See, this is why you're the designer and I'm just the player. However, my other idea besides the bar, albeit a silly looking idea, would be to have a little light on each ship that would turn on to show overflow. This is kinda in the same ballpark as having the particles drip from the ship, at least in concept. So, hypothetically speaking, if one achieves full health and begins accumulating extra powerparticles and there was some type of super weapon to be used, would you have the super weapon trigger on its own like I mentioned, or would you have some type of gesture so the player could initialize it when they wanted? It would seem like it would be more straightforward to have it go by itself, but a two finger swipe upwards or downwards could work... I'm just curious. Not like I'm, you know, pushing for this or anything Oh, and I remember playing without the health bar! The ship fires for health. Yeah, I guess that is more of a novelty at this point, but I do like how they take on damage like that while still maintaining the structure of the ship. The health bar is probably a more concrete, more reliable, more standard way to show the health, but the ship fires with no health bar was clever, more subliminal and blended into the gameplay better. I liked deciphering where I was by how badly I was burning. However, with the screen turning dark now with lower health, the fires are harder to see. Also, with a ship like the Phantom, there are no fires to be had
No, it's a little perk I am trying to butter El up with. Short story long, I mentioned that the green powerparticles should have a purpose once you achieve full health. Right now they go to waste. So, I am bombarding the thread in an annoying fashion in an attempt to convince El to consider some various ideas. If you read back you will get a better idea.
You know what I would like to see? A music visualizer option like in Beat Hazard, cause this game too is so pretty with tons of colors.
Gah, token expired, post gone . Another reason why I shouldn't use Q/Reply ... anyway ... Heya Connector, good to see you're back What have I / Firi Games been up to, erm, well a lot! No powerparticle overflow mechanic though. Don't worry Sumo, it's noted, we'll see what we do when we get there! Since we're quite ambitious at Firi Games our next thing is always bigger than that before it. We are working on Phoenix related and Phoenix unrelated coolness, juggling our projects like a pro. As soon as I have something to tell/show, you guys will be the first to know Tijmen, me and a mutual mystery friend have scrapped our summer holiday plans so we can keep going full steam ahead! Making games is hard work, but great fun!
Hmm, I'm intrigued by the idea of particle overdrive, if you do go ahead with it can it be optional to have Phoenix wake activate? Naturally, using Phoenix wake actually decreases your overall score and would hinder player's top scores so you would have to reset all the high scores (using Phoenix wake past a score of 2m when you accumulate score fast due to the mass amount of bullets would be detrimental and the difficulty still increases) or does Phoenix wake grant points for each ship passed? I think it could be reasonable to be be able to have attack and defence drones for short amounts of time, seems easier to put in and is beneficial to survival and score A note though, I've always bought the defence turret most as its the best power up. *I love the health bar, it is just so important for figuring out how many particles you need to collect, and lets you do appropriate risk assessment. Maybe you could make the ship slowly discolour rather than the screen? *I would love to see a new bullet type, or a new 'midboss' like the 2 armed ship which would barely change difficulty, that would be fun *Have you considered seasons? I.E. Reset a season every 6 months, you keep record of past placement and medal?
Hey, it's great to see you and alot of my countless TA friends too. Keep up the good work, and keep us abreast of anything new in Phoenix HD or future games. I got an HDMI icade pict for you, I will post later, you will be impressed.
When I suggested the Phoenix Wake as being the end result of Particle Overdrive (that has a nice ring to it, btw) it was based on seeing something cool, in combination with possibly seeing the Phoenix Wake in the gameplay because it is just so awesome. What's important is seeing the particle overflow being used productively. From there, anything could be used. Knowing El, if something is done, it will be cool. At the very least, the particles would probably go towards score. Your idea of an additional bullet pattern is good. You can kill two birds with one stone with your suggestion: a new enemy vessel WITH new bullets.
You know, one thing I wouldn't mind paying 99 cents for would be a fast bullet option, make the bullets really fast. Would this be easy to implement? And if so, me and sumosplash would like 1% of the royalties. Hehe j/k
Happened with trinity a few days ago, just thought it was an insane micromanager. I also agree with the phantom energy absorption too, and to add to that I think the health restore owe rip should heal a bit more.
