Universal Devouring Stars (by Bulkypix)

Discussion in 'iPhone and iPad Games' started by Eli, Dec 9, 2015.

  1. Quoad

    Quoad Well-Known Member

    Apr 17, 2015
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    I am falling for this somewhat more. The 100% fruitloop cutscenes help - this does remind me big time of Red Conquest :D

    And I've encountered a couple of missions where dividing and re-uniting units does make quite a difference.
     
  2. mikkel1977

    mikkel1977 Well-Known Member

    Mar 5, 2009
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    Deserted Temple
    gameplay > Eufloria

    Hi guys, any comments on the gameplay? Is it similar to Eufloria?

    I like Eufloria because you can pretty much control the pace of expansion and sit, back, relax, have a coffee and play the game.

    Is this game similar?
     
  3. H4nd0fg0d

    H4nd0fg0d Well-Known Member

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    Game of efficiency and effectiveness, and sometimes dividing or adding the two. It is a battle of power and balance waged in the cosmos. Epic. I'm sucked in, no black hole pun intended.

    And, not to mention aesthetically f'n awesome!
     
  4. Nullzone

    Nullzone 👮 Spam Police 🚓

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    #24 Nullzone, Dec 11, 2015
    Last edited: Dec 11, 2015
    Think we got a great gem here.
    The aesthetics really draw you in, very good stuff there. Does look beautiful indeed.
    I'm only at the very beginning, and the storytelling is interesting and promising already.
    The cutscenes are ... strange, but in a most positive manner. Like "2001 - A Space Odyssey" on LSD, or something like that (guess that's what Quoad means by "fruitloop") ;)
    And yes, I was pleasantly surprised to see this in Featured Games on the Appstore.

    Gameplay goes smooth, with a few nitpicks from me (as usual ;) ):

    1) The Map:
    While it does look extremely good, I also find it confusing. I noticed there seem to be different regions identified by name on the map (Shore, Water, etc.) . Also, the different factions seem to occupy different parts of space.
    However, I find it very hard to navigate the map with the current rotation mechanic.
    I'd like to have an option to switch to a more traditional 2D map. Or make the map more easily understandable. For example, Ascension (the SF 4x game) also used a rotatable 3D map, which was easier to navigate.
    Also, the white is very, well, white; and glary. Not very comfortable to look at for longer than a minute or so.

    2) Joining & splitting ships:
    Even on the larger screen of my Air1, the pinch/tap for that is very cumbersome to use. I can imagine this is a real nightmare on anything smaller.
    To join ships, I usually need to move them quite far apart first. I simply cannot make it work when they are close together. Splitting is equally clunky for me.
    Suggestion: Add this to the Pause menu. E.g. a "Join" button, and then you tap 2 ships to select them. Same for splitting: tap ship, tap a "Split" button" .

    3) Zoom:
    While everything is very usable at the current size, I'd still like to have a zoom in/out. Out to get a better overview of the stage, in when you need to do more precision work.

    4) Pause and Help/Techtree buttons:
    Those are fixed in the topright corner. E.g. when I'm in bed or on the couch, I usually play games like this one-handed - mostly with my left.
    Would be really nice if I could freely reposition those buttons anywhere on the screen.

    5) 3-finger tap to move all ships:
    Works, but with my large hands I cover almost the complete screen when doing so.
    Not sure what an alternative solution could be, though. Maybe "draw a rectangle around your ships to group them, then tap where to go". Don't know if doubletap destination could work, might be worth a try. Another option would be a "move all" button, on the main screen and/or in the Pause menu.
     
  5. nerial

    nerial Well-Known Member

    Feb 24, 2014
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    Thanks! Glad you all seem to like the game! Generally the game ramps up after the second or the third run (set of levels). The main complain I heard so far is that the game is a tad repetitive, which is true really. I wanted something relatively open, so you can just stick to a strategy (like Arion rush) and just ignore the hidden levels. That can be boring. Discovering the available combination and adapting your style along is what you really want to do.

    By the way, if you have the occasion to leave a review on the store page of the game, it helps a lot! (I didn't put any rating pup-up in the game).

    I'm thrilled... Devouring Stars has been featured as best new game on the App Store... worldwide :eek:

    Eufloria was an inspiration. Actually Alex May (the dev) is a good friend of mine.
    That said Devouring Stars is not as zen. It's closer to a regular RTS (à la Starcraft) with a couple of specific mechanic. You can pause the game at any point, but the actual action can be rough.

