Puzzle Quest 2

[Marcus]

It is out today. Anyone manage to get a copy of it?

[idrisz]

me345

[Marcus]

Well if you manage to put some time into it let us know how it is. Looking at some of the videos the game play seems about the same which is good.

[Murbella]

Hopefully this is more Puzzle Quest 1 and less "That shitty sci fi Spin off"

[kerzain]

I'm waiting for the PC version they announced for later this summer.

[Tom Chick]

Hopefully this is more Puzzle Quest 1 and less "That shitty sci fi Spin off"

Hey!

FWIW, Puzzle Quest 2 is both better than and worse than Puzzle Quest 1. But it's nowhere near as inventive or clever as Galatrix.

-Tom

[flyinj]

Hopefully it's not the embarrassing shit-pile dumped on us that was the "coding" job they did on the DS SKU of Galactrix.

[Jason McMaster]

Hey!

FWIW, Puzzle Quest 2 is both better than and worse than Puzzle Quest 1. But it's nowhere near as inventive or clever as Galatrix.

-Tom

I've played it for the last month or so and agree. I kind of dig the closer AD&D style maps.

[Demolira]

If there's anything like spell training or crafting like in the first one, my time is gone. I'll have to pick it up this weekend.

[Tom Chick]

I'm pretty sure I've seen all the side activities, and those of you big fat whiny babies who cried about the timed gate hacking in Galactrix will be pleased to know there are no timed or respawning activities in Puzzle Quest 2. Ya big babies!

-Tom

[Gendal]

Want this for the iPhone 4 or PC, maybe 360 in a weak moment. But DS? No thanks. Didn't much like the original on it (PSP!)

[habibi]

I think I am playing Puzzle Quest 1 all wrong. I seemed to be only using Stun and Trample spells. The rest of the spells are pretty pointless, to me.. thus I find that this game is very, very long and I am struggling to complete it. Did I do it all wrong? Coz I don't see what's the big deal about this game.

[idrisz]

play warrior, once you get deathblow it's GG.

[peacedog]

Has a PC release date been announced?

[Dan_Theman]

No specified date, but it will be a day 1 purchase for me when it happens.

[tiohn]

play warrior, once you get deathblow it's GG.

Great gravy? Greasy girlfriend?

[liquidben]

Giggity giggity?

[Alan Au]

gg n00bz!
Alan Au has left the game

[MSUSteve]

Any word on an Xbox Live Arcade release? If it's coming to XBLA eventually, I'll just wait.

[kerzain]

Any word on an Xbox Live Arcade release? If it's coming to XBLA eventually, I'll just wait.It is coming June 30th:
http://www.d3publisher.us/ProductDetails.asp?ProductID=115
http://www.xbox.com/en-US/games/p/puzzlequest2xbla/

Don't be fooled by the box that says "Available platforms" and only lists the DS version, when you click that it takes you to the DS layout and changes that Link to XBLA, it just switches back and forth.

[MSUSteve]

Awesome. I can wait till then for sure.

[Brakara]

Hopefully it turns out good, but I'm pretty sceptical from all those other wretched Puzzle games they made after the first Puzzle Quest.

[ravenight]

I'm liking the mechanics so far. There's a lot more powerful spells and effects, and a lot fewer things to match that don't make any progress in the battle, so battles tend to end much sooner. If you can build up the right mana you can do a ton of damage really quickly.

[peacedog]

I'm liking the mechanics so far. There's a lot more powerful spells and effects, and a lot fewer things to match that don't make any progress in the battle, so battles tend to end much sooner. If you can build up the right mana you can do a ton of damage really quickly.


Is it possible to stalemate in combat and have the board reset? Galactrix gets a bad rap around here but it was a solid game with some really interesting mechanics, and ditching stalemates in combat was a HUGE improvement over PQ's combat.

How many "alternate" puzzle games have you been exposed to?

[ravenight]

I've played Galatrix and Puzzle Kingdoms. It is still possible to have no moves resulting in the board reseting, which drains everyone's mana. But since the mana is so much more powerful this time around, this is actually a significant factor in how you play - you take a risk by waiting a couple more turns for a more powerful effect.

[peacedog]

I've played Galatrix and Puzzle Kingdoms. It is still possible to have no moves resulting in the board reseting, which drains everyone's mana. But since the mana is so much more powerful this time around, this is actually a significant factor in how you play - you take a risk by waiting a couple more turns for a more powerful effect.

