Farkle for Palm OS
Review By James McCarthy | October 10, 2005
Category: software
It's not Yahtzee! It's not Pass The Pigs! It's Farkle by Smart Box Design! One of the newest and most addictive dice games for the Palm OS that will have rolling to play more and will have Windows Mobile users wishing they could play Farkle too. Now available for Windows Mobile!
Details:
Rating: 5 out of 5
Price: $14.95 USD
URL: http://www.smartboxdesign.com
Pros
Awesome graphics and dice-rolling animation
Fast paced and fun to play
Fair pricing
Statistic screen
Cons
There should be a game play option for just ending at first person who to score the required point value and skip the "Last Roll" to determine final winner.
At first I was reluctant to review this game simply because it sounded like yet another dice game; been there done that. But, when I finally installed the game to my Treo 650 I was blown away. The graphics are incredible: smooth, fast, fun to watch and the sound effects are just icing on this babby's cake. Then I thought to myself, "this games looks and sounds slick" and tapped the PLAY button. Before I realized it I had burned my entire lunch-hour playing Farkle!
After winning a few times and losing a more few times because of what I thought were questionable outcomes, I took a look at Farkle's preferences and game setup options as well as the rules. The game play rules on the handheld are suffice, but a better write-up can be found here, http://www.smartboxdesign.com/farklerules.html. Reading this expanded set of rules puts a better perspective on some of the game play options.
Farkle can be played with up to 4 players on the Palm OS or just you against the handheld and don't be fooled by some of those "computer user" names like Average Ann, Steady Stan or Nervous Nell. They forgot one character, Cheating Cindy; I bet she would have been real fun to play against. Having the cute names made the game a little more silly and I think Smart Box should drop the cherry on top of this ice cream sundae by giving each of the fictitious character a picture (or avatar). Using the expanded screen area of the DIA (Dynamic Input Area) for these avatars and brief bios would be ideal. Square-screeners might simply tap of the characters names and have a dialogue appear. These ideas are to be kept in spirit of the game of course.
Beyond silly computer user names, Farkle is a serious dice-rolling game.The idea is to be the first player to score 10,000 points. Of course if you're looking for faster game-time this number can be reduced to 5,000. An optional "break-in" point can set too. This means that you can't post score unless it is equal or greater than the "break-in" number. For testing, I played with no "break-in" points and to 5,000 points.
You score points by rolling either a 1, 5 or three of a kind, three pairs or a six-dice straight. With each roll you have the option to roll again and try to score bigger or pass and score the points you have for that turn. Trust me, it's easy to get greedy, especially when you're on a roll and next you know those red letters F-A-R-K-L-E scroll over your dice. You lose points of the current round by not rolling any of the above combinations or with a Farkle. The rules state that 3 Farkles in a row will lose you 1,000 points. However, I found that the game simply ends.
The thing to remember of Farkling is that you have to Farkle three consecutive times in order to loose big. So you could press your luck once and Farkle and then next turn score 600 points and that previous Farkle doesn't count against you the next time you Farkle. More often than not, games are ended because one player scores the required point total 10,000 or 5,000 and not because you Farkled out.
 
When a player reaches or goes over the required point total the games switches into a "Last Roll" round. Every player in this round gets one last roll. The player with the highest score at the end of this roll wins. This works out really well for the most part and the game will always end with the original high-roller winning. However, in close games, or for those games you're playing against the computers secret character Cheating Cindy the game can take an ugly turn and the player who ended regular play can end up loosing all together. What I don't understand about this game is what it means by "Gone Out" as shown in the screenshot above (left). Isn't that idea? In fact in one game I hit 5,000 points dead-on and has the same verbiage. I eventually won, but if the winner is determined by the final rolling-duel, why bother competing to 5,000 or 10,000 points? If you understand this logic, please post a comment for me.
Download it and try for yourself. I would be surprised if you don't get addicted to this game like I did because it's fast-paced, doesn't require much brain activity and very well put together on a handheld device. Also, check out the player stat screen. I didn't talk much about it, but it's nice to see a developer go beyond just "hi-scores".
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