Phoenix HD is the best looking shoot’em up that everyone can enjoy! Experience the marvelous action and rise to the challenge on your own or together with a friend in this action packed game. Take on the endless waves of enemies in co-op mode with a unique challenge every time you play. Compare your scores with other players all around the world in this modern take on classic arcade games with intense action and brilliant graphics. * Amazing Visuals – Silky smooth graphics with spectacular explosions powered by our custom Flare engine using Metal! * Co-op Action! – Plays great with Remote or Controller, even better with both! * Procedurally Generated Content – Every game is unique. * Unique ships with their own gameplay – Lots of spectacular weapons and power-ups. * Location-based Leaderboards – Become the best in your home town and move on to the entire world. (click for full resolution)
So you took the iPad screen and bolted borders to the side? It will be interesting to see how this plays out. Many games that make sense and work well in portrait mode on iOS devices will not translate smoothly to the aTV's landscape orientation. Will top-down games get turned on their side to become side scrollers? Or will we see a lot fewer top-down games - even when it makes sense - on iOS devices as developers plan for the aTV?
Actually, that is a major problem. I struggled with that, and the other problem of how to translate swipes from IOS to Apple TV on my first port. Most will require significant redesign. I'm planning my next to handle both, though (horizontal/vert). (this one isn't mine, btw...just commenting on design issues)
Been playing this loads on Apple TV. It's such a fun game. Can't wait to try co-op. I'm usually picky about games using the full screen but the bordering is done very elegantly and isn't noticeable. Only comment is I wish there was a way to unlock full game to get all IAP.
Well we didnt just bolt borders on the side. Yes there are still borders (though they provide a cool ambient effect based on whats happening on screen), but we did make the playing field as wide as we could without affecting gameplay too much and without having to redraw _all_ the graphics. Its wider than the iPad aspect ratio, so much wider in fact that we adjusted the size of the enemies to make up for it. We wanted the large enemies to span the entire screen so all enemies have been scaled per ship type to make the new sizes feel just right. To make up for the increased size of the enemies we did re-render all the enemies and all the turrets, to make sure they look crystal clear on any Full HD display. The backgrounds were also re-rendered and are shown at a much higher resolution than on iOS. Other (particle) effects were also tweaked to look better on the big screen and the slow motion title screen. With the Apple TV we didnt have to make sure the game still ran on an iPhone 4, so we could make some effects prettier without having to worry. Some of these tweaks did not cost much performance and will make it into the iOS version in a future update. With regards to the whole landscape/portrait issue. We ran into this when we added AirPlay/HDMI-out support to Phoenix HD for iOS. We considered many options in the early stages, even flipping the game on its side, but it just doesnt work. As soon as you change the game so it scrolls from left to right it becomes weird that you see the top of the ships and not the sides. While playing you also expect gravity to fall down but it would fall to the left (as it currently falls down in Phoenix HD in portrait). All this meant it either didnt feel good to play or we had to do so much work we were basically creating a new game. Making a new game is not a bad thing, but were already working on both Phoenix 2 and Pocket Quest as well That all said, we are very happy with the result. The game does not feel cramped at all, while it still has a bit of that classic arcade feel. We also plan to update Phoenix HD for Apple TV as the platform matures and we are able to improve the game just like we did on iOS for the past 5 years (yes Phoenix for iOS is that old ) Thanks! And yes, we also wanted to have our Special Offer available somewhere in the Ship Selection screen, but we couldnt find an elegant solution in time so there is only the per ship option at the moment. It is possible to purchase the Special Offer on your iOS device and Restore your purchases on the Apple TV, this way you dont have to enter your password on the Apple TV with each purchase
Ah, I haven't tried the iOS version to be honest (only came across the game on the Apple TV!) but I'll try finding the special offer option you mention PS Any estimate on Phoenix 2 or is it a long way away?
Can't wait! After playing both iOS and TV versions, the gameplay is truly best suited to the TV and Siri remote. Also, it may be too far along in development and these decisions may have already been made with Phoenix 2, but I would suggest making it a paid app if possible. There's something about the Apple TV that has had me dropping anything up to $15 on buying paid apps left right and centerthis seems to be similar with friends toobut I have yet to spend a penny on IAP. Perhaps it's because it's more console-like of a platform? Like I say, don't know what you're planning to do but business-wise that would be my unsolicited recommendation.
It does feel more like a console platform which is home to the premium-business model. Phoenix HD is a universal app though, so the business model is same across all devices. And ever since Phoenix HD launched in 2011 we really feel that f2p is the way to go (with a fair iap model behind it) because you simply reach the most people with your game. We are keeping an open mind of course. The Apple TV platform is brand new for app developers, so we'll see how it develops.