Well, it was a big, constant, risk in PQ too. The issue is that it just stupidly drags out combats and makes them grindy. The lesser issue was that there were a number of PQ builds that relied on building up big mana stores (and buffing, and building them up some more where needed), and it certainly disrupted that (to the point where it could radically alter a combat, which was lame).

[ravenight]

Yeah, it does all those thing in PQ2, but the difference is that the battle itself wastes no time, so there are fewer mana drains, there's less downside to just firing your ability when you can to avoid getting screwed by a mana drain, and there's still action points, which don't drain when a mana drain happens. Plus, like I said, combat is faster so the occasional interruption doesn't mean that a fight drags on for another 100 turns. Basically, not having gold and xp as matchable things means that you pretty much always make some progress on your turn.

[idrisz]

I don't like how they replaced their PQ1's equipment system where different equipments have different effects to an armor system. so you get more equipment slots, but most of them does nothing but just add defense.

[peacedog]

Yeah, it does all those thing in PQ2, but the difference is that the battle itself wastes no time, so there are fewer mana drains, there's less downside to just firing your ability when you can to avoid getting screwed by a mana drain, and there's still action points, which don't drain when a mana drain happens. Plus, like I said, combat is faster so the occasional interruption doesn't mean that a fight drags on for another 100 turns. Basically, not having gold and xp as matchable things means that you pretty much always make some progress on your turn.

The faster combat thing sounds promising, though I will be curious to see how that holds up over the course of the game (as combats went from kinda longish to really long in PQ). Keep the impressions coming!

[baelthazar]

I would have never guess that Tom would prefer Galactrix to PQ! I prefer it as well, although the CONSTANT need to play that hacking game got a bit old. I didn't mind the game, but I just didn't feel like I needed to play it hundreds of times and then even more if the gate got closed up again.

Still, as far as the base board, Galactrix wins hands down. PQ was a straight up Bejeweled clone, and Galactrix had a much more nuanced hexagonal system.

Bael

[idrisz]

The faster combat thing sounds promising, though I will be curious to see how that holds up over the course of the game (as combats went from kinda longish to really long in PQ). Keep the impressions coming!


Hit lvl 26 on my assassin, there are a lot of combat in this game, but as far as duration goes, most battles last maybe 2-3 minutes right now.

[Tortilla]

Any more feedback on this game from the early adopters? Does it have the fiendish addictiveness of the original PQ or does it get stale quick?

All of the spinoff puzzle games after PQ really demonstrated that the people behind the original PQ didn't actually know why their game was so good so I'm a bit hesitant to grab PQ2 without some feedback.

[rowe33]

I tried the 360 demo but was a bit put off by the early tutorial bits. Does it get better as the game goes on?

[TheWombat]

My wife and I have been playing this pretty often since we got it a week ago. I like it a lot; it's pretty much as addicting as the first, though the structure takes some getting used to. You have many more options in terms of weapons and armor and jewelry/potions, and you can upgrade stuff as well as buy and sell it. There are minigames for damn near everything, from searching rooms to opening doors to disarming traps. I kind of prefer the structure of the first game but this one does move faster and the fights are generally less tedious as you get into opponents with lots and lots of health. Definitely worth the money though.

[peacedog]

I'm am mildly disappointed so far. It's true there's no longer gold/xp on the board, but now you have 5 types of mana + action + skulls, so it's still 7 types of blocks, and I think gridlock/whatever is still just as common. It's neast that action points don't reset when this happens, but it's still really obnoxious. Also, they left in match 4 = bonus turn, which I think is a mistake.

I think the rest of my complaints stem from having gotten it on the DS.

[terpiscorei]

I've been playing the XBLA version of PQ2 since it released last week, and I feel it's mostly an improvement. I like the dungeon crawling, and the minigames for things like unlocking doors and stuff makes PQ2 feel a bit like an early PC RPG where every action is resolved using a Bejeweled variant instead of a dice roll. The combat seems to be paced much better than the first game, and there haven't been any real protracted battles that I've seen. As Tom has pointed out on Fidgit, the AI still doesn't know how to play the game, really, but it hasn't bothered me too much.

