Link: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/loose-nozzles/id1003139939 Loose Nozzles Christopher Foster Built by a veteran game developer around his young son’s artwork, Loose Nozzles is a slapstick arcade game of flight and… Free Buy Now Watch Media DetailsBuilt by a veteran game developer around his young son’s artwork, Loose Nozzles is a slapstick arcade game of flight and rescue. Use simple, two-button controls to pilot your rickety rocket and save endangered colonists over 25 levels of increasing intricacy and menace. The child-like look masks a grown-up challenge; each collision risks losing a piece of your rocket, turning a mission of precision flight into a chaotic struggle to survive. Master the controls and learn to fly “smooth” – fast, close, and free of injury – to make your way up the leaderboards. Loose Nozzles is free to play to completion, and a one-time purchase unlocks: unlimited lives, restarting from any level, rocket upgrades, skins that look and fly differently, and alternate play modes for even greater challenge. Loose Nozzles is a labor of love from Foster and Family Games. We hope you like it! Information Seller:Christopher Foster Genre:Action, Simulation Release:Sep 19, 2022 Updated:Oct 15, 2022 Version:1.0.3 Size:397.7 MB TouchArcade Rating:Unrated User Rating:Unrated Your Rating:unrated Compatibility:HD Universal Subscribe to the TouchArcade YouTube Channel From the loosenozzles press kit page: Loose Nozzles is a collaboration between veteran designer Chris Foster (Harmonix, Turbine, Hidden Door, Northeastern University) and his son, Ian. “I was teaching myself how to move sprites in Unity and Ian, then 5, showed me a picture of a rocket falling apart while an enemy shot at it, and explained the game he was dreaming up. I suggested we combine his idea with the games I’d loved as a kid, like Lunar Lander and Choplifter.” Developed as a “occasional nights and weekends” game over several years, the finished game combines art and voices by Ian with programming and music by Chris. Stronsay Well-Known Member Aug 6, 2015 987 230 43 #2 Stronsay, Sep 21, 2022 Excellent Lander/Choplifter combo. Well designed - interesting to learn without being too frustrating. Still not easy. Yet to attain 3 stars on first ‘very easy’ level. Haven’t yet figured how to fly ‘Smooths’ which earn valuable multipliers. Anotherkellydown likes this. Anotherkellydown Moderator Staff Member Patreon Bronze Feb 10, 2014 4,581 1,134 113 Male CAD Technician I Upstate NY https://youtube.com/channel/UCcvu9xhE7xT-mZrXUZQJr5g #3 Anotherkellydown, Sep 21, 2022 Same here! I only got 2.5 stars on the first level but got 3 on the next two. If you get close to the ground/walls while flying you can see little particles coming off the surface. That is adding to the SMOOTH meter. I’m not sure why I can’t get 3 stars on level one. At first I wanted to switch the controls so that left went left and right went right but I’m used to the controls now and they feel good. There appears to be 4 different planets to visit, each having 6-8 levels. I haven’t even finished the first planet yet but I’m on the last level. Great story behind the development too. I love these family projects. The voices did get slightly jarring, but luckily there are sliders for SFX, music and speech in the options. There are also 4 different game modes. The first is “normal mode”, where you can take several hits. Then there’s “one-hit mode” which does what it says, as well as “headless” (you have to earn your nosecone) and “one-hit & headless”, each with 78 stars to be earned. I’ll be honest, I wasn’t expecting much, but Loose Nozzles really surprised me with its solid gameplay mechanics and physics, not to mention the cool, authentic “kid-drawing” graphics. Stronsay likes this. Stronsay Well-Known Member Aug 6, 2015 987 230 43 #4 Stronsay, Sep 21, 2022 Thanks for the ‘smooth’ flying advice @Anotherkellydown. Knew I was missing something. That’s helped my level one score to 41k but still only 2.5 stars. I only see one 3 star on the leaderboard with 168k so there are more points to find somewhere. I’ll keep searching. Thanks also for posting ‘Ascender’. Have tried briefly and looks good too, though I find it difficult to switch between different physics and control sets. Will return to it later. Anotherkellydown likes this. FosterAndFamilyGames Member Sep 22, 2022 5 6 3 Male #5 FosterAndFamilyGames, Sep 22, 2022 Hi! It's exciting to see people playing the game out in the world! I'm Chris from Foster and Family Games. Star rankings are based on three separate stats, which are shown on the Win screen as bar-graphs. The three stats are: fuel (use less of it), parts lost (lose fewer of them), and smooth (earn more of them). For each stat you can earn zero stars, a half-star, or a full star. Each bar has "star thresholds" marking the points at which you either earn or lose a half star. For fuel and