I'm not necessarily doing great and was frustrated at first by unseen obstacles. But after playing more I've noticed more visual clues, especially in the darker areas, that have helped improve. I look as far as I can in the distance and a lot of times there will be red markings/lights on the floor before a gap. And green lights on the existing paths. Not saying it's easy but you can get better by trying to notice things in the distance that are kind of clues in which way to go.
It seems to do jungle>base>town>base>jungle>base> etc This is actually as far as I got: base 3 with 260,000 points. However I do feel that now I'm pretty much done with it - starting over is becoming a real chore. I really wish this game had more of a campaign, seems like such a wasted opportunity. But I enjoyed it more than Temple Run and its other imitators. I also think the presentation is just brilliant and should be commended.
Game Impressions As I play more, I’m liking it less, although I can see how this could be tweaked into lasting greatness! The problem is that before long, you’re asked to dodge things you really can’t see at all: hidden by the dim and colored lighting, behind other things, or by the sheer speed and variety moving faster than the brain can learn them. The further you get, the harder the game is AND the more new things are coming at you. But you spend most of your time playing the early levels (you start over each game) and so you never get to learn the later levels. I find myself playing over and over just to get one precious glimpse of the town level, which is filled with entirely unfamiliar hazards and kills me nearly at once every time. I never get to practice in it, and it seems unlikely I will improve at anything but a frustratingly slow curve. Even the base level seem nearly impossible to learn, since things are invisible. (The order is: jungle, base, bridge, town...) There are water/pit gaps in the track that are almost the exact same color as the floor—and sometimes staggered so you must do a quick near-blind dodge from one lane to another. You can jump to give yourself more time to dodge, but as often as not, an “unneeded” jump like that will leave you unable to jump a moment later when you really need it. Often (but not always) floor hazards have yellow checks marking them—but the checks are nearly invisible in the distance (they just look brown like much of the walls/floor) and there are so many other glowing things that even up close they’re not always obvious. But you never want to look up close: that’s death. You need to watch the distance—where the chaos of colored glows and the near-identical grays that distinguish water from walkway are all the more confusing. Also, deadly things hide behind other things: behind powerups, behind laser fences, behind drop-gates. It really feels like you die a lot from things that are really, really hard to even notice. Also, some powerups are cruelly placed over pits! A precise jump-dodge might still grab them, but I’ve never managed it. It seems like a cruel trick to play at the start... maybe something to throw in at the 5th base! Or not at all, since the game presumably speeds up for increasing challenge already. Those same factors are true even of the first (jungle) level but not as much. They really hit me when I got to the base, bridge, and town levels. As a result, this is that rare game that gets less fun as I play it more! Now, you could buy Air Drops to skip the “easier” (jungle) level and get right to the base for practice, but you’re still 3 levels away from the town, and it cost you 2000 gems to do it; which means between 10 and 20 games to earn even one Air Drop. (Maybe 5 games once you’re really good at the jungle and base.) Buying the IAP isn’t a great deal either: say you buy two $5 gem packs (which seems pretty steep but there are packs that cost even more), you only get 25 Air Drops for your $10. (50k gems bought, 2k per Air Drop.) And an Air Drop to get you into a level you can’t yet play well is an Air Drop that only results in your imminent death anyway. So that’s not really a practical way to build your skills either. The fix? I’m not sure! I think all hazards need to be made more similar in look—color cues in particular, and not just flat on the floor (which renders muddy in the distance) but 3D warnings, maybe lights that stick UP from the floor. That doesn’t mean ALL hazards have to be one color, but maybe they should all be one of two colors, and the two are different for each level. In the base, hazards could all be red or yellow. But in addition, those same colors should NOT be randomly used for all kinds of other things. The base has yellow hazard warnings for certain hazards... and lots of other yellow and yellow-ish things too. Lastly, path edges should be well-marked. Missing/pit lanes are very difficult to spot in all levels, and in the bridge levels, a lack of lighting makes the broken parts a little too hard to see as well. (Maybe those falling brown boulders could have harsh red light from below or something.) And all these things should be solved, I feel, in way that gives you a chance when you’re in a new area. Temple Run and Subway Surfers don’t make you feel totally lost the moment you enter a new type of scenery. So maybe, just as an example, if all hazards in the town are purple or blue (and nothing else is purple or blue), you might die quickly before you realize that (and that’s OK, maybe this is just a hard game!) but the second time you see the town, you know just what to watch out for. You’re still learning what’s a jump vs. a slide, etc., but the color cues would give you some basis to orient yourself to the challenge. If there were such a color-cue system, I’d suggest marking each door between levels with those same colors. So, the door into the base would have red and yellow lights to remind you that red and yellow hazards start now. And the door out into the town would have blue and purple lights to remind you that blue and purple hazards start there. Or something like that. In short, visibility is the problem—and I’m sure it’s solvable! I still love the style/graphics, and I enjoy the jungle levels (the only ones I feel like I can see pretty well—although even they may be too visually chaotic for beginners). One last quibble: it’s hard to notice the 2-page menus, and the between-game menus seem awkward. Maybe big arrows at the sides of the screen would make the dual pages more clear. And because for along time I had no reason to use the Pause menu, I found it very hard to get to Settings after dying. From the between-games menu you must swipe to page two, then exit to the main menu, then swipe again to page two, then enter Settings and make your changes, then tap Back, then swipe again back to page 1, then start the game again, at which point you get an unexpected detour to choosing your character before the game loads. It feels like a lot of steps, including some swipes I didn’t even notice were possible at first—and I think in between games is where most people will want to play with Settings/control sensitivity. (Mid-game is much easier, with the Pause menu, so now when I want to tweak settings after dying, I start a game, pause it immediately, and go from there. But this game asks for your concentration, and I doubt people pause much. They know they’ll die soon anyway!)