I only really have two major complaints. First, when you're playing any of the minigames, the game board is shrunken down by about 30%. It doesn't make the game unplayable, but it does make some of the minigames uncomfortable to look at. It's bizarre and there is no apparent reason for it.

The other complaint would be that class balance seems to be off. The assassin has been a lot of fun to play. Even the early skills are useful and the skill set as a whole has some nice synergy. The barbarian has none of that. The class seems to be designed around 2h weapon damage, but the early skills don't supplement that strategy in the least and are generally weak to the point of uselessness. It's just a letdown considering how well-designed I think the assassin class is.

[TheWombat]

To be clear, we're playing this on the DS, as we did the first one. It seems to me at least to be the perfect DS game, and I don't really get the DS hate from some folks. I wouldn't even consider playing this on the Xbox, as it isn't engrossing enough to do that, but it's plenty fine for my DS sessions before bed or when waiting for the oil change or whatever.

[Thasero]

I picked it up for the Xbox simply because it's cheaper and I already have plenty of DS-ware for mobile gaming.

Thoughts so far: As mentioned previously, the fact that all types of gems advance the state of the game in some way helps, but it's still possible for the board to bog down and wipe out in a mana drain. Likewise, the enemy AI is not very good at playing the game, which rather makes me question whether there was ever a point in having the main puzzle mechanic be a game where two players take turns - if a challenging AI is frustrating and a lucky AI induces rage, why not just make it a fishbowl where you're fighting your own ability to puzzle? The minigames work fine like that.

So far, I think I preferred the Galactrix hexa-grid for matching gameplay, especially with the gravity tricks and the rule that only a match-5 gave a bonus turn. Galactrix was frustrating if you didn't realize that clicking the gem on the left and swapping right could give you a different result than clicking the gem on the right and swapping left, even though you would make the same match. If you did realize it, on the other hand, the "gravity" mechanic clicked.

On the other hand, PQ2 equipment/character builds are already more interesting than the Galactrix system where you only had active abilities and there wasn't any really convincing reason to pile on lots of them. I hit the endgame of Galactrix in a horribly beweaponed battlecruiser that had room for 8 slots, but I only really used 3 or 4 of them because most decent items cost a turn to activate, making for high opportunity costs.

I suspect that "mildly disappointing" or "mediocre" will be the keywords for Puzzle Quest 2. It isn't actually bad, but it lacks zest. The puzzling and the questing are both OK, and putting those two things together is still a great idea, but not enough so to rescue the game's lack of polish and excitement.

For only 1200 Microsoft spacebucks, I'm happy with my purchase as a good-enough timewaster, but I would recommend that anyone wanting to quest puzzles on their DS should wait to get it on resale.

[Brian Seiler]

Likewise, the enemy AI is not very good at playing the game, which rather makes me question whether there was ever a point in having the main puzzle mechanic be a game where two players take turns - if a challenging AI is frustrating and a lucky AI induces rage, why not just make it a fishbowl where you're fighting your own ability to puzzle? The minigames work fine like that.

Try Gyromancer. That's the biggest thing that PopCap and SquareEnix got right with that game.

I've played about six or eight hours. I'm bored. I don't really understand why, either. Maybe it's the music I had on while I was playing. Mostly I just seem to be wandering around and stomping on random entities as an excuse to play Bejeweled. To the game's credit, I don't feel as screwed over when the computer rips off a gigantic cascading combination, but it's still annoying and still the biggest flaw in the game as far as I'm concerned. I think they could probably do with one fewer color of mana too - I'm about halfway up my spell tree (Assassin) and it seems like I'm never adequately resourced for half the crap I want to do. At this point, I'd almost prefer that the skulls were taken off the board completely, you got one "action" a turn that you could spend action points on, and all damage was done through spells and attacks. The multiplier wildcards are also a little extremely unbalanced - I've had more than one game that I stomped into oblivion because I happened to line up a x5 on the right color early and then never ran out of that color.

It's not terrible for fifteen bucks, but I'm not sure I'm going to actually end up finishing it on XBLA.

[Harkonis]

multiplayer is very, very fun. Tourney mode rocks as does versus.

[HumanTon]

Likewise, the enemy AI is not very good at playing the game, which rather makes me question whether there was ever a point in having the main puzzle mechanic be a game where two players take turns - if a challenging AI is frustrating and a lucky AI induces rage, why not just make it a fishbowl where you're fighting your own ability to puzzle?


