leaving aside high score chasing upgrades, are there any additional upgrades that can be reasonably earned? with this kind of game, it seems like unless there were some upgrades or something to earn then it would be difficult to play for more than a couple of hrs. (of course this is invalidated if everything is IAP focused)
not reasonably. There's upgrades for how quickly your timer expires, and how many HP you've got... There's also quite a few skins you can purchase, and extra characters... But it's all priced very high, like something that you could just pick away at if you plan on having the game and playing it fairly often over the next year. =oP
Knowing full well where these conversations end up, I'll just say this. I understand that the market is what it is, but it does make me sad. If you compared my iTunes receipts from a year ago with what I'm buying today, I think you'd be pretty shocked. It's just seems so hard to buy a game that you feel good about atm... FTP, seemingly all paid games coming loaded with IAP, premium games with IAP, including non-persistent IAP? I really just wish I could buy a game and enjoy it, you know? DBC
that's a shame...I like it when there are some upgrades which need to be earned, but not when their requirements are unreasonably high just to get you to buy IAP for example, i'm playing Super Mole Escape, and that's one where the cost of upgrades is perfectly balanced and really adds to the replayability of the game.
Ok I've got nothing else planned for at least a year....I'm gonna play this game non stop for a year.....oh no I'm not!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Guys, the game is balanced so you don't to buy coins. I think - and that's our fault without any doubt - that the game does not tell you clearly, that you earn a lot of coins by doing missions. In the main menu you see 3 current missions on the blue bar and in the game, tap on the coffee icon to see what missions are to be done. Plus, you get more coins by simply joining Team Battles. That said, you can earn around thousand coins in 10-15 minutes. Each completed mission brings new one, that allows you to earn more coins etc. etc.
that's all well and good until you get 3 objectives like I have now; Beat your previous high score (which, when you've played one game with a 10x multiplier, is basically impossible until you gain enough coins to buy another 10x multiplier...) Get 15,000 points without tossing Grab 6 magnets Now, I currently get around 450 coins every 20 minutes (with the added 150 or so since I'm competing in the team battles) - and then 1,000 coins if I'm lucky enough to choose the winning side every 3 or 4 days which brings it to about 7k coins every 5 hours... if I played 5 hours every 3 to 4 days (which I don't, because this is a casual mobile arcade title), I'd have around 8k coins... the problem I have is that I'd have to play around 7 hours plus wait 4 days to get 1k coins if I'm lucky enough to be on the winning side of the team battles, if I'm not, add another hour, so 8 hours of grinding and not playing for a score just to get the 10x multiplier needed so that I could play ONE scoring run, and just hope to god that I don't screw it up, wasting all of that time. Granted, it will be a little shorter if I manage to pass these 2 objectives that I've been stuck on for the last week and a half or so, plus the one that I just cleared and then got the 6 magnets objective, but even when I do manage to complete the 2 I'm stuck on, one gives me 200 coins and the other gives me 300, so it saves me about 25 minutes of play time after I dunno how many hours of gameplay... point is... Funky Smugglers requires an INSANE amount of grinding if you want to actually play it like it's meant to be played... a score-chasing arcade game. Either that, or shell out for the highly priced consumables over and over again. Not to mention all the stuff that's only unlocked by paying massive amounts of currency, like the health improvements vip access, time ring boosts, extra characters, ect... I just don't have the endless amount of hours or cash it'll take to actively take part in consistently playing this one, and I'm a pretty big iOS gamer. I can only imagine how casual iOS gamers feel about it.
I believe you have illustrated my own thoughts with inch-perfect perfection. Since this is a high-scoring game, it is imperative that those with the 10x bonus will get the high scores. And for those w/o IAPs, getting the necessary 8k takes A LOT of grinding. In 11 Bit's defence, they'd probably say the average gamer doesn't care about high scores. If that's the case, you really just get bored of the game after 45mins to an hour.
So can I ask for a honest reply - what would you change in the update to make things comfortable? Would that be fine with you if we simply lowered the coins prices for the stuff? Let us know, this is pretty important post you wrote (thanks)
Dunno if I'd go that route... it can be a slippery slope, and be the difference between pissed off IAP purchasers and happy customers. If you lower the price of everything, people who purchased coins via IAP before then could get upset at the fact that they essentially wasted money, money that they didn't NEED to spend, but did thinking that they were helping to support you. If anything, I'd say maybe up the amount of coins you could win for taking part in Team Battles (not much, but maybe 1,500 per battle), and maybe up the amount of coins you get per game if you are taking part in Team Battles as well (again, not by much, but say you get 150 for each game you contribute to, up that to 200) - you could also make it so that battles don't last as long, which would really help out. Upping the amount of coins that you earn in-game as well, even if just making it 1.5 coins per passenger instead of 1 would make a noticeable difference. This way, everyone, whether they've purchased extra currency or not, gets the same increase, and doesn't feel that any previously purchased coins were a waste. It also wouldn't hurt to throw in a coin doubler for $1.99/$2.99 or something - doubling all coins earned and gained - that way it doesn't feel like SUCH a grind to those of us who are willing to toss you guys a couple extra $$. This could also win over some players who are willing to do this, but have held back because of the consumable nature of the IAP currency. Just some thoughts... But you should definitely keep in mind the people that have purchased currency before now as well as gamers that have spent hours upon hours playing just to earn those couple of great games, and I think lowering all of the in-store prices would have a negative effect on your 5 star reviews and all the great support you've gotten from gamers thus far. =o)
Yeah. On the other hand, massive amount of reviews are 5-star ones, so I hope it is pretty good app. But we have to do something indeed to make coins easier to get. We'll try something with Team Battles. Thanks for sharing thoughts! (now the winning pack for Team Battle is 1400 and +20% to the coins earned during play sessions). Aaaand there are some tricks to make missions faster, but I guess that should be left for players, so they can discover gameplay tricks by themselves + there is promotion for Halloween Item pack and Scary texture (75% coins less)
I don't give much of a damn for iOS game reviews. Most websites give 4.5/5 or 5/5 reviews like they're selling pancakes. TA gave the game 3.5/5, and I think for once I will agree with them. Don't be so happy with 5 star reviews, because they can be junk (and maybe bought?) at times.
Errrr, I meant user reviews. But that doesn't matter. I'm not here to argue about reviews or argue about anything, though I'm aware some people love arguing. I'm here to learn thoughts about the game. For example, noticed that some players do not use 'tossing' to increase scoring or make some missions, so we're re-doing tutorial to show the 'tossing' thingie. thx
Yeah game became a lot more enjoyable after learning about tossing by reading it in the help. More transparency around it will be a good thing, it's a good risk/reward mechanic. One other thing I'd like to see is a higher bonus in team battles for people on a smaller team, it would help to avoid landslides a wee bit.
Just discovered this app. I'm one of the guys behind Airport Scanner and was a bit worried at first when I found out about this game. I was that afraid it would be a rip off of our game. I have to say though, it's very different and pretty neat take on the genre (is Airport Security a Genre?) I haven't put a lot of time in yet, but I dig it. it plays almost more like fruit ninja than Airport Scanner.
Hi, Yeah we're not kind of guys who rip off ideas that other people invented while in fact Fruit Ninja was an inspiration. But we played your game too and it's cool
Hey 11 bit studios i want to buy this game but i saw that it has not been updated since november and im scared that if i buy it it will go free the next day so can u tell me if u guys are going to update this game
