That's cool. I like that it was a considered and conscious design choice. It does make me stick with a game in Purity when I mess up early. Speaking of which, can you elaborate on ultra modewhat triggers it and how it affects scores? My favorite mode remains Meditation, where the epic journey Desert Golfing influence is most apparent. Was wondering if this mode alone has 2700 levels and how the table designs are linked to the cities they're named after. Once again, great game.
Ultra mode is triggered when you have all the slots activated (the bottom dots are white). So it happens more often at the end of a game because you have less slots. In normal mode you get +7 points every time you win. In Ultra mode, you get 7 on top of that everytime you win so it's +14, +21, +28, ... That rewards the ability to do series with a decaying table. If you manage to keep a serie going for a long time is a good way to make points. But of course you will end up with a difficult table. Yes, Meditation mode has 2763 levels exactly. There are two different models of progression : in a country and overall. Tables are arranged by 4-6 cities from a similar country (each country has a different color scheme). The tables will be progressively more complex during these 4-6 tables. Overall, the tables will grow (bigger is more difficult) and have steeper or crazier shapes, including other details appearing around table 450 and so on... Each city name has a specific shape attached to it. Except for a few, we didn't decide which city should have which shapes. We let the algorithm do that. And it works ! some people say things like "Ho, this definitely reminds me of <cityname>" or "<cityname> doesn't look like that at all", or they find funny association, between cities they don't know and can only imagine. This human ability to make associations between memories, colors, words and just sonorities is something that's very interesting. We played on that also with the invisible cities.
One point about the physics, following a review on the app store saying the white ball has a lot of momentum and that it broke the game. Well yes it has a lot of momentum, and it's on purpose because we wanted to recreate the specific physics of a French billiard. That's a relatively important point because I know most people know and play pool and can be surprised by the physics here. French billiards balls are a *lot* heavier than pool balls. This has two consequences. - Rebound and shock are not the same. They're a bit more complex than for pool. Your ball's momentum will have different effect on the trajectory, depending on the angle. Meditation is a good playground to experience that, look at how the hints behave. - momentum is something you can use in the game. Make a direct shot on one of the balls, the cue ball (the white) will carry on rolling... After some times you get used to this "heavier" physics. It's as reliable as pool, just a bit more complex to handle. It's also more "natural" in some way, less purely geometrical.
I never realized that Carambolage balls are heavier, but i must admit, these tables are by far not that common as the most spreaded pool tables (depending on the countries). It's a long time ago, since i played myself. When i travelled the USA for a few months, i did not see one table in a bar. Makes sense, because some of you might know what condition (bad) the cloth/surface of the tables are in. You need a highly well-kept cloth, and new ones are not cheap. And the success rate is very, very low if you don't exercise this game. Have a look: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=G7yCFJ3Xwvc I understand "rebound", but with "shock" you mean getting the queue/cue-ball to an immediate rest? I had the run of my life in Purity last night. +98 was my highest and therefore a new highscore on the board. I had about five situations where one of the colored balls lay press on the rail (you understand this?) and here, imho, the physics behave as real.
By shock I really mean collision. Thanks for the video, I love artistic billiard. So much you can do with heavier balls and effects. Talking about that, did someone noticed that Meditation includes effects ? it's not in purity and insanity (to keep the board "fair"), but in Meditation, there's a hidden trick to do effects. It's not necessary to go forward, but I still wonder how many people will find that. If you did find it, don't spoil it for other people .
Thanks for all the detailed info. I'm really intrigued about the emerging details around table 450 (reminding me again of Desert Golfing's color changes after 2000 holes) and the hidden ability to do effects. Don't think I've found them yet but I'll now be eagle-eyed. Spoiler I did notice the table-warping effect of powerful shots but I think you're referring to something else.