Because then it would no longer be a combat system, and the combat system is the main reason I play Puzzle Quest. The fact that the enemy is going to use your tiles against you makes you think at least one turn ahead and not choose easy moves that would give the enemy an advantage. It forces you to react and change up your actions based on the situation--i.e. think tactically--instead of just puttering about slowly building up to the perfect combo--i.e. concentrating only on strategy.

Of course, there's nothing wrong with puttering about slowly building up to the perfect combo. But lots of puzzle games already do that. So why should Puzzle Quest?

Anyway, the real problem with the AI is not that it doesn't understand the back-and-forth of trading moves, but that it doesn't understand how to ruthlessly exploit the the spell system the way the player does. What the game really needs is better spellcasting AI and (more importantly) a better-balanced spell system.

For those wondering about whether to get PQ2, it has tighter combat than PQ1 and some new minigames. Outside of the puzzling, the presentation is different--Diablo-style dungeon crawling rather than overland travel--but sharing the same functional-but-unpolished feeling as the orginal. You don't play a PQ game for the writing or the animation.

[Marcus]

I want this on the iPhone.

[Kinky Friedman]

Is this as buggy as the original was?

[Jazar]

I want this on the iPhone.

Same here.

[Tortilla]

Is this as buggy as the original was?

I broke down and bought it yesterday, and so far I'm quite pleased. No instability or buginess.

I'm struck by how diablo-esque this game is trying to be. The first PQ was somewhat that way as well but the addition of random loot from chests, loot with prefixes (runic, ancient, etc) and town portals really drives home the similarity. So far I'm fairly pleased with the game overall but I haven't had a ton of time to devote to it yet.

[Tortilla]

I want this on the iPhone.

I want it on android myself. Unfortunately android still lags behind iOs in terms of attracting game ports.

[Adree]

I'm both loving and hating it (360 version), I like that it seems all enemy types are considerably tougher if they are able to unload their attacks on you and I love the assortment of new minigames for looting/lockpicking/etc. But I'm not sure what they were thinking when they let assassin's essentially control the entire board with the strike abilities, coupled with stealth and disarm you can neuter most enemies and then hit them with triple damage strikes (stealth and disarm stack) that if unblocked can do upwards of 60 damage.

[Brian Seiler]

I wish I could control the board that hard with my assassin. I never seem to have enough of the right kind of energy at this point in my young life to eat everything into purple, which I can then feed into my shield, because I assume that's the strategy they're herding me toward.

[Adree]

I wish I could control the board that hard with my assassin. I never seem to have enough of the right kind of energy at this point in my young life to eat everything into purple, which I can then feed into my shield, because I assume that's the strategy they're herding me toward.

I don't bother with shield unless it's a high melee damage boss and I can't disarm them in time. Using shield is a great way to get rid of all that extra purple you'll have from using strikes though. It mostly comes down to patience and the ability to take some good stingers at the start while you wait for your abilities to be ready (I imagine our main problem will be mana drainers).

[Tortilla]

I'm up to level 17 with my barbarian and having a pretty good time with this game. It's good, but it's not original Puzzle Quest good. Closest they've come to recapturing the magic since the original PQ, and a good game overall, but still a mild disappointment for someone hoping for another original PQ.

[James Gutierrez]

I started with a barbarian and was bored enough to start regretting the purchase, then switched to assassin and I'm loving it.


It mostly comes down to patience and the ability to take some good stingers at the start while you wait for your abilities to be ready (I imagine our main problem will be mana drainers).

Yeah, this. It can make for some really dramatic battles as you watch your health get whittled down until you can turn the tide. I was at 8 pts vs 80-something in the Yeti quest and ended up winning a few turns later.

[Xemu]

I went assassin as well -- it seems crazy good but I assume that all the other classes have similar insanity if you know what to do.

I found you could easily / cheaply upgrade the poison offhand with a fairly common material drop, so now I'm like level 20 or so, I have poison that costs like 4 AP to use and does 48 (!) total damage over the span of 8 turns. Easy to keep up and it puts every battle on a timer. Combine with Disarm & Stealth and I can easily stay alive while also putting out the hurt with 4x Strikes fairly regularly.