smooths, the bar-graphs are built out of sausage-like segments, that measure fuel tanks or complete S-M-O-O-T-H smooths. So, if you're getting only 2.5 stars, look over the bar graphs to see which one has either not earned enough (smooths), or collected too much (spent too much fuel, or lost too many parts). It's tough, but hopefully fair! - Chris Stronsay and Anotherkellydown like this. FosterAndFamilyGames Member Sep 22, 2022 5 6 3 Male #6 FosterAndFamilyGames, Sep 22, 2022 One more tip: the most challenging stat to increase is SMOOTH. To earn it you need to fly close to terrain above a minimum speed. When you're flying close and fast enough, you'll see the yellow cloud of stars appear, and then the letters will start flying up to spell "SMOOTH." The faster you fly, the more quickly you earn SMOOTH - but if you crash, you could lose a letter and have to wait to start earning again! My advice is: concentrate on learning how fly without crashing then work on flying with enough consistency that you conserve fuel then see if you can fly with enough precision to stay close to the ground and earn SMOOTH THEN start pushing your luck to see how fast you can fly close to stuff. You'll be pulling three stars (particularly in the early levels) in no time! (Says the person who had eight years to practice. - Chris aussiepaul, Stronsay and Anotherkellydown like this. Anotherkellydown Moderator Staff Member Patreon Bronze Feb 10, 2014 4,581 1,134 113 Male CAD Technician I Upstate NY https://youtube.com/channel/UCcvu9xhE7xT-mZrXUZQJr5g #7 Anotherkellydown, Sep 22, 2022 @FosterAndFamilyGames, Welcome to TouchArcade! I’m so glad you decided to join the thread discussion. Thanks for the detailed tips! Mike (Aka Mike_AKD on Twitter) FosterAndFamilyGames likes this. Stronsay Well-Known Member Aug 6, 2015 987 230 43 #8 Stronsay, Sep 22, 2022 Yes, thanks for the insight @FosterAndFamilyGames. More under the hood than first appears. Still going back and forth in level one. I believe I can fly. Anotherkellydown and FosterAndFamilyGames like this. Chq Well-Known Member Jul 20, 2013 446 61 28 #9 Chq, Sep 24, 2022 Where is the option to flip left and right controls? FosterAndFamilyGames Member Sep 22, 2022 5 6 3 Male #10 FosterAndFamilyGames, Sep 24, 2022 Hi Chq - That's a fair question. The inspiration for the controls was games like QWOP or GIRP, where you have to translate the inputs to outputs in unexpected ways. So having to keep in mind that right-goes-left and left-goes-right is an intentional part of the experience. (And matches to the visuals and behaviors of the rockets, for what that's worth.) That said, I'm keeping an eye on how this approach goes over with people. - Chris Anotherkellydown Moderator Staff Member Patreon Bronze Feb 10, 2014 4,581 1,134 113 Male CAD Technician I Upstate NY https://youtube.com/channel/UCcvu9xhE7xT-mZrXUZQJr5g #11 Anotherkellydown, Sep 24, 2022 Congrats on Game of the Week, @FosterAndFamilyGames! aussiepaul and FosterAndFamilyGames like this. FosterAndFamilyGames Member Sep 22, 2022 5 6 3 Male #12 FosterAndFamilyGames, Sep 24, 2022 Thanks, @Anotherkellydown - that was a wonderful surprise and much appreciated! Anotherkellydown Moderator Staff Member Patreon Bronze Feb 10, 2014 4,581 1,134 113 Male CAD Technician I Upstate NY https://youtube.com/channel/UCcvu9xhE7xT-mZrXUZQJr5g #13 Anotherkellydown, Sep 25, 2022 I was so glad to see that Jared wrote about it! He doesn’t say much in the threads to give any hints as to what he might like, so sometimes I’m quite surprised by his pick. But yours was such a good one! That reminds me, I gotta leave a review on the App Store aussiepaul and FosterAndFamilyGames like this. ColeDaddy Silver Supporter<br>Moderator Staff Member Patreon Silver Patreon Gold Patreon Bronze Mar 20, 2010 4,234 131 63 Male Sojourner Washington D.C. #14 ColeDaddy, Sep 26, 2022 Man, I suck eggs playing this game. I can't get the hang of the controls. I know I contributed nothing to this discussion but I just wanted to say "eggs". FosterAndFamilyGames Member Sep 22, 2022 5 6 3 Male #15 FosterAndFamilyGames, Sep 26, 2022 The game is definitely tougher than it looks! The one piece of advice I can offer is to try tapping the buttons in short bursts - tap-release-tap-release-tap-release - to control how fast you move. The first instinct might be to hold the buttons down, and that generally has you slamming around the screen without much control. Good luck, and thanks for trying out the game! P.s. eggs eggs eggs aussiepaul likes this. (You must log in or sign up to post here.) Show Ignored Content Share This Page Tweet Your name or email address: Password: Forgot your password? Stay logged in
Excellent Lander/Choplifter combo. Well designed - interesting to learn without being too frustrating. Still not easy. Yet to attain 3 stars on first ‘very easy’ level. Haven’t yet figured how to fly ‘Smooths’ which earn valuable multipliers.
