Alright. I’ve tried to be nice to Epic Win ($2.99). I’ve tried not to take the whole thing too seriously and just have fun with it, but I’m still getting frustrated with this cute little app.
Complaint, the First
The first bit I’ve been hesitant to complain about has been the RPG wrapping. I called it a light RPG element when I first posted on it, but it’s really more of a wrapper, and the loot is really more like a set of random achievements. The avatar artwork and animation is top-notch, and I really do like how you “beat up” your tasks instead of actually ticking them off. Unfortunately, that’s about as epic as things seem to get.
You can’t equip any of the cool loot you find, and the only way to make your character look more epic is to level up by completing tasks — but leveling has been a very slow burn. I’ve tried to be a little more conservative and “realistic” in my usage of the app, so I assign 300 points (the max number) to only the tallest orders in my day-to-day life.
However, two days ago I decided to just turn every single task on my list (brushing my teeth, putting on pants in the morning) into an epic quest, because it’s been six days since I bought Epic Win, and I’m still level one. I’ve traveled over 300 in-game miles and completed over 20 quests, but I’m still only 25% of the way to level two.
This is the first time I’ve stayed at level one for more than a day. Level-ups are fast and frequent affairs in most RPGs, especially in the beginning, as the developer tries to show the player that, “look! you got stronger and cooler and more epic!”. I’m really quite surprised by how long this first level has lasted and how lackluster the rewards feel thus far. The loot is amusing, but the fact that I can’t equip any of it is — and here it comes — an Epic Fail.
I’m also annoyed by the fact that Epic Win slays any background music (like from your iPod for example), and yet it features no sound effects of its own. The developers have stated on the Epic Win website that sounds were removed for optimization — but the app still stops music playback and also blocks auto-lock from functioning correctly.
Complaint, the Second
Here’s something I’m far less hesitant to whine about: managing tasks in Epic Win. In short: the system still needs some minor tweaking for it to become useful as an actual task manager.
Don’t get me wrong: my task management expectations are about as high as my dwarf avatar is tall, but even level one “Ragartus the Stumpy Dwarven Miscreant” stands at least a few feet off the ground.
I can get along without tags, categories, and notes, but I don’t like how the app displays my finished and overdue tasks right at the top of the list. This means that I have to scroll past 20+ quests every time I reload Epic Win. There’s no way to simply skip the line-up and get right to what I need to do today.
World of Warcraft implemented many different methods of fast travel to cut player downtime, and Epic Win will need to implement something similar if wants to remain useful to anybody. I think that there should, at the very least, be an option to hide all your Overdue and Finished tasks.
Complai — no, Conclusion
I’m not saying that Epic Win isn’t a decent app, but neither the RPG wrapping nor the task management system can really be called epic victories (ugh, that really doesn’t sound as good). I was rather disappointed with the implementation of loot, but that wasn’t quite enough to dissuade me from using the app. It’s really the way that tasks are handled that tends to kill a lot of the utility here.
Epic Win currently feels like a classic case of style over substance and form over function. If you were curious about this task manager wrapped in a sweet RPG shell, I’d suggest that you wait until the next version.
—
Epic Win was bought by JAiB for review on the site. For further information regarding our site’s review policies, please see the “About” page.
Continue reading:
- Everything New Apple Just Announced (Septembe
- Apple Watch Pre-Order
- Apple Research Kit launches with 5 Apps
- Apple TV now only $69
TAGS: iphone task manager