Adding enemies or bullets is in the range of things we can add though it is more work than you might think. It would need to be a really awesome new bullet type if we want to make changes to all those systems involved. We are not keen on simply re-skinning something that already exists :> We are currently pretty happy with the balancing so we are a bit hesitant to start meddling with the current model. Like I mentioned a while back though, if we have some killer concept/idea we will add it Yes! We have even had several prototype runs in the past years and we will go into this direction at some point. It's relatively easy to make all the bullets go faster. The bullet speed currently (still) varies per difficulty. As some of you old-timers might remember, with the old star-system, the bullet speed would change on-the-fly while you played. The problem with different bullet speeds is that patterns look different (due to rate-of-fire, reload times and clip-size). It becomes fairly complex to keep the patterns look good and achieve their gameplay purpose. You can easily see this 'problem' when you play on 1 star and get to the high-end patterns, the bullets are much closer to each other and the experience is rather different. Also, are you sure you want higher bullet speeds? In my experience that turret that shoots those darts in a cone that increases rate-of-fire during one clip is one of the most difficult due to the high speed of the bullets. Are you sure you want more of that? (this little bugger ) With higher bullet speed it becomes a bit less about navigating patterns and more about dodging bullets, if that makes sense. There are other shooters which are more oriented towards one of those 2, but I'm not sure we should move more in one of the directions over the other.
Well it took me about three weeks from when I first got this but I finally managed to get 1st place with the Phoenix in Derby. Time to move on to some new ships methinks!
Very nice Paulos. Indeed, either move to a new ship or tap the 'minus' button in the top right of your High Score screen :>
I don't want to tap the minus button because then I won't be in first place! I am now trying out the Corsair and managed to get to 8th place in my city on my first attempt! Go me!! Admittedly there are only 15 other people on the leaderboard, but still. Would someone clarify how the locking on works? If I lock onto two or more turrets does the missile barrage hit each turret with the same damage as if I was just locked on to one?
Jesus Christ, someone bumped the OLD Phoenix game thread and I replied to the last comment on the thread from awp that he probably typed years ago! LOL!!!! Well, here is my response, in case anyone is interested!!! Sorry! Not to sound like the 'perpetual-blow-smoke-up-Firi's-ass-guy,' but it's the best iOS shmup in my eyes by a mile. That doesn't mean that you have to make any kind of apologies to anyone for things you don't like about it. God knows I've made my own critiques, much to El's delight Like you, the high scores aren't why I play, either. The presentation, attention to detail and, most importantly by a long shot, the firepower, are what keep me coming back. I've played many shooters throughout the years, but I can't think of any that have the plethora of multi-tiered weapons like the ships in Phoenix HD do (more specifically, the ships with the most ability to power-up, like the Mirage, Corsair, and Phoenix). On top of the sheer firepower, it's the mechanics. The lock-on ability of the Corsair, the Nightfury laser of the Mirage, the ability to slow time AND disappear with the Trinity--you simply don't find this kind of depth AND weapon output anywhere else, and definitely not anywhere on iOS. If I feel like going for a high score then so be it, but I enjoy the experience the game delivers above anything else. I think the game can remain endless but feel less so by having more of an emphasis on large enemies that break up the typical patterns. The 'boss' with the arm turrets (I can never remember his damn name, you'd think I'd know it) is fantastic to fight and is the shining example of what I'd like to see more of. Enemies like this slow things down and draw you in, not to mention that formidable bosses are daunting and give the experience more of a plight. I think this is what you might be missing and it is definitely something you'll find more of in shooters with a beginning, an end and epic boss fights. The drawback with a beginning and an end is arguably the lack of replay value, like re-watching a movie you've seen before. But, this is a matter of perspective too, as my favorite movies I can watch over and over (seen Ninja Scroll hundreds of times). This is also why I made the suggestion of the particle overflow (not yet in existence) resulting in something special like the Phoenix Wake, to break things up a bit and add a little spice from point A to point B. It would be cool to see Firi's take on a new shooter in a more traditional sense of levels and bosses, although I don't think El is letting anything out of the bag just yet for future projects. Tijmen the Invisible, even less so