Same here! I only got 2.5 stars on the first level but got 3 on the next two. If you get close to the ground/walls while flying you can see little particles coming off the surface. That is adding to the SMOOTH meter. I’m not sure why I can’t get 3 stars on level one. At first I wanted to switch the controls so that left went left and right went right but I’m used to the controls now and they feel good. There appears to be 4 different planets to visit, each having 6-8 levels. I haven’t even finished the first planet yet but I’m on the last level. Great story behind the development too. I love these family projects. The voices did get slightly jarring, but luckily there are sliders for SFX, music and speech in the options. There are also 4 different game modes. The first is “normal mode”, where you can take several hits. Then there’s “one-hit mode” which does what it says, as well as “headless” (you have to earn your nosecone) and “one-hit & headless”, each with 78 stars to be earned. I’ll be honest, I wasn’t expecting much, but Loose Nozzles really surprised me with its solid gameplay mechanics and physics, not to mention the cool, authentic “kid-drawing” graphics.
Thanks for the ‘smooth’ flying advice @Anotherkellydown. Knew I was missing something. That’s helped my level one score to 41k but still only 2.5 stars. I only see one 3 star on the leaderboard with 168k so there are more points to find somewhere. I’ll keep searching. Thanks also for posting ‘Ascender’. Have tried briefly and looks good too, though I find it difficult to switch between different physics and control sets. Will return to it later.
Hi! It's exciting to see people playing the game out in the world! I'm Chris from Foster and Family Games. Star rankings are based on three separate stats, which are shown on the Win screen as bar-graphs. The three stats are: fuel (use less of it), parts lost (lose fewer of them), and smooth (earn more of them). For each stat you can earn zero stars, a half-star, or a full star. Each bar has "star thresholds" marking the points at which you either earn or lose a half star. For fuel and smooths, the bar-graphs are built out of sausage-like segments, that measure fuel tanks or complete S-M-O-O-T-H smooths. So, if you're getting only 2.5 stars, look over the bar graphs to see which one has either not earned enough (smooths), or collected too much (spent too much fuel, or lost too many parts). It's tough, but hopefully fair! - Chris
One more tip: the most challenging stat to increase is SMOOTH. To earn it you need to fly close to terrain above a minimum speed. When you're flying close and fast enough, you'll see the yellow cloud of stars appear, and then the letters will start flying up to spell "SMOOTH." The faster you fly, the more quickly you earn SMOOTH - but if you crash, you could lose a letter and have to wait to start earning again! My advice is: concentrate on learning how fly without crashing then work on flying with enough consistency that you conserve fuel then see if you can fly with enough precision to stay close to the ground and earn SMOOTH THEN start pushing your luck to see how fast you can fly close to stuff. You'll be pulling three stars (particularly in the early levels) in no time! (Says the person who had eight years to practice. - Chris
@FosterAndFamilyGames, Welcome to TouchArcade! I’m so glad you decided to join the thread discussion. Thanks for the detailed tips! Mike (Aka Mike_AKD on Twitter)
Yes, thanks for the insight @FosterAndFamilyGames. More under the hood than first appears. Still going back and forth in level one. I believe I can fly.
Hi Chq - That's a fair question. The inspiration for the controls was games like QWOP or GIRP, where you have to translate the inputs to outputs in unexpected ways. So having to keep in mind that right-goes-left and left-goes-right is an intentional part of the experience. (And matches to the visuals and behaviors of the rockets, for what that's worth.) That said, I'm keeping an eye on how this approach goes over with people. - Chris
I was so glad to see that Jared wrote about it! He doesn’t say much in the threads to give any hints as to what he might like, so sometimes I’m quite surprised by his pick. But yours was such a good one! That reminds me, I gotta leave a review on the App Store
Man, I suck eggs playing this game. I can't get the hang of the controls. I know I contributed nothing to this discussion but I just wanted to say "eggs".
The game is definitely tougher than it looks! The one piece of advice I can offer is to try tapping the buttons in short bursts - tap-release-tap-release-tap-release - to control how fast you move. The first instinct might be to hold the buttons down, and that generally has you slamming around the screen without much control. Good luck, and thanks for trying out the game! P.s. eggs eggs eggs
