Japanese developer Izumi Studio recent posted a gameplay video demonstrating an upcoming game for the iPhone and iPod Touch called Internal Force. We haven’t yet seen the game appear in the App Store, but are eager to give it a try.
The gameplay video shows an interesting control method for an otherwise traditional vertical scrolling shooter. The game is played in landscape mode but only uses a portion of the screen for the play area. Meanwhile, a blank touch-area to the left provides precise ship control movements.
As you can see in the video, the developer is able to control the ship accurately with this method:
Some may find this design as offensive as Square Enix’s use of a large virtual control pad in Crystal Defenders, but it could prove to be a functional compromise for the right game.
God I am jealous! Good Job Ethan!
Congrats, and thanks for sharing that advice with some of us who are still stuck at our day jobs :)
Pretty cool... Good to see someone able to do what they love to do. My son and I have a great time with that game.
But seriously... You need update your games more often. 56 games needing to update (see the screen capture)... that's going to take some time.
Bob
No kidding, do the games on that iPod even get played? Congrats Ethan! My uncle won $300,000 in the lottery in his late twenties and started his own business. He ran himself into debt thinking he would get another lucky break, and now he lives in my parents' basement
I can be lumped into the group who tried the lite version first and then bought the full version, this has been the case with quite a few apps for me, i think if lite versions were more prevalent some developers would have greater success
I really enjoy this game. The next "upgrade" should include online multiplayer (obvious), and more realistic maps are always a plus!
Also, being able to assign "personalities" to the enemy tanks would be neat too. Like in Scorched Earth!
"Don't quit your day job!"
oh wait...
it's interesting... how easy it is to disseminate an APP, but think if you had another $3 product, how hard it would be to reach such a huge audience? more power to you dev, i wish more would dedicate themselves, then we'd rid ourselves of some of the riffraff..
Am happy to hear these kind of success stories, espeically after what might have been interpreted as a false start. I was convinced by the Lite version too, and for several other games too. It really does help.
Great job Ethan, and we all look forward to yur next project! (But don't neglect making iShoot better and better with new updates!)
I bought the game when it initially launched, and I was surprised to see a few months later that it was at the number 1 spot. Now that he has more time Ethan has said he is working on wifi multiplayer, which will make this game that much better.
56 updates pending (see first screenshot above)? C'mon! Do something about it! :)
I still have to try the lite version tho I don't like the mix of real pictures and designed elements.
Heh, 56 updates. That's fail.
good job and success to you but I hope other devs at least wait until their apps/games are successful before they jump into the whole-quit-the-day-job wagon thing. Or, you might end up living at your parents basement for the next 10 years ahaha!
Scorched Earth anyone?
I hope the other developers take heart that having a free or lite version of an app is going to get them more money.
He made like $30K in One month on this Application
Do that 3 or 4 Times a Year
and theres at least 120K of money
wholyy!
Correction:
"having a free or lite version of" a GOOD "app is going to get them more money"
^^^Actually he made 200k in one week!
Congrats to the dev, but I still think it's foolish to quit your day job from one lucky break. This appstore bubble will burst, and it's not going to support very many full-time jobs after it does.
Yes, "Scorched Earth" indeed ;)
repackaged and on yer iPhone...
My memories of scorched earth are the main reason I got this app!
I did purchase this, because it's one of the best games on the iPod touch... But I have to wonder if he's giving any credit (or money) to Wendell Hicken, the guy who created Scorched Earth in the first place.
I mean, there's no doubt that this is an exact copy, with some different names applied to the weapons, right down to the fact that each tank has a set of scripted lines it spits out at random. The purchase system is the same. The firing system is different due to the touch screen (but arguably better than the old version), and I can't imagine any court in the world would look at this and not see Wendell Hicken's game.
Yes, Hicken got his inspiration from the old text-based Artillery! game, but the engine used for Scorched Earth was the first one of its kind.
I'll play the hell out of iShoot... But I will also question the ethics of the developer quitting his day job because he made a copy of someone else's much-loved creation, and it's selling great because it has a built-in audience.
At some point, this sort of thing will bite you on the behind.
if i read this and did my math right he said an app has to have 10,000+ dowloads PER DAY. meaning a $2.99 app (since january 11th) with 10,000+ downloads a day means he's making $30,000+ a day. So if I calculated right he's made around 2.5 million dollars in only these short few months!! that or i did my math wrong...
hey guys he made 800k in 5 months, that should give him a 8 year break from work, based on him making 100k a year. Plus with all that time im pretty sure he can put some time into making a decent app and again there you go another 10-20 years of no work on the brink of retirement. hmm, seems like Apple is now producing alot of millionaires.