Premium Spotlight: THTouch
by Eric March on October 27, 2008 at 11:23 am
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(6 votes, average: 4.00 out of 5)
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App Name: THTouch
Developer: Pit Garbe
Category: Board, Dice & Card Games
Price: $0.99
You know, I love seeing games and apps from the jailbreak scene make the crossover to the App Store. Not that I didn’t like getting free stuff — and let’s face it, 99% of apps in the jailbreak scene were free or donationware, with only a small handful of notable exceptions. No, I still love free stuff — you’re currently standing in a shrine to it, for Og’s sake. (With the exception of notable premium apps that I like to post about, like this one.) I like seeing the crossovers happen because I love seeing devs from the jailbreak scene getting some financial love for their hard work, something that was pretty hard to do in the jailbreak scene.
Amazingly though, Pit Garbe managed to do it — his premiere Texas Hold ‘Em game THTouch (which we initially previewed an early alpha version of over on Touch Podium) managed to earn him well over a grand in donations alone. Enough to buy him a Mac and a dev license so he could bring it to the App Store. And thanks to him and to all those who donated to him, it’s finally here. Now, I never got a chance to see the full version when it was released on the jailbreak scene because — and I risk forfieture of my man card by saying this — I didn’t know how to play Texas Hold ‘Em. But since Pit tossed me a copy I decided it was about high time I learned how to play — and with a little help from my pal Wikipedia, I’m glad I did. Or maybe I’m not, because it’s dangerously addictive, and the last thing I need is something else to steal my precious time away. (And yet, I am powerless to stop it.)
I won’t go over the rules here because I’m assuming you already know how to play or you’re clicking on that Wiki link there to learn. Texas Hold ‘Em is probably one of the more complex variants, but the complexity is part of what makes it fun — you feel like you’ve invested more than just chips when you play, and the rewards of winning seem perhaps just a little sweeter for it.
THTouch follows standard Texas Hold ‘Em rules and supports from 2-10 seats (players), so you can get a nice huge game going if you really want to. Control of the game is accomplished with a nice tap-and-hold menuing system. When your turn comes up, tap and hold and a contextual menu wheel will appear with options relevant to the phase of the hand you are currently in. Once the menu is up, slide your finger over the option you want to choose; an “OK” button will appear in the center of the wheel to let you know that if you lift your finger, this is the option you will be selecting. It works quite well and lets you easily access play options anywhere on the screen without cluttering the already-crowded screen with a menu bar. However, if you don’t like the wheel you can disable it in the game’s settings menu, which will drop you into gesture mode — the same gestures you’d make using the wheel will now work without the wheel or the requirement to wait the half secod before it pops up. (In other words it’s more or less the same as having the wheel, but without the visual feedback)
Raising or betting is simple enough — select the raise or bet option when it is relevant to do so, and you’ll get a list of chips you can bet with. Tap to add a chip to the pot, swipe down to clear your bet, or swipe up to commit and close the bet menu. There is one button on the screen though — the standard gear that will bring up a nice menu overlay. From there you can return to the main menu, get detailed instructions and tips on how to play THTouch and Texas Hold ‘Em in general (data connection required), or get a brief overview of winning hands for those who are new to any form of poker. You can close this menu by tapping on the gear again.
Graphically, THTouch is very nice indeed. It’s clean and stylish without being ostentatious. Everything you’d expect to be there is there, including the dealer token, plus, as a visual aid, tokens for both the small and big blinds. Hands are displayed around the perimeter with the community cards in the center, and below that a brief history of the previous hand’s outcome. Top left is the pot, top right is the deck.
The sound here is very sparse — an issue Pit is aware of and will be addressing when he is ready to do so once he works out an elegant way to introduce them without interrupting any music the player may alerady be playing through the iPod. Being a card game however sound is of lesser importance — the gameplay is the real draw here, and THTouch plays well and offers a fun and challenging game of Texas Hold ‘Em. It iks presently only single-player at the moment; there is no online play — not yet at least. Pit has it on the road map for the future, but creating and maintaining a server, writing the network code and paying for the bandwidth isn’t exactly the sort of thing you just knock off over a weekend, so while it’ll be great to see it happen, don’t expect to find it in your stocking this holiday season.
Overall, THTouch is a very nicely put-together game of Texas Hold ‘Em. It’s got style and presents itself with class. It doesn’t have some of the flash and glitter of some card games (Solitaire City, for example), but to be honest they’re not particularly missed. The visuals are more than pleasing to the eye and the gameplay is solid — nothing here disappoints, and the only things one might even consider saying that it could use would be of the kitchen sink variety; it already has everything it needs, so any further additions would just be kitchen sinks.
I can’t quite give it 5 stars — almost; if I could assign it, 4-1/2, I would — but the only thing keeping it from a full rack are a few smaller issues that don’t otherwise interfere with gameplay, just offer a more full and well-rounded experience. In spite of this though, it’s an excellent game and the dollar-store price point really makes this a no-brainer for any Texas Hold ‘Em fan.
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Posted in Games: Board/Dice/Card, Games: Casino, Paid Apps