Also, Weaken is completely broken in how strong it is. 5 mana to effectively get a free turn whenever the board is dense with any color -- it doesn't end your turn so you can almost always strategically find a gem to remove which will then let you swap to a 4-in-a-row. The reducing of the enemy's mana is almost incidental.

[Pharaoh]

The game is completely broken balance wise with Templar as well. Minus how busted poisons are (and you can stack the DOT's), Templar's have good ol' shield bash, which hits based on your defense. Considering only they get access to Plate Armor, Tower Shields, etc, that's a 40+ hit every other turn.

Oh ya, they can spam Rush and stun opponenets for 6 turns in a row. They also have Divine Power, which again is based on defense, which REFILLS EVERY MANA pool. Infinite Loop O' Divine Doom.

I beat the Green Dragon in 70 turns spamming this cycle. It's so unbalanced lol.

[Thasero]

It looks like every class (except maybe the barbarian) can get to ridiculous combos pretty quickly, because I've done the same with the Sorcerer.

Mana tonics give a +N bonus to the amount of mana gained from a particular color, and the bonus works when you destroy gems with a spell, so taking a tonic then casting a destructo-spell of that color is an infinite loop in itself.

Throw in spells to make wildcards or skulls wherever you want, for easy 4-gem matches, and I sometimes end up blasting an enemy into the wall with plenty of unused action points and mana left over.

[KiloOhm]

I want this on the iPhone.

Me too, but first I need my Iphone....damn apple your manufacturing is slooooow!

[Adree]

I wouldn't hold your breath for an iphone port unless they do it in-house this time, I doubt they were pleased with how fucked up the Transgaming one was (until finally patched months later).

The loot minigame is Peggle-level crack.

[Tortilla]

I've made it up to level 31 and the game is getting better. Two components of the first game that I thought had been cut for the sequel, namely companions and learning spells, have finally shown up. This has boosted my interest in the game significantly since I'm now facing interesting choices for which spells to equip instead of just progressing linearly up a fixed spell tree like it originally appeared. I still mourn for the originals far more interesting equipment system but PQ2 is looking up.

[Cal]

Tis out on Steam now, is it worth getting if i liked the first and hated the spacey one?

[mkozlows]

Yes, yes, and yes. The more I play PQ2, the more I'm confused by the apparently "meh" reaction to it. I don't remember PQ1 well (as I haven't played it in a while), but PQ2 is excellent. Great gameplay, with different classes all feeling very different (I love the assassin), lots of different game modes -- the room searching minigame is basically Jewel Quest, and there are distinct and interesting minigames for picking a lock, bashing down a door, casting an unlock spell, and looting chests, plus of course the regular fighting game.

[Tortilla]

PQ2 is good, but it's no PQ1. Weak item variety, some lackluster selection of powers compared to the original, etc. Lots less motivation to grind or keep a player interested in the late game phases.

[BobJustBob]

the room searching minigame is basically Jewel Quest

Interest rising...

[Jason Lutes]

I just picked up PQ2 for the PC and am loving it so far. I'd say it's superior to Galactrix, but my barbarian is only like level 10 so far.

[baelthazar]

This game is pure puzzle crack! I booted it up last night, just to play a few rounds, and ended up putting hours into it! Yikes! Much more addictive than Galactrix, and back to the PQ roots.

[RepoMan]

Wow, this thread kind of died. Anyone still kept at it? Did the crack flavor continue like honey, or was it replaced with a bitter, bitter imbalance and/or drudgery aftertaste?

[kerzain]

I have Elemental, Worms Reloaded and a new Kindle arriving next week, and am too busy playing Gratuitous Space Battles and Warcraft 3 to consider picking the game up at this time. All my eagerness has been replaced with patience.

[Gendal]

Still enjoying PQ2 on the PC. Liking it a lot more than Galactrix, maybe not as much as the original.

[Equisilus]

I'm waiting for a nice Steam sale for PQ2. I know I'll get lots of fun out of it but I need to limit myself somehow or I'll be going nuts buying games now that I'm Steam-hooked. It's too easy to buy and let games slide if they aren't the big-name, highly-anticipated titles.

[Cubit]

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2010/08/19/wot-i-think-puzzle-quest-2/

[mkozlows]

Still playing PQ2. Their content-milking quests crack me up ("You need to open this door... which requires assembling the three pieces of the TriForce... each of which requires you to defeat 4 guardians... for which you must forge a super-weapon... which requires you to collect all four pieces of the weapon."), but I don't mind, because the game is great.