    @Nullzone
    Thanks for the feedback! I will look into all this.
    - The map is not really a classical map. It's more like a giant dice, with over a million combination : each rotation of the "sphere" will create a different set of levels. The "areas" are linked to hidden levels (and that's already some sort of spoiler :).
    - It seems there's some interest in a join/divide button, I may try something in a future update.
    - I thought a long time about the zoom. I needed the pinch/enlarge for the merging/divide. So i decided to have a dynamic zoom, only triggered when you select one unit (the cam finding the best zoom considering the position of your units and the enemy).
    - Same thing, I couldn't really draw rectangles (what I have in the steam version). A bit too clumsy and already used to control the cam pos and the units paths. That's the best I could think of. Generally it works well because it's really easy to redefine a unit path once everyone is moving.
    Cheers!
     
  6. Nullzone

    Nullzone 👮 Spam Police 🚓

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    #26 Nullzone, Dec 11, 2015
    Last edited: Dec 11, 2015
    Hello Nerial,
    thanks a lot for the explanations, very much appreciate it!

    re: 1) The Map:
    Interesting approach/concept. I thought it is a classical map, because the named areas also moved when I moved the map, as if you are getting closer or further away from them.
    And of course we'll not start looking for those hidden stages now... ;)

    re: Controls:
    No problem at all, and thanks again for explaining your reasoning behind them.
    I called them "small nitpicks" for a reason. If I consider something to be really inacceptable (e.g. bad UI design) , I say so quite vocally.
    No worries, the "move all" works really well, I just found it a bit irritating to have my view blocked by my hand.
    Anyways, great to hear that you'll look into things; I guess join/split are highest on the wishlist for most people.
     
  7. nerial

    nerial Well-Known Member

    Feb 24, 2014
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    Nice, I will test a couple of things for a future update (not the really next one, maybe just the one after).

    Ok, I got a couple of questions myself !

    Does anyone encounter technical issues, especially on older devices? I had a bad review yesterday ("it crashes. fix it" without any info on the device = dev worst nightmare!). It works fine for everyone I talked to, and I tested the game on as many devices as possible, but it's always possible to miss something. Probably an older device running iOS 8 (you could theoretically run the game on a 4S, but I'm not sure it would work very nicely).

    Innocent question : would you be interested in a multiplayer mode ? I designed DS as a single experience, but the MP was always in the back of my mind. It was sort of disappointing on Steam, not enough player really to make that alive. But if DS works on mobile, it could be a very interesting feature for the players. I test the water here, MP costs a lot to develop and maintain so it could be an update for 2016.
     
  8. Nullzone

    Nullzone 👮 Spam Police 🚓

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    #28 Nullzone, Dec 11, 2015
    Last edited: Dec 11, 2015
    I'm not much of an MP player, both due to lack of time and lack of interest, so take this with a grain of salt.

    MP could work well here, both cooperative and competitive.
    As you say yourself, critical mass of players is key here.
    I'd watch the sales figures for a bit first; no need to start working on it if you have, say, a 1.000 sales, or even 10.000 .

    Running on Air1 here, iOS 9.1, not jailbroken. No issues at all so far, runs butter smooth. From experience, I dare say that older devices are screwed due to lack of RAM.

    Personally, I'm very much in favour of completely ignoring anything that can't run Metal. Metal alone makes a world of difference for performance and graphics quality.

    If you want to see an example of the huge amount of effort a dev can go through to try and make things work on older devices - and ultimately to no avail, read through the Nimian Legends:Brightridge thread. Things start as early as Page 2, the real "fun" begins somewhere around Page 50.
     
  9. Nullzone

    Nullzone 👮 Spam Police 🚓

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    [QUESTION]: What is "Change your Destiny"?

    @Nerial:
    Could you explain what "Change your Destiny" (see screenshot) does?
    I noticed it showing on the map, once I completed a stage past the first cutscene, and then tried to move the map to see what other stages I can play.

    I assume it's similar to a "restart this Chapter from the beginning" mechanic, but would like to know for sure.
     

    Attached Files:

  10. nerial

    nerial Well-Known Member

    Feb 24, 2014
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    #30 nerial, Dec 11, 2015
    Last edited: Dec 11, 2015
    @Nullzone

    Yep, that's it exactly. That's also the way to pass the later levels, if you're stuck in a difficult run : start a run, build the entities you will need, then before it's too difficult, change destiny. You will loose the progress in that run, but you will be able to restart with the acquired units. It makes the lose of entities less punishing.


    About that strange crash, Yep, lack of memory in older devices is probably the issue.
     
  11. Impact Winter

    Impact Winter Active Member

    Jul 11, 2015
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    This game is dope!

