On New Year’s Day, we wrote about a recent App Campus game released for Windows Phone 8: Mossad, from Israel-based indie developer GreenShpits. Mossad marries location-based gaming with searching for virtual items in the real world via augmented reality, something you don’t see all that much on Windows Phone.
While Mossad’s unique gameplay made the game noteworthy, a few major bugs tempered my enthusiasm for it. The developer took notice of our report, and quickly released a patch that addresses most of my concerns. Head past the break for post-update hands-on video and impressions!
Mossad version 1.0.0.3 release notes
- Bunker screen: we added animation to make clear the screen is scrollable, and adjusted the text size to fit.
- Profile screen: bug causing the categories to stop responding after coming back from the "Add Credit" screen was fixed.
- Mission completion bugs have also been addressed.
Post-patch experience
Let’s address those fixes point-by-point. First, the Base or Bunker screen is a place that players can visit in order to receive instructions from their boss. Prior to the update, the boss’s text was not formatted properly and extended beyond the border of the screen. That has now been fixed. The game also pans towards your boss the first time you visit him, providing a nice cinematic touch.
The Profile screen is where players go to set up their profiles and customize their characters. Until you visit it, you’re only a guest. The game offers several degrees of customization, including gender, hair color, clothing, and accessories.
Before the update, a bug caused the different customization categories to load extremely slowly – turns out it wasn’t responding to player input for a brief time. The categories now load instantly as intended.
Most disconcerting of all in our initial play session was a bug that caused missions not to complete. The whole game structure revolves around accepting missions and then completing them in order to earn credits, items, and increase your rank. Because I couldn’t complete missions, I couldn’t progress through the game properly.
That issue was actually a result of my profile having played the beta before moving to the final version of the game. After our first article ran, GreenSphits wiped my profile in order to fix the problem. The issue would never have affected regular users, they tell me, so you guys can download the game without fear of encountering it.
Joining the agency
So what’s Mossad about, anyway? It shares a name with that of the Israeli Secret Service. It was made by developers living in Israel, after all. But the agency that players join in the game is a fictional one, not the real life agency that Israel haters love to hate. If you think that way, you’re probably not going to give the game a chance. But Mossad is not a political game, and players should try not to approach it from that perspective.
Mossad is a game in which players search for items within their actual surrounding environments. Find the correct item or location (it can involve some walking) within the time limit in order to succeed. Try it out for an augmented reality experience and the chance to pretend you’re a spy in your own neighborhood.
- Mossad – Windows Phone 8 – 13 MB – Free – Store Link