Couldn't have said it better than Adam's power post! xD I have to agree on the main point that seems everyone has issues with: Visibility of the track (although I am getting better at this game, most of my deaths are not by miscalculations but more just plain not seeing the floor. 80% of the time I dive into a gap because it looked like it was the floor.) I like the challenge of this game. But I feel the cheap deaths are not necessary to promote replayability.
Sigh the more I play this game the more I want to just throw my iPod out of sheer frustration due to the cheap deaths similar to the ones mentioned earlier. Maybe I'm just bad at this game but sometimes it gets too frustrating. I'm sure it's fixable but as of now it really doesn't make me wana play it again. Shame cause it is prob the best visually
I agree 100% with Adams Immersive and you... As i am getting better and better there are so many cheap deaths that sometimes is easy to make mistakes even on the early stages... Is the first runner that i am not feeling i am progressing well through the replaybility.. In every other endless game that i have installed on my devices i feel that every time i play i manage to go further and further and further and this is something that makes me coming back again and again.. In this, despite that i love the art style the theme the execution, i have start not to be motivated to come back for one more round.
Well, I held off commenting, but you really sum up my personal feeling pretty well, so I will now say I agree with AI, Eoghann, banger1103, and you. Your comment in particular sums up my current thoughts on the game. I feel almost like I'm playing it more out of spite than anything, combined with how great the graphics and sounds are. My problem is that I am quickly running out of reasons to play. I die way too easily, the IAP seems unhelpful and unreasonably expensive based on what it would do for me, and grinding seems largely hopeless, because I simply don't get enough distance or currency per run to justify trying again... It took me an embarrassing number of runs just to get out of the Jungle level, and it doesn't appear to make any appreciable difference. Perhaps there's some magical shift in later stages where things get more encouraging, but at this point, it's not looking like I'll be around to see it. With this many runs under my belt in any other similar game I'd be able to upgrade at least something, but in this game I'm not even close, which really kills any desire to keep trying. I really want to like this game, but it's looking more and more like one of my, "delete from iPhone but keep in iTunes hoping for an update that offers a substantial increase in balance" titles... DBC
For me the difficulty curve is fine and I'm enjoying Agent Dash a lot. I'm hoping they add some gc achievements in future Updates.
This looks pretty cool. Almost like somebody took "The Incredibles" and stuck them into an endless runner.
Does anyone else have issues with it crashing? It plays ok a couple runs then it crashes. Not sure if it is the iPod touch 4g. Still have 1.5 GB left, did hard reset and closed all other programs..stiil crashes
It was actually pretty stable when it launched, then the update, supposedly to address memory leaks and crashes, came out and now it crashes every few levels on my 4G touch as well.
Despite I want to change the agent so bad, I need to hold off on that mainly coz of the crazy gem price tag they have, so I accumulate the gems for power ups. The first ones I upgraded were the magnet and high value gems. I have the magnet at level 3 as well as the HV gems. They seem to help a lot. I average 400 - 500 gems before I die, and that's just the first jungle and the first base (I rarely make it to the third stage, the town). Power ups seem to come up quite rare in these runs, but when you do get them, Magnet and High Value Gems seem to be the most beneficial. Another tip, get the free gems in the store! You don't necessarily have to literally like or follow the app on Facebook or Twitter; just clicking on each item it gives you the free gems.
I don't think the pricing is that bad when you factor in the time. Yes, it's a rather hard runner, but per second, I seem to be getting more jewels than I get coins in Subway Surfers. I just happen to last longer in Subway Surfers. Also, I think when you get used to looking farther in the distance, it's not too hard. Most runners favor last minute moves, so this is drawing from a slightly different skill-set. Places where you need to slide somewhat undermine this though.
Agreed. I guess I don't care too much about the additional characters, but the upgrades aren't that difficult to get and, frankly, even those don't make a huge difference. It's a tougher game that requires closer scrutiny when looking for obstacles, but to me that's what makes it more fun and, as mentioned before, more fulfilling when you get to new areas.
Full Fat should team up with Pixar like Imangi did with Temple Run and make an Incredibles runner. It would fit perfectly with the entire theme! Amateur Photoshopping time! xD