    I've also struggled just a bit with splitting/merging entities on my 5s. Since there's already a "suggested merge" pop up when you have a unit selected, why not make that a tap&hold icon to execute?

    I see concepts like this realty benefitting from newer device haptics, like hard push on an entity to divide.

    Great work, you get 5 stars from me.
     
  12. nerial

    nerial Well-Known Member

    Feb 24, 2014
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    Thanks for the feedback! glad you like the game.

    For people struggling with older devices, it should be corrected in the next update. Sounds and music were not compressed enough. I corrected that. The game will be a bit slower on non-Metal devices, but hopefully it should run. No change at all for current generation of devices.
     
  13. Nullzone

    Nullzone 👮 Spam Police 🚓

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    [BUG?] Dale, Dardanian Space - Portal not opening

    Found what might be a bug:
    Just played the stage "Dale - an obscure cluster in Dardanian space" (the green faction).
    I have an Erinyie and a Janus, and dispatched the 3 enemies easily.
    However, I tried for almost 5 minutes and could not get the Portal to open to complete the level.

    It colors red when I come close, and the 3 bars start spinning slowly.
    At some point, my units "light up" and emanate stars, like they do when you enter the Portal. But the stage doesn't complete.

    I guess this could be related to the Janus, as I didn't bring that one earlier. Will try later today if splitting the Janus makes a difference.
     
  14. nerial

    nerial Well-Known Member

    Feb 24, 2014
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    #34 nerial, Dec 11, 2015
    Last edited: Dec 11, 2015
    I had a look and I think I know where the problem comes from. It's not related to Janus, but to the activation of a portal just following a battle, in certain circumstances. Hopefully it should be fixed in the next update (I post it this afternoon, so it should be ok in a couple of days).

    Thanks!
     
  15. Nullzone

    Nullzone 👮 Spam Police 🚓

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    Thanks for the quick reply, Nerial! That's good news.

    Hhmm... so waiting for a bit after the last battle before I move to the Portal and try to activate it might be a workaround?
    I'll test and report back later.
     
  16. nerial

    nerial Well-Known Member

    Feb 24, 2014
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    Yep, it shouldn't happen every time really, this is a problem of the portal "loosing" the connection with the entity trying to activate it, resulting in some weird unstable state (at least I hope :). I tested Janus just last week and he was behaving as he should.
     
  17. Grail

    Grail Member

    Apr 13, 2015
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    Loved the look of the game so had to give it a go. Extremely glad that I did.
    The music, art and game in general is utterly fantastic. It has a really good feel to it and is simple to pick up.

    Some criticism / feedback:

    The harvesting type units feel far too powerful as you can just overwhelm someone with numbers. Chaos especially can pretty much end a game on its own as its give the enemies zero chance to gain in size to match it. It makes it hard to justify starting off a match without immediately building a chaos or such. Maybe make chaos static? That way you can siphon off it but you can't run around the map destroying everything with it.
    Another option would be making a unit size limit so you can't just make a god creature that nothing can kill.

    As others have said the combining can be a pain but all the other controls work fine for me.

    Overall, highly recommended.

    As for the question of multiplayer I think if the three main superunits were banned and you were like the enemy in that gaining portals gave you base units for mixing I think it could get interesting.
     
  18. nerial

    nerial Well-Known Member

    Feb 24, 2014
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    Thanks for the feedback!

    I understand your point, don't know how to solve that though. Static may be a bit too difficult. You would have to leave him in the level and it would be difficult to attack like that. I could also limit the reward process, so you can't "keep" chaos around (but it could be frustrating). It takes quite a lot of time to have Chaos on full power, I could add to that.

    I already lost some battles with Chaos. If you're a bit too bold, or against quicker enemies taking advantage of Chaos concentration power, or with just Chaos (after loosing units in a previous fight). And against Briareos of course. Briareos is a tricky unit to "read" and handle, but it's probably the most powerful in the long play. I could change his family so he wouldn't be "inside" chaos.

    I like the idea that one unit can attract all the stars of the level :). It really changes the feel of a level when a megaunit is just chasing enemies around.
     
  19. Nullzone

    Nullzone 👮 Spam Police 🚓

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    re: Portal not activating - workaround OK

    Just tested, and waiting a little bit (was less than 30 seconds) after the last battle until you start capturing/activating the Portal worked fine in the "Dale Cluster" stage.
     
  20. Grail

    Grail Member

    Apr 13, 2015
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    I believe I have found a secret level and am now trapped in it wondering what the hell to do lol...

    For the creator I'm "In the middle of nowhere".
     

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