Oh yes, the effect is not that. Thanks to you, I just discovered this amazing spoiler tag! Short precision: Spoiler Effects affect the trajectory of the white ball... Ok, this is a hint : Spoiler Effects are applied after the shot... And this one is like a level 2 hint : Spoiler How would you interact with the white ball to attract it somewhere?
Spoiler tags are great on here. Thanks for the hints; I'll play more this evening and hopefully figure it out. I tried Spoiler using two fingers/inputs to affect the trajectory of the balls but now have a better idea what to aim for. I'll bother you with one last detailed question, because your game's awesome and knowledge is power. What does Rank indicate, exactly? I think I've been Rank 2 on all the modes since I started playing. Does each mode have a separate rank? I assumed rank was based on the number of shots taken vs. locations visited in Meditation mode but wasn't sure.
It's supposed to be your leaderboard rank. It's not supposed to be stuck on 2. It's a bug that seems to appear because the leaderboard is quite full now. I will look into that and bring an update (in a week time now, apple is quite slow in reviewing stuff these days). Good luck with the effect !
Tomorrow (or today, depending on the reviewing process) the game will be updated to version 1.1. It includes : - "Rate this game" button enabled - Correction of a rare but frustrating bug resulting in balls being "stuck" in a pipe (in the meantime, if this happens to you, go back to main menu, reload meditation and try a shot in the .4s before the ball is trapped) - Russian translation
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The update 1.1 is finally live but it didn't seem to solve the rate button problem. We spent a good amount of time looking into that, it should be in the next update, 1.2. This will be a fairly major update for Magic Shot : - As many people are now really mastering Meditation mode, we have decided to hide a secret at the end of the game (level 2763). Is it the end or a different beginning ? - The game is translated in English, German, French, Russian, Arabic, Japanese and Spanish. This didn't show up in the app store, it will be corrected now. - A new render for Invisible cities in Meditation and the Ultra mode in Purity. - The game will display your rank in the pause menu (if you are among the first 100 score). - Resolved the last blocking bugs, you should not find yourself with trapped balls. If it happens, don't hesitate to contact us. - And so, hopefully, this ç%$^"£é^l "Rate this game" button. - Resized texts to fit the very high scores made by some on Insanity! - Also, pure "billiards" sounds when you mute the music. - Available on iOS 7 Live next week !!!
Okay, I long wondered about the rank thing and guess being 829th just isn't quite enough to even be given a rank, eh?
Yep, this ranking thing should have been spotted way before, but as we were mainly two testers most of the time, it didn't seem weird to be ranked "2" all the time. It may appear as a disappointment for many, for sure, sorry about that . I quite like the idea of a game that always rank you first, whatever you do. We should look into that !
Next update sounds great. Looking forward to the pure billiards sounds. I did eventually figure out the secret to effects shots in Meditation mode, which is awesome and makes certain shots much easier. Keep up the great work!
Thanks! Technically the pure billiards sound just mute everything that's not balls colliding and such. It's minimal enough so you could listen to ipod music while playing. If any of you is interested in how we did the table and such, I wrote a small post-mortem in ctrl 500. It's called "Creating a procedurally morphing billiards table".
Congrats on the front page review. I'm happy Magic Shot is getting some coverage, though I disagree with one of the review's central assertions. Chaos or randomness play less of role than the review suggests, I think. Looking forward to muting those missed shot sounds in Purity!
Thanks! We're very happy with that review. We find it balanced and exploring interesting ideas around the game. I like the idea of "informal" gameplay defined by Carter, it's exactly what we tried to explore and work on, that frontier between chaos and strategy. In the end it will never be a game about perfect geometrical strategy (something regular pool players are expecting), it's a game about probabilities : find the way to maximise your chance and "bet" on a shot. I'm ok that people mainly see chaos at the start of the game. I certainly hope they go over that impression after a while . The new update is up and running ! (nb for guise : the "pure" billiard sound still includes the sfx of purity, but not the table change, not sure it's what you expected, maybe we will do that in the next update).