I literally see PQ2 whenever I close my eyes. Always an incipient four-of-a-kind, too.

[Equisilus]

Steam deal ($13.39) today until 09Sep10. I'm debating picking it up, but I have several other games on the go and Civ5 on the way and I'm not sure I can handle the time investment right now.

Thought I'd mention it for those that are holding out.

[Hansey]

Since the thread's been bumped, I'll also add that an update has been released:
http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1426370

A few changes, though one in particular has a serious effect on my overpowered Assassin build:

Balanced the Assassin spell 'Weaken' - gave it a two turn cooldown and increased the cost from 5 Yellow to 5 Yellow and 4 Green

My build was making very liberal use of the spammable and cheap to cast 'Weaken' spell, so I guess I'll have some strategy adjustments to make. Still, I just hit level 50, so I must be nearly at the end by this point anyway. I've really been enjoying this game though!

[Xemu]

Yeah, Weaken was brutally overpowered, so that's a good change. I wonder when/if this update will hit XBLA.

[kerzain]

The patience I mentioned a few posts ago has been replaced by anxious covetousness, given the new price.

[Bahimiron]

Picked this up for sale on the iPad.

Fun. Fun. Fun. Fun. Fun. Fun. Ogre. Stop.

And now I'm done.

[Kemper Boyd]

Picked this up for sale on the iPad.

Fun. Fun. Fun. Fun. Fun. Fun. Ogre. Stop.

And now I'm done.

What class/level were you? I think it is key to find the synergies for your class and then use mana denial for you foe's best stuff. Debuffs are also a good idea. It is also relatively easy to get a poison dagger in the early game that can be upgraded to 6pts of damage for 8 turns that only takes 3 action points to use.

I recently beat the game with a Barbarian and had a blast the whole way through. It felt way less grindy in the endgame than the first game did.

[Untouchable2K]

Very challenging game, but fun indeed.

[SamF7]

Thread RESSURECTION!

Another game in the Puzzle Quest / Galactrix / Gyromancer vein:
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1217383590/match-and-magic?ref=live

I've played a bit of it. If you enjoyed Puzzle Quest, you should enjoy this.

Bill Harris over at Dubious Quality has also apparently played it:
http://dubiousquality.blogspot.com/2011/08/match-magic.html
http://dubiousquality.blogspot.com/2011/08/match-magic-q-part-two.html
http://dubiousquality.blogspot.com/2012/04/kickstarter-match-and-magic.html

SamF7
(Disclaimer: The developer is a friend of mine)

[Telefrog]

Maybe it's better in motion, but that screen looks really busy.

[Misguided]

Ah...Bill Harris spoke about this game ages ago. I asked him to pass my name on to Jeff, as I was interested in testing for him, but I never heard back (from Jeff).

Edit: actually, I missed an email from him last November. *smacks forehead*

[rei]

Looks way too ornate.

[madcoder]

Hey misguided I just saw your email response and your backing (thanks). The beta will be coming soon but I can set you up earlier if you want.

I do agree that the screen can be a bit busy. The cards are really the cool mechanic and I wanted the player to be able to visually tell what is going on by scanning the cards versus having to constantly hover over. Unfortunately it can seem like too much going on.

If you guys would like to try it and give me more feedback I'd appreciate it. I can setup a link. I'm really trying my best to make it fun for the puzzle quest crowd.

I was afraid to reply to this link for fear of being flamed but I could really use the valuable feedback so here I go...gulp.

[Marcus]

I am not going to flame you but I really think you or someone else should start a new thread about your game. I'm very interested in it and I would love to see more about it.

[Dan_Theman]

I agree with the idea on starting up a new thread, and also that Jeff's game looks interesting. Did Tom remove the post requirement for creating a new thread?

[Misguided]

I agree with the idea on starting up a new thread, and also that Jeff's game looks interesting. Did Tom remove the post requirement for creating a new thread?

New thread is at http://www.quartertothree.com/game-talk/showthread.php?p=3101811

Jeff, if you end up setting up a link here, I'll happily make use of it. Otherwise, I've waited this long. On the other hand, if you have a build on iPad, I could take it with me when I fly cross-country in a few days, which would be stellar.