Kindle Fire Adds A Popular New Member To Its App Family
Saddle up your horses and brush up on your history of the Seven Kingdoms. Kindle fans can now plot, amass armies, and defend their lands in Game Of Thrones: Ascent for Kindle Fire, Technewstoday mentioned. The epic fantasy saga, based on George R.R. Martin’s series of novels, known as A Song of Ice And Fire, has had a game available on iPhone for some time now, and now there’s one coming to the Kindle Fire ecosystem, as well.
In the game, players take on the role of a basically unknown noble who strives to gain power and resources through alliances, marriage pacts, and even brute force when necessary (if you’ve seen the show, you’ll know force is pretty much always considered “necessary”). The player basically gets to decide whom they will trust or not trust as they build their empire.
The game takes annoying Candy Crush Saga-style game requests to a whole new level, calling the requests “Marriage Pacts” that essentially increase the power and standing of both houses. One really unique feature is the ability to swear fealty to one of the great houses mentioned in the books and TV shows. Depending on which house one chooses to align themselves with, they have the chance to learn different abilities as their levels increase. This is similar to, but not exactly the same as, the idea of a skill grid seen in other games like Dynasty Warriors for Xbox and PlayStation consoles.
As VentureBeat mentioned, Game of Thrones: Ascent had been available for play online and on Android devices, in addition to the version for iPhone, prior to its Kindle Fire release. Interestingly enough, Android Community mentioned that users downloading the game on their Android devices can get it without in-app purchases, those annoying pop-ups that make you invest real money to unlock what are (usually) the coolest items or features. Fortunately or unfortunately, Kindle Fire is not exactly the same as an Android device — it runs on Fire OS, a sort of offshoot of Droid OS.
If the Kindle Fire edition follows in the footsteps of its predecessors for iPhone and Android, people who play on multiple devices will be able to log in and sync their game data to their Kindle, so you need not worry about losing playtime going through the same storyline to get rewards you already had. On the downside, any new account you’ve created since your last play will be lost if you choose to use the feature to restore the old account.
What’s really interesting about the Kindle Fire ecosystem is that its app store ties directly into Amazon’s website, so you instantly get an email about purchasing an app (even for a free “purchase”) and some apps and games are eligible for Amazon credit that you can spend to get physical or virtual items.
No longer just a device that stores people’s books and displays them in an elegant manner (which, in and of itself, is still pretty cool), the Kindle Fire is now a real competitor in the tablet market as an interactive device that has everything you’d expect from an iPad or other comparable tablet. Ironically enough, the introduction of the iPad Mini even boosted sales for Amazon’s Kindle Fire HD tablets, according to the Inquisitr.
Overall, you’ll probably find Ascent is a pretty smooth gameplay experience (the only thing that could make it better would be voice acting, but that’s a lot to ask). If you’re behind on the TV and/or book series, there aren’t a whole ton of spoilers, and the complexity of both story and gameplay is impressive for any game, especially considering it’s on mobile. If you don’t mind the annoyance of some obstacles requiring or recommending you invest real-life currency, it’s definitely a game worth checking out.
[Image Credit: App4smart.com]
