Walkman with 4GB storage and a two-inch screen. I downloaded videos to it and watched them in my lunchbreak. I watched the whole of the first series of The Trip with Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon on that matchbox-sized screen and it was perfectly fine.

Good though those players were, it was the iPod Touch that really sold me on the whole mini-computer in your pocket deal. It had a wifi connection and you could watch YouTube and browse the internet. I even used my Touch on holiday to find and book hotel rooms on the fly.

You could play mmorpgs on it, too. I still have Celtic Heroes installed, a game I played and wrote about back at the dawn of the blog. 

The operating software on my ancient device has long been superceded by newer versions of iOS and it's been something of a struggle to get iTunes and my iPod to play nicely together for a while but we muddle along. I could have replaced it long ago, of course, either with an iPhone or a newer model but why spend the money when it still does everything I need? It still works better than most other tablets and devices I've had.

I've never been a fan of Apple. I don't like iOS or iTunes and I find the reputation for user-friendliness of both quite laughable. Nevertheless, I am a huge fan of the iPod Touch. It's always done just what I wanted and it's never let me down. The twelve-year old battery still holds enough charge for a couple of days and I can find things on it without wanting to throw it across the room.

I guess I could jump before I'm pushed and buy one of the remaining newest models before they disappear for good. On the evidence of the one I have, a replacement could well outlive me.

They're viciously expensive, though, and as I said I've finally reached the point where I don't use mine as much as I did. It's past the point where buying another would make any sense. I'll probably just let the one I have drift on until it stops, much like I plan to do.

To commemorate the passing of an icon, I thought I'd use the function I treasured back in the days of the commute: the iPod Shuffle. I'm going to shuffle and post the first five songs that come up that I can also find on YouTube. I promise not to edit for coolness or to prevent embarrassment. If I was willing to put them on I ought to be willing to show them off. 

Here goes...

Never Say Never - That Dog 

Oh, wow! That's so cool! I didn't even know that was on there. I don't own any albums by That Dog but I went through a phase of converting all the music videos I downloaded from YouTube into MP3s and uploading those to the iPod. Didn't we have it a while back? I should have put that in the rules - no repeats of tracks I've used on the blog before. I didn't, so tough. No-one's going to remember anyway. I don't, even.

Let's roll the dice again...

Some Kinda Love  - The Velvet Underground (Version 2 - The Matrix Tapes)... and it's not on YouTube. Version 4 is but not 2, for some reason. 

Try again...

Ghosts - Motel Raphael

Geez! I forgot that even existed! I barely remember hearing it the first time. I have absolutely no idea who they are (Turns out they're from Montreal) and as far as I recall that's the only thing of theirs I ever heard. Their Bandcamp is still active but the newest thing on there is a couple of years old. I used to like to listen to a lot of stuff that sounded like this. Still do, if I'm in the mood.

Okay, come in number three...

My Alibi (Piano Version) - Lloyd Cole

I guess the law of averages was with Lloyd. I have a bunch of his albums on here, after all. This is from the outtakes and demos collection, self-deprecatingly named Cleaning Out The Ashtrays and once again I'd forgotten all about it. My Alibi is one of my favorite later Lloyd Cole tunes but I wouldn't say this is my favorite version. More of a curio, really, although I do like the weird, otherworldly coda. Here's the original by way of comparison.

Two more...

Suicide Club - The Modernettes

I have a suspicion these guys are Canadian, too... yep, Vancouver, formed in 1980... I bought a double CD of theirs after watching a bunch of their stuff on YouTube but I don't think I've ever listened to it all the way through. I'm not sure you'd get away with a line like "Down at the Suicide Club/That's where the girls are" nowadays.

Last cast... here's hoping it's a good one...

run - pennybirdrabbit

Aahhhhhhhhhhh! <Screams with joy!> Oh, come on!, That's a result, right? Another great song I totally don't remember and with a great video I don't remember either. This is exactly why I love my iPod Touch so much and why no other device I own really hits the spot. Have you ever tried to get a PC  to shuffle the contents of a folder? I have and it wasn't pretty.

God Bless the iPod Touch! May it never truly die.

Alright Then, Just A Small One...

I get plenty of use out of my iPod Touch. I listen to podcasts on it (mostly Mayo and Kermode, sometimes the odd MMOcast). I watch a lot of YouTube. I convert my DVD movies and watch them on the tiny little screen, where the experience survives astonishingly unimpaired. I even use it to listen to music (mostly Lana del Rey and Peggy Sue at the moment, thanks for asking).

Surprise surprise, attacked by a boar

One thing I don't often use my iPod Touch for is playing games. I've tried a few. Ravensword looks great and oozes atmosphere even though the two-fingered control system leaves half the screen obscured most of the time, but looks aren't everything and I soon found the combat very annoying. Battleheart I played once, which was one time too many. Fabled Lands I did enjoy to some degree but it's fundamentally an animated "Choose Your Own Adventure" book and I never liked those all that much to begin with. Author Dave Morris has a blog of the same name which I found a lot more interesting than the game.

Daily Mail sub-editor in missing preposition shock!

The one game I do regularly play on my iPod is Broken Sword, superbly converted for the new device with a lot of additional content. The iPod format suits a point-and-click adventure much better than it does any attempt to mimic the movement and combat controls of an MMO. Tapping objects or characters on the screen when you want to examine or use them is, if anything, more intuitive than using a mouse and in the case of Broken Sword the top-class voice acting and soundtrack are deeply immersive over earphones.

Was Ireland ever this sunny?

I guess the market leader in mobile MMOs is Pocket Legends. It was the first app I downloaded when I got the iPod and I played it for an hour, amazed just to be holding an MMO world in the palm of my hand. I don't think I ever logged in again. Maybe Order and Chaos has overtaken Pocket Legends as the small-screen brand leader in MMOs now. I wouldn't know. I haven't tried it. Maybe if they add pandas...

Anyway, I'd about given up on finding something that looks and plays like an MMO only at 1/10th scale. Then I came across Elemental Knights.

Explosivity to the max

I'm not saying that Elemental Knights is good. It's not, or not especially. It appears to be a standard Korean style grinder with anime graphics and a fairly obstreperous cash shop. But it very much is an MMO. It doesn't just have all the elements, it has them all in the right order and working as you'd expect. The quest-givers stand there giving out typical "kill this" "fetch that" quests, the mobs in the newbie yard hop about oblivious to their inevitable imminent demise, big damage numbers float into the air as you thrash about with your unfeasibly huge sword, junk goes into your inventory, lights flash as you level up etc etc etc.

The controls are extremely easy to use and unobtrusive. Your character can be steered with one hand, which means you can actually see most of the screen all the time, which is nice because what you're looking at is a quirky, attractive world. Well, the little I've seen of it so far. I'm not making any great claims for it, but I've played it half a dozen times so far and had a passably amusing time.

Plants have girls' names, boys have hair ribbons.

All in all, though, I find the iPod screen just too small for MMO gameplay. It's pretty hard to read the quest text and very fiddly to manipulate the menus and inventories. The same wouldn't apply to a Tablet device and that's where I would like to see some real, full-feature MMOs turning up. And a good one would give me that last push I need to make the purchasing decision that I've been putting off for the last 12 months.