I was pleasantly surprised to see Phoenix HD available on my Apple TV 4 when I bought it. It even transferred all my iPad IAP purchases. I do notice that there seems to be a new ship, so maybe that was released after my iPads all broke down. Anyway, if developer is reading this, just two comments: Can you add option to have sides as black bars instead? The blurred look is very distracting for a shump. Also I have played it on both the Apple Remote and the Steelseries Nimbus and the controls on the Nimbus feels floaty. Why do I have to hold down the fire button when firing is automatic on the iPad? Could you also add option to toggle the fire button so that it fires by default and only stops firing when I press a button? That seems to make for a better user experience for those coming over from the iPad game. Thanks.
Woohoo, happy to 'pleasantly surprise' you Interesting suggestion about the side bars, we'll toss the idea around a bit, it's certainly good feedback that the blurry sides are distracting for you. We did tune the controls based on the Nimbus, so it's a shame they feel floaty to you. It's tricky to reach the same amount of low speed precision as well as fast dodges like you can do with touch. However, you shouldn't have to hold the fire button at all. The ships still auto fire. R2 (and R1) can be used to trigger pickups like Alpha Strikes and Shields, while the 'A' button is generally used for ship-based special abilities. The Striker is a bit of an exception, as it doesn't have any base weapons to shoot with. It locks on to targets and launches missiles when pressing the 'A'. Maybe this caused the confusion?
It was Skyforce that needed to press the button to fire. I downloaded all the three shumps for my Apple TV at the same time.
Is it normal that there is no coins to collect for upgrades (Like 40% more chance to have weapon upgrade)? It's on iPhone version.
Correct, we intentionally left out the Armory and coin system. It would have added a lot of interfaces and mechanics that we weren't sure would fit with the Apple TV "console like" experience. Not adding all that interface saved us a lot of time as well and we could focus on the flow for just selecting a ship with one or two players and start a game in a natural way. We also would have to decide if the Armory was available in co-op or just single player and how certain boosts would work. In the end we're pretty happy we kept it this 'pure'. Purchasing ships is already annoying with the password entry, which would apply to coin packs as well. Add to that a big list with boosts that would be offered for selection, it would just make the menu's bulky and numerous. We are taking the time to see what works best and looks nice. The Apple TV platform is brand new and is a space that needs to be explored so we're definitely keeping an open mind. We didn't want to blindly copy everything from iOS so with time we will update Phoenix HD for Apple TV as we see fit
I love this game, it's the most fun I've ever had playing a bullet hell style game. In fact, it's so good that I even prefer using the Apple Remote to my Nimbus for this particular title. So great that it offers such seamless co-op, too. This is one of those benchmark titles. Be nice to see it filled out a little more on Apple TV. Can you change the difficulty? I'd like to ramp it up...
Great to hear you like it so much and it's awesome to see you mention those details that we spent extra time on to get right The difficulty is basically the same as the iOS version. For single-player we have the 5-star system working in the background, meaning the difficulty is set based on your highest score. (A star is added when you set a score over 50.000, 100.00, 500.000 and 1.000.000) So if you have ever scored over a million in single player you are playing on the hardest difficulty. On co-op it's a bit different, then it's always at 5 stars Thanks a lot for the feedback, we have yet to determine where to go from here with regards to Apple TV.
Oh that's easy, MORE. That's what you should do. Create more Apple TV games. I'll buy 'em. EDIT: You know what? Let me re-phrase that. I'll gladly enjoy them if you create them as you did with Phoenix HD. Your IAP model is absolutely perfect. The game is fully playable, but it's so good you're inclined to buy more ships and discover that the game is completely different with a new ship. They're so varied that it keeps the game exciting and fresh, and then you want to go back and master your play style for each ship. It's like Ascension, the card game on iOS. The real-life box sets are very expensive, but on iOS the expansions cost 3-4 dollars. Each expansion makes the game completely different, and it's why I've purchased every expansion for that game, too. So, I'm just encouraging you to continue with your current IAP model. No timers, no prohibitive paywalls, just purely good stuff with a TON of good stuff behind it. Really brilliant, I'm very happy with Phoenix HD on Apple TV. Keep it up, please.
Wow thanks for the kind words, really awesome Whatever we do we intend to keep our iap model honest and clear and I think that really helps Phoenix HD as well. We are currently developing our next games for iOS first and we'll see what we can do with Apple TV second.
